"You People"

        If I had a dime for every time I heard someone refer to me as, "you people" while on the clock at Foodies, I could have paid for my years at Delta in-full by now. It doesn't really matter the context of this saying, because it happens with every subject. "You people obviously aren't very educated if you're working here right?" This is probably the most common use of the phrase, but I take this one the lightest. If you believe that we, the fast food workers of the world, only work here because we are uneducated, you are uneducated. If you take a look around our restaurant you would see two things: Parents, and school-goers. The fast food industry is one that hires people who need a job; we do not seek out the uneducated. "Oh! You didn't graduate high school? Perfect, you're hired!" No. When you get hired in at Foodies you actually have to show proof of a high school diploma, GED, or provide a plan to obtain one of these things. If we were uneducated how would we count back change? We work here because we need a flexible job schedule while putting ourselves through college, we need a part time job before we obtain our degrees, we flat out just need job experience, and some of us are parents who need a job to support their children. We are people, educated just like you, just trying to get by. But if that wasn't enough, we are now being targeted for the raise of minimum wage. 

          Minimum wage being raised affected us all in different ways. I will not deny that the change looked really good on my first pay check, but I am well aware of the effects it will have. “You people are the reason that minimum wage is going up. You people don’t even deserve it.” As I understand the anger of someone who is not receiving a wage increase, I do not understand this sort of displaced aggression. Fast food places are not the only companies paying their workers minimum wage. That convenient store you just went to only pays minimum wage, the gas station you stopped by today pays minimum wage, that clothing store that you ran to pays minimum wage, and the company that you called to clean up your basement after it flooded, they pay minimum wage. So why are we the only people you see? Why are we the people you target when something goes wrong? I am fully educated on the effects of inflation. I understand that this will make a huge impact on prices, including ours at Foodies, but I did not ask for this. I did not write a letter personally begging the government to raise minimum wage, I did not hold picket signs and scream outside of an office building, I didn’t even sign my name on any petitions. So why yell and scream at me? We work fast food therefore we are the poster children for uneducated, undeserving, and just plain wrong Americans.

          Fast food is one of the biggest demands in America. You can easily pass by a McDonald's and see “We have served xx billion customers!” We are a service that people can’t live without. Foodies opens at 10 and I, personally, have gotten annoyed customers asking me why we don’t open any earlier. If all of the fast food companies decided to shut down for a month I’m pretty sure all hell would break loose. People wouldn't know what to do if they didn't feel like cooking dinner, or if their child was screaming for nuggets. So the people who are condemning us for working here are our customers, the ones that choose to eat there. If we all went out at followed our dreams, “got educated”, and left fast food you wouldn't be able to enjoy that burger that you get twice a week. “You cannot demand a service while simultaneously degrading the people who provide it for you.” – unknown