Underemployment

Today I had dinner at the Outback Steak House in Shinagawa. I had already made up my mind about what to order, for this is what I always eat at any fast food restaurant devoted to serving monstrous sized portions of read meat covered in processed, brown liquid with deep fried potatoes and onion on the side: a grilled chicken caesar salad with honey bread.

I noticed that there were a few men wearing the standard Outback T-shirts looking around at the tables. They were clearly employees of the establishment. I didnt want to be late for my appointment so I called one of them over to my table and proceeded to read out my order, to which he replied:"Sorry, I don't take orders, ma'am, I will go and get someone for you."

Huh?

Why on earth would a fastfood corporation that is a glutten for increasing their ROIs and EBITDA and profit margins hire several people standing around to find someone to take orders for a customer? Hang on? What's wrong with this picture?

My chicken caesar salad cost me 1400yen. The price of an iceburg lettuce right now (after having had a lot of the domestic crops ruined by typhoon this year) is 400yen. For a Cos Lettuce -- which is only imported -- I would say that the wholesale price is about 200yen. My salad would have contained 1/4 of a cos lettuce, if that. Lettuce = 50yen. Next my grilled chicken -- also probably imported from countries like China and Thailand (both had to exterminate large flocks of birds due to bird flu, but we still do not have an import ban from these countries) -- after processing, flavouring, and cooking would have cost no more than 100yen considering a piece of free range chicken breast double the size at the supermarket costs about 385yen. Next: processed croutons, parmazan cheese, and the mass produced ceasar salad sauce (which is probably also used in TGIF, Tony Romas, Denny's, etc.) max: 150yen.

My salad would have cost 300yen for the ingredients and heating up the chicken. The remaining 1100yen that I paid for the salad goes to consumption tax, employee's wages and benefits, rent, etc. and finally profit.

But I am still confused, because if the corporate fat cats want to make more money they will not have someone standing there looking for people who can take orders? He cuts into the profit margin?? Why is he there? Why not give him a piece of paper and let him take orders, thus improving service? The chicken ceasar salad can remain 1400yen, and the company will still make the same amount of profit from my salad AND improve service. Improved service leads to customer loyalty, and thus increase the number of people who dine at their oversized 50's style diner booths, off their giant knifes and forks, tucking into that large, juicy side of beef and BBQ sauce?

And at that moment the magic words struck me: underemployment maintains a healthy unemployment rate

We see underemployment most in public works. In the picture below you will see in front of a mechanical traffic diverter, waiving a wond, a REAL traffic diverter stands also diverting traffic with his wond.


Double Router...

How many underemployed people does it take to make the unemployment rates look "healthy" for our economy?