Yasemin Besen-Cassino's Cool Stores, Bad Job

1233 Words3 Pages

Go into a movie theatre and you will find they primarily employ young people. However, step into a Wal-Mart or a grocery store and you will find the employees there are, on average, much older than those employed at a movie theatre. Why is this the case? The low wages movie theatres pay, combined with wanting certain demographic working there play a role in this. Additionally, why do most of these people stay in low paying jobs they may not enjoy doing? Using my experience working at a movie theatre, I can understand why some people choose to accept and continue working in low paying jobs, and why it is that only young people work there. Yasemin Besen-Cassino’s essay “Cool Stores, Bad Jobs” highlights why affluent teens get certain jobs. Many of the reasons she wrote about in the essay, I have seen while working at the movie theatre. Hiring managers will try to hire specific kinds of people; people that will fit in with the current employees. While being selective about hiring, the low starting wage offered deterred many, often more experienced, people from accepting the job. Lastly, work is seen as a place to hang out by some of the employees. When I started learning about the hiring …show more content…

While for some this is a great deal and they use it often, for most, these benefits are not utilized. It is usually the same few people that come in to get free tickets to watch a movie. Receiving free movie tickets is a perk, but generally not a deciding factor when choosing to work at the movie theatre. In other places, retail businesses often provide employees with a purchase discount. At a used book store I used to work at, employees received 30% off most merchandise. That benefit was more widely used than the free tickets the movie theatre offered. For some, discount benefits may be a big selling point in choosing a job, but for many it does not play a

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