It's obvious to everyone (except you, I guess) that you don't "gulp" hot coffee. You sip it, which a)pulls only a small volume of liquid into your mouth at a time, meaning there is less heat to dissipate. and b) allows (cooler) air to mix with the liquid, cooling it further.
I mean, DUH. Besides, if you actually bothered to, you, know, READ my post, you would notice that:
1) 205 degrees is the UPPER limit for BREWING 2) Coffee should be "maintained at 180 - 185 degrees" (that's a direct quote from my post, as well as from the National Coffee Association. 3) No matter what you say, 23,999,999 people managed to drink McDonalds coffee safely for every one who got burned.
Just go on and get a mug out, get a thermometer into the cup, and drink a gulp of 205 degree F liquid.
Irrellavent, this was a DRIVE THRU. You know, where most people drive up, get their coffee, then continue to drive another 30 minutes (or whatever) to work. In that extra driving time, the coffee cools.
The temperature that produces optimum flavor is irrelevant. It was "too hot" in the context of safety
Not true, as I have posted elsewhere. Other restaurants brew/serve at the same temperature. HOME coffee makers brew at the same temp. Heck, the American National Standards Institute says;
On completion of the brewing cycle and within a 2 minute interval, the beverage temperature in the dispensing vessel of the coffee maker while stirring should be between the limits of 170 degrees F and 205 degrees F (77 degrees C and 96 degrees C).
How can you still claim that temperature is unsafe?
McDonald's had quite a few options: a) Serve coffee at a safe temperature
I content the temperature WAS safe, seeing how only 1 person out of every 24,000,000 burned themselves.
b) Serve coffee in a safe container (sealed and resistant to possible impact or pressure
Again, if the cup was so unsafe, why did only 0.000000004166% of people burn themselves??
their coffee was served much hotter (at least 20 degrees more so) than at other restaurants.
Not true.
more than 700 incidents of scalding coffee burns in the past decade
This is true- there were 700 burns (of ALL severities) over 10 years. Now, when you factor in how many cups of coffee were sold, you see the real figures: one burn for every 24 MILLION cups sold. That means, for every idiot who burned himself, 23,999,999 managed not to. So... how's that make their coffee so dangerous??
The woman involved in this infamous case suffered very serious injuries - third degree burns on her groin, thighs and buttocks that required skin grafts and a seven-day hospital stay.
True, but irrelevent. Bringing this up is an obvious appeal to emotion.
she wouldn't have brought the lawsuit against McDonald's had the Corporation not dismissed her request for compensation for medical bills
They didn't do anything wrong, why should they pay her anything?
Reports also indicate that McDonald's consistently keeps its coffee at 185 degrees, still approximately 20 degrees hotter than at other restaurants
Not true. The National Coffee Assosiation of USA, Inc. (and who would know more about making coffee??) Says you need "a water temperature between 195 - 205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and that "Brewed coffee should be enjoyed immediately!", but if you don't serve it right away "the temperature should be maintained at 180 - 185 degrees Fahrenheit."
And, just as a slam dunk, even HOME coffee makers use water that hot: check out This link, which clearly states things like "The water is approximately 50F hotter than what's available from your hot water faucet" and "keeps water at the ideal brewing temperature of approximately 200F"
The second link you post has:
Liebeck placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid
Was that (placing it "between her knees") safe handling of a cup of hot liquid? No. So, it's her own fault for carelessly handling the coffee.
McDonalds... held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste.
Which is right in line with the recomendations.
coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees.
1)notice the way they phrase that- the coffee "served" at home. Is this after beign poured into a (dense) ceramic mug? After adding milk/sugar? After the host/hostess lets it sit to cool? After bringing from the kitchen to the dining room? 2)as linked to above, home coffee makers use water just as hot (190-205) as McD's does.
McDonalds' quality assurance manager...testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above
"Bacteria, or other germs, need time, food and moisture (or wetness) to grow; but they won't grow when the temperature of the food is colder than 41 F or hotter than 140 F. The temperatures in between 41 and 140 are in the "Danger Zone." "
Newsflash: ALL "hot" foot MUST be kept above 140 degrees! Therefore, ALL 'hot' food you buy is "a burn hazard". Funny how people don't seem to burn themselves that often, with all these "burn hazards" about....
