You know, I may be way off base here, getting upset about nothing, making mountains out of molehills, but something on television's been irking me lately. It's the new McDonald's ad campaign for their dollar menu.
The gist of the commercials is that they show a profession with a voice over of something along the lines of "this is how long a pet psychologist has to work in order to afford a double cheeseburger" and they show him talking to a dog for three or four seconds. There are a few, each of them, I guess what would have to be considered "weird" or at the very least "superficial" careers that are really pretty meaningless towards society as a whole. That is, that McDonald's seems to be saying "if these yokel can afford a hot fudge sundae, so can you".
What I find disgusting about the campaign though is that they couldn't do a commercial anywhere near the lines of "this is how long one of OUR employees has to work in order to afford a double cheeseburger"...because it would be way too long. Seriously. With a minimum wage of $5.15 an hour and taxes afterward, a minimum wage employee is going to be taking home $4 an hour. A dollar takes 15 minutes...a commerical admitting this fact would be practically an infomercial and not of the variety that would have some entertainment value the way that those Amazing Discovery ads with the guy Mike that always wore a sweater seemed to always have. This infomercial would have a guy standing around, probably without a diploma -- either because he's too young to have finished high school or dropped out long ago (or, as the joke goes, he's a philosophy major) -- slapping hockey puck burger patties on a hot grill press only to remove them when they're done to clear room for another round, all the while getting sweaty from standing over the grill, maybe getting burns on his arm from grease splatter (hey, I know, I worked at McDonald's for a year in high school). It would not be glorious, not at all.
And definitely not as light-hearted and ridiculously irrelevant as a pet psychologist.
I don't know, it just boths me that McDonald's goes out of its way to jokingly refer to odd careers the way they do, whimsically suggesting how well off people get doing those things when they themselves pay their employees as little as possible -- and make them do a lot more work. It just seems ironic or slefish or something, I don't know what it is. At the very least, it seems almost demeaning to McDonald's bottom-rung workers and it really sort of pisses me off.
But of course it's all made okay because McDonald's has a corporate policy of "social responsibility":
Hypocrites.
The gist of the commercials is that they show a profession with a voice over of something along the lines of "this is how long a pet psychologist has to work in order to afford a double cheeseburger" and they show him talking to a dog for three or four seconds. There are a few, each of them, I guess what would have to be considered "weird" or at the very least "superficial" careers that are really pretty meaningless towards society as a whole. That is, that McDonald's seems to be saying "if these yokel can afford a hot fudge sundae, so can you".
What I find disgusting about the campaign though is that they couldn't do a commercial anywhere near the lines of "this is how long one of OUR employees has to work in order to afford a double cheeseburger"...because it would be way too long. Seriously. With a minimum wage of $5.15 an hour and taxes afterward, a minimum wage employee is going to be taking home $4 an hour. A dollar takes 15 minutes...a commerical admitting this fact would be practically an infomercial and not of the variety that would have some entertainment value the way that those Amazing Discovery ads with the guy Mike that always wore a sweater seemed to always have. This infomercial would have a guy standing around, probably without a diploma -- either because he's too young to have finished high school or dropped out long ago (or, as the joke goes, he's a philosophy major) -- slapping hockey puck burger patties on a hot grill press only to remove them when they're done to clear room for another round, all the while getting sweaty from standing over the grill, maybe getting burns on his arm from grease splatter (hey, I know, I worked at McDonald's for a year in high school). It would not be glorious, not at all.
And definitely not as light-hearted and ridiculously irrelevant as a pet psychologist.
I don't know, it just boths me that McDonald's goes out of its way to jokingly refer to odd careers the way they do, whimsically suggesting how well off people get doing those things when they themselves pay their employees as little as possible -- and make them do a lot more work. It just seems ironic or slefish or something, I don't know what it is. At the very least, it seems almost demeaning to McDonald's bottom-rung workers and it really sort of pisses me off.
But of course it's all made okay because McDonald's has a corporate policy of "social responsibility":
Our People Principles
Our People Principles guide us in delivering on our People Promise. They commit us to:
*Fair and respectful treatment.
*Recognition and rewards for good work.
*Openness, attentive listening, and appreciation of diverse opinions.
*Competitive pay and benefits.
*Support for personal and professional development.
*Resources to get the job done.
from the McDonald's website
Hypocrites.
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