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Why Burgers Look Different in The Ads vs Real Life

This video exposes the world of food styling, the art of making food look beautiful and camera-ready.

A good burger always starts with a good bun. The one you eat and the one you photograph look pretty much the same. But that’s where the similarities end.

When cooking meat for consumption, the goal is making sure it’s cooked all the way through.

This Is Why Burgers In Ads Always Look Better Than Burgers In Real Life

But the goal when you’re photographing it is to get some nice looking grill marks with a special tool.

This Is Why Burgers In Ads Always Look Better Than Burgers In Real Life

The meat patty you eat is simply placed on the bun, but the burger you photograph has an extra piece between the meat and the bun to give it a little lift.

Adding lettuce and tomato to your burger is pretty haphazard…

This Is Why Burgers In Ads Always Look Better Than Burgers In Real Life

…But with food styling, the slices of tomato and the lettuce have to be placed very precisely, and held down with pins.

This Is Why Burgers In Ads Always Look Better Than Burgers In Real Life

And the condiments aren’t squirted on for food styling. Instead, they are carefully syringed into place around the edges, as if oozing out of the burger.

So, which burger looks better to you?

So, which burger looks better to you?

Sourced from buzzfeed.com

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4 Ways Ikea Is Brainwashing You

We normally associate the term “brainwashing” with Elizabeth Smart, cults, and self-help gurus. But one of the most powerful and financially harmful brainwashing campaigns of all time is currently being carried out by the last organization you’d expect: the minimalist Swedish furniture super-store known as IKEA.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News/Getty Images
This is how Sweden invades a country.

People love IKEA. They really love it. They love it more than Jesus, even, if you take into account that more copies of the IKEA catalog are printed than the Bible.

None of this happens by accident, either. From the moment we step inside, IKEA deploys sly manipulation tactics meant to lure us into purchasing shit we don’t need. Everything from the smell of their trademark meatballs to their bookshelves with goofy names we can’t pronounce is a calculated decision made in the name of nothing else than lightening your wallet. Here’s how they do it …

#4. They Isolate You From Other Stores

John Moore/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Quick! Think about all of the trips you’ve make to IKEA in your life! Now, quit crying for a moment and ask yourself this: when is the last time you walked out of IKEA and directly into another store without getting in your car and driving? That rarely happens, if ever at all, because IKEA makes it a point to be in the middle of goddamn nowhere.

A trip to IKEA isn’t a quick thing. It involves time and planning, like a trip to Disneyland or figuring out when it’s safe to fart in front of your significant other. No one just “pops in” to IKEA as they would a grocery store or pharmacy. Those places are readily available, sometimes within walking distance. If you can walk to IKEA, you probably live at a TGI Friday’s.

Wikipedia
And probably not a “fun” one.

No matter where you are, the nearest IKEA is probably a 20-minute drive away and situated in the kind of bleak suburb you’ve always had nightmares about settling down in. This isolation from the city center and urban areas is more than just a bold declaration that corporate Sweden gives not one fuck about your free time — it’s also part of IKEA’s marketing strategy.

YouTube
Shockingly, that monkey in a furry coat was not.

According to the Center for Management Research, the idea involves more than just eliminating competition by literally forcing you to drive miles away from it; it also makes a trip to IKEA more of an “experience.” Because very few people drive 20 minutes just to window shop (they don’t have windows anyway), that experience will inevitably involve spending money on something you don’t need. Sure, it might just be their $1 coffee and a jar of lingonberry sauce, but the fact remains: that’s less money for you, more money for IKEA. And things only get worse when you get inside.

#3. They Use Confusion and Chaos to Sell You Things You Don’t Need

Stewart Sutton/Digital Vision/Getty Images

Ever walked into the infamous IKEA labyrinth only to leave three years later? That’s not a design flaw. The company, which I’m going to call “the Nickelback of Swedish furniture” this time to avoid continually repeating its actual name, purposely wants to disorient you and make you feel like you’re lost in a corn-maze. The idea is to keep you trapped for as long as possible with very few ways to escape that don’t involve the temporary break from reality that comes with finding a “great deal” among the super-cheap items they strategically place around the store in the hopes you’ll relieve your boredom and hopelessness with an impulse purchase or two. You know, stuff like light bulbs, batteries, or a stuffed wolf eating a stuffed grandma.

IKEA.com
It’s in 76 different pieces when you first open the box.

The possibilities are nearly endless and completely unimportant. IKEA just wants your money, be it from your purchase of a stuffed animal that’s described as “good at listening” or otherwise.

The chaos of the floor layout is matched only by the crime scene that is the average IKEA product display, which tends to look like something best described as “a bunch of shit haphazardly tossed into a pile.” You’d think shoppers would appreciate a neatly stacked display, but you would think wrong. If that were the case, rest assured IKEA would keep it accordingly tight. But studies show that displays consisting of disheveled piles of crap actually boost sales.