Look, don't get me wrong. It was a horrible thing to have happen. but, McD's did NOT have the coffee too hot. Stella DID mis-handle the coffee. The only logical conclusion: It was her own fault.
Frankly, the coffee should be brewed hot, but have a "cool down" period before being served.
Why? Because one person in every 24,000,000 can't handle it?
Was it a valid suit? yes.
I disagree. The plaintiff's case was based upon a key point: The coffee was too hot. The fact is, it was not. (I've posted detailed elsewhere in this thread.)
Because Mc D's acted like asshats and the jury saw it
Acting like an asshat is not illegal. Neither is preparing beverages in the proper manner. What should be illegal is suing other people for your own clumsy mistakes.
In actuality, the coffee melted through the bottom of the cup.
Not true, assuming you are referring to the Stella Liebeck case. She placed the cup between her knees and pulled the lid, thereby dumping the coffee into her lap.
While I may be mistaken, I don't think "immediately" is meant to imply "straight from the brewer at 91-96 C"
immediately -adverb 1. without lapse of time; without delay; instantly; at once
How do YOU define "immediately"?
because that would cause 3rd degree burns to your esophagus....and yet, somehow, you never hear of all these people with throat burns. Maybe they don't drink it 'immediatly'. or maybe they do, but it's not as dangerous as you make it out to be.
"many hundreds" of lawsuits sound impressive, until put into context:
From www.stellaawards.com:
The plaintiffs were apparently able to document 700 cases of burns from McDonald's coffee over 10 years, or 70 burns per year. But that doesn't take into account how many cups are sold without incident. A McDonald's consultant pointed out the 700 cases in 10 years represents just 1 injury per 24 million cups sold! For every injury, no matter how severe, 23,999,999 people managed to drink their coffee without any injury whatever. Isn't that proof that the coffee is not "unreasonably dangerous"?
Stella Liebeck, a passenger in a car, took a cup of hot McDonalds coffe, placed it between her (pointy) knees, and proceeded to PULL the lid off, thereby dumping the coffee in her lap. Instead of pulling the hot-coffee-soaked cloth away from her skin (she was wearing sweatpants), she sat in the puddle of coffee for at least 7 seconds. This resulted in severe burns to her crotch and legs.
McDonald's quality control managers specified that its coffee should be served at 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit. And you know wht? THEY'RE RIGHT! The National Coffee Assosiation of USA, Inc. (and who would know more about making coffee??) Says you need "a water temperature between 195 - 205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and that "Brewed coffee should be enjoyed immediately!", but if you don't serve it right away "the temperature should be maintained at 180 - 185 degrees Fahrenheit."
And, just as a slam dunk, even HOME coffee makers use water that hot: check out This link, which clearly states things like "The water is approximately 50F hotter than what's available from your hot water faucet" and keeps water at the ideal brewing temperature of approximately 200F
So, right there goes any claim that the coffee was "too hot".
Second- yes, McDonalds has a record of coffee causing burns. The defense was able to find 700 cases (of all severities, from first degree (red skin) to third degree(blisters). In the last 10 years. Nationwide. That's like, 0.003 burns per day per state. Actually, when you factor in how many cups of coffee were sold, you find that only 1 in every 24 million caused a burn. That means, for each person who burned thenselves, 23,999,999 were able to buy coffee without injury.
How does this make McDonalds coffee 'unreasonably dangerous'? A: it doesn't.
Look, getting burned is horribly painful. And skin grafts are not pleasant, either. But don't let your feelings of pity toward Stella cloud your Reason. She suffered. Horribly. But it was her own fault, not McDonalds.
Well, some might debate that. After all, spammers make money, don't they?
But anyway, it doesn't take a lot of brains to realize "Why waste time getting around filters, only to have my spam seen by people who specifically don't want to see it (hence the filters)". I mean wouldn't it be more profitable to spam the next bunch of email addresses, rather than waste time trying to get around the filters in the current batch? (so to speak?)
My question is: Why are spammers doing things like that? I mean, here you have a person who obviously does not want spam, and has specifically set up a filter that will not just filter out spam, but will actually LEARN about new types of spam in order to filter then out, too.
Does this sound like a person who will buy your crap? Why try so hard to get around filters in order to reach people who are obviously not going to buy anything from you?
Once you've decided how much to spend, that's fixed.
