by CantCatchMe
You're the average college student, and all over the country, classes are getting back into swing. That means right now, countless students like you are dealing with the realization that they've just been financially raped. Your tuition may be paid in full, but what about books? Food? Gas? Lap dances? How are you supposed to come up with that kind of money? You need a part-time job!
But you need to be careful. While it's true that all part-time jobs are brutally awful, some are worse than others. I could spend all day listing the part-time jobs you should never take (hotel clerk, cell-phone store, anything with animals, etc.) but it would be more helpful to list a few places you, the average college student, should seek employment.
Wal-Mart
Why work at Wal-Mart?
Do you have low standards? Well, so does Wal-Mart. If you've ever thought to yourself that you're completely un-hirable, Wal-Mart will prove you wrong. Having gotten rid of paper applications, potential employees no longer even have to prove that they're literate for Wal-Mart to consider hiring them.
What makes Wal-Mart a good choice?
There are some part-time jobs that are hard to leave. No matter how bad they are, you make friends and get to know the managers. In many part-time jobs, you develop a sense that if you left, it would mean more work for everyone else, and you don't want to do that to your new friends.
You will never, ever feel this way working at Wal-Mart. The most abundantly clear message you will get is that the store does not need you. You will get this message from seeing your friends get fired. All the time. If you are at any time displeasing to a manager's eye, you will be let go. I myself know somebody who was fired from Wal-Mart for helping a customer. The rest of the employees will eventually just stop showing up. This ease of departure makes Wal-Mart less of a long-term commitment than other employers.
Positions you can fill:
Cashier
While being a cashier does entail dealing with hordes of old ladies trying to get discounts on fruit, it also has advantages. For instance, have you ever seen a Wal-Mart cashier talking to a manager? No you haven't. Because they don't have managers. Any time you thought you saw a manager approve something for a cashier, you really saw just another cashier with a fake mustache. Traditionally, only Wal-Mart employees were aware of this. Everyone else was too busy getting the hell out of there. This complete lack of oversight grants a degree of freedom you won't find in many other part-time positions.Recommendation: Low. Despite the advantages, it will kill you on the inside. Avoid this position if you can.
Department Sales
These are the perk positions of Wal-Mart. If you ever wanted to sell guns twenty feet from a toy aisle, Wal-Mart is the place for you. If you ever wanted to sleep in an unplugged freezer while on the clock, the Large Appliances section is right where you're at. If you ever wanted to know where the fucking video game key is at all times, well then you need to get in Electronics. You get to move around more than cashiers, and your entire job consists of walking people to the things they want and answering questions a second-grader could answer.Recommendation: Medium. Not a great job, but much more bearable than cashier.
Cart Pusher
Truly, these are the kings of Wal-Mart. One look at a Supercenter parking lot, and you can tell that this is an easy position of which little is demanded. The primary duties of this job include leaning against the wall near the cart-hole by the entrance and leering uncomfortably at remotely attractive women entering the store. Side duties are limited to loading lawn furniture into the smallest cars in America and, rarely, pushing carts with the aid of a cart-pushing machine.Recommendation: High. Decent exercise and a tan with about four minutes of training.
Restaurant
Why work at a restaurant?
Availability. If you ever see a sit-down restaurant that's not hiring, it's owned by the Mafia. Most restaurants have flexible hours that won't keep you out too late, and you'll go back to the dorms smelling like steak. Women love steak.
What makes a restaurant a good choice?
The experience. This is it, baby. This is human interaction. The lessons you learn from watching seemingly reasonable people throw a total bitch-fit over lumpy soup will stay with you for the rest of your life. At least half of the CEOs of major corporations have, at one point in their lives, cowered from a belligerent veteran screaming at them about french fries.
Positions you can fill:
Busboy
The backbone of the restaurant industry. Without busboys cleaning up tables, the entire restaurant would slow to a crawl. As a busboy, you can expect to never sit down and to get zero respect. Most of your time in this job will be spent cleaning up the tables in every section of the restaurant except the one belonging to some shitface of a waiter, forcing him to quit from low tips. The high points of this job will include bussing the rare table that a bunch of kids didn't cover with butter or ketchup and accidentally dropping a tray of half-empty glasses right on some bitch.Recommendation: Low. Accept this job only to wait for a waiter spot to open.
Waiter
It wouldn't be a restaurant without waiters. These are the people the restaurant truly relies on. As the backbone of the entire restaurant industry, they're on the front lines making sure the customers have a good time and come back. This is where all the great salesmen get their start. And it's where all the great saleswomen stay. If you practice that smile and perfect the art of lying your ass off, you'll be walking away from every work night one hundred dollars richer.Recommendation: Medium. Can make good money, but will destroy your faith in humanity.
Cook
These people make what the customers are there for: food. If you're an ex-con, or ugly, you'll most likely be put to work in the kitchen. Being the backbone of the entire industry, you will decide the fate of your particular restaurant. Whether you're a chef in a steakhouse or an Asian guy in one of those knife-flippy places, your cooking skill will either sate a person's hunger or ignite in them a fury their children are all-too-familiar with. Note: no, this job will not give you the right to take over every barbeque you attend for the rest of your life.Recommendation: Medium. Low interaction with customers, but you go back to the dorms smelling like grease. Women hate grease.
On Campus Jobs
Why work On Campus?
Many employers are simply unwilling to accept the fact that you are dumb and will probably have an equally dumb schedule. But campus stores are acutely aware of both these facts. They deal day in and day out with people similar to you. This makes their standards very low. Chances are that the entire interview process will just be showing the manager your class schedule.
What makes working on campus a good choice?
Proximity. Campus jobs may not pay much, but you’ll save enough money on gas each semester to afford fifty lap-dances. There may even be enough left over for food or an XBox. Campus jobs also free up the endless time sink that is getting laid.
Positions you can fill:
Bookstore
During the first week or so of classes, the bookstores need all the help they can get. In no other part-time job will your entry-level services be of so much importance to so many people. After that, the entirety of your sales will consist of panicked students buying one pencil and a Scantron sheet on test days. These are magical days indeed. These are the days where you will be offered sexual favors in exchange for letting someone pay a quarter for a 75-cent test booklet.Recommendation: Medium. For the majority of the semester, you’ll be getting paid to stand up and do nothing.
Fast food
If you’re going to work in fast food, make it on campus. Unless you’re attending some old-fashioned university that looks down on having a Burger King in the student center, there are going to be a lot of franchises around campus. Due to the price of property on college grounds, you’ll notice that these are the retarded cousins of actual franchises. The menus are smaller, the food is worse, and customer service is usually boils down to “Yeah, well fuck you too.”Recommendation: Low. Fast food is fast food. This is just closer to school.
Coffee Shop
If you’re a college socialist douchebag and you’ve been reading this list with nothing but contempt for the greedy devil-corporations that have been listed, then the Coffee Shop is definitely for you. Here’s a simple test: Have you ever called anybody a sheep while holding a Starbucks cup? Yes? Work in a coffee shop. Asshole.
Recommendation: I don’t care. I just want all of you to gather in one place so I can avoid you.
There you have it: a foolproof guide to gainful schooltime employment. Naturally, once you graduate, you'll want to move on to bigger and better things. If you study hard and really apply yourself, one day you may even be the guy who hands out the menus as people walk in the door. Good luck... now get to work!
When
not writing articles, CantCatchMe holds down two part-time jobs: taming
lions and being an astronaut.
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