Posted on 07/18/2008 8:29:48 AM PDT by Choose Ye This Day
IT NEVER FAILS: Murphy's Law. When applying for jobs, the one place you do not want to call you back inevitably will. I encountered this annoying fact applying for jobs in Richmond, when I landed one at the local Subway.
Of all the interesting, vibrant-looking places in my area that I could have worked, this was definitely my last choice. But the only other places I had wanted to work told me it would be a few weeks or months, and I had to have something ASAP so that I could pay the rent.
At first glance, the job didn't seem as horrible as it could have been. I have plenty of experience making sandwiches and working in food service, so it wasn't hard at all. The man who hired me seemed nice enough, and I liked a few of my co-workers. I even got all subs at an employee discount, which made the delicious veggie sub I love cost mere chump change. I failed to take into account, however, my inability to function in this kind of a situation for very long and my disdain for the restrictions that come with employment at any fast-food restaurant.
First of all, some of my co-workers whom I met later are not exactly savory. They are much older than me and don't seem to respect me at all, even though I am doing my best to comply with their every wish and to be the best employee I can be. The management also demands that I remove my lip rings while working--which is ridiculous considering how many people with piercings I serve every day. This makes things a bit difficult due to the fact that I don't have the extra money right now to go out and buy spacers to put in the holes while I'm at work.
The one fellow employee that I really liked has crumpled under the awful pressure and quit, and I am being paid minimum wage--a fact I did not learn until the first paycheck came out.
But what makes the situation really unbearable is not the employees at Subway or even the stupid rules and pay, but the fact that I am barely getting any hours at this terrible job. At places like this, a worker is just a commodity, serving the functions of the business--not a person with needs that should be met. Six hours a week is not exactly going to cut it for someone who asked for more than 40 hours and has rent and bills to pay. I worked more hours than that a week as an intern at The Free Lance-Star, a job that was supposed to be educational and never a means to earn a living.
To top it all off, the fast-food industry is wasteful and goes against even the most basic environmentalist practices. Mishandled food or food that can't be served is thrown away, not saved to be taken home by the workers. Each sub is wrapped in paper and then placed into a small plastic bag--basically the equivalent of a grocery store giving customers one bag for each grocery. Even the apples we sell come sliced and packaged in plastic, although they would be perfectly sellable without any of that. In short, it is all about the profit and not about the overall good of society.
So what can I do about all of this? Well, apart from complaining in my column and trying to get another job as soon as possible, not much. I just have to keep going to work and hoping for the best. And maybe, some day, I will start my own restaurant, just to combat all the evil that I see in the fast-food industry. But until then, I will have to try to content myself with the fact that at least I am getting paid.
Addison Herron-Wheeler is a rising freshman at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Dressed in black... what a surprise!
“I just have to keep going to work and hoping for the best.”
Yep. Hope for change.
I have no idea what it means.
A "rising talent" is someone on the way up.
A "rising voice in the industry", or something like that.
A "rising freshman" is a meaningless phrase.
One would think that they'd all rise or leave (eventually).
Considering that it's summertime, the "rising" should have already occured. You either stood out in your freshmen year, or you didn't.
It’s actually a young woman, I guess. Some FReepers on the thread have located her MySpace page.
I agree. I was a walking idiot in my late teens. I got over it.
Now that pics have been located, it might have something to do with yeast.
Ewwwwww.
Funny, though.
Yep, it sure does. That's why most of us do what ever we have to to better ourselves so we can rise above minimum wage.
That being said, why should idiot high school and college kids expect anything else. No experience, very little education, and most with an attitude. I've been on the manager side, and, believe me, that can suck too. :-)
My best friend won a "Silver Spatula" award from McDonalds when he worked there right after college almost 30 years ago. He's now in charge of medical record coding at one of the top 15 hospitals in the country. He keeps the award on the wall in his office to (1) remind him of how far he's come, and (2) to remind him that he never wants to go back there.
I was sure that that was a joke. Apparently it’s not.
Listen up, idiot. Subway is doing you a favor hiring your useless blob of flesh to make sandwiches. They exist to make money, not to serve your liberal ego. They have to pay you the minimum wage because that’s the law, but you aren’t worth the price of the plastic bags with your attitude. Put the rings back in and go apply for a job with the democrat party. They like lazy, self-absorbed idiots like you.
Several things annoy me about this.
This idiot has a column?! Obviously the paper likes him because they call him “a rising freshman.”
If he were worth anything as an employee, he would get more hours.
What is he saying about the plastic bags? Should each customer get an unwrapped sandwich? Should the sandwich be wrapped in paper only? Should the customer be required to bring in a plastic bag? Should there be one plastic bag for each 10 customers?
This kid is obviously already a raving lunatic of a leftist wacko. He’ll go far in the democrat party.
“Addison Herron-Wheeler is a rising freshman at Virginia Commonwealth University...who is voting for Obama for change.”
If he’s old enough to vote by then.
Dems do not care about that, even the dead can vote:)
“I was a walking idiot in my late teens. I got over it.”
Youthful ignorance is a rite of passage for most people. All grow-up but unfortunately many remain ignorant.
Based on the influences found in her MySpace profile, she’s got to be the same person who wrote this:
http://www.microhorror.com/microhorror/category/author/addison-herron-wheeler/
At the same time, it is disrespectful for an employer to expect an employee to be availible at any given time but unwilling to give him sufficient hours to support himself. Most of my employers, though, gave me as many hours as I wanted.
At the same time, it is disrespectful for an employer to expect an employee to be availible at any given time but unwilling to give him sufficient hours to support himself. Most of my employers, though, gave me as many hours as I wanted.
Let me guess, you worked hard and didn't whine like little miss lip ring. I wonder if there's a correlation? ;)
I wonder if he could get a job ast Jess’s.
One part time job I took, I was led to believe that the pay was 11 bucks an hour. When I got my first paycheck, it came to about 8.35 an hour, before taxes. Rather than quit, I stayed with the job, figuring it was better than nothing. And hoping that in time my pay would be raised to 11 bucks an hour. 4 and a half years later, I was let go (the business had moved out of state) and my pay was still nowhere near 11 bucks an hour at the very end of the job.
Considering that it's summertime, the "rising" should have already occured.
Er, no. A 'rising freshman' will typically start in the fall semester. She probably starts at the end of August. A better term would be 'recent high school graduate.'
Yeeeaahhhhh...... I’d use the term “incoming” rather than “rising” in that case.
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