Searching for jobs in high school, or even for the first time, can be hard to do. You have no experience in the workforce and don’t have a flexible schedule to work with. And unfortunately, the only jobs open to you tend to be fast-food or retail. However, these can be some of the best jobs to start off with it. Here’s a list of the reasons why.
You will hear a lot about gaining responsibility when you are first searching for jobs. It’s definitely something you gain when you do get a job. You have to be responsible for getting yourself there on time.
You have to be responsible for doing the job right, being nice to customers, doing what is asked of you, etc. Another part of that is being responsible enough to know when you need help with a situation.
If there are too many customers for you to handle, you need to be able to call for help from another employee or your manager.
In retail and fast-food, you are assigned to a certain position for the day and are expected to be able to do that position after you have been trained. Meaning it’s your responsibility to know what to do and do it well.
Having jobs in retail and fast-food can help you get a sense of the reality you live in. Not everyone will be nice or even try to listen to you as you try to explain something simple or obvious to them. However, there are some who do and who try to understand.
If you run into those people, chances are they have had jobs just like yours and are more patient than the average customer.
The other end of the reality is that you will find out how important it is to have a team that works together well. If they don’t work well, it will be a hard day to be there. But if they do work well together, everything will move smoothly and quickly. And you might meet some new friends along the way.
Before getting a job, you may or may not understand the value of a dollar. Especially if your parents or guardians pay for everything your entire life. Now that you are working, you will find that it takes a lot of work to get the money to buy anything you will want.
This includes food, bills, rent, fun activities, etc. You will become much more aware of how much work you need to put in to actually buy anything. This is especially true if you work in fast-food and or retail for your first job.
Many of these jobs are minimum wage. A wage that has not changed in a very long time as of this article being published. The prices go up, your wages do not unless you move up the work ladder.
If you stay with the company long enough, you will start to get raises if you work hard and prove that you deserve the raise. Don’t be afraid to talk to your manager about getting one if you feel you deserve one. Especially after being there for at least a year.
You will be working next to your colleagues for many hours as you continue to work in retail or fast-food. You’ll find that during the slow times you will joke around and become friends with these people.
They might even stay in touch with you when you eventually leave your job. Especially if you add each other on social media like Facebook, Snapchat, or Instagram.
The best part about having work friends is that you can joke about the job itself and the types of customers you all have and it can always remain a funny inside joke between you. Having work friends can make the day go by much quicker as you share your misery together, or have fun together sometimes.
If you become close enough friends, you might be invited to vacations in the future where you all can get away from the stress of work and enjoy being free for once.
New friends can also introduce you to different perspectives since everyone is coming from a different background with different experiences. Who knows, you might actually enjoy many different activities you never thought of before?
Having any kind of job brings its share of annoying customers. Especially when you are working in fast-food or retail. After a certain amount of weeks, you get the hang of dealing with the annoying ones. At least enough so that you don’t pop a blood vessel.
One of the best things you can do is keep calm, try to keep a smile and remind yourself why you need this job until you get enough experience to get a better one.
If a customer gets too riled up, that’s when you need to call for your manager. They are trained for situations like this. Even if the customer complains and they are wrong, which is most of the time, your manager won’t do anything to you if they are understanding.
Many jobs have their own ways of keeping employees working there when the environment isn’t exactly the best. For a lot of retail and fast-food, you might get a discount on certain items. For fast-food, you can sometimes get 10-50% off of your food order if you order within a certain amount of time.
For retail, you might get a specific percentage off of your purchase on certain items, depending on what kind of retail store it is.
Many times it’s not the discount that actually keeps the employees there, but it is nice to have when you are low on cash because of your minimum wage job.
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