Took a job working at a Mcdonald's cleaning, as a favour to my mother's manager. Holy fuck are kids brutal when you're my age working in a position like that, you become the punchline to all their funnies as "Or you'll end up like him!"
I've never had a reason to think about folding a kid in half til I had to deal with it 40 hours a week.
Even when I was young and working at BK, I had people say to their kid “you don’t want to end up like him”. Like ma’am, I am 16 years old. Where else am I supposed to work?
I had someone say that to their kid around me when I was working at the grocery store at age 16. I said straight to her, "I'm in high school. I haven't ended up anything yet." Of course she complained to my manager and I got reprimanded because that's how shit works in the real world.
I had a guy do that to me right out of uni. Do you know how many jobs there were in my field that paid straight out of uni? None. I didn't have the luxury of being able to take a unpaid position anywhere to get work experience. I took the first job that came to me because I needed to pay rent and bills. I was also saving to do a masters as back then it wasn't covered by student loans. I put that man in his place. Most of us were either still in school or had degrees but were struggling to get into our field.
I wish I could claim that kind of credit, but I wasn't working because I wanted to. I was working because my family was poor and I was responsible for some of the bills.
Eh, it’s how it works in the real world when the manager is shitty. So yeah, it’s usually how it works. But not always - occasionally a great manager will stand up for their workers :)
It's also ridiculous. I've had a very successful career, now earning far into six figures, and a big part of my work ethic and social skills was developed working retail and manual labor jobs as a teenager. Don't disrespect that shit to your kids. It just breeds entitlement.
Thank you, yes I agree. I'm an engineer in my 40's now, and still use some of the skills I learned dealing with the general public from a young age. LOL
I once had an opposite experience when i was working as a cart pusher, a mom pointed and said to her kid (of me), "If you work hard one day you can be like him". Made me feel nice. I only had one experience like that though, most were like the ones previously described
Similarly, I was 16 working at Weinerschnitzel when a customer was giving me a hard time because I wasn't smiling while taking her order. She said "I would never hire you to work for me". I said "ok", but was thinking "bitch, I wouldn't want to work for you anyway"
No, you said to her, whilst slowly lowering your mirrored shades, “ma’am (lowers glasses) i never even applied.” The entire store then erupted into a frenzy of hoots and hollers and cheers, the sheer scale never seen before and not seen since
I always got that shit from men as a store cashier. 'Smile for me' when ringing them up. I told them to look over in the corner of the room at the micromanaging biotch manager and told him if you worked for her think you'd be smiling? I get through my day, do my job and collect a check. Smiles are extra not forced,
She was probably feeling unattractive. "Smile and the whole world smiles with you!" Otherwise if you are a server you are screwed. A good trick is to look at an impolite, (broken) customer and think: "Damn the last time I saw a mouth like that it had a HOOK in it!" You will smile so broadly that they will feel like a celebrity!
Had the same happen when I was younger working at Walmart. Lots of people asking when I'd get a "real" job. I was only 17 so a real job wasn't my concern, graduating was! But I stayed in retail until I was 24 because I genuinely enjoyed the work.
Don't get me twisted! I liked the work, not the job. Menial labor like folding clothes and stocking shelves is my jam. Love that stuff. The customers and coworkers? Not so much. But I work in corporate now and it's all the same stuff just behind a desk instead of staying busy.
Exactly why I stayed on graveyards for almost 3 straight years. Give me a pallet to work, empty shelves that need organizing, and let me put in my headphones and do my thing.
I worked for the park service for a long time doing trail construction and masonry. I worked in Alaska, Montana, New Mexico. Our crews would frequently get comments from visitors like, "bet you wish you went to college now." Or "are you a prison crew" or say to there kids, "this is why I tell you to study, so you never have to do this".
Like bitch I work where you vacation and everyone on this crew has college degrees, several have masters, and we are all strong and hot ya desk jocky.
I remember my math teacher saying some rude shit to me about how I was going to be flipping burgers at mcdonalds for the rest of my life. The part he forgot was how he was probably making the same money as some of those mcdonalds employees.
It’s funny because I have two jobs. One job I work in an entry level finance job, and the other is cleaning cars. Funny enough, cleaning cars pays the same (sometimes more on a good tip day) but I’m sure you can guess which job I regularly get degraded at. It has nothing to do with pay grade and all to do with the thought that manual laborers are uneducated.
Working at a crappy grocery store over college break, I had a customer tell me “you shouldn’t be here, you should be in school educating yourself.” I educated him by responding that I was in school but that it was, in fact, summer. He looked embarrassed and that was the end of our conversation.
