I heard my dad parrot every single one of those. Each one a perfect hit to enrage him and make him angry, each one contradicting the past, and all together show how it was always about wanting cheap labor.
It was all about forcing someone else to do it, to the point of enslaving citizens in a for profit prison that doubles as a forced job center. Whether is micky D’s or the plantation that sources the produce they all force prisoners into labor camps. America has really aced concentration camps and applying it to everyone who is poor (not the elite billionaires)
The phrasing for the 2008 frame isn’t right. Should be “Are you too good to flip burgers?” Or “Is flipping burgers not good enough for you?”
Or “you went to college? You’re overqualified for flipping burgers”
I’ve heard that enough times. I only have some community college under my belt and have been deferred from jobs.
Just apply again and leave that part out
2021 seems off too since it’s in the middle of COVID. I can’t think of a better quote though.
I think it’s accurate for late-2021
People used the pandemic to up-skill, or otherwise find a better job, so when things started re-opening in 2021, most retail and service industry places had a very hard time filling roles
Story time
In 2019, just before the pandemic, a friend of mine worked at a gas station for years as the assistant manager. He loved it. Some responsibility without having all the responsibility. Lots of overtime, enough money to live off in a LCOL area. He was making something like $14.75 an hour. The store manager bumped him up to $15.75/hour, since he was doing the work of two people, showed up on time and sober, and was generally a much better employee than a gas station has any right to have
After he had already gotten his raise, corporate went back to his manager and said no (a decision by the current head of the company). Corporate rolled back the pay increase. According to them, he was already the highest paid assistant manager in the chain (~20 stores in the midwest). They wouldn’t approve the pay increase, even though employee pay is generally at the discretion of the store manager
He started looking for a new job the next day. COVID happened shortly after that and upended the job market. He got a job as the equivalent to an assistant manager at a warehouse making $27.00/hour, with much better hours (generally 8:30-5:00), and better benefits. The gas station had to hire 2 assistant managers to replace him. They also started at $16.00, even more than the raise that corporate had rolled back
This is a problem that trickled out of some other vocations. The general consensus in my line of work for the better part of 15 years has been if you want a raise find a new job. It’s been really weird that places don’t want to keep institutional knowledge or are apparently willing to pay more for fresh faces.
It’s just another form of pinching pennies so hard the dollars slip through
Penny wise and pound foolish describes most of late stage capitalism
It was never about freedom or prosperity. It was always about rich people’s pockets and it will be until the last one suffocates on CO2 while clutching their pennies.
Let’s see Your fucking AI flip burgers.
There already are robots for flipping burgers. If you prepare the burgers for them and place them on GBE grill and then assemble the burger.




