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I don't find it strange there are so many 30+ years old working at fast food store. These days, nobody really hires anyone unless they have good college degrees + years of professional experience. In case you haven't checked job board online, even entry jobs requires like 5 years of experience in field or something. How the heck can recent college graduate or someone who don't have that requirement look for a job? Only few ppls get decent paying jobs right out of college while the others struggle in intern or crap jobs that they don't want. It only gets harder and harder for people to get decent job as age goes up if they didn't make it in their early 20's or something. No wonder they go for whatever they can get(fast food). Older people have more at stake so they tend to work harder than teenagers. Sorry.. but that's how it's been.. recession or not, there aren't enough decent jobs out there. There are jobs but no decent jobs these days willing to take people with no experience in the field.. so where do they go? fast food. simple.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by njkate
Depends on your definition of a REAL career. Someone who has worked their way up, say in a McDonalds, to manager of a store, well imo that is a career. They go through training, seminars on business management etc and from what I've been told the pay is none to shabby.
Don't think it will ever be 100 automated, people still want to deal with people.
I would disagree, McD store managers only make about $40k, that's the equivalent of only $21/hour but actually less since they are salaried and working more than 40 hours. The only real career in fast food is at corporate, or as an owner of several stores.
That's it. Having to deal with crazy or mean customers all day long. Angry people demanding food. Nobody would choose that as a lifelong career.
Even with my fairly useless liberal arts degree, I managed to avoid working food service jobs when I got out of college; so I do wonder why some young adults would choose to make a career out of fast food.
But apparently, a lot of people do choose it for a career. And enjoy it. Whada-ya know.
Well, I can't see digging around in people's germy mouths as a career either,
but hey, some apparently enjoy it. Yay, dentists!
As for the nasty customers, I would love to see a push for raising the
standards of what's expected of them when they set foot on one's
establishment. There are simply some behaviors that are not acceptable in
society, and I don't see why the same expectations can't be enforced on a
company's premises. The practice of expecting employees to take abuse just
to keep customers makes a company look wimpy. In some places, bad
behavior on the customer's part is rewarded with the store's gift-card. "We're
sorry you weren't psychologically prepared to take 'no' for an answer, so here,
have some money." It's like a form of Stockholm Syndrome or something...
I've heard that some customers will deliberately throw a tantrum just for that
purpose: to get the gift-card as compensation for their alleged angst. And the
store(s) encourage this behavior by playing along!
Not to mention that such practices can be potentially insulting to us as customers,
as though we're perceived as immature jerks for whom such shortcomings must be
accommodated at all costs. Gee thanks... I think?
On the bright side (for customer-service types, anyway), there's one coffee shop in VA that rewards good manners with a discount. They won't refuse any
customer, but let's just say that the curmudgeonly types will probably go
broke more quickly there than those who demonstrate a decent upbringing.
I'd love to see that model applied to retail and customer-service across the
board. Hopefully, it catches on. Common decency $hould not be $acrificed for
the $ake of money.
As for the nasty customers, I would love to see a push for raising the
standards of what's expected of them when they set foot on one's
establishment. There are simply some behaviors that are not acceptable in
society, and I don't see why the same expectations can't be enforced on a
company's premises. The practice of expecting employees to take abuse just
to keep customers makes a company look wimpy.
-
It should be a good incentive for someone to get out of a food service job, though. Yes, customers can be jerks, so work hard to do something better that doesn't involve serving the public all day long. If you don't like the customers, there's really nothing you can do about it. Also, be careful about what you label bad behavior from a customer. Someone using coupons isn't being a jerk or trying to make the cashier's life harder. Someone not wanting to discuss their political opinions with the barista at Starbuck's isn't being a jerk. Someone wanting a refund when they've been ripped off isn't being a jerk. Try to put yourself in the customer's shoes and learn to empathize.
That's it. Having to deal with crazy or mean customers all day long. Angry people demanding food. Nobody would choose that as a lifelong career.
Even with my fairly useless liberal arts degree, I managed to avoid working food service jobs when I got out of college; so I do wonder why some young adults would choose to make a career out of fast food.
But apparently, a lot of people do choose it for a career. And enjoy it. Whada-ya know.
One could say that a liberal arts degree is not the key to a good career, but hey, some people choose it and enjoy it and succeed. It's amazing how people all like different things, huh?
