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To be fair, no one wants to be the person who works the drive through at McDonald's. Back in the day it used to be good money for a high school kid, and maybe

To be fair, no one wants to be the person who works the drive through at McDonald's. Back in the day it used to be good money for a high school kid, and maybe it arguably still is, but high school kids, particularly high performing ones, don't have time for part-time jobs that aren't contributing to a college resume. Let alone time to spend any money they make with friends.

tristor 4y ago
I guess I could have expanded on my last sentence more and completed the thought. Of course nobody wants to be the person who works the drive through at McDonald's as their life's ambition. This type of job used to be seen as a stepping stone that provided you some spending money and an opportunity to meet people outside your parents social circle and school, a first taste of the working world, but wasn't a determinant of what your career ended up being. Gen Z though sees people /their age/ every day online who have become multi-millionaires on the Internet by being social media influencers or content creators, and they want to jump straight to the end where they're famous, rich, and respected (arguably). My generation was never exposed to that, we were exposed to Tommy the lawyer who got his start working the stock room at the hardware store and now drives a Porsche. The type of "instant" fame and money that kids get exposed to now just wasn't even in the realm of possibility for my generation, except perhaps sports stars. Even though the number of people who "make it" vs those who try is vanishingly small, a lot of folks in Gen Z seem to think being an influencer or a similar role is the primary career path they want to try for, and unlike something like being a sports star, it's less limited by outside influences and requires less genetic talent. Anyone could, possibly, be an influencer, even though very few people actually will become one. Now, taking that job is no longer seen as a stepping stone, it's seen as giving up and admitting to yourself and the world you won't be able to hack it online. It's truly remarkable if you observe high schoolers, girls especially, these days and how much of their life is spent online vs with those directly around them. Social media is not just entertainment, it's one of the most important things in their lives, and their presence there is seen as a determinant for their future. This is a very different social zeitgeist than my generation grew up with, and I'm a Millennial, grew up with Internet and computers, but prior to the dawn of social media. This isn't an economic issue in that sense, then, it's a social issue, a rejection of the type of work that most people in the US started with when they were that age. A drive through worker at McDonald's makes nearly $37k/yr if they work full-time at the starting wage where I reside now. That's more than many professionals made when they started their careers when I was a teenager, and it's more than double what I made starting as a shelf-stocker /inflation-adjusted/. It's not that the job doesn't pay enough to attract people who are starting out, it's that those people see it as a serious social faux pas to be caught working that type of job, it's an admission and acceptance of failure, rather than an admirable place to begin.
- scottLobster 4y ago
  Well I'll admit hadn't considered that factor, I guess I'll find out in a decade or so when my daughter reaches that age, although hopefully that mentality will have died out once that generation gets a decade of reality under their belt. That said I kinda get the social media obsession, that was college for me and I was all in on the facebook parasocial queues (not liking someone's post that they KNOW you saw was an offense, and other crazy shit). For me it was ultimately a function of not having anything better to do. High school is supermax prison in terms of options, college is like minimum security prison, it's not really until you hit the realization that your decisions have actual weight in your life and you aren't just going to be pushed along by external forces that you start to grow out of that. High school ends and eventually becomes irrelevant, but good luck explaining that to a teenager. I'd argue the income question is also part of the problem, the "mail room to executive" pipeline, if it ever really existed, has been completely broken. As you say, it used to be that person working the McDonalds drive through might be something big some day. Nowadays that's 100% assured to not be the case, McDonalds drive through is a dead-end job you do to stay alive until you can trade up to a different career path.
  - tristor 4y ago
    > As you say, it used to be that person working the McDonalds drive through might be something big some day. Nowadays that's 100% assured to not be the case, McDonalds drive through is a dead-end job you do to stay alive until you can trade up to a different career path. Can you expand on how you see these two statements as different conceptually? At least for folks in my generation, I don't think anyone harbored delusions that they were going to make it big by working at McDonald's, but it was seen as a way to get basic work experience and the benefit of a wage while you worked towards something different. The "mail room to executive" pipeline was always a fantasy, as far as I'm concerned, just due to basic math, there's a lot more mail room clerks than executives, so it in all probability won't happen to you. On the flip side, working a summer job provides you a pathway to pay for entertainment and a modicum of freedom so you can explore the world and figure out what you actually want to do. At least that's how it was seen when I was a teenager.

