Cory Biggs
BUS 137 950 – 952
Under Cover Boss assignment #1
Under Cover Boss 1) The company that I chose for this assignment is Johnny Rockets. Johnny Rockets is a 50’s style diner with an Americana style experience. With their headquarters in southern California Johnny Rockets currently has 320 locations worldwide, roughly 7,500 employees, and annually sells 13 million hamburgers.
2) The President and CEO of Johnny Rockets is John Fuller. John started with the company in 2008 as the chief financial officer and later was promoted to CEO. Previous to Johnny Rockets John managed business finances for restaurants like Rubio’s, Del Taco, and CKE restaurants.
3) John posed as a former gym owner (Tom Carter) that went bust due to the recession. He temporarily worked at three different locations. John was trained at the first location by Ajay a line cook. John got off to a rough start when he was expected to cook the perfect Johnny Rockets hamburger and failed miserably. Ajay explained to john that he had submitted ideas for new menu items to his manager and never heard anything else about it. John did not appreciate the lack of response due to the fact that his company is always trying to innovate with new ideas. John was expected to take orders and preform the companies dance moves at the second location, luckily he had Janice, a waitress, to train him. He found at this location that Janice, along with many other employees, actually despised the corporate dance moves that they had to perform for customers. Several employees had created their own dance moves and submitted them to management, again with no response. At the third location John was trained by Claudia a bartender. The first thing John noticed was how empty the bar was for a Monday night. John asked Claudia, “what do you normally do on slow nights?” Claudia replied, “to drum up business I normally go outside to pass out flyers informing the public of all we have to offer.” He was amazed by the effort that Claudia put into her work but the unfortunate thing for her was the lack of tips due to terrible sales at the bar. She told John that in order to pay her bills she would most likely have to find employment elsewhere. At the fourth restaurant John got a firsthand experience at running food with the guidance of Tony, a long time Johnny Rockets food runner. Tony is an outstanding dedicated worker with a tragic past. His daughter Nikki was murdered and for quite some time Tony lived under a board walk homeless. Tony explained to John that when Johnny Rockets gave him his job that they also gave him his life back.
4) John Fuller seemed genuinely touched by each experience. He called all four employees back to their headquarters in southern California. Ajay who he met at the first restaurant was given two tickets to the American Music Festival because of his dream of being a hip-hop artist. John also decided to try some of Ajay’s recipes out at a select number of stores and call them the Ajay specials. The second employee was Janice the server. John asked Janice to work with corporate to help compile some new innovative dance moves. He also paid for her and her family to take an all-expenses paid vacation to the Grand Canyon to commemorate her deceased father. The third employee that John made helped out was the bartender Claudia. John offered to pay Claudia’s rent for a full year because he was concerned that she was not making enough money to pay her bills. He also did not want to lose such a valuable employee to the company. The fourth employee was Tony the food runner. His story was perhaps the most touching of all. John offered Tony an all-expenses paid trip to an amusement park for his family. He also made a 5,000 dollar donation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Nikki’s name. Tony was also awarded 5,000 dollars to help aid with his financial situation.