In a press release given by the multinational fast food giant
yesterday, head spokesperson for McDonald's Bee Effay said that the
company was looking at expanding into the arts sphere.
“We figured that so many of our employees’ skills and
qualifications were being wasted at the grill stations and fryer-vats,” she
said. “Instead of forcing them to do menial, unrelated-to-their-studies and
ultimately depressing work, we should instead be utilising the four years of
work that they did to get to where they are.”
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| McDonalds is set to feed more than just your stomach, as it unveils plans for a series of art centres. pic: Wiki Commons/ Hecki |
The decision to open these centres of culture and learning
has been greeted with much positive feedback from arts students and fas tfood
employees across the globe.
“For a short time after graduating I took up digital
photography, poetry and blogging about underground fashion trends and
counter-mainstream music,” said Nokwa Lification, who has her Honours in
Post-interpretive sculpture. However, her taste for the latest Apple products
and clothes from the 70’s made her soon tire of unemployment. “I thought I was
doomed to work a griddle the rest of my life, but now I have an opportunity to
say all those fancy words I spent four years learning. Let me tell you, there’s
nothing post-structuralist or nouveau-imperialist to critically deconstruct
about a double Big Mac, hold the onion, extra cheese” she said.
However, despite this positive move for the arts, Humanities
Faculties in universities, technikons and colleges across the country have
begun taking measures to fully prepare their students for the job market, with
many starting to offer courses in service-industry skills.
One such institute
was the University of Pretoria, which now offers “Introduction to the Foodstation
101” and “Customer service skills” alongside its normal arts program.
“We’re not saying that all our students will be chip-fryers
one day. Of course not: there’s always a need for chicken-fryers and waiters
too. That’s why our courses are so expansive,” said Vits art professor Tony
Scribbles. “We’re even thinking of adding ‘Disappointment Management 102’ and ‘Would
You Like Fries With That 203” as compulsory courses.”
“We’ve heard about what these other universities are doing, and we think it’s a great idea,” said Rhodes University Journalism and Media Studies lecturer, Lucky Matashe. “With the printed news industry heading the way it is, we’re probably going to start courses focussing less on despatialised commonality arising from archetypal textual connotation, and more on how to put burger, secret sauce, cheese, tomato, onion, gherkin, lettuce, in that order. It’s important to teach our students that just because you write a smug blog doesn’t mean you’re going to be the next bloody Ernest Hemmingway” he said, making this post very, very ironic indeed.
