Waffle House, better than The French Laundry:
(RIP Anthony Bourdain.)
'Waffle House Index' is a real thing during disasters
21–30 of 58 posts
Re: 'Waffle House Index' is a real thing during disasters
#22Whenever I read about this I always wonder if this is one of those modern dystopia things where a business is endangering its employees in order to stay open in a disaster zone. Like what kind of waivers are people in these Jump Teams signing?
That is an exceedingly cynical way of looking at it. People usually volunteer to do this kind of thing and have no small amount of personal pride that they are able to help their neighbors in a disaster. It is a very positive experience for the people that do it, and they are often some of the first people on the ground. This is a manifestation of the self-reliance bias of American culture, they want to fix things th…
How many volunteers are doing it because they need the hours?
Does WH pay employees who can't show so they can still cover their bills?
Is it ethical to pay someone $7/hour (the average wage of a WH employee) and then ask them if they would volunteer to travel to work in a hurricane?
Re: 'Waffle House Index' is a real thing during disasters
#23Speaking of disasters, I wonder how many people actually follow the government's recommendation for things like basic disaster kits.
Round numbers? Something approximating zero...
In all seriousness, I actually sat down and read the FEMA recommendations on things to keep on hand. It's surprisingly thorough and surprisingly difficult to keep all of it in stock, rotated so that it doesn't spoil and checked on on a regular basis. Growing up, my mom was an avid coupon shopper, not necessarily because we needed it, just because she could. That meant that we had a pantry that sorta, kinda resembled an edible version of a prepper -- no MREs, but enough commercial and home canned food to last several months without any rationing even without power. Dad also kept a 200 gallon gas tank due to bad memories of the fuel rationing and prices in the '70's. We were as prepared as you could reasonably expect, but we were still not as prepared as FEMA recommended in many ways. These days, in relatively expensive town, in a relatively small house, I cannot possibly keep everything on hand that FEMA recommends, even on the light kit for a few weeks, but I at least make a passing attempt.
Re: 'Waffle House Index' is a real thing during disasters
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is an exceedingly cynical way of looking at it. People usually volunteer to do this kind of thing and have no small amount of personal pride that they are able to help their neighbors in a disaster. It is a very positive experience for the people that do it, and they are often some of the first people on the ground. This is a manifestation of the self-reliance bias of American culture, they want to fix things th…
How many volunteers are doing it because they need the hours? Does WH pay employees who can't show so they can still cover their bills? Is it ethical to pay someone $7/hour (the average wage of a WH employee) and then ask them if they would volunteer to travel to work in a hurricane?
Citation on the average wage? Federal minimum is $7.25/hr, and at least in my midwestern town, McDonald's is paying $11.25/hr, starting, so that seems shockingly low as an average. Or is that the average of the tipped staff, before tips?
Re: 'Waffle House Index' is a real thing during disasters
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many volunteers are doing it because they need the hours? Does WH pay employees who can't show so they can still cover their bills? Is it ethical to pay someone $7/hour (the average wage of a WH employee) and then ask them if they would volunteer to travel to work in a hurricane?
Citation on the average wage? Federal minimum is $7.25/hr, and at least in my midwestern town, McDonald's is paying $11.25/hr, starting, so that seems shockingly low as an average. Or is that the average of the tipped staff, before tips?
https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Waffle_House%2...
https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Waffle-House/salaries
But really, if the employee was making $11.25/hour, would that somehow make it more ethical? $22k/year is still borderline impoverished for a 3 person household: https://www.thebalance.com/federal-poverty-level-definition-...
Re: 'Waffle House Index' is a real thing during disasters
#26Speaking of disasters, I wonder how many people actually follow the government's recommendation for things like basic disaster kits.
You can see those recommendations at https://www.ready.gov/
Re: 'Waffle House Index' is a real thing during disasters
#27The example of strength of centralized organization
Seems to me the organization is decentralized, but the CCC is centralized. Sounds military-esque, until you realize that in book "Team of Teams" General McChrystal makes a case of decentralized bottom up faster acting organizations.
an organization is centralized by definition, it's just a matter of scope, the arbitrary place where you draw the line depends on your politics.
Re: 'Waffle House Index' is a real thing during disasters
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is an exceedingly cynical way of looking at it. People usually volunteer to do this kind of thing and have no small amount of personal pride that they are able to help their neighbors in a disaster. It is a very positive experience for the people that do it, and they are often some of the first people on the ground. This is a manifestation of the self-reliance bias of American culture, they want to fix things th…
How many volunteers are doing it because they need the hours? Does WH pay employees who can't show so they can still cover their bills? Is it ethical to pay someone $7/hour (the average wage of a WH employee) and then ask them if they would volunteer to travel to work in a hurricane?
I don't think it's ethical to pay that little period, but I don't see Waffle House commercials talking about this either, so if the company isn't trying to profit off of it and the employees want to do it I'm all for it.
Re: 'Waffle House Index' is a real thing during disasters
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems to me the organization is decentralized, but the CCC is centralized. Sounds military-esque, until you realize that in book "Team of Teams" General McChrystal makes a case of decentralized bottom up faster acting organizations.
an organization is centralized by definition, it's just a matter of scope, the arbitrary place where you draw the line depends on your politics.
> an organization is centralized by definition
No, it's not. An organization can be distributed/decentralized as well as centralized. “Organization” does not specify the latter in opposition to the former.
Re: 'Waffle House Index' is a real thing during disasters
#30Speaking of disasters, I wonder how many people actually follow the government's recommendation for things like basic disaster kits.
Round numbers? Something approximating zero... In all seriousness, I actually sat down and read the FEMA recommendations on things to keep on hand. It's surprisingly thorough and surprisingly difficult to keep all of it in stock, rotated so that it doesn't spoil and checked on on a regular basis. Growing up, my mom was an avid coupon shopper, not necessarily because we needed it, just because she could. That meant th…
If google's right, canned food doesn't go bad if properly stored though taste will change, and in any case the recommended minimum is three days of food and water.