麥當勞叔叔不會老去：引領午餐新時尚

Some thought the brand was dead and buried. Not anymore, it seems. Your favorite pop stars are dying, but McDonald's refuses to. Like the villain at the end of an action movie, just when you think it's breathed its last it comes back up, snarly-faced and firing.
一些人認爲麥當勞品牌已日薄西山，表面上好像是這樣。你喜愛的流行明星們不斷老去離世，但是麥當勞拒絕變老。就像很多電影結尾時的大惡棍一樣，當你以爲他快斷氣的時候卻突然起死回生，猙獰着面目頑強地抵抗。

This time last year, the headlines were dire. McDonald's was dull, tired, unimaginative and downright dowdy. Suddenly, this isn't so. The company has just announced that sales have gone up 5 percent around the world -- in restaurants that have been open at least a year. And 5.7 percent in the U.S.
去年這個時候的麥當勞頭條報道令人失望。麥當勞變得單調乏味，缺乏生機和創造力，很俗氣。然而這一切突然發生了變化。麥當勞公司剛公佈消息，全球所有營業時間超過一年的門店營業額增長5%。美國範圍內增長5.7%。

What could have led to this spectacular rising from the grave? I confess to being slightly shocked the other day when I walked past a McDonald's and there was the promise that its production line would make a burger any way I wanted. This seemed so strange for a brand that I thought of as more of a machine. What? They were sudden wondering whether there were better ways to eat a burger than the limited choices they traditionally offered?
是什麼造成了這種起死回生的現象呢？我不得不承認前幾天經過麥當勞的時候被其承諾震撼到了，麥當勞生產線承諾可以製作出我想要吃的任何漢堡包。在我印象中麥當勞是標準化產品生產機器。什麼？現在他們竟然在考慮如何爲顧客提供相對於傳統選擇更好的吃漢堡包方式 ？

Had McDonald's management suddenly started considering that customers might want something, well, different? (Where I live, it's called In-N-Out.) It seems they had. Even more shocking -- and please avert your gaze if you are of a more traditional bent -- McDonald's has been experimenting with kale salads. Just one more example of the hideous Californication of America. Oddly, there's a sense that it's working. There was one more big step. The company began to offer an all-day breakfast. The reaction from some McDonald's franchisees was akin to that of Tom Brady seeing five burly men trying to knock him straight into the side of a mountain.
難道麥當勞管理層突然開始考慮到顧客的多樣化需求了？貌似是這樣的。如果你是觀念很傳統的人，那麼麥當勞試着推出Kale沙拉會令你更加吃驚。這只是可怕的美國加州作風的一個例子。奇怪的是，這似乎發揮作用了。麥當勞甚至還有一項更大的舉措。公司開始全天供應早餐服務。麥當勞內部各個門店的反應劇烈，就好比5個壯男把橄欖球員Tom Brady往山裏推，Tom Brady使勁抵抗那樣。

It was causing operational chaos, was the claim. It forced the in-store staff to do too much thinking, which isn't easy when you're still in high school and your favorite meal comes from a bong. Yet here is McDonald's quietly (a joke) celebrating the fact that its all-day breakfast has driven sales skyward. There is, though, one important question that needs to be asked: Why are people eating breakfast at all times of the day?
全天早餐供應引發了麥當勞內部營運混亂。這就等於強迫店內員工多花心思在工作上，對於那些自身吃喝還要依賴別人提供的高中生員工來說這可不是件容易事。此時麥當勞卻偷着樂，慶祝全天早餐帶來的巨大收益。有個重要的問題不得不提出來：人們爲什麼整天都要吃早餐？

Is it because they're working harder, have no time for it in the morning, but cannot live without that glorious Egg McMuffin? Is it because they're not working so hard, so they're getting up later and believe that noon is the new 7am? Never having eaten a McDonald's breakfast at lunchtime, I took a look at the all-day menu. It includes hotcakes and sausage (510 calories), sausage biscuit with egg (520 calories) and a sausage burrito (300 calories).
是因爲他們工作比以往更努力了？沒時間早上吃早餐？但又離不開美味的麥當勞雞蛋鬆餅嗎？還是因爲他們不再工作那麼努力，一睡到中午，使中午成爲了新的早餐時間。我從未在午餐時候吃過麥當勞早餐，我看了下菜單。上面有熱蛋糕和香腸（510卡路里），香腸雞蛋餅乾（520卡路里）和一個墨西哥香腸玉米煎餅（300卡路里）

I conclude, therefore, that Americans aren't necessarily trying to lose weight. They simply in love with sausage and want to eat it all day. You, though, will also be wondering what lessons you can learn from McDonald's Lazarus act. The first is not to let your brand image go stale. McDonald's let that happen for years, believing that it could coast along with same offerings, underpinned by the naive belief that everyone was just lovin' it. The second lesson, though, is that if you introduce something new and employees complain, it might be a very good thing. The employees might themselves have become stale and lethargic. Perhaps they've been eating too much sausage for breakfast.
我得出的結論是美國人並不是在努力減肥。他們喜歡香腸的口味並且想着一天到晚吃。讀到這，你可能在想從麥當勞的這次變革中可以學到些什麼呢？首先是別讓你的品牌形象變得老舊。這種情況在麥當勞身上發生好幾年了，他們本以爲靠着幾樣一成不變的產品就可以不斷興旺下去，人們也會一如既往喜愛麥當勞。學到的第二點就是當員工因爲組織的變革而開始抱怨時，你要知道這未必是件壞事。可能員工本身已經變得思想陳腐和疲憊不堪。早餐吃太多的香腸可能是罪魁禍首。