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

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

#201

Post by BoorishBears »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #154
BoorishBears wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at half the top comments, they're actually productively talking about how this story exposes flaws in our economic systems (like how outsourcing has affected the odds someone would care enough about an employer to do this) I'm not saying you can't look at the negatives of stories, far from it, but trying to bring a story to an extremely open-ended negative point is so easy, but adds nothing of value. You…

You're getting very close to the much deeper question: what are these ("rags-to-riches") stories for? And even more generally, what are stories for? Suppose you drop any and all negative criticism of the story. What's left? What's that for? What should anyone make of this story? What lessons can they learn? What true lessons can they learn? What invented lessons can they learn (because sometimes we tell stories to co…

I don't see why you read a comment saying that it's perfectly fine to look at negatives especially as the relate to the specific story and then want to imply someone is saying we drop all negative criticism.

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At the end of the day this feels like such a HN thread. A story can't just be a moment feel good?

It has to be reinforcing systematic injustice or a looking glass for how terrible so many have it?

It can't just be something that makes you go "huh, neat, good for him" and you move on with life?"

Again, I'm not saying it has to be that, I once again reiterate it's fine to look deeper and for negatives, just maybe actually keep it relative to the story... but just "accepting the bait" as it were...

Would it really be so terrible if all someone got out of it was a moment of a smile rather than some grand philosophical prototypical mind twisting that defines a story?

Stories don't have some sort of "answer" there's no singular reason why they all exist.

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

#202

Post by triceratops »

googlryas wrote: post #127
triceratops wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m not sure I that “Indian” is a “race” for any common definition of the word Does it matter? Is negative stereotyping somehow better when applied to a nationality rather than a "race"?

It only matters if you believe the meanings of words matter. When a woman is attributed negative stereotypes due to her gender in the workplace that disrupts her career, is that "racism"?

I love the meanings of words. I had a rather long exchange with someone on here a few weeks ago about the difference between "theft" and "robbery".

In this case though, the meaning is kinda academic. If you don't get a job or an apartment because of unfair bias, would it make you feel better that it was due to negative stereotypes about your nationality or sex, rather than negative stereotypes about people with your skin color? They're all equally unfair and the outcome is equally negative for you.

Bigotry based on any immutable characteristic is equally bad. Ok someone used the wrong label for the specific type of bigotry, so what? Especially in this case, we don't have a good word for bias based on nationality or national origin ("xenophobia"? but what if they're a dual-citizen or citizen of your country? "ethnophobia"? you get my point) We know what they meant, so move on and talk about the bigotry instead of the dictionary. That's why saying "X isn't a race, so it's not 'racism'" is pointless in this context.

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

#203

Post by bluedino »

jasonhansel wrote: post #116

That's $18.52 an hour in today's dollars. The average pay for a janitor today is closer to $12 an hour. In fact, just a few years after 1976, janitors' wages (at least in LA) started falling sharply below the cost of living: https://socialjusticehistory.org/lalabor/workingla/archives/... The fact that our economic system worked for him does not mean that it works for the vast majority of people in similar jobs. It's…

Minimum wage in LA is like $14

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

#205

Post by CrazyStat »

bluedino wrote: post #204

“Inventing a new snack” and coming up with a idea for a flavor for an existing snack are two different things. Also, I imagine that a couple food scientists in a lab came up with the actual flavors.

Montañez took home unflavored cheetos, created a spice mix at home with his wife, and pitched the cheetos coated in his spice mix to the CEO and senior executives.

I imagine the final recipe was not the same as his home spice mix, but not giving him credit for the flavor is silly.

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

#206

Post by cperciva »

Talanes wrote: post #165
cperciva wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEO pay has risen over 900% over the last forty years: No, pay for the CEOs of the 350 largest companies has risen over 900%. Said 350 largest companies have also grown dramatically; "CEO of the 50th largest company in 2020" (Procter & Gamble, $67B revenue) is a much bigger job than "CEO of the 100th largest company in 1980" (General Foods, $5.4B revenue).

Why did you compare the smaller company in 1980 to the larger company in 2020? Surely if you wanted to really drive your point home, you'd do it the other way around. The way it is, you've just made it much harder to actually compare numbers. Just accounting for inflation brings that gap down to 67B vs 17B. Still sizable, but also comparing the 50th largest company to the 100th, so...

Oops. Those are both the 50th largest companies by revenue for their years. Not sure why I typed 100 for one of them.

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

#209

Post by eigenvalue »

bserge wrote: post #16

This is a really nice story, but you know who the other hero is? The CEO who gave him the time and the opportunity. He could've easily told him to fuck off, as many would do. Who was he, what's his name? More often than not, we get nowhere without people in better positions helping us, it would be great if more people would keep an open mind like that. That CEO deserves recognition. And if you manage to climb higher…

The CEO had an incredible life story as well:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-pepsico-ceo-roger-enrico...

Made CEO at just 38 years old despite coming from a modest background, and engaged in marketing strategies that were very much ahead of their time and dramatically boosted growth.

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

#210

Post by babyshake »

baron816 wrote: post #196
jasonhansel wrote: post #116

That's $18.52 an hour in today's dollars. The average pay for a janitor today is closer to $12 an hour. In fact, just a few years after 1976, janitors' wages (at least in LA) started falling sharply below the cost of living: https://socialjusticehistory.org/lalabor/workingla/archives/... The fact that our economic system worked for him does not mean that it works for the vast majority of people in similar jobs. It's…

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…

Fair wages and guaranteed jobs can both exist.
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