The “Listening to Young People” conference in November appeared to suggest that we need to “chill” and become more attuned with young customers. It is interesting therefore to note that Channel 4‘s Jamie’s Kitchen shows even Mr Cool Chef himself getting overheated as a result of the poor attendance and attitudes of some of his students. If Jamie Oliver can’t make a difference then what chance have we? He also gets to swear at them with impunity. Not fair.
The producers of Jamie’s Kitchen have sadly chosen to focus on drop-outs and troublemakers rather than those who grasped the opportunity. This is a shame as it may have shone some light on why some succeed and some don’t. I suspect the answer is staring us in the face and no amount of trendy amendments to our normal practice will change the fact that there will always be a few bloody-minded little sods who will look a gift horse in the mouth and tell it to f*** off!
