A McJob is a good job

The Oxford English Dictionary describes a McJob as:

An unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector

Now McDonald's is organising a petition to get this definition changed. Well, good luck with that.

Actually I mean it, good luck with that.

In his stimulating book The Dream and the Nightmare, Myron Magnet explains that stigmatising low wage jobs is a social disaster. It involves the middle class sending a signal that such a job is demeaning and hardly better than the dole.

Since the most important step a person can take on the social ladder is to get a job and stick at it, McJobs need to be defended from their critics.

Where do I sign, Ronald?

Comments

[Desmond Taylor]

Has amyone inquired as to how much a franchisee, or manager can earn? There might be a few Bankers lining up as
'burger flippers'

[Rowan Lubbock]

yeah, ok, Daniel. The day you sign up to flip burgers is the day i join the Tory party.

Good luck!

[Stu]

Sorry but the meaning of the word is given by usage not the whims of the OED. McDonalds are the dominant player in an industry noted for mind-meltingly tedious low-paid work. They enjoy the up side, they have to live with the down side.

McDonald's needs to hire someone who knows something about the OED. The OED doesn't determine definitions - it just describes how a word has been used in literary history. The definition can't be changed until people start writing about the word with a different meaning attached to it.

[Michael Lamb]

... So we shouldn't stigmatize low paying, high stress, dead-end jobs? We should praise them instead? Seems to me that this is a little topsy turvy...