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Fast Food Nation: Behind The Counter Essay

¶ … Fast Food Nation" Chapter 3 "Behind the Counter" Would you like to be exploited with those fries?

In Chapter 3, "Behind the Counter," of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation Schlosser portrays an underage teenage workforce exploited by managers and often forced to work in unsafe conditions. Companies justify this by stating that young workers benefit from the discipline and skills learned on the job. However, time spent behind the fast food counter is time spent away from studying or building a resume for college with valuable extracurricular activities. Students are seduced with a relatively tiny paycheck to give up a better future. Furthermore, it is often the poorer members of the student population, who need a good college education the most to succeed.

Wealthier students can afford to take unpaid internships where they learn real skills. Wealthier workers can afford to take classes to improve their skills and get a promotion. Often, employers...

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However, low-wage workers only receive training in limited, job-specific skills. Instead of subsidizing fast food companies, grants should be offered to organizations to students directly teach students transferrable skills, rather than to simply punch keys on computerized cash register. The question should not be: does such work prepare you for the real world, but what kind of real world does it prepare you for -- a real world with a future and a good income or a future in fast food?
The fast food jobs for which companies like McDonald's receive government subsidies are rapidly being eliminated. Almost everyone has walked into a fast food restaurant in which he or she is required to fill his or her own drink, select the burgers, and do more and more of the tasks once relegated to individuals working behind the counter. This means that technology and automation, along…

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Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York: Mariner, 2012.
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