McDonald's

I spent a little bit of time at McDonald's during my sojourn.  I think it was in Branson, Missouri, that I came to the realization that there were a lot of workers there.  Sure it was the weekday morning rush, but there still seemed to be a sizable amount of employees, each with his or her own task, like an assembly line creating the first meal of the day for multitudes of hungry souls.  I imagined that there would be groups of these workers at every single McDonald's across the United States, all rushing around to appease the masses.  That, I surmised, is a truly staggering amount of workers scattered amongst North America, not to mention the countless (not literally) thousands abroad.

The typical McDonald's worker that I observed did not fit the mold that may come to mind when fast food is on the brain.  While I'm sure there were many a teen at that first job, this being the morning rush I saw individuals who were working their McJob as a sole means of cash flow and, by extension, survival.  There were old folks - men and women - merely playing out the string of their working lives, perhaps working part-time to supplement Social Security or the pension.  There were others, middle-aged, who may have brought down 40-50 hours a week, making just a tad more than minimum wage, maybe struggling to get by.  That's the thing that never really registered with me: people using McDonald's as their career.

I can't decide whether it is a sad state of our world - both that people must "settle" for McDonald's jobs, or that there is enough of a demand to necessitate the millions of employees - or a wonderful thing, people refusing to sit back and let the government take care of them and, instead, taking matters into their own hands and being self-sufficient.  There are, for the capitalist in me, convincing arguments for both sides, thereby causing me to, of course, overthink and not come to anything conclusive.

But I suppose there is a takeaway.  Usually, after receiving my food, I forgot who served it to me.  There are many times when I don't even know who served it to me in the first place.  When it comes to fast food, everything is fast - the service, the expanding waistline, and memory of those that assisted me.  On the long run of things, I've always thought, they don't matter to me.  I'm not looking down on them (I actually admire anyone who works) but it's that I don't take the time to think about the situation.  Everything is so hustle and bustle - or, at least, society has conditioned me to believe that this is the case - that I'm (we, collectively) are constantly thinking about what's next.

Now, however, I'd like to think about them.  All workers, as a matter of fact.  I don't know what I'd do with those thoughts, but, hey, it's the thought that counts, right?