McDonaldization is becoming the new wave of job types where workers are being deskilled, dehumanized and exploited. Machines are taking over tasks which the employees used to do such as bank machines (interact).
The McDonaldized jobs now instead of making the employee do all the work they have the customer working too, for example when the customer cleans up after eating. These jobs are becoming less interactive and personal because workers are becoming dehumanized and only allowed to follow a script, there is also the fact that fast food Company’s use drive through, where limited interaction occurs and are many restrictions. These types of jobs which the author George Ritzer labeled “McJobs” are run by organizational principals such as; efficiency, uniformity, predictability and control.
The fast-food industry accounts for 40 percent of people employed in the restaurant business (of all types), of an approximate 6 million workers. The
author gives evidence to show how fast-food highly depends on teenagers to
work because the statistics are, about 70 percent of the workers are twenty
years old and under, this was most likely their first type of job. This industry
is mainly part time employee’s whose average work week consists of 29.5
The Essay on Is the Job in Fast-Food Restaurant Exploitative
... kind of jobs is widely open to different types of people. In 2007, there are approximately 32,100 fast food restaurant employee, compare with unemployment workers of ... to avoid paying employee welfare, like force the workers stop working every 3 weeks. It becomes a characteristic in fast food industry because of ...
hours. The rates of staff changes are quite regular, only about more than 50
percent stay for longer than a year. These jobs are mainly filled by lower
classes and excessive amounts of minority groups which make up nearly a
quarter of employees in this work field. Teenagers are relied on because they can be exploited and be paid minimum wage, which is the average salary,some earn a small amount more; minimum wages affect this industry very
highly.
George Ritzer’s main argument, in this article is that McDonaldization has taken over many lower level jobs and is deskilling and dehumanizing
employees, which in turn has reversed the roles of customer to employee
relation. He shows this by stating that employees are given menial repetitive
tasks and are to do every task a certain way which is time efficient such as how they flip a burger and how they cook it. “McJobs” are routinized and scripted, keeping the worker within interaction boundaries, deskilling the
employee for future occupations, or social situations. He brings up the point that the relationship between customer and employee is starting to
deteriorate, these lower types of jobs are ensuing much more work on the
customer than ever before, in some situations there isn’t even any human
mployees at all, he brings up a very popular piece of technology the ATM
where the customer does all of the work necessary for loaning or
withdrawing money, formerly done by a bank clerk.
The article, I quite liked because, I’ve never looked at this industry before,it opened my eyes to it, and from a point of view that has never worked in aplace like this taught me new things and gave a me a new outlook. I liked how the author started it out with statistics because it gave an overview of why he chose to write about this certain subject, it made everything piece together especially to help his argument. I believe that he set out to inform the reader of this wave of new industrialization and how its starting to affect many lives, because it is a time efficient business, employees do everything
repeatedly so customers don’t have to wait as long for the products, like at
McDonalds when a consumer buys a burger he does not want to wait a long
time as oppose to a restaurant where he sits down for a couple hours and
The Essay on Redundancy Packages People Work Articles
Industrial Disputes These articles basically show workers who are not content with their wages, working conditions and / or resources. The articles include - Actors from popular Australian television shows striking for better pay, because alot of irregular working actors may only work a couple days a year, and receive unacceptable pay. As the financial years finishes, many teachers are striking ...
enjoys his meal and isn’t rushed. His article was written very well, the
arguments were not hidden away but were rather concise and clear, this was
very easy to follow. He may not have seen how these types of jobs are good
for the customers in the fast moving world right now even though they are in
a way being exploited, but these “McJobs” are important now and are the source to many jobs for people who have money problems.
I learned mainly from the statistics of how many people have had or their
first job was at a fast-food restaurant. Spokespeople for McDonalds proudly claim that these McJobs are aids to giving basic necessary skills to move on to bigger jobs in life (which is true).
Workers can become managers and assistants whom are really then trained by higher status employees from McDonalds University ( Hamburger University).
The material presented affects the sociological imagination because
communication is affected by scripts so there is no way of truly
communicating personally or expressing yourself to the world. This article
could have shown why these types of jobs are doing so well and how they
are becoming quite convenient in today’s fast paced world. Even if there
isn’t any, he could have shown positive skills or affects acquired in these
jobs.