For whatever reason, there seems to be a stygma attached toworking in fast food that wasn’t there when I was young, or ever that I am aware of.  Let’s face it honestly, these places provide jobs for people with no experience, no marketable skills, and no knowledge of how to work!  Of course they pay little, and you come home from work smelling like lunch, but I personally believe that a lot of very important knowledge can be passed on to anybody who wishes to learn.

Most employers don’t want to become babysitters who have to pay those who are ’sitted’.  They will expect a certain level of dedication, committment, drive, and ethics and will not keep an employee long that lacks in either of these areas.  The problem you, as young people, face is that there is no class on these attributs that you can take, there is no DVD that will teach them to you.  The only place to get the experience is in thw workplace, gaining experience.

Enter now the fast food place.  They know how much they pay.  They know how you smell when you go home.  But, they are willing to overlook some of the faults and flaws of the young, albeit temporarily, and try to teach them to be better employees for the next job.  Take it from me, I know of no other job where I can go to my boss and tell him that I want the day off because I had a hangover.  Well, I could, but I no of no other place where it is accepted as a valid excuse.  Because these places do put up with a lot of flaky teens, they usually hire them by the truckload, and they offer no benefits and part-time hours.  In my mind, that’s almost as good as it gets for the young.  Whatever you do, don’t fall into the trap of taking a job that winds up being a career move that you will wind up regretting in fifteen or so years.