No, it's not. I can change the budget at anytime. This month, I budget $100. Next month, I budget $110. The month after, I'll calculate later based on sales this month. See?
It doesn't matter how much money you spend, the amount is fixed,
No, it is not- that's the point. I can spend as much as I want. If I want to double the money spent on 10% of my customers, I just need to increase the budget by 10%. Instead of spending $100 on 100 people, I increase the budget to $110 and spend $90 on 90 people and $20 on 10 people.
The 90 people have NOT gotten anything less then they had before. Their service has NOT gone down. But the other 10 HAVE gotten more.
you can't average something that doesn't exist yet is not something you can "look up".
Can you look up "humor" or "joke"?
From Wikipedia:
[edit] Average applied to a data stream The concept of an average can be applied to a stream of data as well as a bounded set, the goal being to find a value about which recent data is in some way clustered. The stream may be distributed in time, as in samples taken by some data acquisition system from which we want to remove noise, or in space, as in pixels in an image from which we want to extract some property. An easy-to-understand and widely used application of average to a stream is the simple moving average in which we compute the arithmetic mean of the most recent N data items in the stream. To advance one position in the stream, we add 1/N times the new data item and subtract 1/N times the data item N places back in the stream.
Note the part about "the arithmetic mean of the most recent N data items in the stream". If I used Amazon.com 100 times, and always had a 'average' level of service (represented by a score of 100), then my experience on the 100th time was
100/((100 * 100 / 100) = 1.00)
, then I find out that someone got better service, then it's
100 is almost equal to 0.997506234. It's well within the margin of error.
And that's not counting the hundreds of 'average' experiences I've had with other retailers, which only reduce the difference when they are factored in.
'cuff you and take you away for refusing to follow the lawful direction of a police officer.
1) Before it was "Police tell you to do something, do what you are told. Period.", but now it's "the lawful direction of a police officer". Moved the goalposts, have we?
2) Telling me to pay for something I do not wish to buy is NOT a lawful order. At WORST, it is a breach of contract (assuming a contract had been agreed to, which is not the case at a fast food joint), which is a CIVIL matter, not a CRIMINAL matter.
Maybe they even take the money out of your pocket and pay the clerk before they take you away
That would be theft. Theft is not lawful. Would they also charge me with 'littering' because I didn't dispose of the food (that I didn't want and they stole money from me to pay for) in the proper waste recepticle??
if the cops tell you to pay, you pay
You might think you are completely within your rights to [not have your wife forced to fellate a cop] (and I would agree with you) but if the cops tell [her to suck, she sucks,] they've evaluated the situation and they've decided against you.
Anecdotally, a athletic friend of mine who had a black belt was turned down for enrollment into the police academy because he "lack life experience" while an acquaintance who spent a year as a bouncer at a strip club got accepted.
I can choose to spend X+Y dollars, and reduce my profit by the same amount. How hard is that to grasp?
OR, I could raise my prices by a penny, making an extra Z dollars (where Z > Y), and then spend X+Y dollars on my customers, and STILL MAKE MORE MONEY. How hard is that to grasp?
Because you only have so much money at any given time. Being nice to your good customers means being not nice to your bad ones....or it means making less profit....or it means making MORE profit (in certain areas), and giving some of it back to certain customers.
1) The average at that restaurant now that the new policy is in place?
2) The average at that restaurant before the policy was put into place?
3) The average at all places considered 'restaurants' (before, or after, this new policy?)?
If my average experience at 'restaurants' is a "cordial hello", then that is the average. If, at one particular restaurant, someone else gets a cheer and a free glass of wine, that does not affect the average experience I have had up to now. Once I factor this new evidence into the average, then it appears I am treated worse than average IN THAT RESTAURANT, but I am still treated average overall.
What people forget is that you need more than one datum to establish a (meaningful) average. If I went to ONE restaurant in my life, and got treated poorly, I cannot reasonably say all restaurants suck. My 'average; experience doesn not radiaclly change because the latest time I went to a restaurant, I saw someone get treated better than me. That's still just one datum that needs to get averaged in with all the others.
Perhaps you should look up the meaning of you can't average something that doesn't exist yet and industry average vs. company average. It's basic temporal physics and logic.
to treat some customers better, you must neglect others.
Not at all.
Let's assume that the treatment of customers is represented by a monetary value given to the customers. The 'normal' treatemnt of customers is represented by my giving them a Dollar.
