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Kirsty McHenry | The lessons of working for a minimum wage
You can learn a lot of wise lessons from working for minimum wage, writes Kirsty McHenry. “Some of my friends worked in the local restaurant , where the owners failed to pay their wages once the business was no longer profitable.”
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For many university students, describing their summer as a vacation would be misleading. For them, summer is the time for working. It means longer hours on the job and the chance to replenish whatever savings have been dissipated during the previous academic year. So, with many such students now coming off a summer of gruelling full-time employment, what better time than to reflect on some of the extra-monetary benefits of minimum wage work (and I’m not just talking about the 20% employee discount).
Working a minimum wage job has the advantage of teaching you many new skills. For instance, as the on-the-ground face of the company you have the responsibility of liaising with unhappy customers and defending the owners’ decisions whether or not you share their let-them-eat-cake attitude. “I want you to know that I’m withholding your tip” – a customer informed me recently as he pointed to his receipt – “because I was charged extra for bread. In a restaurant, bread should come free.” This kind of routine interaction regularly experienced by minimum wage workers can act as a good lesson in how to navigate being on the lower end of the socioeconomic hierarchy. As a waitress myself, I like to think the trick is mastering the art of nodding sympathetically.
Another virtue of working a minimum wage job, is that you are given a glimpse into the way that so-called “unskilled” workers are treated both by society and by the market. By working the kind of position that is often excluded from the mainstream social narrative, you are simultaneously made aware of how much low-status work contributes to the functioning of the world day-to-day and how little respect it is granted in return. Furthermore, you may come to realise that while yes – you are being exploited, the alternative option is starvation. It is around this time that workers tend to diverge down one of two paths: either setting their sights upwards on the ladder towards senior management or feeling the temptation to revisit a certain notorious manifesto.
When I was in secondary school, several of my friends worked for a local restaurant (the back rooms of which were basically crawling with underage staff) whose owners neglected to pay their wages once the business became unprofitable. Through that experience, my friends were able to learn the worth of their labour; a lesson, I’m sure, the businessowners who stiffed them would argue was just as valuable. It is in avoiding situations like that one, that minimum wage jobs offer you the opportunity to quickly acquaint yourself with a union and familiarise yourself with your employee rights (regardless of your reluctance to ever actually bring them up). If your working conditions are particularly atrocious or your boss especially diabolical, then you may even be lucky enough to get an insight into the litigation process.
Rather than an end to work, for many, the start of the autumn season just means making the switch to part-time. Afterall, with annually increasing tuition fees, the last three year’s inflation surge, and crippling rent prices (naturally), having a job remains the only way most of these students can afford to pay the bills. Whether those reading this are currently employed or not is mainly irrelevant – either way almost everyone has to get a job inevitably. Nonetheless, whatever the pay grade each of our futures hold, it’s important to acknowledge (through personal experience or otherwise) that the work that receives the minimum is often the work we rely on the most.
