IT'S the most successful fast food chain of all time and employs more than 400 people across Southampton.

In a typical week more than 2,313 Big Macs, 1,724 shakes and 1,702 flurries fly off the counter at the city's busiest McDonalds in WestQuay.

But staff in the store are in a McFlurry after McJob' was added to the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The popular dictionary defines the word as meaning not stimulating, low paid work with little or no future prospects.

As part of a national campaign on behalf of the country's 67,000 McDonald's employees, staff in Southampton were out in force to get the public to sign a petition calling for the definition to be changed.

The Southampton leg of the tour was the 39th stop out of 40 restaurants across the country in 23 days.

Insulting' Staff claim it's insulting to employees and so far more than 1,700 people across the city have signed the petition.

A champagne reception was held in the WestQuay restaurant where regional vice-president Trevor Bull and WestQuay's business manager DJ Clark outlined the reasons behind the campaign.

DJ, who started working at McDonalds at 16 while a student, said the term affects people's confidence.

"I think Southampton staff are very proud to work here and it's a well kept secret in terms of how good it is to work at McDonalds. They really don't know what is available to people and we have staff who are very, very happy here.

"It's not the term McJob' that we object to but the definition."

DJ said she would re-define the expression as stimulating, progressive, financially rewarding and definitely not dull.

She added: "The McJob' definition is out of date, out of touch with reality and most importantly insulting to the hard-working, committed and talented people who serve the public every day.

"We need everyone's support if we want our service sector employees to be recognised for the hard work that they do and the unfair definition of McJob' to be overturned".

There are more than 460 people employed in McDonald's six restaurants in Southampton and more than 2,000 across Hampshire.

You can sign the petition at www.changethedefinition.com or at various restaurants across the city.

Click on the link to see our reporter try the art of making the perfect Big Mac....