A bitter McTaste

The dictionary has defined a McJob as 'an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector'.

What’s in a word? Corporate culture at the very least, as McDonald’s sets out on a campaign to oust the ‘insulting’ McJob entry from the Oxford English Dictionary. The dictionary has defined a McJob as “an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector.” This is clearly more than the fast food giant can digest. It finds the term “insulting to those talented, committed, hard-working people who serve the public everyday”. It is further throwing a McFit because this comes in the wake of a hospitality trade magazine giving the chain a pat on the back by naming it the “best place to work in hospitality”.

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McDonald’s may actually be a good place to work in, if you have nothing better to do that is. Going by the frenetic pace at which young men and women bark orders into the kitchen and burgers, fries and other transfat delights slide on to the counters, it may be the right place to be if you want to get your teeth into things double quick. A leisurely chat with the counter persons is not possible as they are trained to move like greased lightning. They are enthusiastic, yes. Pleasant, definitely. But talented? Ah well.

If there are glimmerings of talent in the assembly-line production of food, well it is cunningly McMasked. Work is robotic. It must take quite a bit of heavy-duty behind-the-scenes ‘this-is-the-life’ spiel to work up an appetite for such monotony. Frankly, to enjoy work at a fast-food giant must be an acquired taste.