The McChronicles… Part I

Author: Michael_Gilly | Business & Politics, Life & Love, Opinions & Editorials | December 14 | No Comments

This story is just Part I in a series on working in fast food. Mainly McDonald’s, the point of view from which this was written. Take a look.

McChronicles

By Michael Gilly

Have you ever worked fast food? It sucks. Sure, for the first few months, it’s easy for a teenager that can work after school. However, that’s the only time you should work fast food. As soon as I turned 16, I got a job at McDonald’s. I felt so blessed. Out of all applicants, I was chosen. About two months into my job, I learned why I was chosen above all others. I had an I.Q. above 60.

Chapter One:
Fries

Should you ever work at McDonald’s, they might ask you what station you’d like to work at first. Do not ever answer that with fries. I, on the other hand, received no warning. I asked to do fries. For about two months straight, they never taught me anything. They left me there. During the big rushes, I was put on fries. That is like having the devil kick you while castration is occurring.
So you have your three sizes. Small, Medium and Large. Not too hard. A Large is three Smalls, a Medium is two. However, people don’t realize this. They could get a Large for less than $1.50 or get three Smalls for $3.00. What do people do? They get the three smalls. Then, when I tell people this, they try for some bullshit excuse like “Oh, it’s for my three kids!” If you have three kids, then why not dump the fries out and separate them?

Chapter Two:
Coworkers

Coworkers are important to any fast food joint. They decide on what your day will turn out like. If you have bad coworkers, you will probably have a bad day. Example: There was an older woman that would not learn how to shut up for two seconds who always demanded you cook her food. Even worse was when you don’t have the food, and you even mentioned it to her. She’d go ballistic. However, if you have good coworkers, your day might be good. Example: the biscuit maker at my McDonald’s was the sweetest woman in world, not to mention a better cook than my own mother. She even gave me a birthday card once (wasn’t even my birthday(. Every time I worked with her, we’d talk while working and hours turned into minutes. She was so awesome.
Girl coworkers can be a pain though. I had a couple of coworkers that had crushes on me. One time, a 24-year old was leading on a female coworker. Then, he started dating another coworker. Oh, that was the talk of the summer. Turns out the guy had no interest in the girl, he was only using her (he says he wasn’t). Another girl was crazy. She would have sex with any guy that said hello to her. One of my friends thought it would be an easy ride. He had sex with her. Then, she tried to have sex with me. I said to her, “I only buy new products.” Oh, she was so angry. Luckily, her ass got fired for stealing ice cream.

Chapter Three:
Managers and Employers

Just like your coworkers, your managers decide your day. If you have a strong manager that you like, your day will be easy flowing. If your manager has anger issues… like one of my managers, your day will be worse than Hell. This manager would just stand there. Staring and demanding his employees around. He was the worse manager in the world. Somehow. he became assistant manager. However, the other assistant manager was probably the best in the store. Better than the general manager. She would always make sure everything was stocked and clean by the end of the day. Guess who did stocking? I did (See Chapter 7).
Employers, however, usually don’t care about you. If you can comprehend how to do stuff, you could have a job and keep it until you screw up. The owner of my store had a regional manager. She didn’t like me very much. She wrote me up the first time she met me. What did I do? I had cold fries. The owner never came about but a couple of times. I knew her son though. He was sort of a jerk.

Bull$*!t: The Aches of Censorship

Author: Colin Cole aka King Jasper | Opinions & Editorials | December 9 | No Comments

I remember a day back during my senior year of high school, when I was sitting in my AP German class. The class was generally run at a nice, leisurely pace, and I always had a pretty good time there. Everyone in the class knew each other, and we were all pretty decent friends. I recall one specific day in particular where some anonymous buddy chucked a pencil at me from across the room, hitting me right on the face. It wasn’t a terrible, blinding pain or anything, but it didn’t exactly feel great, either. “Ow,” was all I really said as I rubbed my cheek. “What the hell, dude!”

And that’s when it happened - my teacher gasped out, in an apparent moment of shock. She demanded I repeat to her what I had just said, and so I told her - and right then and there, she wrote me up for a god damned detention, for a “vulgar use of profanity in the classroom.”

Of all the really stupid things in modern day society that bother me, one of the worst ones is probably the concept of censorship. For instance, I know had I said something “nicer” or more innocent sounding instead, like “what the heck,” my teacher probably wouldn’t have looked twice. But really, it’s not like my meaning or the point I’m making is any different, I’m just using what’s considered a “nicer” word.

Remember that episode of Recess where TJ invented a new word - “womp” ? I sure do. He was tired of all the bullshit about censorship, and so he was like, “okay. If you’re going to get mad at me for saying a word, I’ll just say the same thing with a different word.” And for the whole episode, he’d go around saying things like “this womps,” and other clever uses of the phrase.

But - here’s the thing - whether or not TJ was saying “don’t fuck with me,” “don’t mess with me,” or “don’t womp with me” - he was saying the same thing. They’re two different words that mean the same thing! They’re called synonyms.

Much like I can say “I went down to the store today” or a more cultured, sophisticated, “this afternoon, I traversed across the city to the Grocery and Department shop,” while they’re two different sentences, they mean entirely the same thing.

