Is Not Our Kind of Place

In the McDonald’s essay “Is Not Our Kind of Place” Amitai Etzioni talks about the negatives of teens having routine fast food job at McDonald’s. In his essay he talks about how McDonald’s is routine and never changing so the young workers don’t learn any new skills, leaves little room for creativity, and is un-educational. Etzioni compares this routine to robots and states that fast food franchises are breeding grounds for robots working for yesterday’s assembly line. Also that working odd hours impacts their attendance and school work. Amitai says two thirds of high school students hold at least a part time job and McDonald’s is the main choice “easiest to get into” for students. He also talks about how there is no adult supervision, to cut cost’s they hire other young adults to supervise. This leaves the student’s thinking they can do what they want when they want. I am at 50/50 with Etzioni’s statements, I think fast food franchises can impact students negatively but there are a lot more than just the job influencing the student’s behavior.

I think the McDonald’s essay is coming from a person who just had a bad day’s point of view. At first he talks about how working at McDonald’s is negative then moves on to fast food franchises are negatively impacting students. Then he talks up KFC, Hardees, and Baskin-Robin’s which all could be franchised. Moving on, he talks about a positive study done on students working at McDonald’s. He moves back and forth between McDonald’s, franchises, and fast food restaurants, I am not sure where he’s at; actually I am kind of confused! Any WHO, I can agree that fast food jobs are not the best start but have to argue that they are a start. I have never worked at McDonald’s but as far as routine goes every job has a routine. Don’t we all drive to work punch in, and start our job which is pretty similar to the previous day, eat lunch at about the same time and punch out at or about the same time every day? I worked at KFC the place he talked up and that was pretty much a routine job. Half of what I could understand I can agree with the other half I could not. 50/50 is where I stand.