Free Essay About “Working At McDonald’s”

Etzioni talks about how working in a fast-food job is harmful to teenagers’ academic grades in his article. He mentions how fast-food jobs do not offer much growth or educational value to teenagers since the job is usually pushing a button on a machine and not being able to go higher than a crew worker. He states that the long hours that teenagers work in fast-food job takes away from the time that they can be used to study for tests and do homework with. Another concern that Etzioni brings up is how fast-food jobs do not offer skills that can be transferred to another job. That is why it is encouraged that teenagers try out different jobs to see which one suits them better and what skills they have to offer them. He even uses his son’s experience with working in fast-food as an anecdote to show that some teenagers may feel entitled to more money and skim from the till. Etzioni ends his article with a statement recommending that teenagers stay in school to get an education instead of skipping out to work in a job where there is little pay and cannot provide any type of personal and professional growth.
Etzioni is correct when he says that fast-food jobs do interfere when it comes to teenagers academics. I have had friends who would work the evening and sometimes night-shift on days when we had school the next morning. They would come into class tired, barely focused, and more likely to fall asleep in the classroom. This caused them from having high marks (As) to moderately middle marks (Cs). They would complain of being tired, but would perk up when asked about what they would spend their paycheck on. It is understandable for a teenager to want to have their own income when they want to buy something or hangout with their friends without having to borrow money from their parents. However, it becomes an issue when they have to work late-evening shifts when they have a big test or tomorrow. They could be using that time to study instead of do the menial tasks that Etzioni pointed out in his article such as making coffee every eight minutes, refilled condiment containers, and pushing a button on a cash register, etc. A way that would make it easier on teenagers and their grades was if their bosses understood and took into account that their employees are still in high school and still need time to study or do homework. That is why they should not schedule them like they are adults, coming in every evening immediately after school. Having them work on the weekends would be much easier on them since they have a split time of when they have their afterschool time and when they have their work time. This would allow them to balance things more easily than having to go to work and then come home, tired, to finish four or five different homework subjects. Teenagers should be made they should be made aware of how to be able to balance their job with their work so they won’t let their grades slip. That is one thing these fast-food corporations should take into account when they are looking to hire young impressionable teenagers.