Fast Food Stigma
...ed. While McDonald’s hires the disadvantaged, most of their employees are under 18. Who are these employees? The lower-classes of America are working at fast food restaurants now. McDonald’s pays minimum wage, so that leaves little incentive for a high school student in the Bay Area who could make $8 or $9 per hour babysitting or at the Foot Locker. “Working at a fast food restaurant is considered bottom of the heap” (79). Fast food restaurants have developed a bad social image for their employees in the last few decades. Teenagers are spending more money than ever before in history, and they are earning a lot of it themselves. Few high school students at Cheyenne Mountain High school in Boulder, Colorado, work fast food. These students are a microcosm of the greater American teenage population in their social conscientiousness. The boys like being golf caddies and working at athletic chains, and the girls like to work at stores like the Limited. The wages at retail chains are very similar to those at McDonald’s; however, teenagers do not want to work there. The wages are low, and people don’t respect the employees. Many people “look down on fast food workers and feel entitled to treat them with disrespect” (81). They have their reasons: one (or two, or three …) bad experience at McDonald’s can make someone want to turn their nose up at any of their employees from then on. Since some of the employees don’t speak English well, they know “McDonald’s English” (71) and sometimes don’t understand orders from customers. Some employees at fast food restaurants do not enjoy their job and are “desperate to quit” (81). Their low wages give them a good reason to feel that way. So, when a customer comes to the counter not to see a happy smile but a pokerfaced grunt—that can turn a customer off. Fast food restaurants are stocked with impassive, unskilled employees that are desperate for some cash and ready to get off their shift. America knows that. We greet that fifteen year-old employee who doesn’t know how to work the cash register. We shout into the drive-thru microphone, enunciating “ONE—BIG—MAC—WITH—OUT—CHEESE!” We don’t want to work there. Salary does not change anything. “The starting wage of a part time worker at In-N-Out is $8 an hour … The typical salary of an In-N-Out restaurant manager is more than $80,000 a year” (259). Still, fast food is fast food. The stigma remains. Perhaps it is slightly more socially acceptable to work at In-N-Out than at McDonald’s, but it’s still not as “cool” as the Gap. Comparing McDonald’s to Starbucks, the latter takes social priority. Starbucks is a new company, and is e...