A few days ago, I went to a McDonald's. My girlfriend and I ordered two sandwiches. The women at the window seemed, shall we say, less than thrilled to be working there.
Upon opening the bag, we found only a single breakfast bagel.
We looked at each other. We both knew the only course of action that could be carried out. We went inside, got our f****** bagel and told them how much they sucked.
Although this seems obvious to me, it turns out not everyone reacts the same way. Perhaps I am too aggressive. I think it is much more likely that other people are simply too passive.
It has nothing to do with proper manners or social etiquette. It's simple: If a business sucks, let them know.
The problem is people would rather endorse passive-aggressive bullshit when people are afraid to express their true opinions.Society invokes learned helplessness, believing that things are simply f****d up and can't be changed no matter what actions are taken.
Outside of marketing, people should form an opinion about a company's customer service and overall business efficiency. More often than not, a successful company will run itself. A happy company will have happy employees. Yet this is not always the case. Although corporate greed commonly leads to bad business, so does hiring bad employees. Case in point: government agencies designed to "correct" businesses that are filled with inconsistencies and illogical strategies.
The Better Business Bureau, for one, focuses more on being politically correct and maintaining adequate percentages of minorities and women.
How about focusing on merit, focus and determination rather than skin color, ethnic background and sex chromosomes? I think denying people employment based on prejudice is deplorable. However, I think it is important that people are well matched to the jobs they hold.
Rather than allowing exclusivity where desired, the government declares it is much better to force required acceptance of unqualified people solely based on gender and race rather than merit.
Why don't women and minorities find this incredibly offensive?
Meeting a quota of a minority sounds like meeting a quota on sending beef to the slaughterhouse.
The truth of the matter is that regardless of the color of your skin, your gender, your sexual orientation or any other physical discrepancy, some people in this world are hardworking, ambitious, determined people, and some people in this world are lazy pieces of shit.
These are the facts.
It is disrespectful to judge someone based on their physical appearance and give them a handout or to give someone a condescending pat on the head and a lollipop. People who dedicate their lives to hard work and study want their merit understood; they want to brag about it. People were harmed in the past: Slavery was incredibly immoral. So was segregation. So is the state of racism and prejudice in the world.
But the means of correcting past wrongs is not to transfer the punishment to a different group of people. Hardworking individuals shouldn't have to suffer for ancestral mistakes. Lazy pieces of shit shouldn't get jobs they don't deserve.
In the end, companies should hire people based on merit.
But opportunities need to be provided for children through improved education. Improve the workforce by making people actually qualified for their jobs, and when people screw up, let the company know.
America can bounce back if people do their jobs well, but what can you really expect from people who weren't qualified to work in the first place and when no one punishes bad behavior in business?
Shea Ford is a psychology senior at UF. His column appears on Tuesdays.
