8 ms·

The McDonald’s Quotient

38 points by pavornyoh 11y ago

xyzzy4 11y ago
I worked at a Regal Cinema when I was 16 for a year, so I guess that counts. There was a lot of monotony, but the experience still managed to be relatively interesting for my younger self. And I got to participate in a different social circle outside of my school. My favorite times were cleaning out the theaters with the other guys, who were slightly older and would sometimes discuss abandoned houses they wanted to explore. And I remember optimizing how to rip and count movie tickets, having authority over who can go into the theaters, coordinating with other employees, counting inventory. The endless minutes I waited for the clock to slowly tick forwards so I could leave... It was a very memorable experience. In a strange way I kind of miss it. It's kind of funny how the amount of money I made there over a year is like a stock market fluctuation over a single day now.
rtpg 11y ago
super pedantic but the coloquial usage of "working class" is not "middle class", but lower-earning wage brackets. Even more OT but there's a pretty interesting study about how something like 80% of Americans think they're middle class when they're much poorer (or richer, sometimes) than the median household income. Which gets you to the slightly absurd WSJ inforgraphic that showed a "Middle Class family" with $150k of income...
- kbenson 11y ago
  There's a lot of conceptual baggage that comes with the term "middle class", which makes it non-trivial for people to agree on. For example, is home-ownership important to being considered middle class? If so, how does any median income number make sense when there are areas where entry-level houses cost 3-4 times what they do in other areas? Cost of living is different in different areas. It's very easy to feel middle class with $150k a year in income when you work it out and find that after all expenses (mortgage, non-obscene car payments, utilities, insurance, food) you have a few hundred dollars each month to do with as you like, and you can live semi-comfortably, or you can save, but doing both doesn't seem to be in the cards. The common refrain of "move somewhere cheaper" doesn't look all that appetizing when it also means a massive pay-cut, and moving away from all friends and family. So, can a person that makes $150k actually be middle class? I think so. There's so much more than just salary that goes into it.
- tracker1 11y ago
  Depends on where you live... In SF or parts of NYC, it'd be pretty hard to consider oneself Middle Class at much less than that for a family income. Some places the median cost of a house is close to a million, other places it's closer to $100k... That caries across the board, even chips at a convenience store price ranges quite a bit within the U.S. ... which, frankly has surprised me. It's all relative. Fortunately, I'm in a location where the relative pay for what I do, to cost of living is pretty decent.
abraae 11y ago
We're in this industry too, and I believe the HR/talent management/recruitment space is potentially huge and still nascent. But after going to your web site and clicking "start hiring now", I'm afraid that I too don't get it. Unless I'm overlooking it, the site is entirely content free as to how/what your product actually does.
lefnlkewf 11y ago
It's funny how we've let success become something for rich people. But hey, as long as I self-sacrifice to make sure that the wealthy can create more jobs, the good karma will eventually come back to me, right?
rezashirazian 11y ago
"[Mcdonald coefficient] In Silicon Valley and the larger startup and VC investing world, I often find that it’s surprisingly low, or even non-existent." Source? That was a self congratulating article filled with cynical judgments on people the author doesn't really know. Many successful and wealthy people come from humble beginnings. Even many of the people I know who were well off since birth, do have their share of working in low wage industries. In Canada where the author is from, you cannot graduate from high school without 30 hours of work experience which will most likely be in "blue collar" industries. This is way before your shinny degree This is in fact one of my favourite attributes of the American Culture and perhaps the main reason why US leads economically around the world. Work is valued and is not beneath anyone.
- xiaoma 11y ago
  >>"I often find that ..." >Source? His personal experience, clearly
grandalf 11y ago
Ironically most of the "out of touch" high achievers have just managed to avoid the misfortune of having to waste moments of their life in menial servitude to some big corporation in exchange for a disgracefully low wage. The experience is dehumanizing, and I have a hard time buying into the idea that having that experience benefits all but the least empathetic people. One is likely to come out of such a mechanized experience 1) never wanting to eat the food there again, 2) having committed theft or graft by giving freebies to friends and acquaintances, or 3) feeling like an insignificant cog. Much of success has to do with believing you are right in spite of others' doubts, and seeing the world in a novel way. In my opinion, oppressive institutional environments crush those aspects of people... Poverty and financial desperation crushes them too. Both force a kind of mental toil and constant stress. So I'd advise a young person to perhaps find a way to do a job like that for about a week to gain that empathy and then never look back. The soul is enriched by addressing high quality problems, not low quality ones like someone in a hurry who wants french fries that need to be carried from the machine to the drive-up window.
- tracker1 11y ago
  I partly agree... There are plenty of service oriented jobs where you interact with a lot of people that are at least a little better than working at McDonald's (which I did three times when I was young). I've also worked in HelpDesk, Call Center Support, general IT, etc. I know people that have worked as Servers, Cashiers and a lot of similar roles. There's nothing wrong with it, though if you're well into your twenties without a plan to do better, and are unhappy where you are... should probably start re-thinking or adjust your attitude. Having done the job, there are times where I do empathize, and times that I don't. It's all relative. One of the reasons I like software development so much, is you gain so much variety in terms of domain knowledge that one wouldn't ever get otherwise. On the flip side, I don't think I could handle conversations with over a dozen people a day, on a regular basis, ever again.
- jheriko 11y ago
  have you worked such jobs yourself? i'd guess not from the tone and content... ... there is a lot of value in learning to be common. you might also come out of such experiences with 4) an understanding of day-to-day terms that prevent you from giving away your origins in conversation, 5) good friends who will bring joy to your life long after you leave the job, 6) understanding the benefits of speaking up at the right time in an oppressive environment, 7) understanding how privileged people with desk jobs are etc. etc...
princeb 11y ago
not related but I noticed this website is ridiculously fast to load.
jheriko 11y ago
this guy is clearly not very good at explaining things. even though he says a lot of stuff here there is nothing to substantiate why - specifically, he didn't really explain why this potential investor having not worked a normal job in his life was preventing him from understanding what the deal was. i agree with the sentiment, but it seems much more likely that the author is actually terrible at explaining things.
- robhunter 11y ago
  Thanks for the feedback :) One challenge of writing an article for a large audience is trying to keep things brief. Since I wasn't really writing about the investor experience - I was writing about tech having a blind spot for the way a giant part of America lives - I didn't want to spend too much time on the investor anecdote. A more detailed way to explain it would have been that the investor absolutely "got what we did" - it really isn't that complicated. But at the same time, he didn't "GET IT" - he didn't grasp the massive opportunity in front of us (millions of brick-and-mortar retail locations with no HR technology in place, 75 million hourly workers having to put up with terrible online applications, etc), or why what we've built is so useful for our specific market - and I think that's reflective of a larger blind spot in technology for this slice of the world.
stillsut 11y ago
"majority of entry level jobs didn’t hire people who looked like the people I worked with. At McDonalds there were people with disabilities, overweight people, people who weren’t conventionally attractive, people that couldn’t speak much English, young teenagers, and a lot of racial diversity." [0] But the above quote doesn't really work for Starbucks. They hire the acceptable people, people that would seem at home on a college campus - as students or as teaching assistance. I'd say that's your opportunity (and something you didn't express well in your essay). That there are people who are good workers but wouldn't pass the conventional smell test at more artisinal entry level jobs. Your online application can filter the worker that "has it together" from a work history and appearance that would suggest otherwise. [0] https://medium.com/@katenorquay/what-i-learned-from-4-years-working-at-mcdonalds-f278ad27faee#.6ochagagq https://medium.com/@katenorquay/what-i-learned-from-4-years-...

