[workplace] mcjob or mcfuture

When Douglas Coupland coined the phrase McJob in his 1991 book Generation X, it needed little explanation and it’s a term McDonald's has been fighting for years, often applied to the service industry as a whole which accounts for 82% of the total number employed in the UK last year. The Brighter Futures report says though, that far from being brain-dead dropouts, youngsters in the industry see it this way: 90% show high levels of engagement; 85% said job was better than they'd expected; 83% had seen positive change in themselves since starting work and 74% saw a long-term career at McDonald's. Of course, low initial expectations could account for this and the survey was commissioned by McDonald's and yet it was independently run. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) disagrees and says the results are flawed. One young male employee concludes: "While other business wouldn't have given me a chance, I showed I was willing to work and they rewarded that. They realise it's not in their interest to hold someone back who wants to do well." Whom to believe? [Based on a report in BBC Online from June 2006 – link now lost, sorry.]