First of all THIS. McDonalds promises to add 50,000 new jobs and all I have to say is fuck you, Evil Empire. Fortunately, someone else said it a little more eloquently than I could manage given the provocation:
McDonalds, and so many other companies offering jobs, offer low paying, part-time jobs, without benefits, so that such companies can make mind-numbing profits. They are not interested in providing jobs to the people, they are interested in making as great a profit as possible. Creating new jobs creates new money-making markets; but they want to have these markets run by people who are paid as little as possible, an insignificant amount of money for the work they do and the money they help generate. The lower the salary and benefits they can get away with, the greater the profit. The average worker is being used by them as servile servants, and they are told if they are not willing to accept this fact, many others will be willing to take their job, and so they should just be quiet and not cause any problems. We are told that they should be willing to be paid little and be grateful for the crumbs they are being given. Hard work, after all, pays off – just, of course, we often forget who benefits from the hard work is often not the one who does it! [emphasis added]
Exactly. Ex-fucking-actly. I type until my joints swell and ache and who makes the money around here? The same guy who took away my sick days because he could. Don't ever forget that. Unless you work for yourself, working harder isn't benefiting you. It's benefiting your boss. And if you think, given the evidence of just the last two years alone, that you're going to get something out of it- a raise, a promotion, job security- I have a lovely bridge in Brooklyn you can have for the low, low price of $500.
I would also like to share something so twisted and ridiculous, I can only assume the local McDonalds franchises are run by an evil genius whose house should be searched for the world-ending laser it no doubt contains. I know someone who works at a local McDonalds*. He has been recommended for the position of crew trainer. Unlike normal shift workers, crew trainers get 40 hours per week guaranteed, rather than the oh-so-clever not quite enough hours to require benefits, and crew trainers make $1 an hour more than minimum wage, so $8.75. Whoo!! Living the high life right there! Working at McDonalds and making a little more than $18,000 per year! Be still my heart!
You know what he has to do to earn these fabulous riches? Write a one page essay about why he would be a good crew trainer. Don't worry, it's one page double spaced. Yes, typed. On a computer. And printed out. On a printer. Isn't that fucking speshul? (For the privilege blind: generally speaking, an adult desperate enough to find working at McDonalds full time a good deal probably doesn't have a computer or a printer. Those things cost money.) Don't worry, I got done writing, typing and printing it out for him an hour ago, but fucking really? That much hoop jumping to make $8.75 at fucking McDonalds?
I guess simply holding your boot to someone's throat gets boring after a while. And desperate groveling is so entertaining.
*McDonalds are franchises, which means that different McDonalds under different ownerships may have different policies, so this may only be true for the McDonalds where I live, which are all owned by the same person. Also note that unemployment in my area is so high that jobs typically held by teenagers, such as part time worker at McDonalds, are all held by adults. Desperate, poor, at the end of their ropes adults.
