We all know that one friend that says “ugh I have work again” when they have to leave early to get to wherever on time. It wasn’t until sophomore year when I desperately wanted money to spend without the constant nagging of my parents for spending their money. However, it’s not easy finding a good job as a sixteen year old. Places to work are limited, and some places requires you to be eighteen. It’s definitely not impossible to get a job at sixteen, but that’s not the worse part yet. Maybe it’s because we’re young but we have to deal with the long hours on school nights, nasty treatment from managers and bosses, and the unexpectedly low minimum wage.

Even though hanging out on the weekends with a pocket full of cash may seem like a dream, but working for it isn’t as easy as it seems. Some jobs may be flexible, but for most of us we want money by Friday the latest so our pockets can be filled. Some places make high school students take six hour shifts on a school night, which ultimately turns adolescents into zombies the next day. Some places even make students close around midnight and clean up before they leave. It’s almost ridiculous on how these higher authorities make young workers stay past their curfew.

While keeping up with busy work schedules, there was also something called dealing with managers. Now, I understand not all bosses are terrible, some might even be your friend on Facebook. Unfortunately I’ve heard endless stories of bosses getting mad at young workers like us for not knowing how to do something even though they haven’t even learned it. I once walked into a coffee shop and witnessed a girl being yelled at for not knowing how to make coffee, making it look like it was the girl’s fault. But everyone and their mother knew she was just as lost as anyone else. I would have hated to be in her position, being humiliated in front of a crowd like that.

$8.25. Nothing more, nothing less. That is minimum wage, ladies and gentlemen. Started in 2013, this was the amount most young adults got as they worked up a sweat. The minimum wage is extremely low in my perspective, given the things we have to do to earn this kind of money. Usually at this age, we hate being told what to do, but we do it for the pay.

As teen workers, we should be able to experience a working environment, but also keep it from calling it child labor. We shouldn’t be exposed to what kids during the Industrial Revolution had to deal with, but it’s getting to the point where teen workers might as well not work. With the excessive hours, treatment from authority, and the low of the lowest minimum wage, it’s just not even worth it. We might as well just wait until our actual career.