In "Working at McDonald's," Amitai Etzioni argues that students shouldn’t work at fast food places. He argues that the skills that are taught are not valuable work experience. Etzioni gives examples, for instance, the newspaper route and the lemonade stand uses to compare to fast food jobs. Etzioni states that students work more hours than they should, and it interferes with school work. He talks about how most jobs don’t have adult supervision because most of the managers are students too.
Etzioni mentions that some students will save their money while others will spend it all on themselves. Students realize how much they like money and overlook putting more effort in their school work. According to Etzioni, working at fast food places like McDonald’s does not offer any training or experience to students and the skills that they get will not be of any help to them in the future. The roles the students are assigned are more of routine and do not require any special skills. As a result, Etzioni concludes that students must learn how to balance work and education. At the same time, the teenagers are more likely to become unable to be creative and reinvent anything as a result of following routine and orders.
Response
In “Working at McDonald’s, Amitai Etzioni has a strong belief that working at McDonald’s type restaurants is bad for teenagers. I see both sides of the situation with students having different views of their work ethic. In some circumstances, working could be bad or a good thing for the student. First, working could affect the student's involvement in school-related activities. Next, students are provided with on the job experience. Finally, teenagers will make mistakes with their own money but will learn before they go into the real world.
First, the author talked about the number of hours that a student works at a fast-food place. With students working from less than 15 hours up to 30 hours, a week can be overwhelming. That does not leave enough time for the students to do homework or study for exams. In the essay, they did a survey where students said that work interfered with their school work. Some students are in extra-curricular activities after school and still work. That’s when they have to how to balance their time between everything.
Next, Etzioni talks about the skills that they are being taught at a fast food place. He talks about how jobs generally don’t provide any training that will be helpful in the future. Doesn’t see how some skills can be taught in a short time. Specific skills can be done by everyone because they don't require a lot of work. The skills that are learned during the job will always go with them even after they move on.
Finally, Etzioni explains how teens like the money from working which could lead to them developing consumerism, a dangerous habit. Before teens that worked gave their parent the money they made. Now teens tend to spend their own money on things that interest them. Teens start to want to work more so they can make more money. They end up caring more about money than school. That's when some teens drop out of school and start doing poorly. The other side of this would be that it teaches them to spend their money wisely because they are working hard for it. Before their parents were buying them everything and they didn’t realize the cost.
In conclusion, I would agree with some of Etzioni’s sentiments in the essay and disagree with others. Students need to be involved with the school and in extra-curricular activities and employment should not be allowed to interfere. They may acquire specific skills that could help them when they go off to college some of the skills they get while working in a place like McDonald’s might not be useful. On the other hand, the ability to balance work and school will be beneficial to them in the future.
