This is Culver’s. They’re a burger fast food joint located throughout the Midwest and have things called “Scoopy Night” where a percentage of the proceeds go toward a specific cause. Schools, dance groups, etc can partake and the kids who attend that school/dance group/etc help take orders and deliver food to tables. Not quite as dystopian as OP has made it seem.
Honestly... the idea that they do this work, and the money goes to a school instead of them, makes it even worse to me?
It's a fundraiser likely for an after school program. It typically pays out a lot better than a car wash or brat fry. Typically the students run orders out to cars.
And yeah, we probably should put more funding into schools for stuff like this instead of asking kids to fundraise.
"Child labor is ok if the money goes to a school!"
Yea it makes it worse tbh. We won't fund fun things at the schools so instead we make them work fast food to earn that funding.
It is indeed even more dystopian when you put it like that. It's got the same energy as people giving their coworker PTO so they can deliver a baby or whatever.
Are the kids required to work in order to get the money? Because that sounds like a job with good PR.
My thoughts exactly. If it's optional, cool, the kids get some experience and maybe takehome money. If it's required, fuck that shit.
Children do work at McDonald’s though
Just they would keep them in the back so they can’t be seen
when we needed to do fundraisers THE PARENTS IN THE PTA DID IT FOR THE MIDDLE SCHOOLERS.
We had plenty of 'kids' working at fast food and grocery stores but not until 15 minimum. this kid looks like he's 9. that's too young to be fucking around near fryers and hot grills.
So many Americans in here defending this, get a clue you idiots.
I'm Australian and this reminds me of working at the local fish and.chip store when I was 12. I asked the local general store, but they'd only pay me to do odd jobs, the local bakery said no,.and the local fish and.chip shop said I could help take orders and.package meals during their busy hours each evening.
My Lego collection grew, I got real good at Time Crisis 3, and I went to see a movie each Saturday. It was awesome. I didn't see it any different to scoring cash for mowing lawns or washing cars, just stable and they appreciated my help so I felt good too.
If you'd told me I wasn't allowed, I'd have done it behind your back and said I was going to friend's houses.
Cool story mate!
Lots of people are fine with bad things they grew up with because it didn’t personally affect them.
Name and shame which Culver's it is.
I've seen this at a Culver's before. I never bothered to ask what the deal was but I assume it's some kind of loophole because they're not exactly hiding it
I think many states allow children as young as 12 to work in specific non-dangerous jobs with permission from the parents. A company recently got in trouble when they had like 20 12-15 year olds working in a meat processing plant which definitely did not qualify for the "not dangerous" qualifier.
They do this often at the Culver's near me. It's a fundraiser for school / extracurricular activities. The group works for a few hours and Culver's donates the receipts for that time.
It's better than having them go door to door selling wreaths and shit.
Somehow that made it even more dystopian. The school system is in on it
The children are working to fund the school.
Nuf said?
The school is funded already through taxpayers. The fact that "the children are working to fund the school" is an acceptable line of logic is already dystopian.
Traditionally, children do fundraisers to fund extracurricular activities, like a field trip. If the school is taking that money to add to their budget, that's crossing the line into exploiting kids' labor for money.
This kid is way too young to be taking verbal abuse from customers. I remember being 19-but-looked-15 and grown-ass adult customers calling me stupid and useless, and generally speaking to and looking at me like I was a piece of dung stuck to the bottom of their shoe. People who thought I was a literal child behaved this way. Not to mention all the perverts. Kids shouldn’t be working customer service, not in a world where adults have such disgusting behavior.
Nah, you got the wrong end of the stick, this is an uplifting story - it's a kid working hard to provide for his mum's cancer treatment that in any other developed nation would be covered by taxes. Uplifting. Right? So Uplifting. He doesn't need to be with his mum in her time of need, he should be suckin that capitalist dick.
“We made this shitty thing legal, so you can’t disagree with it. Checkmate athieists”
When I was 13 I was 'encouraged' by my family to get a job. I had no interest. They pulled some strings and I began illegally working (14 was the legal age) for a small family diner. At this time I just wanted to fiddle on my tech as I was very nerdy, but my family didn't want me to "stay in my room all the time," so pointless labour it was.
I did appreciate the liberation I gained from my family, even if I didn't have the knowledge of what to do with it; How to expand upon it. Probably for the best imo. I spent my whole first paycheck on some games that me and my homies would play in the garage and made great memories. If there was a life lesson to be learned during this whole experience, I never understood it at the time. Eventually I was let go from work since no-one taught me how to perform my job duties well enough. That's life, though!