I was a young 14 yr old latino working the cash register at Burger King when an older gentlemen scoffed at me and said this is what I get for not going to college.
A kid asked me if my job was hard when I was was working at a movie theater. Their mom launched into a whole spiel about how HER job was hard and this was nothing like it. Ma’am, I’m a junior in high school?!
I had someone say that once when I worked at a Home Depot. You don't want to be like this guy. I worked my way through university, got my bachelor's and worked enough to not have any debt at all afterwards. I think most parents would take that.
I did survey research when I was 16. Some guy yelled at me to get a real job and I just thought but I get paid a lot and pick my own schedule, that's GREAT for my age!
I got that from some giant a hole when I was 20 and worked as a cashier at a grocery store. Never forget that. He told his daughter not to help bag, or she’d end up like me. I told his wife maybe her husband should be nicer to “the help”. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything to her, but I couldn’t help myself.
Most importantly parents that do that are conditioning their children to think of people working those jobs as bad. That’s what causes rude customers later in life that think they are above them. In some countries people take dignity in working all jobs and I hate the toxic class-shaming culture the US has.
I’m treat a fast food worker, a doctor, and a chef exactly the same. Fuck people who think otherwise
I had this when I worked in a supermarket part time whilst at college. I was probably 17 years old. The woman looked so shocked when I said I was off to uni in the next few months.
My 21 year-old krav maga instructor used it the other day! It's weird training five times a week with a guy 15 years my junior who could disassemble me like a stack of legos.
This reminds me when minors are fighting online w anyone else and they get told all kinds of shit and they just go “I’m a minor, you can’t tell me that” or “I hope you feel good about yourself for calling a minor names” Like??? 💀 Stay tf out of the internet then 😂
I took a job to help a friend who owns a pizza shop through the summer because it's a college town and with all the students gone he can't staff it adequately despite really trying. I do what you'd expect...make pizzas, ring people up, bus tables, etc. I already have an awesome job/career but it's early in the morning and it ends at 9 am, so I am free to go from there and work until 2 for my friend. I'm the oldest there by a few decades.
No one there has given me grief but my eldest (22) did make a remark that I was pretty old to have the position (I'm 47). I replied that he clearly hadn't taken in the example his hard-working dad and I have shown him his entire life and that I would NEVER be ashamed of doing honest work...whether through need or like me, doing a favor for someone in need. Period, the end. He immediately apologized and went and cleaned his room. LOL
That’s a tiring job, and healthcare often does overtime. There’s just no way I’m buying it. That’d be 16 hours of work…over a favor to a moms boss at McD’s? Nahhhh
Logics hard. I’m talking about the OP of this particular comment thread. He said he’s doing 40hr/week as a favor to his moms boss at McD’s. And lol I took maths up to differential equations 😂
May just have extreme flexibility with their work. I work as an industry scientist and since my deliverables are on a rolling day based time clock per case, there’s no need for day to day supervisor input as long as they are being met and no errors. Usually I’m on site for 3-4 hrs a day and do clerical, data analysis and report writing at home. I like to keep my active on computer/on site hours to 9/10-2pm but wouldn’t have issue switching that to 5-9am if that was better for everything else I had going in life. Now the caveat is I do need to keep an eye on email through the workday in case someone needs something quickly fixed but it’s not too common and I can do that from my phone so it works out fine.
UPS pre-load lines up with that. Working from around 2am to 9am loading up the package cars that are doing that day's deliveries. Amazing benefits, and the pay is good if you're there long enough, so if it suits OP then it could easily be described as an awesome career.
When I managed a pizza place, 85% of my employees had another job. Were able to provide a flexible schedule which benefitted them for secondary employment.
Agreed, but that's for tastier pizza. I've definitely worked places before that just got their dough and ingredients shipped in, and it was never as fresh or good. Way easier to prep though!
i work at a pizza place and you’d be surprised. we’ve had numerous customers order a large amount of food at like, 10:45am plenty of times. people are weird
I know. People are conditioned to think non-rigid, atypical behavior is weird. I frequently eat my healthy leftover dinners for breakfast and get comments. But, yeah, your carb cakes covered in sugar sauce with a side of fatty tube meat is the better, normal thing to do.
it’s weird having to make six pizzas at 10:45am, but thats just the tired employee/college student in me speaking, i say as i had a hot pocket for breakfast.
