Good Old Hamburger U
By David Glenn Cox
Someday in the not to distant future Bob will come in for work on Monday and wax nostalgic about his weekend. "I went to visit my old Alma mater this weekend, man those were good times! I went to the football game and I still remembered all the old cheers. Biggie Fries! Biggie Fries! Biggie Fries! Then when when the team scored we all shouted, "Super Size!"After the game I visited my old fraternity Couch potato-Lambda-Apple pie."
"Oh yeah," I asked, "what was your major?"
"I was an engineering student, I was in construction."
"Civil engineering," I asked?
"No," he explained, "I was in hamburger construction with a minor in breakfast design." He asked me, "did I go to college?"
"Sure I did, I went to school on a football scholarship at Navy."
"Annapolis?"
"No," I answered, "Old Navy. I scored the winning touch down against Banana Republic.Then we went on to play Orange Julius for the mall championship. Those were the days all right, back when I was still in cargo pants."
Bloomberg- "President Barack Obama plans to announce an initiative today that links companies including McDonald’s Corp. and United Technologies Corp. with community colleges for programs aimed at boosting the job skills of American workers.
Gap Inc., Pacific Gas & Electric, and Accenture Plc also are among the first firms enrolling in the partnership, called "Skills for America’s Future," which grew out of recommendations of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker."
Other companies participating in this absurdity include, Old Navy and Banana Republic. Oh, this is a wonderful idea, really thinking outside the hamburger box.
Bloomberg- Glenn Murphy, chairman and CEO of Gap, operator of more than 3,000 clothing stores that include the Old Navy and Banana Republic chains, said "the fashion retailer will start a pilot program in seven cities, designed to offer community college students job- and career- building skills to help take advantage of potential job opportunities.
"Our in-house training materials will be made available to all community college students and applicable to many industries," Murphy said in a statement. He said Gap plans to hire as many as 1,200 students from community colleges in 2011, about 5 percent of its annual hiring."
McDonald's will make its "virtual classroom" available and will expand it's literacy program for managers. In the classic Herman Melville novel "Moby Dick" what was Captain Ahab was in search of? Choose the product most closely related to the correct answer. A. Big Mac B. Napkins C. Fish Sandwich D. Happy Meal
Hamburgers are to French fries as breakfast burritos are to ________.
White House Communications director Dan Pfeiffer said, "Education is the economic defense budget for the 21st century" because "it’s the only way that we’re going to be able to be competitive with India, China and other countries,"
Damn straight Dan, we might have lost our most of our industrial base and the Indian subcontinent might be taking away our IT market but by God when It comes to making a hamburger or selling socks and underwear you got to draw the line someplace, in this we're still number one! This administration intends to hold on to that vaunted position by spending two billion dollars in competitive grants to community colleges over the next four years to augment skills-training. These mall jobs belong to Americans and there will be no French fry, swim suit or condiment gap on this administration's watch.
When you can't come up with a good idea you come up with a bad idea and make it sound good. This program gives government assistance to train students to work at the mall. The programs offered by United Technologies the maker of Pratt & Whitney jet engines and Otis elevators, will offer apprenticeship programs in advanced manufacturing. Apprenticeship programs have long been the domain of a union workplace. Union apprenticeship programs don't require the apprentice to pay the entire cost for his or her own training.
My son's former girl friend recently graduated from a community college as a dental technician. In her last semester she split her time as an intern for various local dentists. She graduated at the top of her class with high recommendations. She was proud to be a college graduate and it helped her to land a job as a nanny. You see, with numerous local community college programs all churning out interns there is little need for a dentist to actually hire one.
This is a program that shifts worker training costs from corporations to government and the students themselves. Many if not most of these jobs will not pay a living wage. There is little growth potential or career potential, its not likely that Pratt & Whitney or Otis Elevator will double their market share in the coming years requiring thousands more workers. The program will quickly saturate the market for elevator technicians or jet engine assembly and then the wages for those jobs will fall down. They are treating the symptoms and ignoring the disease because whenever you export jobs you import poverty.
Rather that addressing the problem they pretend to address the problem. They hold up mall jobs and hamburger flipping in a shining light saying, "Someday maybe this could be you kid, if you play your cards right." The jobs that not too long ago young people worked at until they got out of college they now must go to college to just get in to.
So then Bob asked me my major, "I was performing arts all the way," I answered. I wrote my senior paper on the cultural influence of the San Diego chicken. I've performed in all the classics, Mayor McCheese, the Hamburgler but I never could land that big job as Ronald! But I've done well, I went to the Super Bowl last year as a Chic fil-a cow and I've got a line on a job at the local community college teaching arrow spinning 101. Sure, its only teaching Freshman but you've got to catch them young to teach them the craft of restaurant and roadside mascots."
Then our boss Mr. Neidermier came out of his office and yelled at me and told me to clock in and get into my Chucky Cheese costume and told Bob to get back to work constructing pizza's. "Damn college boy! He thinks he's a big shot just because he wears the red polyester shirt."