This is Culver’s. They’re a burger fast food joint located throughout the Midwest and have things called “Scoopy Night” where a percentage of the proceeds go toward a specific cause. Schools, dance groups, etc can partake and the kids who attend that school/dance group/etc help take orders and deliver food to tables. Not quite as dystopian as OP has made it seem.
Honestly… the idea that they do this work, and the money goes to a school instead of them, makes it even worse to me?
It’s a fundraiser likely for an after school program. It typically pays out a lot better than a car wash or brat fry. Typically the students run orders out to cars.
And yeah, we probably should put more funding into schools for stuff like this instead of asking kids to fundraise.
Our schools do a “spirit night” fundraiser at a business once a month. The business donates a portion of the sales to the school during a specific time frame. Child labor is not involved.
“Child labor is ok if the money goes to a school!”
- the user who wrote this comment
Yea it makes it worse tbh. We won’t fund fun things at the schools so instead we make them work fast food to earn that funding.
It is indeed even more dystopian when you put it like that. It’s got the same energy as people giving their coworker PTO so they can deliver a baby or whatever.
Are the kids required to work in order to get the money? Because that sounds like a job with good PR.
My thoughts exactly. If it’s optional, cool, the kids get some experience and maybe takehome money. If it’s required, fuck that shit.
The one near me that does fundraisers doesn’t have any students working. Usually the teachers go to say hi to families that come.
when we needed to do fundraisers THE PARENTS IN THE PTA DID IT FOR THE MIDDLE SCHOOLERS.
We had plenty of ‘kids’ working at fast food and grocery stores but not until 15 minimum. this kid looks like he’s 9. that’s too young to be fucking around near fryers and hot grills.
He’s not. He’s waiting tables and taking orders.
“Child labor is ok if the money goes to a school!”
-_-
Children do work at McDonald’s though
Just they would keep them in the back so they can’t be seen
yup. 10 year olds running deep fryers.
It’s indicative of a larger effort by republicans to force children back to work, this is part of that dystopia even if it’s on the “light dystopia” side of the spectrum.
Fuck off whiteknight, keep enabling corporate’s ability to normalize and capitalize off of child labor. This ain’t no goddamn bake sale or car wash.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/04/18/child-labor-returns/
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immigration-hyundai/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-child-workers-exploitation.html
Keep downvoting, bootlickers
Work experience at school is legitimately a thing though here in the UK.
I had a paper round at 13 and washed dishes in a pub at 15. It was my choice to work and earn money. Not sure what’s so dystopian about that.
In germany as well. We had a week where we could try out a few jobs and occupations hands-on. It was great. Seventh grade, I believe.
And that was 33 years ago.
It’s is in the US too after age 15.
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I don’t know how I even survived bussing tables 8 hours a week at age 14 🙄
Really, a part time job and saving while still in high school made it a hell of a lot easier to start out on my own after.
Indeed, florida’s plan to make up for the migrants they shit on and terrorized out of the state is child labor. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/11/2216798/-Florida-has-a-solution-to-education-issues-It-s-called-child-labor
scoopie night The abuse has to stop. Look at those abused kids. The horror.
“no, no, its not bad! The child worker is working for charity!”
Oh nice, so its worse
I remember doing something similar in HS 20+ years ago.
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Yeah this is just going to make them soft. Send the little shits to the miners, like in the good old days!
No, only people from the USA.
No way to downvote your stupid ass enough.
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There’s hardly anything to defend because there’s nothing here other than a photo with zero confirmed information about what appears in the photo. People are just making baseless assumptions.
I’m American and I totally agree. It feels like there are two different countries here, with the red one generally mooching off of the blue one while simultaneously claiming they’re the “real America”. I’m so tired.
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Name and shame which Culver’s it is.
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you can work for your parents in many places regardless of age
I.e. your locally owned mom-and-pop Chinese takeout. I’ve seen the kiddos answer the phones there a couple of times, tho most of the time when picking up food for the wife they’re just playing in a blocked off side area that used to be dining pre-pandemic.
I think many states allow children as young as 12 to work in specific non-dangerous jobs with permission from the parents. A company recently got in trouble when they had like 20 12-15 year olds working in a meat processing plant which definitely did not qualify for the “not dangerous” qualifier.
