A fast food job is the staple of a high schooler’s career. Everyone has their ideas and preconceived notions as to what it means to be a fast food worker, but it is usually far from reality.
Whether they want to or not most kids will end up having or have had a job before they turn 18. Obviously we’d all love to be CEO’s with six figure incomes at the age of 15 but realistically our options are slim. Fast food jobs are widely available and require no more education than 3rd or 4th grade. The job pays minimum wage and the hours suck, but you need the money more than they need you, so that’s how it is.
People tend to think that just because a job has minimal prerequisites that all the people there must be equal to that. In many cases this is not at all true and very ignorant to assume. Everyone is a person just the same no matter the job they have.
Junior Ryan Douglas got himself a job at a popular local fast food chain about 16 months ago. He says he needed to think about paying for a car and turned in a few applications. This store happened to hire him.
“I work about 25 to 30 hours per week. It’s not too bad; we do get busy sometimes but I have good fellow employees who make it a little more fun,” Douglas said.
If one took a trip through a local drive thru they may catch a glimpse of junior Brandon Maley. He’s been working there for the past five months.
“My aunt was the manager of the store at the time and she recommended me for the job,” Maley said. “People are usually nice back if I’m nice to them, but sometimes they can be rude, yeah.”
These two students both work a fast food job yet are very real people. They both have futures ahead of them and are capable of much more than taking an order, let alone making sure there’s no onion on your hamburger. Fast food jobs provide great opportunities for students to learn workplace skills and responsibility.
At the end of the day the job is a real job and the employees are earning a real wage. Just because it may be less than most doesn’t mean they should be treated as less.
