The Fast Food Family Tradition Continues

I blogged a few months ago about how Tomas was on the job hunt, but keen-eyed readers will have noted I never actually had a “he found a job!” post. We didn’t really anticipate the fallout of a whole ton of jobs drying out all at the same time. After all, Tomas started looking for a job at the same time millions of jobs went away across the country. It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that actually finding a job turned out to be more difficult than it was when I was looking for a job in the early 90s.

That isn’t to say he was unemployed. He did pick up work picking strawberries when they were in season, and that kept him hopping for a while, but other than that, it’s been slow going. And when June switched into July, and July got pretty long in the tooth as well, we figured the days of getting another job were past us.

Then, out of the blue, the Dutch Treat called him up and asked him for an interview. With college ramping back up, they were losing some workers for the summer, and they wanted to know if he was up for filling in. One royal blue t-shirt later, and he officially joined the ranks of the employed.

Minimum wage in Maine is $12/hr, so he’s making more than workers start off in around 45 of the other states. (Looking over the minimum wages in each state is pretty depressing. $7.25/hour for Utah? Can that be right? Real estate prices have gone bonkers in that state. You’d have thought they’d be trying to keep the wages at least somewhat in line with cost of living. Hopefully most jobs are more than minimum wage there?)

In any case, if you’d like some soft serve creamy-licious treats or some fried food in the next couple of months, you can head on over to the building that looks like a windmill. Yesterday was his first day. 14 hours this week, and we’ll see how many in the future. He got practice on the register, taking order, making burgers, and (the hardest thing I ever had to do in McDonald’s) working the soft serve ice cream dispenser. (Seriously. You try getting a perfect swirl on one of those things. Mine always fell over, and the customers were definitely not happy . . .)

We may not eat fast food very often, but apparently we like to work in the industry when we’re teens. (Okay, so two out of five family members worked there. Not quite a tradition, but you have to start somewhere.)

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