Agree that’s kind of *^%% move, I’d have too much self respect to start working somewhere for a few weeks than bail.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a food service job or a FAANG. McDonalds was doing him a solid by offering some kind of employment for a person presumably down on their luck with zero experience. Hiring people is a huge expense and risk even for a small franchise.
>> I’d have too much self respect to start working somewhere for a few weeks than bail.
You also have to remember the time. The first real dot com crash and recession that quickly followed.
I went through that crash. I remember several days where FLOORS of companies in the building I was working would be let go and companies were shuttering by the dozens every day. For about three months the bar across from our building would have a dozen people sitting around a couple tables, drinking beer around noon, talking about how they almost made it and you knew another company had laid off its entire staff. You knew one day you would most certainly join them. And I finally did.
And then you realize your dreams of changing the world are gone and you need to find a job because you still have to pay rent, pay your heat bill and put gas in your car, so you just took anything as aside to keep you going. I went to work at a Pizza Delivery place for almost a year while the economy recovered and companies started to need people again.
For him, he had a much faster turn around. But at the time, when no companies are hiring, you're just looking for something that will keep you busy and bring in some money until your next move. I'm guessing he didn't really care because so many of us tech cast offs were working at fast food places after the crash. He probably felt like he would be replaced within hours of quitting, which is probably pretty accurate.
I dunno. Sounds like you've never bitten off more than you can chew. I have found myself in a situation before, where my continued participation would be an immediate low-grade harm and my rate of improvement was slow because I had volunteered for something well out of my wheelhouse. So I had a dilemma: give up and disappoint today, forcing my replacement; or carry on in my incompetence and risk the whole endeavor.
Quitting early did bruise my self-respect: people were depending on me! But hanging on, just to protect my feelings, would have been a much greater regret.
I will state outright that the founder of meetup.com did not have what it takes to work the counter at McDonald's. It takes the ability to shovel shit with a smile, for less pay than it takes to afford a shithole studio apartment, and zero intangible reward. For a CEO to actually take that job, and succeed in it, would be quite the stunner.
McDonalds can fire you for any reason in my state. At any time.
When you're renting yourself to authoritarian institutions like corporations, there is no "self respect" required for you to always take the best deal for yourself whenever possible.
The crossover between people with those qualities and the people who find themselves in a position where McDonald's is a good deal is quite small. Often times these people have been failed by society on a number of fronts and have a very different perspective on the arrangement. This isn't to absolve people of personal responsibility, but we are much more of a product of our environment than most of us realize.
Those are the minimum expectations for any job. If you can't do those things you will forever be dependent on others to take care of you unless you were born into very fortunate circumstances.
I would say stealing is the only of those that would exclude you from any job. Lots of stuff requires intermittent random periods of competence on your own schedule. For instance you could buy a dilapidated house and drunkenly fix it during moments of clarity and make a fat profit. Or fix and flip cars. Really anything involving independently flipping stuff.
> If you can't do those things you will forever be dependent on others to take care of you
Well that is kind of my point. Society, including you and me, has failed these people on so many levels that they lack the most basic ability to function within said society.
We can ostracize these people, or we can sympathize with them, take care of them and dismantle this classist service-based economy in favor of one that is more humanistic and kind and provides for as many people as possible.
Of course, that isn't going to happen because people need their big macs and coffees.
>Yeah but if you show up for your scheduled shifts and are on time, sober, don't steal, and are moderately competent, they won't
If labor history in any place where firing is at will should have taught anyone anything, it's that many, many companies, for all kinds of stupid, greedy or sometimes necessary internal reasons do indeed often fire employees in droves despite their rigorously showing up for their scheduled shifts, sober, honest, and competent...
Doesn’t matter if it’s a food service job or a FAANG. McDonalds was doing him a solid by offering some kind of employment for a person presumably down on their luck with zero experience. Hiring people is a huge expense and risk even for a small franchise.