A photo taken at a McDonald’s drive-thru speaker and tweeted on Monday is sparking a big debate on the platform about living wages and working at McDonald’s.
The tweet, from the @greatapedad account, simply said, “Seen at our local McDonald’s,” and showed a photo of a McDonald’s drive-thru sign and speaker. The photo showed a sign taped to the speaker that said, “We are closed because I am quitting and I hate this job.”
The tweet gathered more than 200,000 likes in its first two days on the platform. The original tweeter did send a clarification on the question that some people had upon seeing it: Which one single McDonald’s worker would have the power to shut down an entire McDonald’s?
“I spoke with the staff at this McDonald’s today,” the original poster clarified. “It turns out the sign was put there by a night shift manager who suddenly quit, and it was left up over night.”
But that didn’t quell people from having their own questions, observations, and hot takes about the sign.
“Wait, did they seriously have a shift of ONE PERSON at an entire mcdonalds such that one person quitting mid-shift shut it all down?” one person asked.
Another person, trying out a joke, tweeted, “Why don’t they save us all the trouble and put up a sign saying their milkshake machine isn’t working?” The original poster then went well-actually, writing, “I took this picture at the same location last week,” posted a photo of all the various cold-treat machines that were out of order.
One commenter boldly predicted the demise of the American worker, noting, “Thus begins the next great cycle of automation. I give it three years tops before we start having McDonald’s being able to operate without any employees at all.”
Although one person seemed to enjoy that dystopian nightmare, noting, “They should start making drive thrus like ATMs, you pull up to that shit and punch your own order in. Then all they really need is the cooking staff.”
Another observant individual remarked, “I just love the fact there are several different signs all taped over each other, peak workplace passive aggression.” The one just behind the “I quit” sign has “inconvenience” clearly visible—perhaps as in “sorry for the inconvenience.”
But, going back to the debate, two people on Twitter had a back-and-forth, with one opining, “Underneath: AI will replace all of us because we are not willing to do the job we applied for.”
That led another person to respond, “idk man, enjoy being overworked and exploited running and entire restaurant because that’s the ‘the job you applied for.'”
