BEST FLAME-BROILING

The irony is just too delicious. This past October marketing executives from Burger King, reeling from the botched introduction of their revamped French fries and gearing up to push the new Chicken Whopper sandwich, participated in an "achievement" team-building seminar on Key Largo. According to published reports, some 100 Burger King employees "used their bare hands to bend spoons, break boards, and smash bricks. Some bent steel bars with their throats and walked over a board of 6000 sharp nails." At the end of the seminar the executives were introduced to the highlight of the evening: an eight-foot-long pit of glowing-hot rocks they were told to walk across in their bare feet. Most of the participants made it over fine, and supposedly enjoyed a surge of confidence that comes from knowing they can overcome any obstacle. Unfortunately not everyone could overcome this particular obstacle. A dozen people suffered first- and second-degree burns on their feet. One woman had to be hustled to the emergency room. A day later several executives had yet to recover ambulatory status and were moving around in wheelchairs. As Burger King spokesman Rob Doughty told the Herald: "We certainly didn't intend for that to happen."