Why is it that articles about changing culture in major corporations employing mostly skilled, well-paid workers, e.g., Ford, are met with serious discussion, but changing it in major corporations, with mostly minimum wage earners, e.g., McDonalds, is marked down as hype?

Why is a cultural change at Ford seen as key to the company’s survival, but instilling pride in the workers at McDonalds, Taco Bell and KFC is viewed as hype, ‘Raising spirits is cheaper than raising salaries.’

Why do we expect young people to take pride in their first ‘real’ job, or care about the customer, when they were laughed at for the same attitudes/actions in their minimum wage job?

Why does our society denigrate those who work low-paying jobs, when they’re honest, hardworking, pay taxes and even manage to raise families?

In the same vein, why is the four-year grad, with a degree paid for by mom and dad, considered a better candidate than the one who took longer working ‘non-professional’ jobs to pay for the same degree from the same school?

Maybe companies need to wake up. I haven’t seen the same high sense of entitlement in kids who spent their summers working in minimum wage jobs as I have in the ones who worked frequently overpaid jobs for their parents or didn’t work at all.

And I, for one, am thrilled that companies such as YUM! Brands and McDonalds are finally building their people up and, hopefully, offsetting the normal teardown that goes with these jobs.

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