Comstock/Stockbyte/Getty Images
From the IKEA Sopor line.

Apparently, mountains of clutter project better deals. Some stores even pile up their merchandise and mess it up on purpose to make it look like it’s in-demand and popular.

So, if you’ve ever wondered why the inside of every IKEA looks like it’s maintained by a crew of kindergartners, the answer is simple — it’s because you love that shit.


#2. They Use the Smell of Food to Sell You More Than Food

commons.wikimedia.org

Let’s be honest, most of us wouldn’t be able to identify Swedish food of any sort if it wasn’t for IKEA’s iconic Swedish marketplace. In 2012, the very height of their pre-horse-meat-controversy golden age, the multidimensional retailer sold 150 million of their signature meatballs. That’s roughly 4,200 metric tons of Seabiscuit.

Thomas Northcut/Digital Vision/Getty Images
Shoutout to delicious Swedish horses.

But the food isn’t there to promote cultural awareness only (or at all). IKEA knows the fastest way to our wallets is through our stomachs, and the statistics back that up. The food, and even the smell of the food, is simply a gateway drug that leads to you spending your entire paycheck on household furnishings that you and your significant other will expend untold weekend hours building and fighting over until the habit ultimately tears you asunder.

Sure, “scent marketing” is a psychological sensory weapon many stores have used for a long time now. You can avert your eyes, but you can’t stop inhaling the sweet aroma of cinnamon buns and such. Few companies wield this weapon quite as effectively as IKEA, though. Not content to let the scent of sizzling thoroughbred just waft through the aisles unassisted, they actually pump the smell of cooked meat into their kitchen display sections, just as a reminder of all the delicious things you could be cooking with that pan you’ve been eyeing for no discernible reason.

IKEA.com
His name is Trovardig!

Those meatballs you damn well know you’re buying aren’t just going to cook themselves, right? Besides, who drives 20 minutes just to buy meatballs? You’d look like a crazy person if you didn’t pick up a little cookware while you’re all the way out there.

Plus, Ikea deliberately plants their restaurants and cafes smack dab in the middle of their maze. The constant availability of food keeps us satiated, energized, and, most importantly, happy. Happy people are slightly less vigilant and more likely to spend money on plastic wood.

IKEA.com
Assembling this will destroy you.

It’s not until you furnish your studio apartment with IKEA goods, only to find that it smells less like delicious sausage and more like packing peanuts, that the reality of what just happened sets in.

#1. “The IKEA Effect” Makes All the Effort Seem Worth It

Cancan Chu/Getty Images News/Getty Images

IKEA has a reputation for selling furniture that comes with the kind of instructions you’d expect to see if you were building an elaborate bomb or entry-level robot. Everyone knows that, but for some reason, countless first-time customers flock to the IKEAs of the world every single day to dip their toes in the punishing waters of extreme self-assembly.

IKEA.com
You do not need this shit.

Even more mind-blowing is that, conceivably, a sizable portion of the IKEA customer base consists of people who are returning a second and third time (at least), despite having firsthand knowledge of the devastating effects a decision like that will have on their sanity and free time.

It seems insane, but there’s science behind how and why it happens. See, if and when you actually finish building that Jerker, you’ll love it and appreciate it way more because you put it together.

Even if you did a crappy job assembling it and it falls apart within a few months, you’ll still take pride in that useless piece of trash. Why? Because we’re all narcissistic shitheads like that. Take your children, for example.

Darrin Klimek/Digital Vision/Getty Images
Ugh.

They might be (and almost certainly are) just as annoying or even more obnoxious than anybody else’s kids, but you still like them the most because you made them.

IKEA has taken this concept to staggering new heights, as evidenced by the fact that the idea of do-it-yourself-products-as-marketing-tools is actually referred to in some circles as “The IKEA Effect.”

Kevin Frayer/Getty Images News/Getty Images
The first symptom is unconsciousness.

Coming away from any task with the sense that you’ve accomplished something tangible and real is going to feel like a win. Again, take your shitty kids for example: they might instinctively kick and scream at the sight of vegetables, but if you ask them to participate in preparing and cooking a meal with those vegetables, they’ll probably eat them just because they’re curious how this thing they helped build will taste.

People will always like stuff they put their work and time into, even if it’s shitty. IKEA exploits this better than anyone by making you work the hardest for their products. It’s a nightmare while you’re in the midst of the project, but once you’re finished, you feel like you’ve done something not everyone has the ability to do. You saw that mountain, you climbed it, and you’ve got a rickety-ass bookshelf to prove it.

Congratulations, master builder!

Sourced from www.cracked.com

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30 Things You Didn’t Know About Working as a Hooters Girl

South Korean girls of Hooters
Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

Today, we celebrate the 30th birthday of a national treasure, a beacon of light amid the ever-darkening times, a place to rest your weary bones and eat chicken wings, a place with boobs: Hooters.

