I don't know if you can, but I sort of agree that we should be able to. Because while I have no pity in my heart for the corporation, I do for the employees, who are after all more demeaned by the term than is the corporation.
There is far too much job snobbery in North America. That is why so many middle aged parents would rather have their adult children living in their (the parents') basements and sleeping most of the day than have them hold a mcjob.
Because the parents are waiting for the adult child to get the status job that the expensive education prepared them for. Meantime they bring in immigrants who are prepared to do the real work.
Well, it's a leg up for the immigrants.
But then their dream is, "I will work very hard at demeaning work so that my child can get an education that was hopelessly out of my reach in my homeland -- and my child can have a better life."
Posts: 6249 | Location: British Columbia, Canada | Registered: 06-11-02
I take exception to the definition ever having been accepted into the dictionary to begin with
Many people know that for a time, I was a Manager at McDonalds. I think that for the most part, my employees did not feel unstimulated or that they felt they didn't have a future. In fact, although I managed a satellite store, after I left, three of the youngsters I had working with me were promoted to manager-trainees at the main store practically the minute they were old enough to be. And last I heard, they're still there.
I know that alot of people think of fast-food as a dead-end, bottom of the barrel job. And of course, they always lump that generalization under McDonalds. I can't tell you what it's like at Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendy's, etc...but I can tell you definitively that respectable McDonald's franchises do everything they can to develop people wishing to BE developed. I was fortunate to have worked for one of the largest (if not THE largest) franchisee under the McDonalds name...and they were an amazing company.
Oddity in this is that 'McJob' was coined by Douglas Coupland to mean any job without particular responsibility which was chosen by someone who was overqualified educationally. It was not, in itself, a slur on the organisation but as a comment on those who 'opted out' by denying the job which would be and should be the one they were meant for and, in so doing, denied some deserving other.
As to the dictionary, it wouldn't be right for a major reference dictionary like the Oxford to self-censor by omitting words whose current meaning may give offence. It's function is to aid readers and researchers by listing words which are currently in established use with the definitions and usage these words have in current use.
Gizmogram, I know that in Canada, ex-McDonalds employees (specifically McDonalds - not just any fast-food operation) are sought after by other companies, as their training in general work skills like punctuality and customer service is supposed to be so good.
Still, no matter what the reality at McD's is, or what Copeland intended, if most people say 'McJob' meaning a low-status job, then isn't that what the OED should reflect? Isn't that, in fact, what the word now signifies?
If we call something a 'Mickey Mouse organisation', meaning it's silly or negligable, should Disney object?
Actually, there's been a good deal of discussion about the value of working for McD's. Critics maintain it trains employees to be the good assembly line worker. There is no "thinking outside the box" required (although I hate that expression). The system is in place, you conform to it; if you come up with a better way, the response is "We don't do it that way here." Can't say myself, never worked there. Although my son did and he found it mentally stupifying. Just putting up here another side for discussion.