Shame them for what? You don’t know what’s going on in that picture.
They do this often at the Culver’s near me. It’s a fundraiser for school / extracurricular activities. The group works for a few hours and Culver’s donates the receipts for that time.
It’s better than having them go door to door selling wreaths and shit.
Somehow that made it even more dystopian. The school system is in on it
The children are working to fund the school.
Nuf said?
-
The school is funded already through taxpayers. The fact that “the children are working to fund the school” is an acceptable line of logic is already dystopian.
-
Traditionally, children do fundraisers to fund extracurricular activities, like a field trip. If the school is taking that money to add to their budget, that’s crossing the line into exploiting kids’ labor for money.
- The school is funded already through taxpayers.
Where do you live that public schools are properly funded by taxes? American schools are embarrassingly underfunded, and teachers are tragically underpaid and typically have to spend their own money to buy supplies for their students.
The fact that public schools used to be properly funded by taxes and aren’t any longer is part of the dystopia. Do you think I’m defending the current system?
https://usafacts.org/topics/education/
I was surprised to find out how much the U.S. actually does spend on education, given how shitty it is. Idk where the money is going, but it’s definitely funded
I’m not sure if I’m reading the data wrong or what, but that usafacts.org says 35% of people 25 or older have at least a bachelors degree. When I checked the census data, it says only 27.4% have that… https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2021.S1501?q=EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT&g=010XX00US$0400000&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S1501
Link doesn’t work for me, but I’ll look it up
The US spends the second most per student in the world.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/education-spending-highest-school-brazil-chile-italy-mexico/
Part of this comes from the fact that most public schools are funded from local property taxes, so naturally wealthier residents have better public schools due to better funding as they naturally pay more in taxes
Imagine if they spent anything on teachers
-
Most School systems are financially gutted to the bone. It’s dark but most red counties school districts are near bankruptcy and blue areas are slightly better off. So expect more of this as public schools try to keep the doors open.
When looking at homes in the more rural areas I noticed that the schools basically shoved all the kids from a good bit around different towns and areas into one. I’d guess to consolidate as much funds as possible in an effective manner, rather than having to pay for more infrastructure that was really needed.
While I would have liked the slower pace….all I could afford out that way were 100 year old farmhouses with very questionable bones. One you could literally walk the dip between the kitchen and living room. Another had electric, propane and fireplaces for the heating in different areas of the home. Had to tell my wife to stop looking at those.
I remember having school assemblies in middle school with some third party fundraising company trying to get us to sell…I don’t even remember what as a fundraiser for the entire school. At the time it felt weird and as an adult looking back I find it far more concerning that that’s how they made up the budget shortfalls instead of raising property taxes by fraction of a percent
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They got mad at her when an item was missing out of a 4-bag $80 order (they unbagged and checked everything there on the counter).
That one seems valid. That person got burned before with the staff not bothering to do their job and were NOT going to short their friend whatever item(s) the staff kept for themselves. Sure, you can say the counter girl didn’t do the bagging, but she’s the one that the customer is supposed to tell, and it is hard not to be angry when you’ve paid for stuff and you’re getting shorted – AND there’s almost surely another person relying on you to get it right this time. It shouldn’t take so much effort to just get the stuff you paid for.
But you can nicely check your items and say “ope looks like one of the fries got missed” and not make a big stink about it
That’s true, but I don’t know how much of a stink was made. If someone is unbagging everything at the counter, they’ve probably been burned before, so I can see some reason to take a harsh tone – enough to show they’re tired of the BS. If, instead, they started throwing things and screaming obscenities, yeah, that’d be an overreaction.
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Be Polite and don’t come back. That’s my rule of thumb.
… but they WEREN’T doing their job. I’ve been a counter cashier at a burger joint. Most of the job was getting the order correct and taking in money properly, but I also has to to things like add extra relish packets and see that I was giving them the correct food. That’s the job. You give the customer what they ordered. That is the EASY part. The hard part is dealing with the people trying to scam you with bill-switching/wrong-change schemes (though I suspect those are less common as fewer people use cash now).
