When I was going to college I worked at McDonald's part time. I lasted maybe a few months and they hired me for the Christmas season and promised they'd keep me on after it, but let me go anyway.

I worked at McDonald's for Christmas and Thanksgiving, I worked for breakfast and lunch. I worked all of the stations for cooking food as I waited for coworkers to be woken up by an assistant manager who drove to their addresses and rang their doorbells because maybe didn't show up for work.

I tried to show up early for work, used a bus, lived in an apartment with two friends from high school. Along the way there was a children's hospital and one day a helicopter landed in the street and delayed the bus 15 minutes and I was late and got chewed out that I should have planned for the helicopter and gotten out 15 minutes earlier to catch an earlier bus.

I was studying Calc II and Chemistry at the time and kept my backpack with me with a change of shirt so I could take the bus to my classes after my shift was over. I was picked on for being in college by other coworkers and management. But I did my job, even cleaning rest rooms and the parking lot.

I feel empathy for people who work at McDonald's I got an Aunt who works for them and can't find a job elsewhere, and most of what she does is clean the tables after someone is finished eating.

I'm the sort of type of employee that they use temporarily because I am qualified for other work due to my college degrees. I hoped I'd have a job for four years, but it didn't work out that way. It would have paid the 1/3rd of the rent and kept me in college. But I lost the job at McDonald's and Captain D's as well, and after not finding a job moved back with my parents and attended a community college near their house.

I see fast food as a service industry, and people who work it serve the community. My own son taught me that, so we must never look down on them. McDonald's hires a lot of diverse people as well and other companies need to learn from that.