Now, why can't I give certain customers $1.50, while continuing to gve the rest of the customers $1.00?
1) You are using the average AFTER the change. I was using the average BEFORE the change (which is the only average you have available when you make the change).
2) I was using the average FOR THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY, not for just the company.
Slashdot Mirror
You're an idiot.
It's obvious to everyone (except you, I guess) that you don't "gulp" hot coffee. You sip it, which a)pulls only a small volume of liquid into your mouth at a time, meaning there is less heat to dissipate. and b) allows (cooler) air to mix with the liquid, cooling it further.
I mean, DUH. Besides, if you actually bothered to, you, know, READ my post, you would notice that:
1) 205 degrees is the UPPER limit for BREWING
2) Coffee should be "maintained at 180 - 185 degrees" (that's a direct quote from my post, as well as from the National Coffee Association.
3) No matter what you say, 23,999,999 people managed to drink McDonalds coffee safely for every one who got burned.
Just go on and get a mug out, get a thermometer into the cup, and drink a gulp of 205 degree F liquid.
Irrellavent, this was a DRIVE THRU. You know, where most people drive up, get their coffee, then continue to drive another 30 minutes (or whatever) to work. In that extra driving time, the coffee cools.
Shove that in your coffee cup and gulp it.
Not true, as I have posted elsewhere. Other restaurants brew/serve at the same temperature. HOME coffee makers brew at the same temp. Heck, the American National Standards Institute says;
How can you still claim that temperature is unsafe?
McDonald's had quite a few options:
a) Serve coffee at a safe temperature
I content the temperature WAS safe, seeing how only 1 person out of every 24,000,000 burned themselves.
b) Serve coffee in a safe container (sealed and resistant to possible impact or pressure
Again, if the cup was so unsafe, why did only 0.000000004166% of people burn themselves??
their coffee was served much hotter (at least 20 degrees more so) than at other restaurants.
Not true.
more than 700 incidents of scalding coffee burns in the past decade
This is true- there were 700 burns (of ALL severities) over 10 years. Now, when you factor in how many cups of coffee were sold, you see the real figures: one burn for every 24 MILLION cups sold. That means, for every idiot who burned himself, 23,999,999 managed not to. So... how's that make their coffee so dangerous??
The woman involved in this infamous case suffered very serious injuries - third degree burns on her groin, thighs and buttocks that required skin grafts and a seven-day hospital stay.
True, but irrelevent. Bringing this up is an obvious appeal to emotion.
she wouldn't have brought the lawsuit against McDonald's had the Corporation not dismissed her request for compensation for medical bills
They didn't do anything wrong, why should they pay her anything?
Reports also indicate that McDonald's consistently keeps its coffee at 185 degrees, still approximately 20 degrees hotter than at other restaurants
Not true. The National Coffee Assosiation of USA, Inc. (and who would know more about making coffee??) Says you need "a water temperature between 195 - 205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and that "Brewed coffee should be enjoyed immediately!", but if you don't serve it right away "the temperature should be maintained at 180 - 185 degrees Fahrenheit."
And, just as a slam dunk, even HOME coffee makers use water that hot: check out This link, which clearly states things like "The water is approximately 50F hotter than what's available from your hot water faucet" and "keeps water at the ideal brewing temperature of approximately 200F"
The second link you post has:
Liebeck placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid
Was that (placing it "between her knees") safe handling of a cup of hot liquid? No. So, it's her own fault for carelessly handling the coffee.
McDonalds
Which is right in line with the recomendations.
coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees.
1)notice the way they phrase that- the coffee "served" at home. Is this after beign poured into a (dense) ceramic mug? After adding milk/sugar? After the host/hostess lets it sit to cool? After bringing from the kitchen to the dining room?
2)as linked to above, home coffee makers use water just as hot (190-205) as McD's does.
McDonalds' quality assurance manager
hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above
Newsflash: ALL "hot" foot MUST be kept above 140 degrees! Therefore, ALL 'hot' food you buy is "a burn hazard". Funny how people don't seem to burn themselves that often, with all these "burn hazards" about....
Look, don't get me wrong. It was a horrible thing to have happen. but, McD's did NOT have the coffee too hot. Stella DID mis-handle the coffee. The only logical conclusion: It was her own fault.