And there’s the hypocritical blindness of our modern censorship movement. When we tell children, youth, or anyone to say things like “muck” or “screw” instead of “fuck,” “heck” instead of “hell,” and “dang” or “darn” instead of “damn,” all we’re doing is painting those choice words as “bad,” when that’s really all they are - words.

Just like the teachers in Recess eventually figured out “womp” meant the same thing as other words and shouldn’t be allowed to be said, our conservative culture needs to realize the same thing applies to their own movement. It’s not the words themselves that should be stigmatized against - it’s the meaning behind those words. Otherwise, what’s to stop “heck” from one day becoming a bad word?

… Either way, the issue of censorship is a total bullshit one anyway. Even if the meaning behind those words is “mean” or “not nice,” it shouldn’t be anyone’s business to interfere. Making other people conform to your own social standards simply because you don’t want to be offended is a selfish, self-deprecating system that eventually leads to a substanceless, cultureless society - especially in regards to all that “political correctness” garbage - holy shit, does that whole issue piss me off.

… but that’s a subject for another day.

A happy populace is a content populace, and a content populace is far less likely to rebel.

Author: K.H. aka CCS | Opinions & Editorials | December 8 | No Comments

Note: The opinion of the author is his alone, not of LUEniverse.  We thought we’d warn you. 

Preface: If you don’t like reading, just read the bold print, that should get your attention.

Show them something they’ll never forget! Invite your friends over to your living room, turn on the HDTV and turn off your brain. Remember the snacks as well, we wouldn’t want to suddenly become hungry or dissatisfied while we view our mindless programming. Entertainment is our goal. Big, comfortable lifestyles with lots of food on the table and the electronics humming away in all parts of the house. What’s the hottest new item to buy this holiday season? How many top 10 lists of the Best Gifts of 2007 have you read through already?

It’s fucking pathetic.

Read the rest…

Hard work and Manipulation: The System Fails

Author: vespa | Opinions & Editorials | December 5 | 1 Comment

Hard work is tough to use and define explicitly, as obviously it’s a very subjective ideal. But I would like to discuss it in a very rudimentary way, defining hard work as excessive and intensive focus towards a particular task or goal with the intent to complete it in a satisfactory manner. We all work hard, or at least pretend to at times, but what is the reward for hard work? In an ideal society, hard works reaps the benefits of what is sown. If you are the promoter/inventor/designer/manager of something, you are rewarded with financial compensation and recognition for your dutiful adherence to the item. It’s a capitalist dream; you work hard, earn your keep, and are proud of your work. It’s a communist dream; everyone working hard towards the same goal, which is the betterment of the nation, being provided for as necessary by the government you work for. (Simplified, yes, but please bear with me) The focus here isn’t the reward given for the work done; it’s not even really about capitalism and communism or any other form an economy or lifestyle. It truly is about sleep, but on a larger level, the implications of an article about sleep on education, and in turn, on life.
Snooze or Lose?
Summary of the above: Lack of sleep hurts academic performance.

While the claim made is not necessarily inaccurate, it does seem to neglect what are seemingly obvious factors which also affect the academic performance of children in general. Not just academics, but work ethic, social construction, the difference in a “well rounded” personality and that of a sociopath. As if struggling to stay on topic at all costs, the article only briefly mentions the idea of workload and pressure put on children in school. Articles appear almost weekly regarding how schools are emphasizing that children get into a career path as early as 3rd or 4th grade. Extracurricular activities are emphasized to the point that they almost become a second school session each day for the children. On top of that, some programs grow to the point that they begin to supersede normal school work in terms of importance. (Many can refer to the age old stereotype of football players in high school receiving preferential treatment, but this preferential treatment carries over to a LOT of programs) And the programs cease to be extracurricular at an increasing rate. The demands for institutes of higher education increase, service hours are demanded for entrance or graduation. ACT and SAT scores must be in the top 80%, while class rank must be in the top 90%+ to gain entrance to colleges and universities; I’ll come back to this in a bit, but for now, consider the reality of this for a child. They need to be able to attend 8 hours of school, participate in extra circular activities, do homework for school, do housework as dictated by parents/guardians, have their own social life, and get 8 hours of sleep a night to be good children on a healthy career path. There isn’t time for this; this is an unrealistic expectation, but a proposed requirement to succeed in life on a career path.

Read the rest…

Fat, Stupid, Rich Americans

Author: K.H. aka CCS | Opinions & Editorials | November 27 | 4 Comments

Unfortunately, this is the view that most of our European counterparts have of us. We have become a country that is reaping the benefits of our fathers’ hard work, sweat, and blood. In a swirling orgy of fast food, fast cars, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, it seems we are no longer the beacon of hope and the standard of freedom that we once were. The events after 9/11 have taken their toll on this country in full. The combination of one of history’s most gruesome terrorist attacks and the world’s only super power being headed up by George W. Bush has caused an incredible amount of damage to our country, some of which will never be repaired. The U.S. dollar is so low now that OPEC has held a seminar on whether or not they should continue to use the U.S. dollar as the universal medium of exchange. It would seem that the United States of America is in dire straights.

I disagree.

Read the rest…