Rant #25 – Fast Food Wages

Fast food workers are striking, demanding a $15 an hour minimum wage, which is double what the minimum wage currently is.  Are you kidding me?  And sites like this are making like this is a sane idea.  I get that the minimum wage should be increased, and I think $10 would be fair but on what planet is flipping burgers worth $15 an hour.  Here’s an idea, don’t work at a place that was made for high school kids to make beer and cigarette money or red bull and kale chips or whatever the fuck kids are buying these days.

It’s not like the wages at McDonalds were a surprise.  These people applied, interviewed, trained and now work at a place that doesn’t pay enough.  Did these people go through all that, never once asking or being told what the wage is, get their check and be like ‘holy shit!  I can’t even afford the free rent in my parents basement, oh well I guess I’ll work here another five years while complaining about it on facebook’.  These same people could bus tables at a place like Outback or Fridays for more money.  If they are going to get $15 an hour I want $45 an hour.  Here’s what’s going to happen if you can get $15 working at McDonalds:

1.  People are going to say ‘you know what? fuck college and the 100k debt I’ll have when I leave.  Then they’ll work at McDonalds and now the McDonalds lifers are out of a job because they are replaced by people who are more qualified or,

2. The price of a big mac, which averages $4.56 will go up $1.28 to $5.27 and that’s before you get their shitty fries.  Feel like paying over $10 for a ‘value’ meal?  No one does and sales will drop forcing the stores to downsize or,

3.  Fast food restaurants will figure out that a robot can do the job better and listen when you say I don’t want any god damn pickles on my tiny grade f piece of shit burger and literally replace these people with robots resulting in people actually getting their correct orders…oh and a bunch of homeless ex-fast food workers.

Here’s some ideas that are better and more realistic than striking for a 100% raise; get a job at an actual restaurant and make actual money, go to school so you can get a higher paying job, or roll down the windows of a car that’s running in a garage and take a long nap.