Meanwhile on the other side of the coin, people have literally been shot and killed for having an extra item in their bag that they didn’t pay for.
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Nah, you got the wrong end of the stick, this is an uplifting story - it’s a kid working hard to provide for his mum’s cancer treatment that in any other developed nation would be covered by taxes. Uplifting. Right? So Uplifting. He doesn’t need to be with his mum in her time of need, he should be suckin that capitalist dick.
The orphan crushing machine is at it again!
Is there a orphancrushingmachine community yet?
I’m unsure I haven’t looked for it yet.
This kid is way too young to be taking verbal abuse from customers. I remember being 19-but-looked-15 and grown-ass adult customers calling me stupid and useless, and generally speaking to and looking at me like I was a piece of dung stuck to the bottom of their shoe. People who thought I was a literal child behaved this way. Not to mention all the perverts. Kids shouldn’t be working customer service, not in a world where adults have such disgusting behavior.
I’m sorry that this all happened to you. I know this happened in the past, but you deserve a little hug. I hope things are better for you on a day to day basis. ♥
Thanks, that’s sweet of you. <3 Things are much better for me now that I’m out of that line of work, so I do my best to stand up to trashy customers on behalf of the people who can’t.
Fuckin same. Honestly no age is old enough to take shit working at fuckin Office Depot.
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ps5 wont buy itself keep hustlin
Rise and grind and watch spongebob
gotta work hard to play hard fr fr
In pretty much every state you can legally work limited hours at 14. Considering this is a Culver’s, I highly doubt they illegally hired this kid.
There’s nothing wrong with a part time job at a place like this at 14. I’d argue it’s better than having no work experience at all as a minor.
Is that kid 14 or 10?
Hard to tell from all 16 pixels. I’ve seen some pretty young looking 14 year olds though.
Additionally, I looked it up and in some states you can work at a family business at 12.
work at a family business at 12.
I’m assuming that store is a franchise, that’s the only way I can think of it being technically a “family business”?
Yeah, I’m pretty sure all Culver’s are franchises. I don’t know why a franchise owned by one’s parents wouldn’t be considered a family business.
Can confirm at least some of them are franchises, for sure (if not all of them).
Nope, that’s little Billy Culver in that picture
Loopholes, baby!
I work in the Media Center of a High School. Some 9th and even a few 10th graders definitely look like they still belong in middle school, some kids mature late. I’d totally believe that there’s a possibility this person is actually at least 14.
I worked as a waiter at a retirement home at 14, and definitely looked younger at the time, so I think there’s a good chance this is the case.
NO ONE HERE ACTUALLY KNOWS.
I’d argue that kids are not fit for the stress put on people in service positions with customer contact. It’s fine if they have a holiday job cutting grass or delivering newspapers or something like that but standing behind a counter taking orders from people that often don’t even acknowledge that you’re human, too? That’s hard enough on adults already - I definitely don’t think it’s the kind of job for kids.
Also which business is hiring kids to work a couple of weeks during school holidays and then is fine having one less worker again? The time spent on teaching the child what to do and how to handle different situations as well as the paperwork probably takes more time and money than not having the help for a couple of weeks - even less so as you probably have to have another person nearby in case of customers overstepping so I’m not sure this is just some holiday job for the kid to earn pocket money or get job experience
Judging by the comments here, everyone is going to be thrown off sufficiently to watch their behavior.
You’d think so, but people can be downright cruel to those they think are ‘under’ them, and guess what every person working a job that can’t get them fired (so no business-to-business contacts) is to them?
I remember working in a customer facing role when I was a teen, and occasionally had to tell people the place was closed due to weather. They would accuse me of being everything under the sun and personally on a vendetta to make their lives miserable… and there was nothing I could do about it aside from calling the police if they actually started making threats.
I’ve always been about kids getting out there early and getting a taste of working, but these days feel different. I wouldn’t want to go back into customer service now and I’ve got experience and age to back be up in dealing with customers.
I do think that people who cause the disruptive behavior that I’m referring to should be required to serve time doing those jobs, as I think part of their entitlement is ignorance of what’s it’s like behind the counter.
I mean service jobs are never great, but most of my jobs from 14 through early adulthood were all service and they weren’t that bad.
