https://www.financialsamurai.com/rich-spoiled-clueless-work-minimum-wage-job-at-least-twice/
Are you spoiled or clueless? Are you taking your beautiful life for granted? If you are, then try working minimum wage jobs. Better yet, work a minimum wage service job as an adult. You’ll eradicate your feelings of entitlement if you do!
For many, life is on extreme hard mode now with the coronavirus pandemic. However, we should also spend more time being appreciative with what we have and the people around us.
Sooner or later, this damn pandemic will end. Life will get back to a new normal. In the meantime, we need to wrestle with our demons. Being privileged is something easy to do in a country as rich as America.
Feeling like we are entitled to everything is a disease that must be eradicated.
I was born in Manila, Philippines to U.S. Foreign Service Officers. During my first 13 years of life living in Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, The Philippines, Zambia, and Virginia, I was able to see a great dichotomy between the rich and poor.
Seeing so much poverty really scared me into not messing around too much as a kid. But all the same, I still screwed up plenty of times. Despite living a good life, I was still quite clueless in so many things.
In high school, I decided to try and make some money for date money. So I applied for a job at my local McDonald’s for $3.75. Only a month later, I quit.
The main reason why I quit working at McDonald’s wasn’t the low pay or the abusive, ego-tripping manager. After all, the endless supply of broken apple pies went a long way to make up for the unpleasantry at work.
The main reason why I quit was because I was embarrassed.
I lived in McLean, Virginia, a now upper middle class neighborhood 20 minutes away from Washington D.C. Some kids would drive to school in new SUVs their parents bought them.
My townhouse mansion during high school
One of my friend’s even had a separate house just for his indoor pool! While other friends lived in government housing. It was a strange mix of wealth and normalcy.
As the son of U.S. State Department workers, life was low key. We had a seven-year-old Toyota Camry and lived in a cozy 3/2 townhouse. I rode my bike or walked to school.
My parents provided my sister and I all the opportunities we could ever ask for. I just knew we weren’t rich based on what I saw in comparison. The clues started seeping in.
As a teenager, my biggest fear was working the McDonald’s cash register and being seen by a girl I liked or by the cool kids at school.