McJob

Most of you have probably heard this already, but the term ‘McJob’ has been added to the dictionary. Not the dictionary on this computer, of course, spell check is telling me that’s not a word. The McDonald’s Corporation got pretty upset about the term. To be honest, I can see their point; at the same time, I understand why people associate McDonald’s with what used to be called a dead-end job. It’s really not fair to McDonald’s. There are opportunities at Mickey D’s, it’s just that a lot of the people who gravitate to fast-food type jobs are exactly the type of people who don’t make the most of their opportunities. A couple of guys that I knew in high school got jobs at McDonald’s working after school and on weekends, and looked for opportunities to advance within the organization. When they graduated high school, they were offered assistant manager positions, which they accepted. It didn’t take too long for them to become managers. Of course, if everybody who ever worked at McDonald’s took advantage of the opportunities available to them, there would be no one to flip burgers. And even if you aren’t interested in making fast food a career, working at McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell or whatever will give you actual work experience. Think about it for a minute, if you were in a position to hire someone to do a job (any job outside of the food service industry), and it came down to two applicants, both have high school diplomas, but one of them worked at a fast food joint after school and on weekends and had a good reference from the manager, while the other one has no work experience at all; which one would you hire? Obviously you’d want to hire the person with the good work reference, even if that work experience has nothing to do with what they would be doing working for you. It’s equally obvious that someone who worked fast food but didn’t have a good reference isn’t going to get the job, either. If you can’t handle a ‘McJob,’ why should I believe that you can handle a real job? That may seem unfair, wait, I’m getting discriminated against because I treated my McJob like a McJob? Well, yes, to be blunt, if your only work experience is a McJob, and that’s all I have to go by to judge what kind of work I can expect from you, then, yes, if you treat your McJob like a McJob, then I’m not going to trust you with a real job.Jesus said that “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much” (Luke 16:10). I think that a lot of times we get ourselves into trouble because we treat little things as though they were not important. I have even heard some people say that there are two rules in life: 1) Don’t sweat the petty stuff 2) It’s all petty stuff. What, nothing matters? I will admit that a lot of the stuff that we get caught up in really doesn’t matter at all in the long run. You’ve probably seen the bumper sticker that says, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” There’s also another one that doesn’t seem to be nearly as popular that says, “He who dies with the most toys still dies.” It’s not about what you have in your hot little hands when you go to the grave, it’s about what you have waiting for you on the other side. Jesus also said, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth…” (Matthew 6:18). True riches stem from the rewards given by God for the things that we have allowed Him to do through us here on earth. Can you imagine getting to Heaven and finding that there are countless people that made it in because of something that you did? Maybe these aren’t even people that you personally shared the gospel with, maybe someone that you encouraged when they were discouraged, gave a ride to when they needed it, asked a thought-provoking question that led to them thinking about where they would spend eternity. Those are the little things that are really important.