Free Uniform? Thanks, But No Thanks, Assholes!

About two weeks ago I was finding myself a few spare moments to eat a very quick dinner after work. I was on my way to the weekly Raving Poets show at Yianni's, but didn't feel much like eating Greek food that night. So anyway, a little bit of time, a quick dinner? I went to McDonald's.

Now, bear in mind that I've drastically cut down my McDonald's intake over the past few years. In fact, I can hardly keep up with all the weird shit they've been doing with their menu (a topic for another rant should be how fast food joints get away with calling their list of barely passable food as a "menu") so in order to get something that I want to eat I decided it best to forgo the drive-thru where I would hold up traffic while I ponder the french fry du jour and other possibilities.

While inside the restaurant I looked up at the menu board and noticed a Help Wanted graphic on the display, which is really no rare sight in Alberta these days, but what struck me about this Help Wanted ad was that it gave a fairly comprehensive list of the advantages of working at McDonald's. The listed off things like scholarships and growth potential, but one peculiar thing I noticed that was also listed was "Free Uniforms."

Free uniforms?

Free uniforms.

You mean to tell me that if I get a job at McDonald's I can get a free uniform?

Yes.

Holy fucking shit! I can't sign a job application fast enough for that shit! Why didn't you assholes tell me about the free uniforms sooner?

Alright, here's the deal. If the job ad you are looking at touts free uniforms as one of the deal-closing advantages of the job opening you are considering yourself for it's probably not that good of a job. In fact, "free uniforms" should read, if only in your mind, "free corporate whore costume."

Okay, I'm probably being a little too harsh on people who have to wear a uniform to work. Really, they're good people and they're not actually "corporate whores," but it just bugs me, the gall of whoever puts the help wanted ads together to suggest that being required to wear a uniform to work is a deal-closing advantage. It's like the ad is geared toward people who have trouble coordinating their outfits and are looking for an employer who will offer free help for their socially debilitating disease. Maybe it's people who just lost all their clothes in a fire or ninja attack and they need free clothes, any clothes, even McDonald's uniforms just so that their wangs aren't hanging out.

Either way, I just can't see in my mind's eye somebody walking in to a McDonald's restaurant, seeing the Help Wanted ad, noticing the "Free Uniform" advantage and practically jizzing their underwear to fill out a job application based on the fact that they might finally get a job where they can dress exactly like everybody else in the room. I'd even go so far as to suggest that if somebody did come in, jizz their pants at "Free Uniform" and immediately apply for a job, that I wouldn't hire that person based solely on the fact that something is fucking wrong with their heads, not too mention the jizz stains.

The rule of thumb for "Free Uniforms" being listed as an advantage of any given job should be as follows. If the uniform is such that the Chief Executive Officer of the company is willing to wear it to work each day then it's a uniform that can feasibly be listed as being an advantage because the only Chief Executive Officers who would be willing to wear a shitty looking, stigmatizing uniform to his cushy six figure desk job are the same Chief Executive Officers who suffer from something so bad that I don't think I can understand what it is. All other uniforms, then, are not listed as an advantage to a job. It might even be listed as a drawback.

That should be the rule.