Yasemin Besen-Cassino's Cool Stores, Bad Job

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

process at the movie theatre, one of the things I was told was to be careful about who I hired. One of the applicants had a high amount of experience, which should be a good sign. However, the hiring manager told me that could be a bad sign, since they would most likely be an older person and would not fit in well with the predominantly young adult and teen workers we currently had. In this case, we were attempting to specifically curate who we hired in order to maintain a certain demographic. However, not being allowed to discriminate based on age, they were still given an interview, but when they heard how low the pay they would receive was, they declined the job offer. There were several other people that were given an interview and declined the job offer because of the low pay. Everyone at this theatre was started at minimum wage, $7.25 an hour, with a raise after three months then yearly thereafter. Due to the low starting wage, most applicants are deterred from accepting the job. However, those that don’t have any experience or are willing to accept any job, take this low paying job. Some of those hired were enticed with the promise of a raise in three months, others simply did not get an offer from any other place.
When I accepted the job at the movie theatre, I had no offers from any other employer. However, at the time I had no prior work experience either. The location I was hired at started me at $7.75 an hour, only slightly above minimum wage. With no ideas of how much workers in other places were receiving, I had no qualms about accepting that job at that pay. Since then, I am still working for the same company, but at a different location. Why did I stay, and remain with the low paying job? For me, it was mainly because I could not find another job, but it was more than that. I was in a position where I did not have to have a job to support myself; Until recently, I was only a seasonal employee, working during the summer and winter breaks. Before getting a job, I got an allowance every two weeks from doing chores around the house, and I could have used all the free time I had to pursue other hobbies or, more realistically, do nothing. However, the allowance was very meager. After getting the job, I enjoyed receiving several hundred dollars every two weeks to spend as I pleased and, in addition to the pay, I got some utility from working there. I enjoyed getting out of the house and going to work in order to “hang out” with my co-workers. It made my summers less boring, because I had something to do instead of idling at home doing nothing.
As was the case with me when I accepted the job, not everyone at the movie theatre needs this job. The pay and hours are too low to be able to successfully support oneself, and some people come from more affluent families, which can provide for all their needs. Many other people, especially those that do have to support themselves, have a second, better paying job and can stop working at the movie theatre and still be fine. So why do these people stay? Many of them enjoy working with the people there. My own enjoyment of “hanging out” with co-workers is true for many other people as well. I have seen that some of the people employed at the movie theatre see it as less of a job and more of a place to hang out with friends. When cleaning theatres, they will try to get one of their friends to help them, so that they can talk and mess around. When taking out trash, they do the same. Having good people to interact with makes the job much more bearable, and I myself look forward to going to work in order to “hang out” with certain people. Another reason some people stay is because it is an easy job, and they enjoy getting an extra hundred or so dollars every two weeks. Additionally, it may be more worth it for the more senior workers, who have been working there for five or more years. Those workers are getting well over minimum wage, almost 10 dollars an hour. On the other hand, for the less senior workers, another reason they stay are the benefits the theatre provides.
Part of the compensation package for working at the movie theatre is getting free movie tickets and half off concessions.

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

role.
There are several factors to why businesses have the demographics that they do. It comes down to the wage, the people the company wants working there, and some employees finding it is a great place to hang out. Minimum wage deters people who have prior experience or expect more, often older people. Companies want a certain environment in the workplace, and with a predominantly teen and young adult workforce, they want newly hired people to be able to fit in. Lastly, many employees see work as less of a workplace and more of a place to hang out. These factors lead certain places to have a predominantly teen and young adult workforce, and the latter keeps these workers from quitting.