Looking at McDonalds in a Whole New Light

Fast food restaurants, where the food tastes okay and the prices are extremely low. My whole life, I’ve eaten at fast food restaurants. In fact, while I was still living in Hawaii, my family would always eat McDonalds on either Saturday or Sunday. I personally loved the food and loved that fact that it was so cheap. My parents also enjoyed this aspect, which is why we made it our ritual to eat that food every week. But maybe half the time, the workers would mess our orders up, and since we did drive through, we could never realize it until we were already back home. This really irritated us. It even down right made me angry when I was younger. Now after taking this English class, I think differently.

I’ve realized that the people working at McDonalds are low wage workers. And I now understand the hardships that they have to go through just to survive. Before this year, when my friends and I used to go to McDonalds, we’d always be so upset if our order was done wrong. We’d also complain a lot if our order wasn’t ready fast enough. I mean it was a fast food restaurant after all. Now, when I go to McDonalds, I have a different feeling. Every time I walk in and I see an older person working at McDonalds, I feel sorry for them. They’re not young students working part time; they’re people who probably live off of the money earned at McDonalds. So I talk slower when ordering to make it easier for them, and also don’t mind at all if the order is wrong or if it takes longer than expected. And whenever my friends still complain and get upset at the workers, I look at them with such disappointment.

My whole life used to revolve around McDonalds. I used to love eating there all the time, even though the food is bad for me. And it’s strange to me that I never cared about the people making my food, only that I get my food. It’s also strange to me that I actually worry about these workers now, even though I’ve never met them. But you do have to worry about the low wage McDonald workers, especially if that’s their full time job. There’s no way that they can live their life with that kind of money. On average, a McDonald’s employee earns around $8.00 an hour, the minimum wage. This would probably earn them about $24,000 a year or less. This is not a lot of money, especially to live off of. It would become increasingly difficult to maintain a car, home, taxes, clothing, and food, among other things. And if that person happens to be a single parent, that’s a whole other person depending on such a small wage.

We always treat McDonald workers badly, usually getting annoyed if they fail to serve us in some way. But now it really affects me; how badly these workers must have it. We only see them behind the counter, but imagine their lives outside of work. Many of them are probably living just to survive. When once I used to make fun of these low wage workers, I now give them my sympathy. My whole world has been turned upside down. It’s scary to think of, what if my life ends up like theirs?