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How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

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231–240 of 279 posts

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair wages and guaranteed jobs can both exist.

I agree. You can get full employment and a respectable standard of living floor through stuff like a negative income tax and universal health coverage. But making it illegal to work for what YOU consider a low wage and permitting labor cartels is counter productive.

Why are labor cartels bad but capital cartels fine?

Why must an employee bargain individually but a megacorp be allowed to bargain against them collectively?

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree and was very fortunate to meet such a guy right out of college where I was studying Recording INdustry. All our teachers said good luck getting a job and I was only three out 60 that I heard got a job out of college in the field. Once I moved from Nashville to NYC for my label job I met a ton of other men and women whom this same guy gave them a chance too. That's how his career started .. he met a label head…

Would love to hear more details about this.

Thank you for your interest!

I'm a hobbyist songwriter but pursued it in college at Middle Tennesse State University. I learned you got to be the best of the best and then luck needs to fall onto you as it did for my songwriting classmate, Luke Laird (wrote many Carrie Underwood and country number one songs.. was best writer in class.. not sure how he got his break). During college I was able to intern at record labels and attend fun industry functions like CRS (country radio seminar), NARM and the parties that happened after each day of the event. At NARM in Orlando I went to the events during the day and then found the parties the labels held for record store (2001 when record stores existed lol) people. At one of the parties I met some executives and partied with them and then one introduced me their friend. Her friend was the guy I mentioned and we hit it off, gave him my business card and a month later he left a message on my voicemail (was back in Nashville) saying he wanted to hire me for a marketing job at RCA/Victor (jazz label ... Etta James was on it).

I only lasted 6 months (he forced my boss to hire me and she hated me) in my supposed dream job in NYC, but it was a fun and interesting (witnessed the twin towers falling from Times Square in my office's 41st floor) time in my life.

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#233
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has a lot more immigrants from Latin America living here than it did back then. Plus, unemployment is lower (even with the pandemic). I would rather have 1 million people making $12/hr and 0 unemployed and in poverty than 650k people making $18/hr with 350k just shit out of luck. I can’t say the former is what we have, but with unions or tight labor market regulation, the later tends to be closer to what you g…

The problem is that $12/hr is still "in poverty". You've set up a false dichotomy between everyone out of poverty vs most farther out of poverty, but some still in poverty. There's literally nowhere in the US where a single minimum wage job can rent and "affordable" (defined as And it gets even worse in expensive metro areas. The poverty line in san francisco is $117,000 for a family of 4 and $82,000 for an individua…

I could survive just fine off a full-time minimum wage job in my state of Michigan. That's 9.45/hour or about $1500/month. I rent a pretty nice place in a college town for $550/month (across the street from campus, middle of downtown, utilities included). I eat mostly pasta and canned soup, but that's just because it's easy and cheap, and I do go out to eat with my girlfriend once or twice a week. let's say another $700/month for money, phone bill, gas, and walking-around money. Just to round it out let's add $200/month to put into saving for unexpected expenses and $100/month for car insurance or anything else I forgot.

I'm on my parent's health insurance, I think if that were not an option it would really complicate things. Google says the average annual health insurance premium is $15,500, which would basically be my entire yearly pay. I think when you work more than 30 hours your employer is supposed to pay some of that, and maybe there's subsidies too for people on low income, I'm not really sure how it works.

So basically, the current minimum wage is fine for me. For a single parent with 3 kids, it would obviously not be nearly enough. But also, I'm not sure I'm capable of doing any work that's worth a living wage for a single parent with 3 kids, so raising the minimum wage that high would probably put me out of a job. Maybe the minimum wage should be set as high as it can be without costing too many jobs, then the government should give everyone the support they need to feed their families and not be homeless.

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s amazing that corporate America thinks it can’t hire a at all levels from the custodian to the CEO, but almost every school system and government can figure it out.

Or alternatively, they've "figured out" how not to hire people unrelated to their core business? What does Frito-Lay have to be gained from engaging in the janitorial business?

YMMV (I am in Austria), but there are advantages and disadvantages, it's not a clear decision. In my ex-company we decided to hire janitors, mainly because we didn't want to deal with different people all the time whom we'd have to teach how to treat computer displays and keyboards every time, with some perhaps slacking or even stealing. The main disadvantage was that as a small company, you're in trouble if all your janitors (or your only one!) are sick or on leave and you can't get a replacement at short notice. Our first hired one still works at that company after 18 years - not bad for an IT startup.