You encounter plenty of rude and unpleasant people, but you just get on with it. It’s not traumatic for the vast majority of people. Learning to handle people like that is a good skill to have.
I totally agree that people would be better to each other if everyone had so service job experience.
Waiting tables at the tail end of high school and throughout college really boosted my intrapersonal skills. I have no problem interacting with most anyone and can usually pick up on cues that go beyond what the person is saying. I work in engineering at a fortune 500 now it’s really amusing how bad a decent swath of employees are at getting their point across, understanding what someone else is trying to tell them, and reading the room.
That said, I had a stint in retail. Waiting tables was more stress, but the people were generally quite a bit nicer.
I got my first real job at 15. I might have looked like this kid. Lol
I worked at an Arcade/Restaurant when I was 13 for 25-30 hours a week. It was absolutely a positive experience for me and it’s a shame to see so many people here crucify the idea of any child working at that age. Y’all haven’t the slightest idea whats the motivation and just assume they are being forced into it or something. Having a job so young built character and showed me that I was able to get the things I wanted in life if I put in the ‘hard’ work. Nobody forced me to work those hours, I wanted to! Props to Culver’s for providing the opportunity to kids.
Yup. I was picking up lawn mowing accounts when I was 12-13, and it was the best feeling in the world buying myself the jeep that I wanted two weeks before I turned 16.
I was delivering papers at 11 or 12. First real job at 14.
My daughter just turned 14 and she has her first job working one day a week at an after school program.
This should not be such a big deal. You learn important life skills and have your own money to spend.
I agree 100% but working fast food is very different than an after school work opportunity, come on now.
I never got an allowance and worked after school jobs alt the elementary/hs/uni but that is a far cry from what some of the child laborers are starting to do here in the US.
Normalizing this sort of thing is problematic, it’s not about the kid working for money it’s about the setting and expectations of both the employees and the customers. They should be focused on education and being a kid, but they can’t do that when they spend their afternoons at the factory
https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/04/18/child-labor-returns/
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immigration-hyundai/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-child-workers-exploitation.html
Oh, but they can learn about money so it’s okay!!! Give me a fuckin break.
Yeah Culver’s isn’t nearly as bad but it’s on the same spectrum when it comes to young children like this
What’s the difference? You look down on fast food work more?
This isn’t “providing and opportunity”. This is exploitation. Full stop.
I had my own computer and car before I turned 18, and it felt empowering to have accomplished this on my own. You and I have drastically different views on what’s exploitative. Full stop.
Does this child look even close to fucking 12 to you?? This ain’t a summer job either
Stupid fucking moron, go whiteknight for corporate somewhere else.
I had a summer job at 13yo and absolutely benefited, thus child labor = good and it’s totally not exploitative
That’s your braindead take.
Sounds like you could really use a hug Fades. I hope someone gives you that soon.
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This ain’t a summer job either
It’s not, it’s a fundraiser.
I had my own computer and car before I turned 18
Child labor laws weren’t meant to protect someone like you, they’re meant to stop folks from sending their kids to work to pay their rent/mortgage/power/water. Kids should know that paying their parents bills is not ideal, and child labor laws are how we protect them. Without revealing too much about myself, my dad was one of [large number] of children, and they absolutely used those kids for labor at the family farm and were worse off for it. They grew up in poverty (on top of the physical abuse). Basically, these laws aren’t supposed to stop young Timmy from buying a [insert gadget here], they’re to stop Mom from pulling him out of school for an extra shift because she overdrew her bank account.
There’s no way that kid is 13, by the way. Far too young for working the register at Culver’s. At least they don’t have him at the deep fryer. If the other comment I see in this thread is to be believed (the one that says this is a Manager’s child and school was closed), it’s probably not as nefarious as it seems. Republican states have been in the news fighting against child labor laws though, people are rightly outraged about that.
When did you go to school?
Aye you’re right I should have specified. 25-30 hours a week was only during the summer months. During the school year it was 10-20 hours, and mostly on weekends. The US has strict laws on what children of that age can work during school days.
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Unrelated to what? You don’t know how old the kid is in the picture, how long they work, nor what time of year it is.
