To tell him go ahead and leave job

[Worzil10]

Son started a job in retail weekends but he is bored silly with it and is moaning abt the poor wage and is now fed up of missing out on time with mates. Money is so bad 12 hours a week and it works out to abt £150 max a month. he is 17.

This is a well known chain as well

I think he gonna be hard pressed to get better pay but I think even if it wasn't every weekend he would tolerate

He isn't hanging on for six months? Don't tell him he'll be working for the next 40 years - he'll have a shock!

Oh the joys of life hey

Everyone starts somewhere. Try to help him make the job interesting instead. Use his initative to do other things, take on more responsibility. It will all go to building up his employability skills. He can look for something else while he’s working. I wouldn’t give up and job with nothing else on the horizon.

You are raising him to have no work ethic, no sense of self responsibility and a total ‘if you can’t be bothered then just give up’.

And what is this “I don’t like seeing him fed up” and “I just like seeing him going out and about”. So? You’re his parent, not his best mate. It is your job to parent, not just encourage the fun stuff. You need to be instilling values in him, and preparing him for being an adult. Not molly coddling and bailing him out.

Completely disagree Rocinante.

Working for exploitative pay is no indicator of a future work ethic. If the OP's son was doing nothing all day, wasn't studying, or didn't have solid future plans I would see some merit in your argument, but that clearly isn't the case.

My parents didn't force me to work in my teens, and I went on to get a very good degree, and a good career. I value the fact they appreciated I was focussed on my studies, and also needed time to learn good social skills and make the most of being a teen. It had zero impact on my work ethic. I will not be encouraging my DC to work for exploitative pay, as long as they are focussing on other areas of their life for the future.

@hadenough

It's not exploitative pay. It's the national wage for his age. He has the ability to work and warn, but he's whinging that he's being paid minimum wage for what is a part time job which requires no education. Is he expecting to earn the same as someone in a qualified role?

I've had to interview kids coming our of high school and uni these days and there are a hife number of entitled brats who come into the interview with lists of demands and an expectation that you will prove that you're good enough for them to dain to work for you. Even though there is 1 position and 25 applicants... they think they are somehow special and need to be woo'd. Too many teens are turning out like OP's son, and usually have a mother behind them saying "I just want my precious darling to be happy, why should they need to work so hard?".

So he’s bored.... why can’t he look for something else? Why have you got to assist with that? I don’t get it.... he’s nearly an adult. Tell him to crack on and sort out something else. All this fannying about does my head in.

At 17 my nephew was running live music events with unsigned bands. He had the events filmed and had his own You Tube channel. He hired out central London venues and made £1000 profit for a night ( which he frittered away obviously). He’s a complete self starter and way more confident than I was at 17. I’m happy that when he finishes uni he will be competing against peers who do 8 hours in a boring job and want to quit.

£150 a month, when you have no bills to pay, isn't that bad, surely?

The moment I was 15 I got myself a part time job in a supermarket. Back then they used to have one evening of late night shopping a week, and only open Saturday mornings (different country). So the evening and Saturday mornings were pretty much all staffed by part timer students.

It didn't take me long to prove that I was hard working and I was moved into an area of the store where I had better and consistent hours, and the ability to work as many hours as I wanted through the school holidays.

Looking back I earned quite a lot of money. Such a pity my DM never taught me to budget and save. I frittered it all away. Although I did buy all my own clothes and paid for my personal things myself.

NMW is exploitative pay - that's why there is a debate about the need for a national living wage. The big chains are earning billions per year, it's not as if they couldn't afford to pay their staff properly.

My work ethic is simple - do an excellent job and be valued doing that job - both through monetary compensation and employment conditions.

These employers who think they're doing people some sort of favour by employing them on exploitative contracts whilst those at the top earn mega money do 'my head in' to quote another poster.

My first job was a decade ago and paid £5 per hour to under 18s. £4.20 sounds pretty exploitative to me: if people are doing the same work it’s unreasonable to pay them differently because of their ages, in my opinion.

I completely agree @Etymology23

£4.20 is completely exploitative.

Tesco pay just over £8 an hour for 16 plus! That wage sounds insane.

Universal credit is £73 for an adult. We all have to do jobs we don't like over time to earn money to pay bills and for luxuries. I would not be giving him money. He needs to find another job if he is unhappy. Many adults don't have £150 spare to socialise. I started my first part time job at 16 and was grateful for the money.

I would let him decide for himself, if he works hard at college all week I can see why he doesn't want to work all weekend too fir such rubbish money.

My DH always refused to do menial jobs as a teenager BUT he also accepted the lack of free cash and he used the extra time and worked bloody hard at college/uni to make sure he'd never ever have to have a menial job and he never has.

Just my thoughts, I'd suggest he either finds another job (maybe one he can do in the evenings after college?), or sucks up the 8-12 hours a weekend, that can't really be impacting on his time withs his friends too much?

First jobs do suck, they are boring, but learning to stick at, and give it your best at this point builds character that helps you move up the career ladder later in life.

But it's your son, you know him best

So some weekends he works 8 hours and some he works 12? Is that correct ? 8 hours is not that long over a whole weekend, nor is 12

Let him keep looking for other jobs but to hold onto this until then. At 17 he is a young adult and should be working

As a matter of interest, what are his friends doing with their weekends and how are they funding it ?

The pay is very low, but it is s stage we all had to go through when young, unskilled and it will make his CV stronger so he can negotiate better when he is looking for a better job next year or whenever. A blank work records is a big turn off for new employers.

In our office we take on interns and you can always tell the ones who have never worked before to the ones who have.

He should stick with it until he had a new one.

Rocinante who do u think you are.
My son doesn't mind working hard this isn't what it's about.
Everybody should be valued in the workplace because one role can't exist without the other and for your information my dad has been brought up well and is well adjusted and polite and not entitled so don't u dare slate the good parents out there.i hope u don't have any precious darlings because I pity them with your matronly attitide.

My ds flipping auto

To be fair OP, by your own admission you're soft on him. I was fed up working 40 hours a week for £45 for 3 months when I was 16! You asked for opinions and you've got a mixed response. If you want to sub his social life because you 'like to see him get out and about' when he's almost an adult then that's really your call but I think you need to examine how you've come across on here too.

You've also stated you're trying to find him other work... he's nearly 18 - let him do that.

Just think it's crap for him working weekends for such rubbish money that's all really.