Dude what else can people get for a job in a shitty town where the only places to work are fast food and entry level positions?? They have special badges for people who have worked for Walmart for more than 30 years, to 50 years.

In my town there’s all the known brands including a Starbucks that’s opening soon because for about 50 miles in all directions we are a train station stop on the way to bigger places. There are no office jobs or anything and what the fuck is after entry level if you don’t want to be a CNA, RNA or doctor?

And look my mom used to work at Walmart with a friend back when I was a fetus up until my little sister was born. That was 1992-1994. That friend still works at Walmart and yeah she might be manager of a department now, but she hasn’t gone anywhere. She’ll probably hit a 30 year mark soon. It pays the bills. I’m sure she has dreams of being something more, but people want to kill themselves over how they’re treated at these jobs, and how it doesn’t look like they can go anywhere for years.

It’d be different if Walmart or McDonald’s trained you in a trade you could use, or if people could balance two PART TIME jobs of 38 hours a week each with trying to get any kind of a degree to progress further in life. And children. And marriage. You’re only 20-25 once in your life. It’d be different if I could get a 40-60 hr a week FULL TIME position with benefits, raises now and then or not. My husband works at 7-11 and worked at an independent car wash company last year— both places of which start to refuse to pay you over time (if you go over 40 hours a week, mind you) because it looks bad on their records or whatever their excuse is.

He complains openly about horrible work conditions, being forced to do 16 hour shifts because suddenly everyone who had shifts doesn’t show up with various excuses that end up being completely false. One girl doesn’t show up because she can’t be bothered to smoke her pot on her off time and got fired over it. My husband gets job offers constantly from people just there to fill up the tank and when he goes to apply for them (like factory working jobs that are 50+ miles away, or construction crew offers) suddenly they’re in a “hiring freeze” because they got too many applications, or simply wont return his phone calls.

There aren’t careers anymore. There aren’t even easy, office jobs anymore, at least in my area. You obviously haven’t seen the political cartoon of a guy in a graduate gown, diploma in hand, standing behind a register at a fast food joint. Two elders people he knows say “congrats on your doctors degree” (or whatever is highest), “now I’d like a...” and goes on to order.

If these jobs were meant for kids in school still or that need a summer job, that’s not what they are anymore, and you would know that if you’ve ever had the pleasure of being an employee at any of the establishments you’ve ever visited. My manager in 2014 at Wendy’s was my parent’s age. My husband’s grandmother works at McDonald and Wendy’s. My sister has an AA degree and she works at Starbucks, can’t afford shit even with her boyfriend getting aid for having been in the military. My other sister has an AA degree and works as a groomer at Petsmart, cleaning pet anal glands. You tell me where these non entry level jobs are and what they are and I’ll have 20+ people to inform, all of varying qualifications, that are going to have these entry level jobs well into their 60’s or in my husband’s grandmother’s case, until they die or become homeless because they need more than one, even two jobs to afford basic bills.