38 points by pavornyoh 11y ago

I worked at a Regal Cinema when I was 16 for a year, so I guess that counts. There was a lot of monotony, but the experience still managed to be relatively interesting for my younger self. And I got to participate in a different social circle outside of my school. My favorite times were cleaning out the theaters with the other guys, who were slightly older and would sometimes discuss abandoned houses they wanted to explore. And I remember optimizing how to rip and count movie tickets, having authority over who can go into the theaters, coordinating with other employees, counting inventory. The endless minutes I waited for the clock to slowly tick forwards so I could leave... It was a very memorable experience. In a strange way I kind of miss it. It's kind of funny how the amount of money I made there over a year is like a stock market fluctuation over a single day now.

rtpg 11y ago

super pedantic but the coloquial usage of "working class" is not "middle class", but lower-earning wage brackets. Even more OT but there's a pretty interesting study about how something like 80% of Americans think they're middle class when they're much poorer (or richer, sometimes) than the median household income. Which gets you to the slightly absurd WSJ inforgraphic that showed a "Middle Class family" with $150k of income...

kbenson 11y ago
There's a lot of conceptual baggage that comes with the term "middle class", which makes it non-trivial for people to agree on. For example, is home-ownership important to being considered middle class? If so, how does any median income number make sense when there are areas where entry-level houses cost 3-4 times what they do in other areas? Cost of living is different in different areas. It's very easy to feel middle class with $150k a year in income when you work it out and find that after all expenses (mortgage, non-obscene car payments, utilities, insurance, food) you have a few hundred dollars each month to do with as you like, and you can live semi-comfortably, or you can save, but doing both doesn't seem to be in the cards. The common refrain of "move somewhere cheaper" doesn't look all that appetizing when it also means a massive pay-cut, and moving away from all friends and family. So, can a person that makes $150k actually be middle class? I think so. There's so much more than just salary that goes into it.
tracker1 11y ago
Depends on where you live... In SF or parts of NYC, it'd be pretty hard to consider oneself Middle Class at much less than that for a family income. Some places the median cost of a house is close to a million, other places it's closer to $100k... That caries across the board, even chips at a convenience store price ranges quite a bit within the U.S. ... which, frankly has surprised me. It's all relative. Fortunately, I'm in a location where the relative pay for what I do, to cost of living is pretty decent.

abraae 11y ago

We're in this industry too, and I believe the HR/talent management/recruitment space is potentially huge and still nascent. But after going to your web site and clicking "start hiring now", I'm afraid that I too don't get it. Unless I'm overlooking it, the site is entirely content free as to how/what your product actually does.

