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11-10-2003	Previous edition: 11-07-2003

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McJob: The explanation of America

"McJob, noun: a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement."

- Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition

That word is the story of why McDonald’s is going to war with a dictionary.

Even though the new Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary has been in print since June, it’s only just now come under the scrutiny of the fast food corporation.

McJob has been with us, according to Merriam-Webster, since 1986. Still, according to a letter sent to the Associated Press by McDonald's CEO Jim Cantalupo, this is an insult to the 12 million Americans who work in restaurants and it incorrectly portrays restaurant employment.

Cantalupo overlooks the fact that it was probably one of those 12 million Americans that invented the word. One of those 12 million Americans who resents the fact he doesn’t get to be rich and famous but will work in a restaurant until he dies.

There is a strange new Lost Generation out there, graduating college only to work in jobs they could have had in high school. Graduates leaving their own apartments to move back in with their parents.

But since McJob is causing so much corporate and legal controversy, I propose McLife as the word for this strange new existence. McLife’s my new word for those of us in this generation who will wander through college, get a degree and hop from menial job to menial job, peaking somewhere near middle management. We’ll never make near the living wage, only the minimum wage, and so retirement will be a fairy tale we tell our grandchildren about once we get home from the McJob of our golden years.

We let our parents inflate the idea of college into a safety net — a dream. If you had a college degree in their generation, it seemed you’d never lack work. But now everyone has a college degree. Writing that you have a college degree on your application is the same thing as writing that you’re a carbon-based life form or you breathe oxygen.

A college degree isn’t enough — a college degree doesn’t compete.

But the unemployment rate is the highest it’s been since the Great Depression. So competition is at a new high as well. Sure the economy has suddenly come around, but a college diploma hasn’t saved us from a new sort of Depression.

Then, Friday, the Labor Department announced a sudden increase in 300,000 jobs in the United States to complement the sudden economic turnaround. This lowers the unemployment rate from 6.1 to 6 percent. We never had to worry.

But the jobs are from the service industry. But not every part of the service industry. The 300,000 new jobs are not upper management positions or laboratory work. We don’t need 300,000 more writers or painters or software engineers. These new jobs are low-skill, low-pay jobs. These 300,000 new jobs are McJobs.

McJobs are saving the image of our economy.

We assume companies will compete for qualified workers by dangling higher wages and benefits in front of them. But we have an employer’s market now. There’s very little that will be offered to the American unemployed since they’re so easily replaced.

And why not? The silent social contract agreed upon by McJob employers and McJob employees is that McJobs are expendable. If the customers get too dumb, you can walk out the door any time. On the same note, if the economy’s miraculous turnaround is short-lived, they can show you the door any time.

Disposable jobs and disposable workers.

McJob has taught a whole generation that jobs were never about hard work or company loyalty. Jobs have always been about nearly mindless servitude to a thing you don’t control, that doesn’t like paying you but is happy to burn you up for profits.

But maybe I’m talking ahead of where you are. Most of you are still doggedly pursuing an undergraduate degree, believing it will let you write your ticket to any major corporation for which you want to work.

There are 7.5 million Americans working two or more part-time jobs to survive. That’s 200,000 new McLifers since this time last year.

McJobs taught us all that we don’t get to thrive, we get to survive. And that we should be grateful that a corporation’s benevolence has allowed us to just survive. Which is why McDonald’s is so betrayed by this word. It's given us minimum wage — isn’t that enough?

Economists are confident the hiring increase will continue into the holiday season as shoppers increase the strain on retail outlets. Of course they’re overlooking the fact that the jobs that will appear will be temporary, seasonal retail jobs. Since more than half the unemployed work force comes from white collar jobs, it’s doubtful they’ll be excited to be behind the counter of Sam Goody or the Limited Too until the first of the year when they’ll have to start looking again.

We’ve never been a culture of substance, but who knew we were a culture of subsistence?

The future is McJob.

Are you ready?

Tom McHenry is a graduate student. He can be reached at opinions@purdueexponent.org.

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