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#235
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that $12/hr is still "in poverty". You've set up a false dichotomy between everyone out of poverty vs most farther out of poverty, but some still in poverty. There's literally nowhere in the US where a single minimum wage job can rent and "affordable" (defined as And it gets even worse in expensive metro areas. The poverty line in san francisco is $117,000 for a family of 4 and $82,000 for an individua…

I could survive just fine off a full-time minimum wage job in my state of Michigan. That's 9.45/hour or about $1500/month. I rent a pretty nice place in a college town for $550/month (across the street from campus, middle of downtown, utilities included). I eat mostly pasta and canned soup, but that's just because it's easy and cheap, and I do go out to eat with my girlfriend once or twice a week. let's say another $…

Dude, I’m from Michigan. It’s getting expensive there fast. If you think you’re immune to what is happening everywhere else you are in for a rude awakening.

Before my wife and I left in 2014 or so we looked at a decent bungalow in Kalamazoo for roughly 40,000. Now you can’t find a house in that neighborhood for under 150k- and it will be a dump.

I bought a house there around a year ago before deciding it wasn’t a good fit and I still made like 15k after 10 months. It’s insane.

Mind you a good job in Kalamazoo pays 60-80k tops? Sure remote work is a thing but it’s a leash.

Traverse City or Ann Arbor are bordering on Portland prices and there are limited job prospects in either place relative to Portland.

This would’ve been unacceptable to our parents but they’re making a killing off of their investments so they don’t give a shit.

I don’t know what is happening but housing is getting expensive everywhere and fast.

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#236
> So Montañez assembled a small team of family members and friends, went to the test markets, and bought every bag of Hot Cheetos he could find.

Sounds like Hampton Creek's mayo shenanigans: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-hampton-creek-just-m...

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#237
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep - many, if not most, factories staff these positions themselves. It fits in with their existing maintenance, assembly, cleaning, warehouse type roles. It's mainly white collar places that don't know how, or don't want to, hire anyone who does blue collar work.

Part of the reason white collar firms outsource is that benefits usually need to be uniform across all employees. If you are a white collar firm with generous benefit packages, it becomes comparatively expensive to hire blue collar workers yourself compared to outsourcing. Decent health insurance (~$20K/year) is more than the federal minimum wage ($14.5K/year). I'm not suggesting this is moral, but it is reality. At…

SF's recently-passed 'overpaid executive tax' [1] pushes companies further in this direction.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/san-francisco...

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#238
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has a lot more immigrants from Latin America living here than it did back then. Plus, unemployment is lower (even with the pandemic). I would rather have 1 million people making $12/hr and 0 unemployed and in poverty than 650k people making $18/hr with 350k just shit out of luck. I can’t say the former is what we have, but with unions or tight labor market regulation, the later tends to be closer to what you g…

The problem is that $12/hr is still "in poverty". You've set up a false dichotomy between everyone out of poverty vs most farther out of poverty, but some still in poverty. There's literally nowhere in the US where a single minimum wage job can rent and "affordable" (defined as And it gets even worse in expensive metro areas. The poverty line in san francisco is $117,000 for a family of 4 and $82,000 for an individua…

So what if you can’t afford a two bedroom apartment on minimum wage? Bunk up with a roommate.

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. Let's talk about the bigotry. Is there anything even bigoted in the original post? Would it be racist if an Indian person asked "Why do Americans love guns so much?" to the point of requiring a response chastising the questioner? Different cultures manifest themselves in different behaviors among the individuals of the given culture. If it didn't, the concept of culture wouldn't exist. So what exactly is bigote…

The original post is flagged, so I can't read it. From the surrounding discussion I surmised that the original post made some sort of negative-sounding sweeping generalization about Indians, or at least phrased it in a bad way. I'm not here to talk about the original post though. I'm specifically objecting to the "X isn't a race hur dur" meme because it derails discussion of the issue at hand without being constructi…

The original post asked (paraphrased) “why do Indians like this sort of feel good story so much?”

I bought up the pedantic point because in my mind it was further illustration that the poster who used the term “casual racism” was jumping to conclusions. Not only could the original post have been easily interpreted as in good faith, but the criticism of it was both poorly formed and lacking justification.

I feel like this sort of reaction reflect poorly on our community and detracts from the conversation.

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#240
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can probably just keep the casual racism to yourself.

Hold up just a sec here. I’m not sure I that “Indian” is a “race” for any common definition of the word. It’s a nationality, but my my relatively uninformed perspective it appears that there are many ethnic and cultural groups that comprise it. More importantly, you seem to be attributing malice to the GP. They are noticing a cultural difference and asking for context. While their choice of phrasing may seem to some…

> I’m not sure I that “Indian” is a “race” for any common definition of the word.

It can be in some contexts, for example English law.

Equality Act 2010 s.9:

> (1) Race includes— (a) colour; (b) nationality; (c) ethnic or national origins.

> (4) The fact that a racial group comprises two or more distinct racial groups does not prevent it from constituting a particular racial group.[1]

Crime and Disorder Act 1998 s.28(4):

> In this section "racial group" means a group of persons defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.[2]

[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/9

[2] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/37/section/28

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