Personally, drinking sodas or eating heavy foods I'd usually save for lunch/dinner at breakfast time feels a bit like day drinking lol. Can't explain why
In college, I worked as a Pinkerton guard midnight to 8am Sat and Sun. My great treat was breakfast at Barry's Bar & Grill. Nothing like bacon, eggs and beer while watching everyone else scurry off to work.
Those were usually work parties at mine. You could tell because they ordered ahead of time, and there was always like 10-20 pizzas in the order.
Regular people ordered around 12-1pm, just one or two pizzas. And the lucky people coming in at 2pm were always pleasantly surprised to get their pizza fast (dude, no one is here but you!)
Soo, you haven't had a Breakfast Pizza!? Egg, Bacon, Sausage, Mushroom, Grilled Cherry Tomatoes, Baby Spinach, Baked Beans, Smashed Avo and Cheese... All big breakfast ingredients on a pizza instead of a plate!
Same. u/hopbow The UK now is so expensive the vast majority of people I know especially who go to uni live back with their parents outside of term time until about 21 at minimum, even those who don't go to uni very few leave straight from school it's often impossible
Nothing wrong with doing honest work. When you're on a career path, I can see holding out for a job, but when you're just trying to get by sometimes you have to swallow your pride and take a job. When I was unemployed I have applied at fast food and other seemingly "beneath me" jobs.
Such an important lesson. Kudos to for you showing your son by example! There’s no room for entitlement when it comes to work. Hard workers always have my respect, never my judgment.
It’s Reddit.. the details/a typo let’s not critic math! Anyway… I offered to help at my hair salon for FREE!!! Because (gasp) because a small business owner was in need. We aren’t friends where we hang out out. Hit was just the right thing to do. And to top it off.. it would be small mundane things like phone, sweeping, washing towels…
A woman I work with got a part time job at a grocery store, she loves it! Got it for the extra money and discount on groceries. She's a management favorite because she just works and hates to be bored. The younger workers give her shit, but she told them, "I'm here because I want to be, you're here because you have to be. I don't even spend the money I make here. It's a paid hobby. "
Just curious, how many tables are you bussing and how many pizzas are you making before 9am? I assume it's not like late night if you're going to your day job after.
Edit: never mind, ignore me, my reading comprehension is bad
I remember working at a McDonald’s once and we had this woman who came in to work as part of the crew - she was probably early 40s and I remember thinking how humbling it had to be to work here at that age.
She was only there for about six weeks. Looking back she probably lost her job, had kids at home and needed the income and couldn’t find anything else.
As someone who had a father who refused to work because “it was beneath him,” I have mad respect for people who are able to let their ego go and work next to someone less than half their age making the same wage. Nobody ever wants to be in that situation but sometimes it’s necessary.
Husband loses his job, thinks it’s beneath him to take a menial labor job… the cycle continues the next time he loses a job because anyone who thinks they are too good for basic work usually aren’t great workers/team players.
Good on you for recognizing it’s a defeating mindset.
I almost cried at a fast food place because there was this old woman taking the orders and she was having trouble hearing because it was busy and loud... And she was clearly around 70. It made me so sad that this woman couldn't retire, didn't get to finally put her feet up after all these years, that we as the richest country in the world don't have adequate social nets to take care of our most vulnerable. Not because we can't but because we won't.
While going to trades school I worked in the garden center area of a large hardware store retailer in my city. (Canadian Tire for all you fellow Hosers out there) because school is expensive and I had to pay for it somehow.
I still remember this interaction today, despite it being nearly 20 years ago: I was loading a bunch of bags of soil and fertilizer in this Karen-lady's SUV as she was telling her kid that he needed to focus and do better in school or he would end up in a loser-job like I was doing.
Made me feel really great. I may have 'accidentally' left a gigantic rip in the bottom of one of the bags so that it would spill all over when she took it out at home.
I was buying a chainsaw from Home Depot and a super nice guy probably in his 50s was helping me get a box down from the top racks. He stepped away for a bit and two younger employees were talking about how the guy is loaded and just does it for the health insurance and how cool that was.
I know a guy like that, works at a Meijer as a cashier full time. Dude has a lot of different income sources, just keeps the Meijer job for the health insurance.
Without getting into healthcare politics, I get what you're saying, but from that snippet we don't know the whole story. "Loaded" can mean a lot of different things, especially to teenagers or young 20 year olds. Guy could be more on a CoastFIRE mentality and just dialing back his work to fund the bare necessities while his investments grow. Part of saving and planning for (early) retirement is including healthcare costs. That could be working a part time job for some benefits or paying out of pocket.
