Working at McDonald's - Essay Example

The apparent reasons that were disclosed by the author included affecting academic performance in a negative manner; apparently imparting skills that are not sufficiently applicable in future endeavors; and reportedly skew the values that are supposed to focus on adherence to ethical, moral and legal standards. Evidently, Etzioni indicated that the nature of the jobs provided in these kinds of establishments is highly uneducational. For one, the tasks and responsibilities were routinary, highly automated, structured, and leaves little grounds for instilling the teen-agers skills to develop creativity and innovativeness in the work setting.

Another set of reasons contended by Etzioni that contributes to McDonald’s being bad for one’s kids are that these jobs provide few opportunities for career promotions or for the development of marketable skills, and more importantly, take greater amounts of time that compromise academic attendance and performance. Likewise, without ample adult supervision, no governance and strategic guidance is provided to teenagers working in McDonald’s; and the apparent remuneration enables these teenagers to gain access to temporary fads and short-term pleasures that do not focus on the development of long-range planning on being financially mature and responsible citizens.

Part 2: Critical Response Etzioni’s points of discussion and arguments were effective in terms of the ability of the author in relaying the message in a clear and concise manner. For instance, the subject or thesis statement was revealed at the first line where it was indicated that “McDonald’s is bad for your kids… (particularly) to the jobs teen-agers undertake” (Etzioni 283). Then, succeeding statements provided the needed support for this main point. To support this main argument, for instance, Etzioni provided the following reasons to justify that McDonald’s is bad for kids in terms of providing employment at this particular fast food chain: (1) these jobs were asserted to “undermine school attendance and involvement, impart few skills that would be useful in later life, and simultaneously skew the values of teen-agers” (Etzioni par. 3); (2) these jobs are highly uneducational; (3) the hours and working days were reported to be too long; (4) supervisory techniques impart wrong lessons in terms of compliance that was described as blind obedience, as well as shared alienation with the boss (Etzioni par. 14), and inappropriate and insufficient (where teens were reported to supervise peer teens); (5) inconsistency in administrative or supervisory governance (too tight or too loose); and (6) pay apparently spent on “flimsy punk clothes, trinkets, and whatever else is the latest fast-moving teen craze” (Etzioni par. 18). Another reason why one strongly believes that Etzioni presented effective arguments to support his main point is that the author used and cited previous studies to validate statements that were presented.

There were two studies noted and cited as needed: the 1984 study apparently made by Ivan Charper and Bryan Shore Frazer which supposedly relied on responses made by teen-agers from the questionnaires that were designed; and the 1980 study conducted by A.V. Harrell and P.W. Wirtz that aimed to determine the unemployment rate of those who were previously employed at fast food chains as compared to those who stayed in school. In addition, some statistics and figures were cited to support other arguments.

The assertion that teen-agers render long days and hours working at fast-food chains cited the Charper and Frazer study which disclosed that more than 30 hours per week were rendered by a third of the employees or approximately 33%; 20%