McDonald's, Burger King need help

Published 10/1/98

Random shots from a loose cannon...

° There are many things in this world that make me shake my head, but after reading Friday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette I questioned man's existence on earth even further.

In a hilarious article by Dennis Roddy, I learned that a McDonald's assistant manager and several other employees went into a nearby Burger King to combat a promotion Burger King to combat a promotion its store was having with a new sandwich: the Big King.

After throwing her complementary Big King onto the floor, the McDonald's manager began to shout obscenities at the cashier while holding up her store's signature sandwich, the Big Mac.

I didn't believe something like this would take place until a friend of mine told me this was a featured story on the 11 p.m. news. Not only did his testimony confirm the story, but I now have more reason not to watch broadcast news.

What in the world would possess someone to do this? Being at both sides of this burger war during my high school days, I can honestly tell you that 99 percent of employees from both stores could care less what the other franchise is doing. Instead of lashing our anger at the "enemy" burger store down the street, most of us simply took it out on our higher ups in in regards to low wages we received and in-house management blunders.

McDonald's shouldn't worry about Big Kings and Whoppers. Instead, it should worry about why they built a restaurant on every block and why stores within a local vicinity are taking money away from one another. That's why domestic profit margins aren't expanding faster than a person's waistline after eating a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.

Shouldn't we be using this type of passion and energy for the forces of good?

° Speaking of minimum wage jobs, doesn't it seem that whenever "competitive wages" are mentioned in a classified, the competition seems to be how low the hourly rate can be?

° After four weeks into the NFL season, I'm convinced that television networks buy rights to football games just to show the other networks that they can. It seems that CBS-TV simply bough back football to give itself a testosterone boost.

Don't get me wrong. I love football and the billions of dollars involved in these deals shows a market for it, but it seems like the only reason to own NFL rights to games is to show off new graphics, sound effects and studio rooms.

° Remember when a football game revolved around the players on the field and not the announcers? If Joe Theismann and Paul MaGuire can't share one booth, then have them fight over it to see who gets control.

° It's a shame ESPN now shares the same look as ABC's Monday Night Football. If I wanted to see Hank Williams Jr., I'd turn on the Nashville Network.

Click here to return to opinion index.