The first Hooters opened in Clearwater, Fla. and, as legend has it, one cofounder convinced that year’s Jose Cuervo bikini contest winner into becoming their first employee. Thus was born the Hooters Girl.

Tonight, Hooters is hosting a nation-wide Hooters Girl Reunion to celebrate. In a video on their site, one Hooters Girl gushes, “Working at the store is awesome. It’s like being a rock star in my own little town.”

But what does it really take to work at the restaurant? We asked a few former Hooters Girls. Here’s everything they had to say:

Hooters
Ethan Miller/Getty Images

1. It doesn’t really matter if you have any serving experience. Hooters cares more about your personality.

2. More importantly, Hooters found a loophole to hire their girls based on looks: They get away with hiring “thin” and “pretty” girls because they are hired as entertainers, not servers.

3. You don’t have to have double D’s to work there though. All sizes of boobs are welcome, from A to F! But some girls will wear two or three bras or bras that are too small, to amp their cleavage up.

4. During training, they take the time to teach new hires how to draw an owl in ketchup.

5. Hooters Girls must wear sneakers and socks. And there is a correct way to scrunch the sock. If done properly, it can actually make your legs look leaner.

6. And pantyhose, which the girls have to buy themselves. The official coloring is “suntan.”

7. Hair must be down at all times. No ponytails allowed, ever.

8. You have to wear makeup every day. It’s in the handbook. (Their website says makeup “should appear natural to best accentuate your features” and that mascara and lipstick are required.)

9. Hooters Girls only wear black on Friday.

10. Once a month is special costume day and Hooters Girls must supply their own costumes. November might be military themed, December is Christmas or winter themed. There’s firefighter night, police night, country night, animals night, etc.

Hooters
Tony Bock/Toronto Star via Getty Images

11. Hooters Girls can trade tank tops with other stores. So if you ever see a girl at, say, the Hollywood location in a Boston tank top, she went there and traded a top with another Hooters Girl. The only location that won’t trade is Vegas. They make you buy the tank top and show a pay stub for proof you work there.

12. You have to get approval to wear the Hooters crop top. “Basically your stomach has to be flat and you can’t have any muffin top,” one former Hooters Girl told us. “Which is basically impossible in those shorts.”

13. It varies by location, but some stores have “seasonal” attire (i.e. Hooters Girls in somecold weather climates get to wear long sleeves).

14. Hooters Girls cannot come to or leave work with their uniform showing, other than the shoes (for safety reasons). If a girl wears her uniform outside of work she is supposed to be fired immediately.

15. That said, former Hooters Girls do get to keep the uniforms, so you can wear it for Halloween after you quit or get fired!

16. Shifts are assigned based on sales. “Hooters Girls hustle the merchandise to try and get better shifts.”

17. There are 16 steps to Hooters Girls customer service and, technically, a minimum of three Hooters Girls are supposed to stop by your table during your meal. It’s called the E3 system: Every Hooters Girl, Every Guest, Every Day.

18. If a couple comes in, Hooters Girls are supposed to sit next to the girl—never the guy—to appear less threatening.

19. “College guys make the best customers,” our former Hooters Girl revealed. “The ones that go to Hooters tend to be shy but far more respectful. Drunk 40-year-old-men are the worst.”

20. Hugs are discouraged between Hooters Girls and customers. Sometimes forbidden.

South Korean girls of Hooters
Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

21. When it’s slow, it’s not uncommon to find Hooters Girls playing board games with the customers. “I’ve had a blast playing Connect Four with some Marines,” one Girl told us.

22. You learn choreographed dances during training and if you hear a particular song start playing when you’re on the clock, you’re supposed to stop every and dance.

23. There are songs and chants for birthdays and “Hooter’s virgins.” Our former Hooters Girl says, “They pretty much exist to make the girls look dumb and embarrass the guests.”

24. Cell phones are forbidden on the floor. The Hooters Girls we spoke to had never seen it happen, but had heard stories about managers taking girls’ pouches and slamming them on the ground if they think she has her cell phone on her.

25. Hooters Girls get free meals every shift…if they choose to order the Hooters approved “healthy” options, which don’t appear on the menu. Otherwise, there’s a sliding scale on meal discounts (usually 50 percent off for wings, etc.)

26. Fries are full price.

27. Some restaurants offer discounts on tanning and gym memberships for Hooters Girls.

28. Hooters Girls are supposed to yell “Hi! Welcome to Hooters!” every time someone walks in the restaurant. (“It dies quick.”)

29. Come for the wings, stay for the curly fries. “Hooters has the best curly fries.”

30. Yes, your Hooter Girl is making minimum wage. Please tip accordingly.

Sourced from uk.eonline.com