For one, we have no idea if it’s completely unrelated. We don’t know any of the context here just from the picture. This could very well be a summer job. We don’t know.
Also, nonce is a really weird insult. Are you meaning to call them an idiot, or a pedo? If the former, sure, but if the latter, that’s really weird.
Wtf.
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14 is when we could get work permits. I was a little league umpire, and I agree that it was a very positive experience.
When I was 13 I was ‘encouraged’ by my family to get a job. I had no interest. They pulled some strings and I began illegally working (14 was the legal age) for a small family diner. At this time I just wanted to fiddle on my tech as I was very nerdy, but my family didn’t want me to “stay in my room all the time,” so pointless labour it was.
I did appreciate the liberation I gained from my family, even if I didn’t have the knowledge of what to do with it; How to expand upon it. Probably for the best imo. I spent my whole first paycheck on some games that me and my homies would play in the garage and made great memories. If there was a life lesson to be learned during this whole experience, I never understood it at the time. Eventually I was let go from work since no-one taught me how to perform my job duties well enough. That’s life, though!
By luck, one of my caring high-school teachers managed to slip-in his own curriculum. He taught a class of ~15 students some important financial skills… how mortgages work… how to create and manage savings… credit building… Bunch of important life stuff that I would consider essential knowledge in our society was an optional course I learned through word-of-mouth/happenstance.
???
why
Meanwhile and my ultimate gripe with this thread and tying this back into a dystopian - I see some people mention they learned valuable life lessons and a bunch of other copium. Witness me and your kin around you. Is the knowledge you gained - the wisdom acquired through action and experience - is it gained through labour? No. I didn’t and others didn’t either. Can it be taught safely without forcing children with a young developing brain into dangerous work environments? Yes. I gained such wisdom later from the safety and comfort of my school. And we rest on the final point with a question:
How many opportunities in the common layman eye are there for children to receive education on the matter?
If your experience had 1 or more, I’d love for you to share such experiences here as it’s eye-opening to those who received and did not receive such privilege. I’m certainly interested! :)
As someone who was pulled out of school at 14 and sent to work rebuilding old houses and breaking my back for $100 a week, education is where it’s at.
Appalachia is a whole different world (especially 25-30 years ago, the internet is changing it though).
The dude I worked for was molesting little girls and using the boys to stand up for him in court later to talk about how great he was. Unfortunately (for him that is) he made some mistakes and didn’t get our support, but boy he tried.
I remember one time he took us to the lake. He said, “I’m psychic, you know. I know things that no one else knows.” I replied, “there’s no such thing. Prove it.” He said, “Ok, when you and Regina sat on the train tracks and you ate her pussy and she sucked your dick. I just seen that in my mind.” He blew my mind in that moment.
I grew up and realized, Regina put my penis in her mouth because someone was teaching her that shit. I put my mouth on her vagina because she instructed me to do it. She did so because someone taught her this stuff. We were 11 and 9.
I know that’s disturbing and I’m sorry.
Kids shouldn’t be handed over to strange adults to work. If I’m not proof of that I don’t know what is.
Holy shit, man, you okay?
Oh yeah. Life is great these days bud. Thank you for asking.
As someone who was pulled out of school at 14 and sent to work rebuilding old houses and breaking my back for $100 a week, education is where it’s at.
I’m just gonna say if they got me building houses for a day or two each week, I would’ve loved that shit and might’ve stayed in school.
The rest of the story is beyond me.
How old are you now?
Legal working age of 15 1/2 (in my state) plus a kid who looks young for their age - may not be the most appealing situation, bit this probably completely above board.
No age restrictions if family owned business, that’s a federal law no state can bypass, but I doubt the owner of Culver’s needs their kids to work to support the family.
I’m assuming it is the franchise owner’s kid. Not the owner of Culver’s.
I mean still…
That’s a federal law aimed at farm families from back in the day. And farm kids are still helping and working along side Grandpa and Dad. And where I live, in the middle of a forest, they also help and work along side in logging families also.
