ESPOSITO: It is time for Rutgers to offer student workers more than minimum wage
Column: Unapologetically
I was 16 years old when I got my first nine-to-five summer job. I was a beach lifeguard. I sat on a tall wooden chair everyday with a constant fear that somebody would drown on my watch. The minimum wage at the time was $10 an hour, and that is exactly the wage I made.
Ten dollars an hour.
As a 16-year-old, it felt like a million bucks. Before that first paycheck, the biggest amount of money I had saved was a few hundred dollars. Now, I was making a few hundred dollars weekly. I was overjoyed, at the time.
I did not stop to consider the fact that I worked from nine to five every day with an unpaid lunch break and two unpaid workout breaks. I did not stop to think about the fact that I worked 39.5 hours a week, just shy of qualifying for benefits. And I did not stop to think about how bleak of a number $10 an hour truly is.
When summer ended and the beaches closed, I did not want the glorious feeling of a weekly paycheck to end. So, I applied to and ended up working at a local coffee shop. I would come in twice a week right after school, and one weekend day. Here, the wages were a little better. I made $11 an hour.
There was also a tip jar that would be overflowing by the time each of my shifts ended. I did not receive my portions of the tip jar until the end of every month. Though the number of tips in that jar never wavered, my monthly tips would fluctuate between $40 and $20 a month.
I was happy when I received that extra $20. To me, it was just another shirt I could buy at the mall. I never stopped and thought about the reality that after three days and sometimes more than 20 hours of work weekly, I only received $20 a month in tips.
I should have been more concerned about the possibility of being cheated out of copious amounts of money. So why was I not? The short answer, as crass as it sounds, was that I did not care. I was a 16-year-old high schooler. I was lucky enough to be supported by my family.
The funds I received from my after school job was nothing more than spending money: a movie ticket on Friday night, a trip to Applebee's with my friends on a Saturday, an outfit for next week's football game. I was young and naïve, and money was not the objective and large hurdle for me then, that I now know it is.
When I came to Rutgers, my objective when it came to money was the same. I wanted an easy, part-time job that would not get in the way of my school work. Rutgers boasts on-campus jobs that put the student first, that allow time off for finals, that understand the magnitude of our course loads.
I spent the first few months of my freshman year searching for an on-campus job, to no avail. A scarce amount of jobs were offered, and most went to those who qualified for work study. Eventually, I had to give up and look elsewhere. I walked up and down both George Street and Easton Avenue before finally securing a job as a waitress. A month later, I was fired.
I am a hard worker. Being fired is not something I want to boast about. But it is important to talk about. It is important to discuss that I was fired, because the reality of a job outside of school and off campus, while being a full-time student, is nearly impossible to balance.
My grades were suffering due to late night hours and busy shifts. Eventually, it became too much. But now, my problems are different from the ones I had in high school. I no longer wanted a job for spending money. I was buying my own groceries, paying my electric bill and needed gas in my car. I could not support myself without an income.
A few months passed and after scouring Handshake and all Rutgers pages, I finally found an on-campus Rutgers job. It was everything Rutgers said it would be. The faculty was kind and understanding, my boss offered for me to have off whenever my workload was too overwhelming. It was a pleasure to be there.
The downside was, I was not allowed to work more than 12-15 hours a week. And then I got my first paycheck. And by this time I was a sophomore, looking to pay for next month's rent. And Rutgers, as funded as it is, still pays students minimum wage. That was not enough for me, and it is currently not enough for many others.
So, if professors get angry over a students excuse for missing class because they got home from their bartending job at 4 a.m., or they had to work their waitressing shift under threats they would would be fired, maybe they should point fingers at Rutgers for not supporting us well enough, not the students themselves.
Laura Esposito is in the School of Arts and Sciences senior majoring in journalism and political science. Her column, "Unapologetically," runs on alternate Fridays.
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