'The other staff are also in school': Boss schedules 15-year-old worker during school hours, makes the teen find a cover

Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor

Mar 26, 2024 3:00 PM EDT

There's nothing more dehumanizing than being a teenage worker at an exploitative business. It's a pretty good rule of thumb that if an establishment is regularly hiring 15 and 16-year-olds, it's probably not the most ethical business in the world. It's so much easier for bosses to take advantage of teenagers who've never worked anywhere else because they usually don't know any better. On the first day of my first job as a teenager, I asked my manager if I could leave at nine because that's when the schedule said my shift was done. In response, he laughed and told me, "You don't leave when the schedule says; you leave when you're done. It's a good thing the boss didn't hear you say that." At the time, I was so embarrassed, but now I look back and can't believe he said that. One teenager who's being pushed around by their part-time job recently took to Reddit to share their story, and it's so bad, it's easy to believe.