Growing up on a farm, my earliest memory in life is walking behind a tractor pulling a ‘stoneboat’ and picking up rocks in the fields along side my father and grandfather. I was driving a tractor pulling wagons and hay trailers by 8 years old and by 12 I was driving trucks hauling grain from the field to storage bins and unloading them. Plus getting up a 5AM to help milk cows every morning and again at 5PM. It was absolutely crucial when my Grandfather got sick with “Farmer’s Lung” and couldn’t work much anymore. I pretty much started running his farm at 14.
So they should just make the legal working age 12 and the problem is solved
She pressed the little pictogram squares on her till. (Literacy was no longer a requirement for employment in these restaurants. Smiling was.)
Good reference to a great book. Anyone who hasn’t read it, should. In a similar vein, anyone who hasn’t watched the streaming adaptation with Martin Sheen and David Tennant is in for a very nice surprise!
Martin Sheen!?
That’s President Kennedy, you idiot!
Well same difference! He played Kennedy once!
The children yearn for the fast food jobs, Overcooked and Roblox games have proven that.
I was stoked to have a job when I was 14 making smoothies. Legally I could only do 7 hours a week and I enjoyed it. It helped me learn about scheduling and being on time, and I saved up enough money to buy my own Xbox. People in this thread are idiots.
If there’s reasonable legal maximum hours and legal minimum age then sure, otherwise it’s just opening the door to child labour and that’s a real problem that exists even in first world countries.
Yeah, minimum age in the US (most states) is 14 yrs old. I wanted a job so bad when I was a kid. I grew up super poor so I never had an allowance. I got a job as soon as a could and I could buy my own things.
My own kid also got a job early, I told them they didn’t have to but they wanted to earn their own money (I was super proud of the reason). They worked for a few years, took a year or so off, then after graduating high school, bought their own car. I’m actually so proud of my kid. Kind of a smart ass sometimes but like… That’s because they’re me too. So like… 🤙
I grew up super poor so I never had an allowance. I got a job as soon as a could and I could buy my own things.
And there it is. Let’s not fix poverty or anything.
unreal that SendMePhotos chose to get a job instead of storm into the white house and demand poverty be fixed OR ELSE
🤷🏽 Builds character and I make more money than what my goal was from a teenager. I wasn’t forced into it. #NoRagrets
Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with a 14 year old working a few hours a week if they want to. Lemmy hivemind is pretty fucking stupid sometimes
I think the downvotes are because that kid looks a lot younger than 14, so this sentiment does not apply here.
I also don’t have a problem with kids working jobs, but it has to be under very controlled circumstances to avoid exploitation. It’s important to remember that children can’t enter contracts (which is a requirement of any employment), and for good reason.
I think as well that the recent spike in news stories about kids being killed at jobs they shouldn’t have been working in the first place is behind a lot of the sentiment here, so arguing that kids should be allowed to work while ignoring that context isn’t going to be received well.
That’s exactly how I looked at 14. Internet detectives don’t know jack shit
You seem to have missed the part about children being killed at jobs they shouldn’t be working in the first place. I agree there shouldn’t be a blanket ban on children working if certain requirements are met for safety, but if you’re going to ignore the problems with what’s actually happening and why people are upset about it then there’s nothing more to the discussion.
Case in point ^
No it isn’t. 14 is legal age to work in most US states
Yeah I’m saying you’re on the Internet and also don’t know shit
I started working at 15. The owner/manager of my first job would give the 15-17 year-old girls he hired drugs in exchange for sexual favors. Also had us work past legal hours and all the other normal exploitative shit people should expect.
Second job I had also had pedo managers. Asking us questions like, “what was the craziest places you had sex at?” during group orientation. I also had to dispute the hours I was paid for on nearly every paycheck I got.
I’m guessing experiences like this aren’t universal, but the fact that my first 2 jobs as a child were very exploitative, it’s probably not uncommon.
I think scheduling and being on time could be picked up quickly by adults.
I was stoked to have a job at 14 too!
I was not stoked to find out they had no intention of paying me.
i wish i had a job as a kid. i wouldnt have done anything smart like save it though i would have just bought dlc for rock band 😂
I started at 15. First thing I purchased was a PS1 and Chrono Cross. I felt like I had everything. After that it became a steady stream of gas money and tossing in $10-$20 bucks with other friends to get some weed. I miss the easy days…