tristor 4y ago

I guess I could have expanded on my last sentence more and completed the thought. Of course nobody wants to be the person who works the drive through at McDonald's as their life's ambition. This type of job used to be seen as a stepping stone that provided you some spending money and an opportunity to meet people outside your parents social circle and school, a first taste of the working world, but wasn't a determinant of what your career ended up being. Gen Z though sees people /their age/ every day online who have become multi-millionaires on the Internet by being social media influencers or content creators, and they want to jump straight to the end where they're famous, rich, and respected (arguably). My generation was never exposed to that, we were exposed to Tommy the lawyer who got his start working the stock room at the hardware store and now drives a Porsche. The type of "instant" fame and money that kids get exposed to now just wasn't even in the realm of possibility for my generation, except perhaps sports stars. Even though the number of people who "make it" vs those who try is vanishingly small, a lot of folks in Gen Z seem to think being an influencer or a similar role is the primary career path they want to try for, and unlike something like being a sports star, it's less limited by outside influences and requires less genetic talent. Anyone could, possibly, be an influencer, even though very few people actually will become one. Now, taking that job is no longer seen as a stepping stone, it's seen as giving up and admitting to yourself and the world you won't be able to hack it online. It's truly remarkable if you observe high schoolers, girls especially, these days and how much of their life is spent online vs with those directly around them. Social media is not just entertainment, it's one of the most important things in their lives, and their presence there is seen as a determinant for their future. This is a very different social zeitgeist than my generation grew up with, and I'm a Millennial, grew up with Internet and computers, but prior to the dawn of social media. This isn't an economic issue in that sense, then, it's a social issue, a rejection of the type of work that most people in the US started with when they were that age. A drive through worker at McDonald's makes nearly $37k/yr if they work full-time at the starting wage where I reside now. That's more than many professionals made when they started their careers when I was a teenager, and it's more than double what I made starting as a shelf-stocker /inflation-adjusted/. It's not that the job doesn't pay enough to attract people who are starting out, it's that those people see it as a serious social faux pas to be caught working that type of job, it's an admission and acceptance of failure, rather than an admirable place to begin.

scottLobster 4y ago
Well I'll admit hadn't considered that factor, I guess I'll find out in a decade or so when my daughter reaches that age, although hopefully that mentality will have died out once that generation gets a decade of reality under their belt. That said I kinda get the social media obsession, that was college for me and I was all in on the facebook parasocial queues (not liking someone's post that they KNOW you saw was an offense, and other crazy shit). For me it was ultimately a function of not having anything better to do. High school is supermax prison in terms of options, college is like minimum security prison, it's not really until you hit the realization that your decisions have actual weight in your life and you aren't just going to be pushed along by external forces that you start to grow out of that. High school ends and eventually becomes irrelevant, but good luck explaining that to a teenager. I'd argue the income question is also part of the problem, the "mail room to executive" pipeline, if it ever really existed, has been completely broken. As you say, it used to be that person working the McDonalds drive through might be something big some day. Nowadays that's 100% assured to not be the case, McDonalds drive through is a dead-end job you do to stay alive until you can trade up to a different career path.
- tristor 4y ago
  > As you say, it used to be that person working the McDonalds drive through might be something big some day. Nowadays that's 100% assured to not be the case, McDonalds drive through is a dead-end job you do to stay alive until you can trade up to a different career path. Can you expand on how you see these two statements as different conceptually? At least for folks in my generation, I don't think anyone harbored delusions that they were going to make it big by working at McDonald's, but it was seen as a way to get basic work experience and the benefit of a wage while you worked towards something different. The "mail room to executive" pipeline was always a fantasy, as far as I'm concerned, just due to basic math, there's a lot more mail room clerks than executives, so it in all probability won't happen to you. On the flip side, working a summer job provides you a pathway to pay for entertainment and a modicum of freedom so you can explore the world and figure out what you actually want to do. At least that's how it was seen when I was a teenager.