Frankly, the coffee should be brewed hot, but have a "cool down" period before being served.
Why? Because one person in every 24,000,000 can't handle it?
Was it a valid suit? yes.
I disagree. The plaintiff's case was based upon a key point: The coffee was too hot. The fact is, it was not. (I've posted detailed elsewhere in this thread.)
Because Mc D's acted like asshats and the jury saw it
Acting like an asshat is not illegal. Neither is preparing beverages in the proper manner. What should be illegal is suing other people for your own clumsy mistakes.
In actuality, the coffee melted through the bottom of the cup.
Not true, assuming you are referring to the Stella Liebeck case. She placed the cup between her knees and pulled the lid, thereby dumping the coffee into her lap.
While I may be mistaken, I don't think "immediately" is meant to imply "straight from the brewer at 91-96 C"
...and yet, somehow, you never hear of all these people with throat burns. Maybe they don't drink it 'immediatly'. or maybe they do, but it's not as dangerous as you make it out to be.
immediately
-adverb 1. without lapse of time; without delay; instantly; at once
How do YOU define "immediately"?
because that would cause 3rd degree burns to your esophagus.
From www.stellaawards.com:
the coffee lawsuit was totally justified
No, no, no.
Stella Liebeck, a passenger in a car, took a cup of hot McDonalds coffe, placed it between her (pointy) knees, and proceeded to PULL the lid off, thereby dumping the coffee in her lap. Instead of pulling the hot-coffee-soaked cloth away from her skin (she was wearing sweatpants), she sat in the puddle of coffee for at least 7 seconds. This resulted in severe burns to her crotch and legs.
McDonald's quality control managers specified that its coffee should be served at 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit. And you know wht? THEY'RE RIGHT! The National Coffee Assosiation of USA, Inc. (and who would know more about making coffee??) Says you need "a water temperature between 195 - 205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and that "Brewed coffee should be enjoyed immediately!", but if you don't serve it right away "the temperature should be maintained at 180 - 185 degrees Fahrenheit."
And, just as a slam dunk, even HOME coffee makers use water that hot: check out This link, which clearly states things like "The water is approximately 50F hotter than what's available from your hot water faucet" and keeps water at the ideal brewing temperature of approximately 200F
So, right there goes any claim that the coffee was "too hot".
Second- yes, McDonalds has a record of coffee causing burns. The defense was able to find 700 cases (of all severities, from first degree (red skin) to third degree(blisters). In the last 10 years. Nationwide. That's like, 0.003 burns per day per state. Actually, when you factor in how many cups of coffee were sold, you find that only 1 in every 24 million caused a burn. That means, for each person who burned thenselves, 23,999,999 were able to buy coffee without injury.
How does this make McDonalds coffee 'unreasonably dangerous'? A: it doesn't.
Look, getting burned is horribly painful. And skin grafts are not pleasant, either. But don't let your feelings of pity toward Stella cloud your Reason. She suffered. Horribly. But it was her own fault, not McDonalds.
Well, some might debate that. After all, spammers make money, don't they?
But anyway, it doesn't take a lot of brains to realize "Why waste time getting around filters, only to have my spam seen by people who specifically don't want to see it (hence the filters)". I mean wouldn't it be more profitable to spam the next bunch of email addresses, rather than waste time trying to get around the filters in the current batch? (so to speak?)
But, again, it's obvious that 'granny' doesn't want the spam if she specifically signed up with an ISP that uses Bayesian Filters.
Besides, I doubt 'grandma' has use for 'm@k3 Ur M3mBer B1gg3r' spam.
My question is: Why are spammers doing things like that? I mean, here you have a person who obviously does not want spam, and has specifically set up a filter that will not just filter out spam, but will actually LEARN about new types of spam in order to filter then out, too.
Does this sound like a person who will buy your crap? Why try so hard to get around filters in order to reach people who are obviously not going to buy anything from you?
Once you've decided how much to spend, that's fixed.
No, it's not. I can change the budget at anytime. This month, I budget $100. Next month, I budget $110. The month after, I'll calculate later based on sales this month. See?
Are you really this dense or am I being trolled?
On the contrary, I think IHBT.
It doesn't matter how much money you spend, the amount is fixed,
No, it is not- that's the point. I can spend as much as I want. If I want to double the money spent on 10% of my customers, I just need to increase the budget by 10%. Instead of spending $100 on 100 people, I increase the budget to $110 and spend $90 on 90 people and $20 on 10 people.
