For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for June 26, 2022

Apparently he has still not learned not to drink milk directly from the carton.

Welcome to life. Do they withhold income taxes from paychecks up in Canada?

I can so relate to Michael’s working in a grocery store. My running around collecting out of the corrals and parking lot, straightening them in the corrals, bringing them back to the lobbies, cleaning up spills, returning perishable items from the cashiers back to their refrigerators… it’s madness!

Perspective

I remember my teen son’s first day of work. He dragged in with a shocked look and merely said “it was so hard” !

Welcome to retail hell, Mike

Let’s see how he feels after working 40+ years to see his retirement accounts lose 30k in three months!

Had too long had the ‘hotel mama’ treatment !

What drama queen!!

Well, at least with his future career, he’ll be sitting down.

That’s for sure, John. It’s always a shock when teenagers find out what it’s like to work for a living and earn their keep. I remember my very first job as a teenager was at Robert Hall Clothes.

He’s also learning the value of a college degree.

When I was a nurse in a hospital, there were shifts when there was no time for breaks. I finally found I could leave the floor and go out to a picnic table to eat. The pharmacy staff was on their break, it was 2pm. They had had 1) morning break 2) lunch break and were on 3) pm break.

Only half a century to go lad.

What is striking so many of us is what John voiced: this is mainstream effort. With the wildfires locally (the monsoon rains and low wind are making them lay down, finally!) I am reminded of the firefighters. I have been told Apache women have a unit of their own. They are transported to where the action is, carrying their tools and some sanitation equipment, and they are picked up three weeks later. One week at home and they are back on the line. How does that sound, Michael?

Welcome to the “world” Michael. It’ll get worse, but you’ll get better at it.

If my dad wanted the couch and I said that to him, I’d be chased out of the room.

Not much background to do something other than bag groceries, Michael. It can get better later.

I thought he worked at the movie theater??

2 – 15 minute breaks means probably a 6 hour shift. That’s not bad. When I worked for a grocery store, they used to give us 5 1/2 hour shifts so the cheapskates only had to give us 1 break.

Michael, Michael, Michael, the trials and tribulations of the working man. When I was 14 I was bucking 75 lb bales for other farmers in between my own farm chores at home. One farmer was so suitable impressed that not only did he pay me a nice bonus but he contacted the local newspaper to report how I stacked 10,486 bales in one week working for him. Talk about being tired.

That was me when I worked at Kroger on Saturdays!

Two breaks.. and a lunch break. Sounds like you lucked into a union job.

For a minute I got this comic confused with Fox Trot where Peter got his summer job back at the movie theater…

Yep. Welcome to the real world, kiddo… oh, by the way, you still need to mow the lawn…

I have a son works at a grocery store, a variety but mostly curtesy clerk. The job is only part time, now 7 years, they had to change his title to transition training, he brings carts in, does bagging, he loves cashier work, and then has to put back products customer does not want, with cold stuff there is a time limit or gets trashed.

Wow…there’s still a store with “baggers”? Back when I worked in a grocery store in the 1980’s, I was a bagger, then a stocker, then a cashier…for different stores. Now a days, my walmart has gone to all self checkout, so I’m still a cashier and a bagger…

watch out Liz you’re next

My first job at age 16 was as a cashier in a local grocery store. Job included throwing stock and pricing the merchandise. Loved it as I had a nice boss and it was both fun and interesting. Also earned enough to buy records and a poodle skirt. Wow!

These days you have to have four or five of those to survive.

Maybe I would not have been a good parent as I would have been temped to tell him to go to his room to ’lie down and die"

MAN!! Mike is way too young to be having all these physical problems!

Most back-breaking teen job I had was working at a Howard Johnson’s on t heir famous “All You Can Eat Fish Fry” days.

What a madhouse.

“…he found what it’s like to earn a living.”

Well, he’s finding what it’s like to work for some money, but he’s still far from earning a living. And that particular kind of labor is quite different from any job he’s likely to end up in as an adult.