For my personal blog post of 500 words or more, instead of simply writing about something for the sake of writing something, I’m choosing to do anyone who reads this a favor. This favor comes in the form of advice, and that advice should be followed to the absolute letter. Never. Work. At. McDonalds. Are you writing this down? For the sake of your sanity and blood pressure, never join the fabulous team that is the Golden Arches crew. I don’t care what city, state, or country you live in, it doesn’t matter. I know people say they hate their job, but this is a separate manner entirely. McDonalds has an incredibly unique way of sucking the very life and soul out of someone until all that remains is a lifeless, husk-like shell of a human being. Am I over-exaggerating? Maybe. But that isn’t the point. The point is a person should never let themselves become desperate enough to submit their body and soul to such a mind-numbing job. And I can hear your words now: “Why don’t you just quit?” You can’t quit. They won’t let you. If you even mention the possibility of taking your life back into your own hands and leaving they hound and harass you until you simply give-in just to make the buzzing in your ears stop. For those of you who still think I am full of crap, let me break it down for you. I make 7.30 an hour. I’ve been working there for over 6 months and I still get paid less than every single other crew person. They say it is because of my “availability” but that’s bullshit because I work a 40 hour week. I am probably the most competent crew person there and because of that I get saddled with all the jobs that no one else wants to do if not only because I don’t whine and bitch when asked to do them. They take respect and kindness and turn it against you until you hate everything. And it isn’t just your co-workers that suck. No, that would be too much to ask for. If there was one group of people that I could systematically genocide (Yes, I made that word a verb and no, I obviously don’t want to kill anybody, it’s an expression) it would be people who eat at McDonalds. There isn’t any other group of people who are able to find more ways to piss me off than this cracker-jack group of fuckers. For the sake of convenience and ease, I am going to make a list of all their stupid little quirks and mannerisms that find a way to get under my skin.
1. Paying for a one dollar item with a twenty dollar bill. Oh wow! Big spender, huh? Mr. Bigshot in his Honda Civic dropping the Jacksons? Can I get you some caviar with your small french fries, jackass?
2. Asking if I can mix drinks into you own moronic, disgusting concoctions.
3. Going through the drive through and ordering 20 things during a rush. Why the shit are you going through a drive through if you’re just going to have to wait 20 minutes to get your food?
4. Ordering sweet tea. I know this sounds unreasonable, but after making my 60th sweet tea each a day I just can’t take it anymore.
5. Ordering a cheeseburger and asking for no cheese on it. This just in! It’s called a hamburger!
6. Asking for things that aren’t on the menu, or never have been on the menu. This takes a special breed of stupid that is hard to come by. Yes, we have a secret, hidden menu that only an astute person like you is able to order off of. It’s like these people exist to piss me off.
7. Yelling at me because our nuggets are more expensive than Wendy’s nuggets. Does the sign out front say “Now welcoming stupid comments about things that I have no control over”?
8. And finally, the one thing that pisses me off about McDonalds customers more than anything else. Over 90% of the people that come into our store and go through the drive through do this and as a favor to me and everyone else who works at McDonalds, please, STOP DOING THIS. This #1 pet peeve of mine is thinking that I have the uncanny ability to read your fucking mind. When you order a “medium soft drink” or “Snackwrap” or “chicken sandwich” or “ice cream sunday” or “milkshake” in the drive through, I promise you I have no idea which kind you want. I’m not holding a list of your personal favorite menu items and just pretending to not know for the sake of being difficult. We have over 7 types of soft drinks and teas you can get, we have 6 types of snackwraps, we have 5 types of chicken sandwiches, 2 Sunday types, and 3 milkshake types. How, in the name of all that is good and holy, am I supposed to know which one you want? I know at least some of the people reading this have done this in the past, and you should be ashamed. There is something so inherently stupid about ordering a “medium soft drink” or “chicken sandwich” in the drive through that it boggles my mind that people are able to do it.
So, that’s that. If there is anything you should retain from wasting your time in reading this, let it be these two points. One, never work at McDonalds, and two, stop acting like a moron when ordering food.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Activity III: Critical Essay Option #2
In today’s society, stereotypes and generalizations are made out to be the greatest form of social injustice. What is more offending than having one’s identity reduced to a simplistic, misinformed statement? Stereotypes have existed for as long as man has been capable of independent thought and they will always exist, if not only in the minds of ignorant people. That all young people are tech savvy and incapable of other forms of communication outside of their chosen interactional mediums is a modern stereotype that is not only an untrue generalization, but also potentially detrimental to our “generation’s” progression. I personally believe that no one model for today’s young people is entirely correct. Now more than ever, the name of the game is diversity and not even traditional models can be applied to young people anymore. The closest thing that comes to an accurate model for young people is a very loose conglomeration of traditional and modern generalizations, and even that has its flaws.
The technology-driven model stems from, for lack of a better term, the “generational” gap between older and younger people. The two groups of people could practically be from different cultures. The older people were raised in a world where manual labor reigned and hard work mixed with effort was the only way to get things done properly. The only way a writer, composer, or artist can have his or her work seen or heard by the public was to actually excel in their chosen field. Now, young people are raised in a time where anybody can write or compose anything and have it read by millions Today’s youth are assumed to be living like lazy kings compared to their parents. They have access to an unlimited amount of information at any given time and are free from many of the physically demanding tasks their parents were subjected to, if not only because of the presence of machines to do their work for them. While this does hold some ground in the realm of truth, to presume that all young people are of the same breed as these self-employed writers and lethargic delinquents is just another form of the despised discrimination that is such a great evil in our time. Generalizations are untrue simply because it is impossible to hold a fact against a large group of people and have it hold true to all of them. Young people are being discriminated against because of their age; something that is such a weak unifying factor in terms of personality that it is almost laughable to be a category entirely.