The 90 people have NOT gotten anything less then they had before. Their service has NOT gone down. But the other 10 HAVE gotten more.
Can you look up "humor" or "joke"?
From Wikipedia:
Note the part about "the arithmetic mean of the most recent N data items in the stream". If I used Amazon.com 100 times, and always had a 'average' level of service (represented by a score of 100), then my experience on the 100th time was
100
, then I find out that someone got better service, then it's
100 / (((99 * 100) + (1 * 125))
100 is almost equal to 0.997506234. It's well within the margin of error.
And that's not counting the hundreds of 'average' experiences I've had with other retailers, which only reduce the difference when they are factored in.
'cuff you and take you away for refusing to follow the lawful direction of a police officer.
1) Before it was "Police tell you to do something, do what you are told. Period.", but now it's "the lawful direction of a police officer". Moved the goalposts, have we?
2) Telling me to pay for something I do not wish to buy is NOT a lawful order. At WORST, it is a breach of contract (assuming a contract had been agreed to, which is not the case at a fast food joint), which is a CIVIL matter, not a CRIMINAL matter.
Maybe they even take the money out of your pocket and pay the clerk before they take you away
That would be theft. Theft is not lawful.
Would they also charge me with 'littering' because I didn't dispose of the food (that I didn't want and they stole money from me to pay for) in the proper waste recepticle??
if the cops tell you to pay, you pay
You might think you are completely within your rights to [not have your wife forced to fellate a cop] (and I would agree with you) but if the cops tell [her to suck, she sucks,] they've evaluated the situation and they've decided against you.
Right? After all, "That's what authority is.."
Though the fallback position is that only the criminal gets hurt/killed.
Surely you mean "the SUSPECT", right? Or was there a trial I was unaware of?
Anecdotally, a athletic friend of mine who had a black belt was turned down for enrollment into the police academy because he "lack life experience" while an acquaintance who spent a year as a bouncer at a strip club got accepted.
Oh, please. They (the police) turn down people who are too SMART. http://www.1215.org/lawnotes/lawnotes/cop104.htm
If a cops stops your mother/sister/wife/daughter and says "Blow me", do you honestly think they should??
I can choose to spend X+Y dollars, and reduce my profit by the same amount. How hard is that to grasp?
OR, I could raise my prices by a penny, making an extra Z dollars (where Z > Y), and then spend X+Y dollars on my customers, and STILL MAKE MORE MONEY. How hard is that to grasp?
Because you only have so much money at any given time. Being nice to your good customers means being not nice to your bad ones. ...or it means making less profit. ...or it means making MORE profit (in certain areas), and giving some of it back to certain customers.
Amazon is not going to expand its shipping operation
Objection- alludes to facts not in evidence.
Depends. Are you talking about:
1) The average at that restaurant now that the new policy is in place?
2) The average at that restaurant before the policy was put into place?
3) The average at all places considered 'restaurants' (before, or after, this new policy?)?
If my average experience at 'restaurants' is a "cordial hello", then that is the average. If, at one particular restaurant, someone else gets a cheer and a free glass of wine, that does not affect the average experience I have had up to now. Once I factor this new evidence into the average, then it appears I am treated worse than average IN THAT RESTAURANT, but I am still treated average overall.
What people forget is that you need more than one datum to establish a (meaningful) average. If I went to ONE restaurant in my life, and got treated poorly, I cannot reasonably say all restaurants suck. My 'average; experience doesn not radiaclly change because the latest time I went to a restaurant, I saw someone get treated better than me. That's still just one datum that needs to get averaged in with all the others.
Perhaps you should look up the meaning of you can't average something that doesn't exist yet and industry average vs. company average. It's basic temporal physics and logic.
to treat some customers better, you must neglect others.
Not at all.
Let's assume that the treatment of customers is represented by a monetary value given to the customers. The 'normal' treatemnt of customers is represented by my giving them a Dollar.
Now, why can't I give certain customers $1.50, while continuing to gve the rest of the customers $1.00?
Two explainations:
1) You are using the average AFTER the change. I was using the average BEFORE the change (which is the only average you have available when you make the change).
2) I was using the average FOR THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY, not for just the company.