IDEAS FOR MALAYSIAN FAST FOOD BOSSES : WATCH ‘UNDERCOVER BOSS’

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‘Actually, I DO know something about this business’:

Moment fast food ‘Undercover Boss’ shut down burger restaurant on the spot

• Revealed his secret identity in the middle of an episode after manager threatened to beat an employee for not working hard enough
• Manager defended himself saying ‘If I don’t scream at them, they don’t listen to me’
  

The point of the CBS show ‘Undercover Boss’ is that the CEOs are supposed to stay ‘undercover’ as they work in the trenches of their own companies, their identities hidden from their employees.

But Rick Silva, the head of Checkers & Rally’s drive-in hamburger restaurants, was so horrified at the abusive tone of one of his managers in Homestead, Florida, that he broke character and revealed himself in the middle of the episode.

And then he shut down the restaurant for the night, stunning the employees and shocking the manager, known only in show as ‘Stevens.’

Silva’s undercover name was Alex Garcia, and he posed as a failed pharmacy owner from Philadelphia.

While working alongside an employee named Todd at the fry station of the restaurant, Todd is in the middle of telling Silva about his ambitions to be a chef, when Stevens yells at Todd to stop talking and cook the meat.

At one point, Stevens threatened Todd outside and beat him for not working hard enough.

When Silva questioned the employee about why he allowed himself to be treated so badly, Todd replied that he had to keep his job so he could support his mother and he worried that if he stood up for himself, he would be fired.

In response to Steven’s abusive behaviour and barking orders at his employees, Silva responds by asking Stevens to speak with him outside.

When he asked why Stevens yelled at his employees, the manager explains: ‘If I don’t scream at them, they don’t listen to me.’

Gaining confidence, the manager added: ‘I’m not going to let you continue telling me I’m disrespecting my crew. Have you been in the fast food business before?’

After initially attempting to not answer the question directly, Silva, who manages one of the largest fast food chains in the country with more than 800 stores in 28 states, shot back:

‘I have been in the restaurant business for over 20 years. And I’ve been in the fast food business for over 20 years. I’m CEO for this company.’

Stevens’ face shows that he is clearly stunned and he opens his mouth in disbelief, looking away.

‘Right here, right now, we’re going to shut the restaurant down,’ Silva says.

When he calls the employees out to inform them of the news, they are afraid the closing will be permanent and their jobs are lost.

However, Silva reopened the store with a new general manager the next morning and sent the offending manager in for more training.

‘I came to the conclusion that he wasn’t prepared to run that shift and wasn’t convinced that when I walked away the restaurant would provide the level of service we need,’ he told the trade magazine Nation’s Restaurant News later.

He also accepted responsibility for the manager’s poor behavior, saying it was his own fault as CEO that the company didn’t have the proper training procedures in place.

As for Todd, at the end of the show, Silva awarded him with $15,000 to take care of his mother and money to finish culinary school./ dailymail.co.uk

ekdos

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Zimbabwe’s blind cricket commentator

Blind commentator defies odds

A blind man in Zimbabwe has overcome his handicap – to become a top cricket commentator.

Dean du Plessis gauges the action by training his acute hearing on the stump microphones.

“I was born with tumours on both my retinas, so I was only meant to be alive for three to maximum five months – but I’m 35, not out now, so still playing a good innings,” he said.

Alongside daily radio work, sports bulletins and a newspaper column, Mr du Plessis sits in the broadcasters’ commentary booth.

He says he gets no preferential treatment but is wholly dependent on the stump microphones which identify each player’s unique characteristics.

“If I turn my microphones down, I really will be blind,” he said.

“Obviously having followed the game for just over 20 years and having commentated for 10 going on 11 years, you get to understand, and you get to know which player does what and that’s pretty much how I know what’s going on out there.”

orange.co.uk

CREDIT & THANKS : AFP :Dean du Plessis was born blind but makes a living by ‘watching’ cricket. The Zimbabwean commentates on matches by listening to the speed and spin of the ball, as well as players’ reactions, keeping track of the score by memory.

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Pregnant woman eats local newspaper

A pregnant woman has told how she has developed a “bizarre craving” for eating her local newspaper.

Ann Curran, 35, of Dundee, munches her way through copies of the Dundee Evening Telegraph.

She says it is the only “only newsprint with the proper flavour” and that she “stashes shredded copies in her handbag for emergency snacks”.

Ms Curran said: “I could be sitting in the bingo hall and I’ll start ripping out pages of the newspaper.

“All the people look at me going, ‘What is she doing?’. I tear the white bits off the edges of the pages and keep them in a bag so I can eat them while I’m shopping.”

The Sunday Sun reports that she stocks up on copies of the paper during the week so she has enough to eat at the weekends.

She added: “If you shredded up lots of different bits of paper, I would know exactly which one was the Evening Telegraph.

“My pals keep papers for me but I have to buy a couple of extras to get me through the weekend.”

orange.co.uk

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Man balances 23 benches on his teeth

A Chinese man set a new world record when he balanced 23 wooden benches – on his teeth.

Li Hongxiao, 30, performed the stunt in front of amazed shoppers in Chongqing city centre.

He managed to balance all 23 benches in the air for 11 seconds. The previous record was 14 benches.

The one metre long benches weighed a total of nearly 70kg.

The China-based Jinisi World Record Office issued a certificate to Li at the scene.

orange.co.uk

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