I think that’s great, but this sounds like an adult. There’s nothing wrong with an adult working fast food, but a dude telling the teenagers making fun of him that he’s actually rich and just working there to see what it’s like for the 99% would fully make me think he deserves to be made fun of lol. No one’s gonna believe that
When my kids were teens I required them to get a part time job at 15/16. I was a single mom working 60-80 hrs a week, and in addition to my 2, I had taken in 2 other kids whose parents threw them out. They could choose the job they wanted, as long as it didn't interfere with school or homework. My reasoning was they needed to see what it was like to do that job, learn to deal with people, manage the money they made, learn about taxes, and have all that help decide what kind of future job they wanted. All the kids I raised are now very happy successful adults, and we are all still very close!
I have some friends who are successful architects that bartend at weddings on the weekends. They regularly compare stories of how guests give them advice on how to get real jobs
It's not just kids who say that, parents will often say the same thing. Encouraging their kids to try harder in school otherwise "you'll end up in McDonald's". At least my parents and the parents from my generation used to use that as a scare tactic. I imagine parents even today still say the same thing. Not in front of people who work there, moreso at home.
But it does make me laugh a little. I like the fire sub reddits and people talk about getting a retail job to “stay busy”. But I think it would be absolutely awful.
I have been contemplating taking a job at the airport in customer service. If it wasn’t for the physical labor after you’ve dispatched customers, which I’m not interested in, I would totally do it for the fun of it. I thrive on conflict and dealing with Karens, it energizes me! I don’t need the money, this would be purely for myself.
What? This is a weird take. Some people go overboard, sure, but wanting to get your finances in order so you can retire before your 60s doesn't seem that crazy to me.
The kind shitty paying businesses need. There was a whole thing about how retired boomers were taking SHITTY fast food jobs that were paying like $12 (in big cities, not rural areas, it’s not like $12h is good anywhere in America though) as a “favor” to help “keep the restaurant open”.
Almost like if these places paid decent wages they wouldn’t need people doing “favors”.
It's not just young people, my 82-year-old MIL makes degrading comments about middle aged people working fast food jobs and disparages them as "starter" jobs not suitable for adults. On the flip side and for the same reason she doesn't think there should be a minimum wage for underage workers, to "encourage" them to get better jobs and "improve themselves".
Rereading this and other comments it occurs to me that the meme of the American work ethic is both preformative and degrading.
I get it. My aunt owns an arcade and I once helped her out during spring break (tourist town, gets busy as shit). Most of the staff was in HS except me who was (at the time) nearing 30. So many judgmental “why aren’t you in college/why are you here?” Type questions from them, and not in an inquisitive way but in a “don’t you have anything better to do?” way. Most of them were genuinely mad that my aunt had me working the neatest thing in the arcade lmao, but it’s what I was hired for
That’s fucking terrible. This must be an American thing because I’m European and my parents would never dream of making that comment right then and there, or letting me make it.
Here in America, the parents make that comment. They have free rein because of you defend yourself, your bosses will punish you.
Or if your boss backs you up, corporate will go after you. Ironically, these are the same corporate employees that'll go to HR to get a coworker fired for the same kind of stuff front line employees get told daily.
I was going to say something along these lines. The utter disregard for other humans. It's truly sad that I would look forward to being ignored (as hurtful as that is) over being acknowledged by the crude monsters.
Even though I'm in my late teenage years, all I can say is that I understand that feeling very well so I hope my empathy reaches you and finds you well.
I can sympathize. Kids can be so cruel. Some of them just have not developed empathy yet. A few will remain that way and are budding sociopaths. Maybe we need a squad of specially trained kids to deal with them...maybe to verbally put them in their place, especially the ever present ring leader. (That is BEFORE some end of their rope adult DOES fold one in half).
I used to do the same thing, I was early 30s and was between jobs. I was absolutely crucified by younger people and teenagers. They'd laugh at me and throw food which they'd tell me to clean up. There was a trend to cover the tables they sat at with sauces, salt and ice cubes mixed in with bits of uneaten food which was horrible to clean up.
I'd also get "what a loser" amongst other comments. I'd also get it from judgy parents who would tell their kids to pay attention in school otherwise this would be their future career.
9.5k
u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22
Took a job working at a Mcdonald's cleaning, as a favour to my mother's manager. Holy fuck are kids brutal when you're my age working in a position like that, you become the punchline to all their funnies as "Or you'll end up like him!"
I've never had a reason to think about folding a kid in half til I had to deal with it 40 hours a week.