I don’t really see a fundamental difference between working at McDonalds and working at any other big corporation in any capacity. It is all the same thing except for the skillset built up over time and the pay. There is nothing wrong with working your way up through the ranks to be say, a McDonalds regional manager either. McDonalds Regional Managers make more than most doctors do and that is only a middle-management position in their structure.
The same is true for Wal-Mart managers and lots of other positions of that type that people tend to laugh at at first glance. Chances are that the ones that stay the course make a whole lot more money than you do and the work at the mid levels is at least as complicated as anything any other typical professions do.
I hire interns out of college to basically do research for the summer, and familiarity with the field and curiosity are the things I look for. Non-relevant jobs don’t count at all. I don’t see their resumes unless they have very high grades, and I think that is enough to demonstrate responsibility. If you can swing a near 4.0 while cutting classes you’re such a genius I want to talk to you anyway.
There is nothing wrong with a crappy job, so long as it doesn’t hurt the important things, like grades.
But kids who get to school on time and always turn in assignments on time done well have demonstrated plenty of responsibility. I would guess most crappy jobs don’t let you demonstrate much initiative. When I delivered mail one summer I always showed up, and I always got the job done, but a robot could have done it just as well. Ditto for most of my other jobs.
On the other hand, when I was in high school (long before PCs) I didn’t have a job. My senior year I stayed after school and played with our ancient computer. What I learned doing that was 100X better for my career than any conceivable minimum wage job.
Some jobs really do teach responsibility. My daughter acted professionally in elementary school and junior high. Having thousands of dollars in production costs resting on you doing the right thing was excellent experience - and a bit above minimum wage.
I don’t think you can meaningfully generalize, because there is such a wide range of jobs and alternatives to jobs, and so many personalities.
My job was bad for me in high school because I had a great work ethic. It way too easy for me to let being really good at my literal McDonalds job satisfy me: I was content to massively under-perform at school because I felt like I was doing a really kick-ass job at work. And I never, ever would have put school before work: if work needed me to close on school nights or whatever, it never occurred to me to protest. School was kid stuff; bullshit. Work was real. I loved it for being real, and didn’t care that it was manual labor.
Work ethic is, imho, the most important thing a person learns at minimum wage jobs. I’m not sure why I have such a strong one, because I was working from the time I was big enough to work a broom. I used to get candy money from dad by working in his houses sweeping sheetrock dust, getting water for his workers, stuff like that. So it wasn’t just Mickey D’s that taught me to have a good work ethic, but they did sort of focus and fine tune what I did know.
And yes, like other dopers say, I learned and assimilated valuable stuff like how to work in a team, the importance of showing up and showing up on time, delaying gratification, what’s FICA? And why do they want my money?
And sometimes the job is a learning experience only tangentially related to work. At our insistence, both kids have worked Mcjobs during/after high school. Both got a taste of service jobs, and having to put up with jerk customers because they have 2 bucks to spend on a burger. And frankly, both got to see (via particular co-workers) what a future at minimum wage looks like. Our daughter came home after the first few days wide-eyed and said “Dad, I had no idea…” She said “I never have to worry about gas or anything, I just use your MPRs* and never think about it. They aren’t there for extra stuff at Abercrombie’s… this is their life!” We were glad they were getting first hand lessons on the results of early pregnancies, dropping school, etc. It was definitely incentive to keep grades up.
*Daddy’s Magic Plastic Rectangles. Her comical name for the credit cards in her wallet.
