The day I turned sixteen I was excited to be able to finally get a job. Others may not understand, but being a part of a working class family meant that the new shoes I wanted I would have to wait until Christmas for it. Or that, I'd have to save the $10 dollar allowances I got each week to get what I wanted. I was never really angry at my parents for not always having enough on the side to give me so I could splurge on vanity things. What it pushed me to do is to get a job.
And that's what I did. When I was sixteen years old I got my first minimum wage job at Century 21. Truth be told, I was ecstatic to finally make my own money. And each week, when I got that paycheck it made me extremely pleased with myself. I started to socialize among the other cashiers who had been working there for 5 or more years. How could one spend years living off a minimum wage paycheck? I was a teenager so $250 dollars a week to me seemed like a lot. But as an adult $250 dollars was nothing at all.
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Working at my job had reinforced my goals. It wasn't like before I was thinking of spending my life saying "Next in line!" It was just that my retail job had made me wake up and realize that going to college would be my ticket out of having to do this for the rest of my life. My retail job had conditioned me into being much more determined, and much more hardworking. It had somewhat stripped me from my laziness and programmed my mind on one thing. And that was: having a career rather than a job.
One thing I had definitely realized that I hated was having a supervisor watch over me. I hated having them tell me when to come in and when I had to leave. I hated having to deal with pesky customers. I hated how my manager would speak to me. I hated having to beg for a day off. I hated every last minute of working under others. I wanted to be the boss. And indeed, my hate had switched something on in my brain.
And having my job had made life much more realistic for me. It made me realize that hard work pays off. You could go to college and flunk out because you weren't serious. And I think that's what a minimum wage job does for a student. I think it makes you serious and much more responsible for your life ahead. That when you wake up to attend that morning class that you're doing it because you don't want to say, "Next in line!". That every time a class get's hard you'll study twice as much because the end goal is your fruitful career.
My retail job made me realize that there was NO room for excuses. You either buck up and put 200% in, or you settle for that minimum wage job. So let your bad ass minimum wage job, and rude customers you have to deal with motivate you to do better.
Because the truth is, if you hate your retail or fast food job as much as me, then you're one hundred steps in the right direction to being a mogul, to having an empire, to being called a doctor, to directing the next award winning movie, to being Mr. or Madame President and more.
The truth is the only next in line I'll be dealing with is in the year 2020 when they call my name for my degree in communications.
So hate your minimum wage job 'cuz sometimes hate can paint a beautiful picture.
