A Chronicle of the Passing Scene

Confessions of a Jack In The Box Spy

David Dragomani of Calabasas was a sneak eater, a company fink--a Jack In The Box spy.

After answering a blind ad in The Times for Quality Service Inspectors, he worked undercover checking out Jack In The Box outlets to report to company headquarters in San Diego on the quality of food and service in targeted stores.

“Business was so slow at the computer store I own in Canoga Park that I figured it would give me something to do,” Dragomani says.

After being hired in February, Dragomani, 24, took a three-day training course, then began making the rounds of area outlets armed with a grading sheet and a healthy appetite.

His eating assignments came in the mail weekly. Dragomani got $7 an hour, mileage and reimbursement for the mounds of food he was required to test.

It was a dream job--for about two weeks.

“I like the food at Jack In The Box so I never thought eating it would be a problem,” he says, “but after a couple of weeks I was really burned out.

“I started dreading those assignment sheets coming in the mail and spent a lot of time trying to get friends to eat for me, which the company says is all right,” he says.

After three months, his job was over. “The company only uses you for a short length of time so employees won’t get to know you,” he says.

After having nightmares about close encounters with a villain called Jumbo Jack, he’s beginning to think about another hitch.

“I overdosed on the food for a while,” he says, “but it’s starting to sound good again.”

Of Businesses and Biting Remarks

What do B. Dalton, Oshman’s, Guess?, The Broadway, Sam Goody, The Wherehouse and Winston Tires have in common?

According to Canoga Park Chamber of Commerce President Jaak Treiman: a death wish.

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Writing in the July Chamber newsletter, Treiman accuses these businesses of having high name recognition but perniciously low interest in making their host communities better, which he cites as a possible factor in the stores’ decline.

“Somewhere along the way, something happened,” he says. “They either became so big or the management became so conceited or so tunnel-visioned that they forgot about the importance of not only taking from a market area but also giving and being part of that community.”

Treiman said none of these companies belong to any Valley chambers of commerce, although that is not the only way to participate in community affairs. He points out that Trader Joe’s does not belong to chambers but that it finds other ways to contribute and express its solidarity with the areas it serves.

Treiman saves his greatest scorn for Sears, saying, “I wonder if the management has considered the possibility that its downhill skid may, in part, be due to its utter disdain for the customers and community.”

Some might say that as a business and real estate attorney, Treiman was slitting his own professional throat.

A call to the Canoga Park offices of Treiman & Curry found Treiman totally puzzled by the lack of response to what he had written.

“We sent the article to local officials of all the companies we mentioned,” he said, “and not one has responded.” (The businesses did not respond to The Times’ calls for comment either.)

Not one of his clients has raised a ruckus, and only a couple of chamber members have talked to him about the piece.

“One man said he thought I shouldn’t be saying anything bad about any company,” Treiman said. “The other caller said he liked what I wrote.”

How UCLA Graduated from Taft High

When UCLA Extension decided to pack up its west San Fernando Valley classes and move in Woodland Hills this fall from Taft High School to El Camino Real High School it was sort of like a divorce.

One partner had grown and the other had not.

UCLA says it was a stifling situation.

Taft just couldn’t keep up.

Actually, according to Gladean Gates, coordinator of the Metropolitan Programs and Services for the university’s continuing education division, which attracts 100,000 people to its program annually, the reasons are more complicated than that (just like in real divorces).

Because of the configuration of Taft, the Extension was restricted to a couple of the school’s buildings. The main buildings were closed because they were too hard to secure, she says.

Gates said she is most pleased that the San Fernando Valley operation will now have more space.

“Although we aren’t offering more or very different classes this fall, the move allows us to offer some new ones in the future,” she says.

Puppy Love on Wheels

Dr. Lorraine A. Watson does something rather astonishing.

She makes house calls.

“I feel my patients benefit from being seen in their homes, their natural setting,” she said. “It makes them more comfortable and puts them at ease.”

Some of Watson’s patients shake her hand; others sit up primly when they see her. Others want to sit on her lap. Occasionally one will make an unsightly mess in the living room.

Well, as a veterinarian, she’s used to that.

Watson, who lives in Thousand Oaks, practices there and in the Westlake-Agoura area and most of the west end of the San Fernando Valley. She doesn’t know of another mobile vet in the area, although she says the practice is widespread in the East.

“I found another mobile doctor in the Valley in the Yellow Pages and called to compare notes, but I never got through to him. If he is in practice, it must be very limited,” Watson says.

A recent patient was a 120-pound, arthritic, 11-year-old Great Pyrenees, which is like a Saint Bernard. “It could have been harmful to the dog to have him wrestled in and out of a car,” she said.

Watson says she charges $35 for a house call, which she says is about what you pay for a basic visit to the vet.

Overheard

“I’m voting for Clinton and Gore because they’re cuter. Since all politicians are bozos anyway, you might as well choose the guys who look good.”

First-time voter to friend in Northridge