"Working at Mcdonald's" Summary

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“Working at McDonald’s” Etzioni’s essay states that teens who hold a part-time paying job in fast food places, such as McDonald’s, are getting nothing educational from the job itself. After reading his piece, I have to say I highly concur with the point he is making. Having a “highly routinized” job has a lot of drawbacks, especially for teens who are slowly being weaned into the real world. Such jobs are somewhat of a tradition amongst high school students. However, they tend to interfere with school, are highly routinized, have no room for personal growth, creativity, initiative, and no entrepreneurship opportunities. Which is something people definitely need to learn at a young age. He also states that they tend to accustom teens to pursue stuff that pays off instantly as opposed to teaching them to making long-term goals and working to achieve such goals. “McDonald’s is bad for your kids.” This short, but impacting sentence opens up Etzioni’s essay, and describes as a whole what he is trying to say throughout the whole piece. He isn’t speaking about the food affecting children’s health, however. His statement goes more in depth than that. He goes more into an educational perspective. It refers to the 2/3 of America’s high school juniors and seniors who hold a part-time paying job in places such as McDonalds and how it affects their self-growth, and most importantly, their education. He explains how at first glance, a teen job is one of the few ways to bring up a self-reliant adult. Which I agree with. He states that it has been a long standing American tradition. He goes on about the lemonade stand, and how youngsters learn about the fruits of labor, self-discipline, and even the ways of trade. The fast food industry, however, is highly structuralized. Giving employees almost no room to make their own choices. Everything is already set out; from the size of

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