Dunkin Launches Poker-Face Training Program

CANTON, Mass. (Satire) - In order to help franchise owners, Dunkin Brands brand advisory council, a group of franchisor appointed owners elected for their agreeable abilities, announced on Friday the launching of a new poker-face training program. The program is anticipated to be extremely popular with franchisees who like their privacy.

This new program was launched immediately after Dunkin' Donuts chief legal officer announced what sort of franchisees he sends corporate spies out to investigate. His hand-out materials state that a franchisee with a happy face is a dead give-away and "should be asked, 'Has anyone checked to see how much he claims to earn from the business?' The company targets unhappy franchisees for surveillance too. For this grim bunch, he elaborates, "A franchisee who feels the system has not worked for him may decide to use a little 'self-help' by underreporting sales."

Jimmy Johnson, a DesMoines Dunkin franchise owner of some 5 years, says, "I used to have corporate attorneys jumping out of the bushes with their cameras and scaring the bejezers out of me. They said they knew I had something up my sleeves because I was too happy. When a company officer one night crawled out from under my bed, my wife said she had had enough."

Johnson signed up for the pilot program and has had good results.

"After completing the company-sponsored poker-face training program, I have a new life," he says. "I neither look too happy nor too sad."

Sandra Murphy, a Dunkin franchisee from Biloxi, has not been so lucky with the pilot program. "Even though I took the class, no matter how I try not to, I still break out in a frown once in a while when I think of my store profits," states Murphy. She adds, "My field operations manager tells me such an unhappy and disgruntled face is a sure sign that I will soon want to cheat the company. So I've decided if the poker-face lessons do not produce better results soon, I'm going to try a full-face treatment of botox. That will surely make me look the part of a successful and loyal Dunkin franchise owner and keep the spies away."

A company spokesperson said that since announcing this program to franchisees at 8 p.m. on Friday, some twenty of the two-week training courses to be offered in most major New England cities have all been filled as of 11 p.m. the same night. Advanced poker-face classes will be launched in December.

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• Duelin' Dunkin' has "one of the toughest franchisee discipline programs in the country", Franchise Times
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• October 2002 issue of Bloomberg Market's magazine, Dunkin' Donuts' Spate of Lawsuits Stirs Anger Among Franchisees