The Effect of the Imago Dei On The Fast Food Industry

"Fast food takes too much of a man's soul for only 6 dollars an hour."
I feel like that phrase my be one of the best I have ever coined. It is very much true. Try working at one of those places and you will see what I'm talking about. I worked at the Burger King at Harding for about 2 weeks, and then I quit. Sure the grease that stuck to my shows, the smell the permeated my clothes, and the task of cleaning the fryers that haunted my dreams were part of it. More then that, it just made me spiritually sick.
Yes, these thoughts may just be a cop out for not wanting to work in any way shape or form, but I think there is a lot of truth to what I'm saying. You see, I have had the same soul emptying feeling since in other jobs, and it happened again today.
I won't go into details, but I am really ticked off at the way that people treat anyone that is serving them. People should not be treated differently just because you pay their salary. I am one for good service. I have no problem leaving 13 cents on the table if I think the waiter really sucked. However, I will still say please and thank you to him, and I will still make requests, not demands. I don't care how lowly the job is, you never bark at someone like they are an animal. There is no call for that. People deserve respect just because they are people.
I remember being in Crete on a tour, and the nazi tour guide that we had was trying to show us some hole in the ground (I am not kidding, it really was nothing more than a hole for some old sewage pipe) and someone came through the side of the group to get at the trash can. Her job was to make sure that the rich Americans would have an empty trash can when they went to throw out their $2.50 Coke can. The guide started screaming at this woman in Greek. I didn't know what she was saying, but I knew that it was inhumane.
Usually we leave the word inhumane for kicking dogs are starving raccoons or some other animal issue. I think we should use it for how we treat people when we raise our voice and say "I wanted this without pickles for crying out loud!" "What do you mean there are no more flights to Dallas. You and your (let's replace it with stupid) airline need to get your (donkey term)s in gear and make sure that I am in (that word doesn't even make sense here) Dallas or so help me..." is similarly inhumane.
That stuff makes me sick inside. Its not really about my own feeling of worth, though undoubtedly some of my own hubris comes into play. What really bothers me is that if they talk to me, who they don't know, this way, how do they talk to their family? If they will scream at someone in public how do they treat the maid who cleans their house in the privacy of that home? I want to let them know that what they are doing is not okay, and not because I want justification, but because I want justice for others.
I won't say I never get angry. I do tend to yell at people driving. Occasionally I have been snippy with people on the phone. But typically I am provoked. I understand that sometimes you lose your cool in a stressful moment or when you feel threatened. That, however, is very different then treating people based on their job in life.
We really don't respect humanity in our world. I know it may be silly, but I think this attitude leads to all of the genocide and war in our world. I mean, if I really convince myself that I am better than that guy with the Hot Dog On A Stick uniform on, it is a small step to think of myself as more worthy than some kid in Africa suffering because of the systematic oppression of the underdeveloped world which gives me cheap produce, and an even smaller step to think of the Islamic extremist who hates my country as some sort of animal. How we order at McDonald's helps explain the way that we go about foreign policy.
Next time you are in line at the airport, and the entire system fails you, don't yell at the girl that can't do anything about it. Just because someone picks up trash, you don't have to treat them like the refuse they pick up. Even septic tank cleaners don't deserve your crap. They are made out of dirt, just like you are, and they have the same divine spark in them.