As I previously mentioned, a loose hybrid model for today’s youth is the ideal option for the most accurate generalization. The model would have to encompass every universal trait of young people, rendering it almost completely ineffective if not only for the fact that the same universal traits of young people also apply to every other age groups as well. Some of the traits would have to include a need to be accepted and loved, a desire to excel, and a demand for freedom. Clearly, to say these traits are exclusive to young people is wrong. This is, however, the only model that can be truly applied to the youth, proving that universal models are nothing more than a selfish attempt by our culture to divide society into distinguishable segments able to be marketed to and manipulated. What should actually be done is recognize that human nature is the only one true unifying factor in our society.
In conclusion, I agree with Vaidhyanathan’s assertion that a technology-driven model is an incorrect generalization. Our society and culture is constantly looking for ways to stereotype every subsection that possibly has a chance of being marketed to. The first step towards progression is understanding.
In today’s society, stereotypes and generalizations are made out to be the greatest form of social injustice. What is more offending than having one’s identity reduced to a simplistic, misinformed statement? Stereotypes have existed for as long as man has been capable of independent thought and they will always exist, if not only in the minds of ignorant people. That all young people are tech savvy and incapable of other forms of communication outside of their chosen interactional mediums is a modern stereotype that is not only an untrue generalization, but also potentially detrimental to our “generation’s” progression. I personally believe that no one model for today’s young people is entirely correct. Now more than ever, the name of the game is diversity and not even traditional models can be applied to young people anymore. The closest thing that comes to an accurate model for young people is a very loose conglomeration of traditional and modern generalizations, and even that has its flaws.
The technology-driven model stems from, for lack of a better term, the “generational” gap between older and younger people. The two groups of people could practically be from different cultures. The older people were raised in a world where manual labor reigned and hard work mixed with effort was the only way to get things done properly. The only way a writer, composer, or artist can have his or her work seen or heard by the public was to actually excel in their chosen field. Now, young people are raised in a time where anybody can write or compose anything and have it read by millions Today’s youth are assumed to be living like lazy kings compared to their parents. They have access to an unlimited amount of information at any given time and are free from many of the physically demanding tasks their parents were subjected to, if not only because of the presence of machines to do their work for them. While this does hold some ground in the realm of truth, to presume that all young people are of the same breed as these self-employed writers and lethargic delinquents is just another form of the despised discrimination that is such a great evil in our time. Generalizations are untrue simply because it is impossible to hold a fact against a large group of people and have it hold true to all of them. Young people are being discriminated against because of their age; something that is such a weak unifying factor in terms of personality that it is almost laughable to be a category entirely.
As I previously mentioned, a loose hybrid model for today’s youth is the ideal option for the most accurate generalization. The model would have to encompass every universal trait of young people, rendering it almost completely ineffective if not only for the fact that the same universal traits of young people also apply to every other age groups as well. Some of the traits would have to include a need to be accepted and loved, a desire to excel, and a demand for freedom. Clearly, to say these traits are exclusive to young people is wrong. This is, however, the only model that can be truly applied to the youth, proving that universal models are nothing more than a selfish attempt by our culture to divide society into distinguishable segments able to be marketed to and manipulated. What should actually be done is recognize that human nature is the only one true unifying factor in our society.
In conclusion, I agree with Vaidhyanathan’s assertion that a technology-driven model is an incorrect generalization. Our society and culture is constantly looking for ways to stereotype every subsection that possibly has a chance of being marketed to. The first step towards progression is understanding.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
The Blame Game:
Why Video Games are not the Cause of Youth Violence
I feel that this project has been as enlightening to me as it has hopefully been for the viewers. Going into the project, I already had developed solid opinions about the subject of violent video games. I thought that I could easily create a PowerPoint based on what I already thought about the subject, breezing through the written part, simply copying down my opinions. However, this was not the case. I found myself staring at my empty slides, struggling to actually put my thoughts to “paper” so to say. While I knew how I thought about the subject, it was almost impossible to translate those thoughts into a way that would make sense not only to others, but to me as well. This was rather disconcerting as it forced me to re-evaluate my once solid beliefs. How could I feel so strongly about something yet not find the words to describe how I felt? I sat back and decided to take another look at the issue. I spent upwards of two hours contemplating how I actually felt about the issue and I finally came up with my true beliefs. In the past, I had simply scratched the surface of the subject of violent video games, only examining the superficial aspects of the issues. Now however, I began to truly understand the reasons and causes for blaming video games for violence in today’s youth.
I feel that my choice of presentation, the PowerPoint, is the greatest tool for advocating my point. It allows quick and easy summarization of the key points in correlation with the main oral presentation. I chose 5 main points to be the subject of my slides: The reasons people blame video games for youth violence, the cases of the famous school shootings, video games as a positive, the truth about violent video games, and who really is to blame for youth violence. I feel that together, these 5 points accurately portray my feelings and beliefs about violent video games’ role in youth violence. The pictures I chose to put in the slide are all related to the point of the slide and are there to provide a visual stimulus as well as aesthetic appeal. In conclusion, I feel that this project has been a rewarding experience in the sense that I have gained a better understanding of my own views on the subject of violent video games and their influence on today’s youth. I enjoyed creating a visual composition in addition to a written one and hope to use this type of visual medium more often.
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