Student goes to order an $8 McDonald’s meal. But what they said after has the employee worried about the future: ‘Very disturbing’
The interaction is enough to worry anyone who cares about the future.
Ordering a meal at a fast food restaurant and paying the correct amount is usually a straightforward task, but for one customer, that wasn’t the case for some students. A McDonald’s employee recalled how one student had a “math isn’t mathing” moment when they allegedly got confused about counting money, leaving the employee concerned for the younger generation’s future.
Krazey Jakey (@krazeyjakey) shared the incident in a TikTok video that has since garnered over 195,400 views. According to Jakey, he often interacts with students coming in for a quick meal, as the McDonald’s he works at is located near a school. However, one specific interaction with a student left a certain mark on him.
“You wanna know why I’m really worried about the future?” Jakey asked viewers. “When I was at work Monday, the kids came in from school. They’re getting their order. And this kid’s order, I think, was like $7, $8. So I was like, ‘Yeah, here’s the total.’ […] They give me $35 and ask if that’s enough.”
McDonald’s employee questions the education system
The question is enough to catch anyone off guard, but Jakey’s customer service training kicked in, and he continued his interaction with the student as usual. “Immediately, I told him, ‘Yeah, it’s only $7 or $8,’” Jakey said. But the student’s response after that was something Jakey couldn’t ignore. “They looked at me confused. They’re like, ‘Well, is that enough?’ Bro.”
Jakey began questioning what schools are teaching students nowadays, noticing the gap in basic skills among the younger generation. “I don’t know what they’re teaching them in school now, but they ain’t teaching them the same stuff I grew up on,” Jakey said. “Where’s the fundamentals? Basic math?”
Jakey then looked back at his past interactions with other students who came in as customers and told viewers that the gap extends to their behavior as well. “I’ma just be real with you, fam. Some of the ways the kids act is very disturbing,” he said.
Viewers weren’t surprised that Jakey had such an interaction with a student, as it isn’t an isolated case. Many shared their own experiences of witnessing a similar incident with the youth. “Some teens in front of me at Starbucks asked each other how much dimes were worth when trying to pay cash bc the reader was out of order,” one commenter wrote. Another added, “I had a girl give me hand full of change and asked me what each coin mean. She was around 16.”
Students’ performance has declined in the past decade
Others believe that modern technology played a significant role in this issue. One commenter wrote, “All these kids know now are the payment apps.” Some recalled their own experience learning how to count money, attributing learning the basic life skill to the toys and games popular in the past. “I pretended grocery store at 7 years old. Canned goods, adding machine, and counted change!” a commenter said. A second chimed in, saying, “Kids need to play monopoly more.”
ABC News reported that the U.S. has seen a decline in students’ performance for the past decade. According to the Education Scorecard’s report, students’ test scores have been decreasing since 2013, while reading comprehension was already dropping years before COVID-19 even hit and was just as bad during the pandemic.
In 2025, reading scores by eighth graders were at their lowest and were comparable to those of their 1990 counterparts, with zero improvement. It doesn’t get any better in the math department, as the report noted negative progress in mathematics.
Faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and the report’s author, Tom Kane, described the decline as a “learning recession.” He suggested that social media was a big factor in the youth’s performance decline, in addition to the lack of testing, literacy reforms, and an increase in student absences.
While there has been an improvement in reading test scores with the implementation of learning styles, such as phonics, there is still a long way to go to maintain an upward trend and combat students’ heavy reliance on modern technology in educational settings.
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