FroMan's Journal: Bobby's World

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,285935,00.html

I worked at a Bob Evans in Traverse City as a teen. I bussed, dishes, cooked, hosted, and even waited twice. I also started at minimum wage and was up to a couple dollars over that when I finally quit a few years later. I would go in clean and come out covered in grease. Definitely a starter job for someone (well, I had done farm work since I was twelve), but not too shabby as far as I am concerned.

It was an interesting place to work. The general manager was having an affair with the head waitress, at least everyone thought. There was a mother daughter team that started there a while after I had. The daughter wound up daiting, and getting knocked up, by one of the line cooks. There was a college girl who waited tables who would come back every summer who reminded me of Cordelia from Buffy in her self centeredness. I helped on of my best friends get a job there, where he met a waitress who he knocked up.

There were two types of people who worked at Bob Evans. The kids and the lifers. The kids pretty much universally laughed at the lifers, that is until they would realize they were on track to become a lifer. We (the kids) saw this job as a means for gas and date money. So, what we got paid wasn't important, there was no pride in our work, and very little was taken seriously. The lifers were an odd bunch. They would enshrine their work area and there were constant turf wars to retain control and power over their domain. Each would see his own area as the center of the store and would jockey to gain control over areas ouside their own. It was a terribley small potatoes world, but it was the world they could be their own masters.

I'll toss in some political comment here quick. When I worked on a farm I earned less than minimum wage, that was from about 12 until 16. At Bob Evan's I started at minimum wage, but I quickly was making more. Minimum wage is not meant for raising a family, or even to be a livable wage. At $5.25 an hour that is about $10,500 a year if you work full time. I worked probably about 20 hours a week, so I would have made about $5000 a year working. Bob Evans was able to keep me employed during highschool because I was paid so little. In short, I was able to have a job because they did not have to pay me a livable wage. If they had to pay me the equivelent of $20,000 a year, then I would not have had a job in highschool because they would not be able to afford to pay me.

I will try to make sure my son as he grows up, and is a teen, gets a job at somewhere similar to Bob Evans. First, learning to work at a young age is terribley important. And you might as well cut your teeth on something pretty unimportant. Second, even though I said there were two kids of people, there were actually a lot more, but I don't have time to tell each of their individual stories. Some are sadder than others, some are pathetic, and some iteresting, even encouraging. He should have the oppertunity to meet these sorts of folks. Not today, but as he gets older.