What I learned from four years working at McDonalds

Working an hourly food service job is an experience I think a lot of people could benefit from having. I didn't work at mcDonalds (have some friends who did/still do) but I worked at a pizza chain instead because my consultant business was failing (teenagers can't run businesses well).

The experience taught me a lot about what it means to be employed and have a job. You experience the day to day grind some people will experience for the rest of their life. You work with people who work 40 hour weeks and walk 5 miles home to their low-income housing supporting a family of 4. You realize these are the people who will be directly affected by legislation that may allow them to continue to live, or die.

How can we vote on these people's livelihoods without experiencing their position? How can someone who graduated high school, got paid to go to college, and graduated into a comfy high paying desk job empathize? They do not know the struggle. They do not understand the life these people live.

I work a desk job now where I don't do anything hard in exchange for a decent pay. I'm able to visit my family during holidays because I don't have to worry about being scheduled. When I'm told to go meet with a client I don't have to worry about being hit in the face with breadsticks, or worse... I try to think about my food service job frequently and how blessed I am to not be doomed to continue it for the rest of my life.