McDonalds, a hamburger company who claims to have served billions of us—possibly someone you know—is now upset that the Oxford English Dictionary contains the word McJob. Specifically, they’re upset with the definition:

An unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector.

They say that it’s disrespectful to the all the hard-working employees in the fast food world. Maybe they should have thought of that 17 years ago when crappy conditions first allowed the word to come into usage.

First of all, I don’t believe that the word “McJobs” is necessarily describing jobs like the one of working at McDonalds. No, my perception of the word has always been that it describes jobs like the hamburgers McDonalds produces. Cheap, mass-produced crap devoid of any craft or humanity. I’ve had a McJob, at a record store. There were no hamburgers anywhere but slinging Beyonce and Clay Aiken, being told to “think less” at work, and drinking cough syrup to get through the day definitely evoked a certain McQuality.

McDonalds has always been a bit persnickety about their branding. Similarly, it’s always bothered me that someone owns the word McNugget. “Pardon me but that oscillation in your vocal chords which subsequently produces a specific longitudinal air pattern perceived by others as ‘McNugget’… you know that one? Yeah, I fucking own that.”

It seems completely just to me that, with McDonalds’ insistence that the prefix “Mc” is their Manifest Destiny, it’s that very prefix that bites them in the ass.