Burger King Model

One of my more introspective coworkers has been describing to me "the BurgerKingModel of software development," which seems to really be a more general "BurgerKingModel of human interaction." The essence of it seems to be that unmotivated low wage workers in boring routine jobs will typically follow strictly defined scripts in their daily activities, and become unable to deviate from the scripts, that is unable to accept any information or communication not dictated by the scripts, because their brains are essentially "turned off" at work, while they're following the scripts.

(I don't mean to single out the fine Burger King (Registered Trade Mark) organization. The same story applies to all other fast food restaurant, and most other unskilled service work.)

Let's consider an example:

I walk into the place, walk up the order taker, and say "I want the 'super burger' combo #3, large size, with a Pepsi."
(This would be in the days before you put your own soda into your own cup. Yes, I'm an old guy. ;-)
"Would you like that 'super burger' as a combo?" they ask?
You see, while English is the only and native language this person claims to use at home and at school, it seems that the only part of my opening sentence they could understand was the noun "super burger," because at that point in their "standard customer interaction script" they should get from the customer the main item the customer wishes to order.
"Yes," I say, "I would like a large combo with Pepsi."
"Would you like to 'up size' that to 'large' or 'very large'?" they ask, with a friendly (and maybe vacuous) smile on their face?
(You see, those other words -- the ones they were not expecting just did not seem to register at all.)
"Yes," says I, "large with a Pepsi would be good."
"And what soft drink would you like with that?" they ask in a helpful tone, with just a hint of a friendly smile, just as they were trained.
"Hmmm... says I." I ponder the situation for a moment. "I think I'd like a Pepsi with that."

So as you can see, the first three times I said "Pepsi" did not take, as successful communication, because they were not expecting the drink order at that point in the script. The theory is that people strictly following tedious repetitive scripts in their daily work lose the ability to accept and process information outside the bounds of the normal script.

The point my coworker seems to be making to me is a pretty bad one for me, as a consultant, coach and mentor: When the people I'm training are following a script, it's pretty much pointless for me to say anything other than the things they expect and want me to say, because they simply will not be able to understand or comprehend the things I am saying. Unfortunately, this model has seemed to match real observations, from time to time.

I am certainly open to suggestions as to help people break out of the BurgerKingModel of thinking and working -- particularly in the realm of software development, where I expect the fundamental nature of the work should be to think deeply and discuss intelligently the work we are doing, else we are likely to be doing the work very badly.

Maybe you have to do something so far outside the script that they have to break out of this model to deal with you. E.g. something like standing on the table and shouting "Waiter!".

See: TheoryXx, ScientificManagement