McDonald's vs. Oxford English Dictionary

No. Precious few people care or would be interested by what I or anybody else is doing, outside of sports journalism, to make ends meet.

What you're doing could be interesting, if you were writing a story about how the substandard pay in journalism forces someone to work at McDonalds. It would be fascinating to read about getting bossed around by a high school dropout, or how the "teamwork" espoused by chain stores and restaurants is really just a bunch of corporate bullshit, or how there's little actual work to be done in "preparing" the "food."

But you're not, since you don't like writing enough to try and make extra money at it, and it's not. It's just self-gratification disguised as selfless hard work. I'm not really sure what about my closing statement was a "false choice," but I'm sure you'll let me know. In the meantime, keep enlightening the masses about your dutiful fast food servitude.

 

Jeez, Beej, were you teabagged by the Hamburglar as a small child?

I've found the McDiary of Rick's second job kind of fascinating. I've never worked in fast food, and the perspective of an adult going back and doing it is interesting.

It really shouldn't be any sort of personal affront that his choice of supplemental income isn't your choice of income. He's saying he doesn't want to freelance - he's not calling your sister a whore.

 

I think the proper term in that context would 'mcteabagged.'

 

McDonald's food has a lot of calories. It will kill you.

 

Is it too late to call BYH's sister a whore? I hadn't even thought of that as an option, but it seems a lot simpler than writing long posts responding to his points.

 

I've never worked in fast food either and I might eat at McD's once a year but I find these posts very interesting too. Always cool to see what goes on behind the scenes.

 

No, but Grimace once made me make him smile.

It's not the choice of second job that moved me to post. It doesn't bother me that he works at McD's, or that he doesn't want to find a second writing job. What bothers me is the self-satisfied tone. I may be the only one feeling this way. I suspect I'm not, but I won't bog this down for those who are interested.

 

I didn't mean to start a firestorm about the freelancing thing. Different strokes for different folks I suppose. I could never work at McDonald's. Not for an hour. I made it two days at Potbelly's, it was awful. Then again, I'm 24-years-old and my way of making ends meat is living at home with my parents (got about six months of this before having enough for a decent house). Even so, I have to freelance quit a bit to save enough. But the freelancing is not bad. In fact, it's much easier and much more fun now that I have left the business. First, it's different than my day job, and second the writing is easy. Most the time, I do 500 word advertorials for $50 and interview one source. Yeah it's crap journalism, but I do the best I can on the story, and the paychecks are nice.

Craigslist is also a great place to get some work. Gotta be careful sometimes, but you could strike it rich. Recently found a local guy who paid me $250 to do $250 trivia questions about Notre Dame football. I'm waiting on my next team. For that much, I told the guy I would do every team in the NCAA. Still waiting on his response.

 

Hey Mustang, does he need any help?

I wrote trivia questions--same rate, $1 a question--at the height of the dot com boom in the late '90s. Easiest money I ever made.

And I never intended to start a freelancing vs. not freelancing debate.

 

Given Craigslist's rep, you should be careful how you word that feeler.