My first job was working in fast food when I was 14 years old. My parents had applied for me thinking it would be a good way to make some money and get independence. None of my experiences are as bad as some comrades here, but they're burned into my brain.
It was exhausting work for an out of shape autistic nerd, having to run like mad all day in a hot, loud kitchen. I got a dressing down once because I would clean the grease off the flat top between cooking using two hands until the halfway point, then switching to one at the end. Procedures and rules said two hands the whole time, but I regularly burned my knuckle on the clamshell top and wanted to avoid it. This was an official writing up that contributed to me losing my job, and I could not understand it at the time.
The worst of it was that everyone knew I was a kid and had school, and yet I would often get closing shifts during the week. It wouldn't be so bad except closing didn't have a set time. We were open late, and closing was officially at 1 in the morning, but you stayed until the job was done. You were paid for the work, but the end time would change.
Despite being 14, I would without fail be tasked with being the last there, scrubbing all our equipment out, sweeping and mopping the floors, while the managers sat in the back doing book keeping. My mom would sit in the parking lot, waiting, knowing she also had to work in the morning, until I was allowed out. Usually this was about 2, sometimes closer to 3. I didn't know enough to stand up for myself, and I couldn't effectively anyway as a literal child, and nobody backed me up. I never had a closing shift where a coworker said "hey, I'll take this one".
So I'd get driven home and crash sometime around 3. I'd wake up three or four hours later and go to school, tired as fuck and unable to concentrate, and then go do it again that evening. I vividly remember how my hands just always smelled like onions and cleaning agent, no matter how often I washed them.
It's nothing like what other comrades experienced here, and lasted only three months before I was fired, but I can still vividly remember how shit my first job was, and how early I learned capitalism will fuck you over.
My first job was working in fast food when I was 14 years old. My parents had applied for me thinking it would be a good way to make some money and get independence. None of my experiences are as bad as some comrades here, but they're burned into my brain.
It was exhausting work for an out of shape autistic nerd, having to run like mad all day in a hot, loud kitchen. I got a dressing down once because I would clean the grease off the flat top between cooking using two hands until the halfway point, then switching to one at the end. Procedures and rules said two hands the whole time, but I regularly burned my knuckle on the clamshell top and wanted to avoid it. This was an official writing up that contributed to me losing my job, and I could not understand it at the time.
The worst of it was that everyone knew I was a kid and had school, and yet I would often get closing shifts during the week. It wouldn't be so bad except closing didn't have a set time. We were open late, and closing was officially at 1 in the morning, but you stayed until the job was done. You were paid for the work, but the end time would change.
Despite being 14, I would without fail be tasked with being the last there, scrubbing all our equipment out, sweeping and mopping the floors, while the managers sat in the back doing book keeping. My mom would sit in the parking lot, waiting, knowing she also had to work in the morning, until I was allowed out. Usually this was about 2, sometimes closer to 3. I didn't know enough to stand up for myself, and I couldn't effectively anyway as a literal child, and nobody backed me up. I never had a closing shift where a coworker said "hey, I'll take this one".
So I'd get driven home and crash sometime around 3. I'd wake up three or four hours later and go to school, tired as fuck and unable to concentrate, and then go do it again that evening. I vividly remember how my hands just always smelled like onions and cleaning agent, no matter how often I washed them.
It's nothing like what other comrades experienced here, and lasted only three months before I was fired, but I can still vividly remember how shit my first job was, and how early I learned capitalism will fuck you over.