Currently, I’m on my third job, all being in the food industry. More importantly, in the fast-food industry. While working I’ve noticed constant patterns in the places I’ve worked, young people, in positions of supervisors and management. Now, it’s nice to know that kids are being trusted in the workplace, and can gain experience in higher positions, which will help them later on, but at the same time, corporations shouldn’t be putting 18 year-old-kids under immense stress. Every kid I’ve seen in these levels of authority has had to run entire stores by themselves and know every position while also trying to train new hires. All while not being properly trained for the position they were thrown into. 

It’s become clear that corporations do not care about the well-being of their employees. Although most of us know this already, it is still disappointing to see kids deal with what should be an adult’s job. All because the corporations know that they can abuse kids’ labor and get away with offering them nearly nothing for more stress. 

Where I currently work, shift supervisors only make a dollar more than the average worker, a dollar more for essentially doing a manager’s job for 8 hours. With no employee meal, or discount being offered. 

Corporations are blatantly abusing their power and abusing kids who think it’s a privilege to be in a position of power.

It’s time that people realize this and try to protect kids from being used by corporations. Many of them don’t see any problems with what is happening to them, and how it’s not normal for someone of their age to be running an entire store on their own. If these jobs need people in positions of authority, they should offer more pay so that more adults will want to take the jobs they should have. 

No kids, though seen as adults, should have to deal with the stress of having to take care of their coworkers’ needs, their own needs, the customer’s needs, and the needs of the manager/general manager. Only to be paid a dollar more than their coworkers.

There should be more regulations on who can be put into a position of management, many 18-year-olds aren’t mature enough to know how to handle every situation, especially when it comes to something serious. There shouldn’t be restaurants being operated by only teenagers.

I can’t count the number of times my coworkers have had to call other shift supervisors to try to figure something out, all because they weren’t trained correctly and were thrown into their positions out of desperation. So now we end up all huddled together trying to figure out what we could attempt to make the situation better. 

No matter what happens every coworker is dragged into the consequences of the corporations’ laziness and lack of regard for what happens in their establishments. Then when something doesn’t go their way, it turns into a punishment against all the employees, even though it’s their fault for not paying attention to what’s happening.

They will complain about money loss, labor being too high or too low, and customer complaints, but never take a second to see the conditions of how the store is being run. If most of them knew that the entirety of one of their establishments was being run by kids who had no clue what they were doing, then it would change their mind on who should be in levels of authority. But the higher-ups would never think to even step foot into an actual establishment, and see what’s occurring in their stores.