Service Jobs Crush Your Soul

I worked at the Cheesecake Factory a few years ago. When I first got hired I had to watch and read a lot of training material about the company’s history. They made a proud fuss of the fact that Cheesecake Factory, which at this point boasted a couple hundred locations, had never once paid for an advertisement. Not in print nor on TV nor a billboard. The implication was that their cheesecake was simply this good. That people saw their sign from the road and thought, “Dessert? Labor? Together?” That it was very American.