lefnlkewf 11y ago

It's funny how we've let success become something for rich people. But hey, as long as I self-sacrifice to make sure that the wealthy can create more jobs, the good karma will eventually come back to me, right?

rezashirazian 11y ago

"[Mcdonald coefficient] In Silicon Valley and the larger startup and VC investing world, I often find that it’s surprisingly low, or even non-existent." Source? That was a self congratulating article filled with cynical judgments on people the author doesn't really know. Many successful and wealthy people come from humble beginnings. Even many of the people I know who were well off since birth, do have their share of working in low wage industries. In Canada where the author is from, you cannot graduate from high school without 30 hours of work experience which will most likely be in "blue collar" industries. This is way before your shinny degree This is in fact one of my favourite attributes of the American Culture and perhaps the main reason why US leads economically around the world. Work is valued and is not beneath anyone.

xiaoma 11y ago
>>"I often find that ..." >Source? His personal experience, clearly

grandalf 11y ago

Ironically most of the "out of touch" high achievers have just managed to avoid the misfortune of having to waste moments of their life in menial servitude to some big corporation in exchange for a disgracefully low wage. The experience is dehumanizing, and I have a hard time buying into the idea that having that experience benefits all but the least empathetic people. One is likely to come out of such a mechanized experience 1) never wanting to eat the food there again, 2) having committed theft or graft by giving freebies to friends and acquaintances, or 3) feeling like an insignificant cog. Much of success has to do with believing you are right in spite of others' doubts, and seeing the world in a novel way. In my opinion, oppressive institutional environments crush those aspects of people... Poverty and financial desperation crushes them too. Both force a kind of mental toil and constant stress. So I'd advise a young person to perhaps find a way to do a job like that for about a week to gain that empathy and then never look back. The soul is enriched by addressing high quality problems, not low quality ones like someone in a hurry who wants french fries that need to be carried from the machine to the drive-up window.

tracker1 11y ago
I partly agree... There are plenty of service oriented jobs where you interact with a lot of people that are at least a little better than working at McDonald's (which I did three times when I was young). I've also worked in HelpDesk, Call Center Support, general IT, etc. I know people that have worked as Servers, Cashiers and a lot of similar roles. There's nothing wrong with it, though if you're well into your twenties without a plan to do better, and are unhappy where you are... should probably start re-thinking or adjust your attitude. Having done the job, there are times where I do empathize, and times that I don't. It's all relative. One of the reasons I like software development so much, is you gain so much variety in terms of domain knowledge that one wouldn't ever get otherwise. On the flip side, I don't think I could handle conversations with over a dozen people a day, on a regular basis, ever again.
jheriko 11y ago
have you worked such jobs yourself? i'd guess not from the tone and content... ... there is a lot of value in learning to be common. you might also come out of such experiences with 4) an understanding of day-to-day terms that prevent you from giving away your origins in conversation, 5) good friends who will bring joy to your life long after you leave the job, 6) understanding the benefits of speaking up at the right time in an oppressive environment, 7) understanding how privileged people with desk jobs are etc. etc...

princeb 11y ago

not related but I noticed this website is ridiculously fast to load.

jheriko 11y ago

this guy is clearly not very good at explaining things. even though he says a lot of stuff here there is nothing to substantiate why - specifically, he didn't really explain why this potential investor having not worked a normal job in his life was preventing him from understanding what the deal was. i agree with the sentiment, but it seems much more likely that the author is actually terrible at explaining things.

robhunter 11y ago
Thanks for the feedback :) One challenge of writing an article for a large audience is trying to keep things brief. Since I wasn't really writing about the investor experience - I was writing about tech having a blind spot for the way a giant part of America lives - I didn't want to spend too much time on the investor anecdote. A more detailed way to explain it would have been that the investor absolutely "got what we did" - it really isn't that complicated. But at the same time, he didn't "GET IT" - he didn't grasp the massive opportunity in front of us (millions of brick-and-mortar retail locations with no HR technology in place, 75 million hourly workers having to put up with terrible online applications, etc), or why what we've built is so useful for our specific market - and I think that's reflective of a larger blind spot in technology for this slice of the world.

stillsut 11y ago

"majority of entry level jobs didn’t hire people who looked like the people I worked with. At McDonalds there were people with disabilities, overweight people, people who weren’t conventionally attractive, people that couldn’t speak much English, young teenagers, and a lot of racial diversity." [0] But the above quote doesn't really work for Starbucks. They hire the acceptable people, people that would seem at home on a college campus - as students or as teaching assistance. I'd say that's your opportunity (and something you didn't express well in your essay). That there are people who are good workers but wouldn't pass the conventional smell test at more artisinal entry level jobs. Your online application can filter the worker that "has it together" from a work history and appearance that would suggest otherwise. [0] https://medium.com/@katenorquay/what-i-learned-from-4-years-working-at-mcdonalds-f278ad27faee#.6ochagagq https://medium.com/@katenorquay/what-i-learned-from-4-years-...