I think it was my buddy Mike* who once quipped that professors generate one reliably good idea in their lives. They turn that idea into a dissertation, and then they spend the rest of their lives defending that idea. Kinda sad. I think I just had my one good idea of a lifetime, so I suppose I can die now. My idea: go back to the States, take business classes at a local community college, go through the program at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America), become an actual chef instead of just a home cook, get myself a food truck, and then ply the nation's roads, serving food and doing One Nifty Thing that no other food truck is doing.
That One Nifty Thing? Hauling a trailer behind my food truck into which food-truck clientele can dump bags of locally found litter, recyclable or otherwise (no gigantic hunks of trash like huge pipes or engine blocks!). The gimmick: the people weigh their bags of trash on my large scale before they dump their load into the trailer, and they get a discount on their food—say a penny per pound of trash, and there's a one-pound minimum (we could sloganize it as In for a Pound, In for a Penny!). All I have for the moment is the barest outline of how this nifty idea might work; I need to think through the various sneaky ways in which my charitably intended system can be exploited by crafty people looking for big discounts on their food.
One of my coworkers heard the above proposal and thought it was a cool concept. For the moment, and because I haven't started picking holes in it yet, I think it's a good idea, too. But there are doubtless ways to game the system (granted, it's a system I haven't fleshed out yet), and once I figure those out—with your help, if you're inclined to leave a comment—my idea will begin to look much less cool. That said, it's the ghostly beginnings of a potentially engaging project should I decide, eventually, to head back to the States.
*Mike currently has a post up that's about Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 3: "The Battle of Winterfell." I can't spoil things for myself, so Mike's blog is now verboten to me until that post gets buried under subsequent posts, and I have a chance to watch the season myself in a few months when it comes out on home video. Actually, I read the first few lines of Mike's post, so I already know one major spoiler because Mike referred to a "final battle." Dammit. Ah, well. There's no escaping movie-related scuttlebutt when you choose to live in an internet-connected world. Then again, because I watch several movie-discussion channels on YouTube, I had already heard, months and months ago, about how Season 8 would probably resolve the "army of the dead" problem before it turned to the problem of Cersei Lannister and the Iron Throne. Ultimately, the undead are a lesser problem because all you have to do is slay the Night's King (or Night King, depending on whether it's the books or the TV show) to undo the entire wight army. Anyway, I'll see for myself how all of this goes down soon enough. In the meantime, staying away from spoilers is a real chore.
Sorry. I'll try and write something tonight/tomorrow and bury that spoiler laden GOT post.
ReplyDeleteI do think this food truck idea is a good one. (A potential problem with driving around the country and disposing of the waster would be the myriad fees for non-locals to dump commercially in local landfills.)
Good point re: landfills. I guess I'd have to look into how all that works. I imagine it's different from state to state, and maybe even county to county.
ReplyDeleteNothing to apologize for. I should have realized, given that your previous post was titled "Game of Thrones." As I said, though, your "spoiler" wasn't tragic because I had already heard the scuttlebutt elsewhere. And I managed not to read any further than the first few lines of your post. No harm done. I'm just being a drama queen.
Perhaps you could make arrangements with the local governments for free disposal of the refuse since you are actually providing a community service.
ReplyDeleteAs for gaming the system, what prevents people from bringing their normal household garbage instead of "locally found litter"? Hell, I can picture having a special trash receptacle at the house for the heavy stuff to enhance my discount potential. Penny wise, pound foolish after all...
This idea would be much more interesting if you went through a course at the other CIA.
ReplyDeleteAs for the idea itself, it sounds neat, but I agree with John that it will be difficult to qualify "locally found litter" in practice. Also, along the lines of what Mike said, the collection and disposal of trash adds an extra cost to your operation, and on top of that you are giving people a discount. So the more people take advantage of your service, the less money you make and the harder it will be to stay afloat. Unless I am missing something or not understanding your idea properly.
Charles,
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have thought about the cost factor. While we're at it, we shouldn't forget the extra cost in fuel that will come from dragging that trailer along with us wherever we go. I may be gambling that the quality of the food, plus the prospect of a discount, will boost business and drive revenue up. Too optimistic?
Well, people will definitely travel for good food, and food trucks develop groupies who will follow them around (provided they are kept in the loop via social media). But I wonder if you might not have a better chance at success by simply running a kick-ass food truck. At this early stage, it's hard to say if the trailer trash (whoops, I mean "trash trailer") idea will actually add anything to the mix.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I'm just thinking in terms of financial success. If the point is to do good in the community and subsidize that with your earnings from the food truck, that's another story.
Perhaps the thing to do is start like a regular food truck, build a following, earn enough cash to be able to take the financial hit when I buy my trailer trash, and then present my gimmick to the world.
ReplyDeleteKeeping in mind that all of this is very much hypothetical.
That sounds like a (hypothetical) plan!
ReplyDelete