I have also noticed fast food workers trending older these days. I worked at McDonald's in the mid '70s and only the managers and assistant managers were as old as their 20s.
Some of it may be that hiring managers prefer older workers for their schedule flexibility and greater reliability. I always wonder how seniors manage the work, since it was physically grueling for me even as a teenager--we were on our feet all shift except for our one 15 min.-break.
But I have also noticed what a previous poster said about parents guiding their high school children away from fast food jobs. A number of parents want them to hold jobs that are more upscale and that will look better on college admission applications. Not one of my 10 or so nieces and nephews or friends' kids held fast food jobs as teenagers. Perhaps there is more of a stigma attached to that kind of work these days, as witnessed by the mocking phrase, "Do you want fries with that?" I'm NOT saying that all parents or teens subscribe to that view, but certainly more do than when I was in high school. When I worked there, McDonald's was a melting pot of cheerleaders, bookworms, jocks, theater kids, band geeks, the girl/boy next door, kids from rough families, etc. It was a great way to get to know, and appreciate, other teens outside your usual social circle at school (though otherwise I hated working there). Nobody looked down on us for working fast food and it would never have occurred to our parents to steer us into a "classier" line of work.
I have also noticed fast food workers trending older these days. I worked at McDonald's in the mid '70s and only the managers and assistant managers were as old as their 20s.
Some of it may be that hiring managers prefer older workers for their schedule flexibility and greater reliability. I always wonder how seniors manage the work, since it was physically grueling for me even as a teenager--we were on our feet all shift except for our one 15 min.-break.
But I have also noticed what a previous poster said about parents guiding their high school children away from fast food jobs. A number of parents want them to hold jobs that are more upscale and that will look better on college admission applications. Not one of my 10 or so nieces and nephews or friends' kids held fast food jobs as teenagers. Perhaps there is more of a stigma attached to that kind of work these days, as witnessed by the mocking phrase, "Do you want fries with that?" I'm NOT saying that all parents or teens subscribe to that view, but certainly more do than when I was in high school. When I worked there, McDonald's was a melting pot of cheerleaders, bookworms, jocks, theater kids, band geeks, the girl/boy next door, kids from rough families, etc. It was a great way to get to know, and appreciate, other teens outside your usual social circle at school (though otherwise I hated working there). Nobody looked down on us for working fast food and it would never have occurred to our parents to steer us into a "classier" line of work.
My son is 16 and will be getting his first real job this summer. (He has an ebay business and he worked last year at a camp for a week and will be doing it again this year, but I mean a regular job with an actual employer that lasts many months, not just one week.)
While we will encourage him to apply at a variety of places, really, I don't want him getting a fast food job. I'd rather him get a job that can prepare him for the type of work he will likely be doing in the future. Also, he travels extensively for his chosen competitive activity, and he will need something that will work with that. Because he homeschools, he is available at times that other teens his age aren't, but he doesn't have a lot of availability on the weekends and he needs a week off at various times throughout the year so he can travel. My perception is that a fast food place is not going to accommodate that type of lifestyle. So, we'll be encouraging him to apply to be a gofer type employee at a car detail shop or something like that. He's also interested in real estate, so maybe doing some type of work at a realty place would be a possibility. (At this point, we don't care much if he gets paid; he can certainly be an intern, because money is not the primary concern right now.)
That's just one example of why a parent might steer their kid toward something other than a fast food job. It's possible that he will end up with a job at McDonalds. It's also possible that he will just expand his ebay business and really concentrate on that. There are a lot of options available nowadays that weren't really available (or at least not widely known about) when I was a teen.
I think more "retirees" are working part-time. As well as middle aged people who were let go from jobs during the 2008-2010 crash. These people need and want to work and are dependable unlike teenagers.
Yes, there are many more job options for teens these days and I can well understand why fast food wouldn't be their first choice. It wasn't mine, but it never occurred to me (or my parents, on my behalf) to look for something that was a better fit. Most kids worked fast food, department store retail, lifeguarding, or babysitting.
There is much more parental involvement now in helping kids find jobs. I don't recall any parents caring where we worked or whether it helped prepare us for a career or matched our interests, skills, or temperament. Or whether we liked it and found it rewarding. They just wanted us to go out and earn money. There were pros and cons to this approach, obviously. I envy the kind of opportunities kids have today.
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