Climbing The Golden Arches Analysis

Acquiring a job, whether it be in a doctor’s office or a fast-food restaurant, can transform a person. Jobs tend to educate employees, either indirectly or directly, both about themselves and life in general. In Climbing the Golden Arches, nineteen year-old Marissa Nuñez discusses how her employment at McDonald’s transformed her into a mature and skilled employee. Within her personal narrative, Nuñez mentioned how she faced both pleasant and unpleasant circumstances while working at McDonald’s, all which prepared her for her future career. At McDonald’s, Nuñez learned how to fulfill her role of being an employee by becoming an expert at all the placed stations, dealing with the various types of customers she encountered on a daily basis, and

Motivation allows for an employee to work harder than he already is. Many employees tend to exhibit their ambition within careers which contain opportunities that grant the advancement to higher platforms. However, despite there being such a low amount of career advancement possibilities at McDonald’s, securing a job at the fast food restaurant did not prevent Marissa Nuñez from gaining and displaying motivation. Rather, obtaining this job sparked her desire to succeed from her first real day; she began her career with an idea to race her cousin, who was also a McDonald’s employee at the time; this race consisted of a goal which was to determine “who could get the most customers and who could fill the orders in fifty-nine seconds” (440). Although, this action was more trivial than not, it sparked Marissa Nuñez’ inspiration to strive without her even knowing. Constantly performing actions like these and continuously demonstrating motivation led for Nuñez to secure a raise; this circumstance occurred just six months after she began working for McDonald’s. Along with earning that raise, Nuñez also secured her status of becoming a crew member at McDonald’s, a role in which she was entitled to the responsibility of training new employees. Remember, Marissa Nuñez was able to establish herself at her McDonald’s, despite being a high school student, after only six months of working there; achieving a job at McDonald’s

Despite being a teenager, Nuñez displayed a very high sense of maturity at work. She claimed that she enjoyed being employed at the fast food center, due to the fact that she was being exposed to new circumstances on a daily basis. The circumstances found within McDonald’s allowed for her to learn “how to be a responsible person”, for she was “meeting all kinds of people and learning a lot about them” (440). Although, she enjoyed working at McDonald’s due to these instances, there were some instances when Nuñez did not enjoy working at McDonald’s as much as she normally did. The main reason for this was due to the fact that she faced many problems with her customers while working her job. However, those are the situations in which McDonald’s taught Marissa Nuñez her biggest lesson; Nuñez realized that she needed to “have more patience than ever”, control her emotions, and “get along with all different kinds of people” (442). For example, one day a customer came into McDonald’s and began to mention derogatory terms, terms which were hinted towards Marissa Nuñez. Although, most teenagers of her age would have responded back to the comments either vocally or physically, Nuñez decided it would be best if she “walked away to get the manager” during that certain situation. By performing this action, Marissa Nuñez was able to