By luck, one of my caring high-school teachers managed to slip-in his own curriculum. He taught a class of ~15 students some important financial skills... how mortgages work... how to create and manage savings... credit building... Bunch of important life stuff that I would consider essential knowledge in our society was an optional course I learned through word-of-mouth/happenstance.
???
why
Meanwhile and my ultimate gripe with this thread and tying this back into a dystopian - I see some people mention they learned valuable life lessons and a bunch of other copium. Witness me and your kin around you. Is the knowledge you gained - the wisdom acquired through action and experience - is it gained through labour? No. I didn't and others didn't either. Can it be taught safely without forcing children with a young developing brain into dangerous work environments? Yes. I gained such wisdom later from the safety and comfort of my school. And we rest on the final point with a question:
How many opportunities in the common layman eye are there for children to receive education on the matter?
If your experience had 1 or more, I'd love for you to share such experiences here as it's eye-opening to those who received and did not receive such privilege. I'm certainly interested! :)
As someone who was pulled out of school at 14 and sent to work rebuilding old houses and breaking my back for $100 a week, education is where it’s at.
Appalachia is a whole different world (especially 25-30 years ago, the internet is changing it though).
The dude I worked for was molesting little girls and using the boys to stand up for him in court later to talk about how great he was. Unfortunately (for him that is) he made some mistakes and didn’t get our support, but boy he tried.
I remember one time he took us to the lake. He said, “I’m psychic, you know. I know things that no one else knows.” I replied, “there’s no such thing. Prove it.” He said, “Ok, when you and Regina sat on the train tracks and you ate her pussy and she sucked your dick. I just seen that in my mind.” He blew my mind in that moment.
I grew up and realized, Regina put my penis in her mouth because someone was teaching her that shit. I put my mouth on her vagina because she instructed me to do it. She did so because someone taught her this stuff. We were 11 and 9.
I know that’s disturbing and I’m sorry.
Kids shouldn’t be handed over to strange adults to work. If I’m not proof of that I don’t know what is.
She pressed the little pictogram squares on her till. (Literacy was no longer a requirement for employment in these restaurants. Smiling was.)
The children yearn for the fast food jobs, Overcooked and Roblox games have proven that.
Legal working age of 15 1/2 (in my state) plus a kid who looks young for their age - may not be the most appealing situation, bit this probably completely above board.
No age restrictions if family owned business, that's a federal law no state can bypass, but I doubt the owner of Culver's needs their kids to work to support the family.
I was at a tim Hortons in Canada. Had this experience seeing a youngin' working, except it literally seemed like the whole staff was this age. It was enough kids to prompt us to ask what the working age was in Canada. The young lady informed us it was 13 or so
This photo was taken years and years ago, look how young Neil Gaiman is in it.
"This is a systemic problem. Children should have their needs met without the need for work, and this child working is an obvious symptom of the problem at hand."
"Have you ever considered that I, an individual, worked at a mcdonalds at the age of 15? I used the money to buy a video game. Therefore your argument is invalid."
This comment section is fuckin weird.
I saw this on Reddit a while back. This isn't an actual employee, it's the kid of a manager who brought them to work for the day (school was closed or something). The dumbass manager thought it would be cute to dress her kid up and put them on the register, but patrons were rightly weirded out. Culver's corp found out and were pissed - I'm not sure if the manager got fired or not, but this definitely wasn't something Culver's was cool with.
In pretty much every state you can legally work limited hours at 14. Considering this is a Culver's, I highly doubt they illegally hired this kid.
There's nothing wrong with a part time job at a place like this at 14. I'd argue it's better than having no work experience at all as a minor.
Is that kid 14 or 10?
Hard to tell from all 16 pixels. I've seen some pretty young looking 14 year olds though.
Additionally, I looked it up and in some states you can work at a family business at 12.
I'd argue that kids are not fit for the stress put on people in service positions with customer contact. It's fine if they have a holiday job cutting grass or delivering newspapers or something like that but standing behind a counter taking orders from people that often don't even acknowledge that you're human, too? That's hard enough on adults already - I definitely don't think it's the kind of job for kids.
Also which business is hiring kids to work a couple of weeks during school holidays and then is fine having one less worker again? The time spent on teaching the child what to do and how to handle different situations as well as the paperwork probably takes more time and money than not having the help for a couple of weeks - even less so as you probably have to have another person nearby in case of customers overstepping so I'm not sure this is just some holiday job for the kid to earn pocket money or get job experience
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