COUNTERTOPS
Now Museum, Now You Don't
No one ever went out of business due to excessive fairness. If I've learned any lesson after reading case studies of business failures and successes, and from personal experience, I've learned that doing the right thing, though sometimes painful at first, usually reaps rewards down the road.
I have tried to remain true to this mantra in the decade-plus that I've been publishing a magazine. I've also kept it in mind during all the recent news of corporate scandals. I can only wonder what goes through the minds of men and women when they essentially cheat their customers, stockholders, and employees in an attempt to reap vast sums. How much is enough for these people? I think most of us could have pretty good lives on a million-dollar-a-year salary. When corporate moguls shunt millions beyond that amount into their bank accounts at the expense of their employee's retirement plans, I find myself questioning their humanity.
Does the word "integrity" mean anything to these people? Competence and achievement certainly deserve corresponding rewards, particularly when the outcome makes people happy or their lives a little easier. Sometimes customer satisfaction reaps greater benefits than mere profit. It helps make friendships. Why, then, would anyone compromise those relationships when the stakes do not include profit?
Which brings me, actually, to thoughts of the American Diner Museum, an incorporated non-profit organization. Currently on our website, you can read our on-going investigation of its activities. You'll learn about its distressingly chronic failure to adhere to its own bylaws, to perform its fiduciary duties, and to engender trust and respect within the industry it was chartered to commemorate. Our report culminates years of actively and passively gathering information from industry players, diner operators, and others affected by this organization's malfeasance and mismanagement. It's not pretty.
After resigning as Vice President of the American Diner Museum in 1999, I believed I left an organization with a highly capable board of directors willing and able to draft a solid strategic plan, to engage and sustain a capital funding campaign, to inventory its extensive collection, and to oversee the dubious activities of its controversial executive director. However, in 2001, another round of board resignations left all these tasks undone.
I believe in the concept of this museum. I believe we finally need an established institution to acknowledge the contributions made by the people who worked in the diner industry and made it thrive. The diner remains one of the most recognized icons of American ingenuity and hospitality Ð and, as yet, we have no permanent commemoration of this aspect of our society. We have plenty of other American museums, both for and non-forprofit, celebrating everything from dolls to doughnuts, but the diner remains unrecognized in this fashion.
To become a real entity, this museum needs good management. Managers with at least as much integrity and honesty as those who run the more successful diners we love to visit. The folks at Philadephia's Mayfair, Manchester, New Hampshire's Red Arrow, and New York's Miss Albany, as well as many, many others we've met, clearly regard their relations with customers and suppliers as sacrosanct and would never knowingly compromise their reputations in this business.
I have conducted this investigation not because I want to tear down the American Diner Museum, but because I hope to see it thrive. It will do so only when it restores its reputation by doggedly achieving its stated goals and by simply conducting its affairs with a sense of unassailable integrity. Theft, fraud, and incompetence simply will not make that happen. You will find our detailed report here, and after seven years, you will still find the Diner Museum in a regrettable state of limbo.
What do you think? Send us your opinions to roadsideonline.com or post them on our Forum.
