Those High School Jobs Sure Teach Some Valuable Lessons

My first official job was bagging groceries at a local grocery store. The management was bad, the hours were okay, and the pay was minimum wage; I suppose it was just your typical job for most high school kids.

A lot of the staff for cashiers and baggers were high school kids. We were given the bottom-of-the-totem-pole jobs — running carts, bagging, and cleaning — and if you were sixteen or older, you got to do cashier work, too.

We were overused and underpaid, and some of the teenage staff took advantage of their knowledge of the store for some five-finger discounts. I can’t say I was helpful on either end because I never spoke up against those that did it, but I never helped them, either. This behavior went on for the last eight to ten months or so that I worked there.

I, along with a handful of other high schoolers, ended up quitting and going on to different jobs at the same time.

About a month after I quit, I stopped into [Grocery Store] to pick up some candy. As I was walking through, I passed my friend who had worked there but quit when I did. He (sixteen years old) was there with his younger brother (thirteen) and sister (fifteen). I headed back toward the candy aisle, browsed for a bit, picked out some stuff, and just kind of wandered for a few minutes and said hi to a couple of folks I used to work with.

I made my way to the front of the store, and I saw my friend and his siblings off to the side, near the front office. My friend was nearly in tears and was freaking out, and his siblings were crying. I walked over to him quickly.

Me: “What happened?!”

Friend: “[Floor Manager] caught us stealing. Now the store is trying to decide what they want to do about it.”

I didn’t stay to see the outcome, but I would later hear from him about it.

My friend was one of the high schoolers who would steal things, and since he did it so much and never got caught while he worked there, he decided to show his brother and sister how to do it. I guess his cockiness got the best of him because he got caught and was now facing consequences.

In the end, his parents were called to the store. My friend had to pay for everything they tried to steal that day, and then he and his siblings were banned from the store forever. Cops would not be involved as long as they don’t come back to the store.

He was also grounded for three months, and his parents forced him to donate his free time to their church, where he had to do janitorial work under the supervision of the pastor and the head janitor. So, when he wasn’t at school or his current job, he was at the church donating his time.