McDonalds is viewed to be an unfriendly place for young people in terms of its working environment. Many young people try to secure part-time jobs in America to supplement their income. Fast food companies such as McDonalds are among the top part-time job providers. These jobs appear lucrative from an outside point of view. However, a close analysis reveals how the jobs have a negative influence on young people. These jobs affect the youths’ academic performance; add little or no skill to the individuals’ future life and influences individual values, especially in financial terms.
Most Americans believe that young people have to start seeking financial independence as early as their college days. The aim is to make them learn to be self-disciplined, financially stable and business ways. The jobs also offer self-supervision, entrepreneurial opportunities and self-scheduling. Jobs offered by McDonalds have no educational value and do not meet the aims of why the youth should seek these jobs.
These jobs have little educational value because the affect the student’s academic performance negatively. Students who work at McDonalds are often required to handle huge workloads during their 3-5 hour shifts. They leave the workplace worn out, which impacts negatively on their study patterns. Such students tend to miss school or report to school late. Class involvement of these students is also significantly affected because their mental is mostly preoccupied with work and other responsibilities that they have to fulfill. They dedicate less time for their academic work, which leads to poor grades and performance.
The skills obtained from McDonalds have little or no value to the young people’s future. One of the aims of these jobs is to enable youth learn skills that would help them in the future. However, at McDonalds, the skills are not market oriented such as operating food machines and using cash registers. The youths do not gain meaningful skill from these jobs. In fact, they get wrong perceptions that would alter their future behavior. For instance, shared alienation with senior employees and blind obedience make these people less self-disciplined or self-driven.
Finally, jobs at McDonalds influence young people’s values negatively. These fast food chains offer large sums of money to young people as pay. This skews their opinions and ideas concerning the value of money. Such people would consider jobs that pay less than what they get to be boring and oppressive. This mentality affects their financial management skills. From a young age, they get used to earning a lot of money. However, the situation makes it difficult for the youngsters to balance their income with their needs.
Works Cited
Etzioni, Amitai. "Working at McDonalds." 24 August 1986. 10 March 2013
