Countless times students are being mistreated at their minimum wage jobs. Some students work to pay the bills, others to pay for schooling. Our jobs remind us why we want an education in the first place, so we can get out and get a “real job” in our future dream career.
College jobs include cashiering at retail stores, working at fast food chains, or customer service. Most employees claim to admire students who are wiling to work with a flexible schedule and sure, most of these places understand that school is a priority. They tend to give us all of the days we want off, but on the days we are scheduled to work, they think it’s OK to abuse us.
It’s as if they know how badly students need the job and therefore our bosses push us to extreme limits, knowing we won’t quit, because how else will we pay for college.
It is incredible how these places manage to get away with these injustices. Countless amounts of times my co-workers, who are also students, have gone without a break for more than 5 hours.
As incredible as it sounds, this is happening everywhere. What are these people thinking? Do they think we are unaware of labor laws that require a break after certain amount of hours on the job? We understand that they don’t want to provide us with health insurance and certain benefits, why can’t they understand that we get tired as well. Heck, we as college students are probably more knowledgeable than half of the staff members they put in charge.
Aside from breaking laws, these places are constantly putting us down. Yelling at us for a simple mistake made. Humiliating us by giving us all the dirty work. Pin pointing all our mistakes, and sometimes even ignoring us when we need help.
Aside from being mistreated by our supervisors and bosses, we also have to put up with many nagging customers. Customers constantly shout at us for things we really have no control over. They are constantly complaining about how they cannot get a discount, how their meal is too expensive, why there is no shoe in their size, or my favorite, why their coupon is expired. These customers appear to think that just because we are working at what they consider a dead-end job we must be uneducated and happy to have a job at all. They use this idea to have their way.
Are you kidding? We have no control over that! Let us see how the customer feels on the other side of the counter. Would they speak to us the same way? Would they give us such a hard time for no reason? I don’t think so.
Since we are educated adults, we decide that would rather be the bigger person by simply giving a polite smile, apologizing, and basically brown nosing to satisfy the customer in order to keep our job.
I find it absurd for students to have to put up with all this abuse, I also find it very admirable that we do. I cannot tell you how many times I have felt sorry for my friends, co-workers, and myself while I am at work. We are students, we are working as equally as hard and deserve better.
I constantly have to tell my friends and remind myself that these jobs are simply stepping stones in life. The only reason our bosses treat us the way that they do is because they are unhappy, knowing that they will always be working there and we students have a future ahead. As harsh at it sounds, many of the student workers know this is true.
Good luck to all the student workers. We all know what you are going through and soon enough you will look back at your minimum wage jobs and laugh about it. Keep in mind you will only be doing this for a couple more years. Just remember that the people who mistreat you in your current job could even be working for you one day.
