agonyaunt | (no subject)

(no subject)

Dear Care and Feeding,

My daughter’s guidance counselor recommended that she get a job in order to make her college applications more impressive. She got a waitressing job almost immediately, but just as quickly wants to quit. She’s offended by patrons flirting with her. As her dad, I’m not thrilled with the stories she tells, but I also know what men are like when they’re out in a group drinking and letting loose, and that what she’s talking about is just an occupational hazard when working with the public. I have pointed out she has all the power here, and with a better attitude could be making money off these guys, but she doesn’t want to hear it. She says that by insisting she keep working, I’m not being supportive of her, but I don’t want her to be so easily offended—I don’t want her to live her whole life that way! Plus, after such a long quarantine during her teen years, she needs to get used to interacting with people again, even people who don’t do exactly what she wants them to do. Most importantly, this is supposed to make her look good for colleges. How do I get her to stick with it and see that it’s a good thing?

—Waitress Woes Worth It

Dear WWWI,

Let me start with the guidance counselor’s misguided guidance, and the way you’ve wholeheartedly bought into it. Getting a job in order to make college applications “more impressive” is silly. I say this with certainty both as a longtime college professor and as someone who has done a lot of college application advising. (In fact, doing anything for the express purpose of making college applications seem more impressive is silly. Admissions officers aren’t stupid: they can tell when this is what’s going on.) If your kid needs a job or wants a job, that’s a whole ’nother thing. Context matters when it comes to after-school jobs, activities and clubs, “interests,” volunteer work, and everything else that is part of a college application. So forget about what you consider “most important” here, because it isn’t.

What is most important is that you take your daughter seriously when she tells you that the men she encounters at her serving job are making her uncomfortable. Encourage her to stand up for herself. She should not put up with men’s bad behavior, make excuses for it, accept it as a fact of life, toughen up, or learn not to be “so easily” offended. I am offended by your advising her to suck it up and “make money off these guys.”

I will certainly not help you get her to “stick with it and see that it’s a good thing.” It is not a good thing. And she’s right: you need to get it together and be (much) more supportive. If she still wants a job—and not because she thinks it will look good—she should look for another one. And you of all people should support her in that.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/03/give-up-things-tough-teens.html

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As her dad, I’m not thrilled with the stories she tells, but I also know what men are like when they’re out in a group drinking and letting loose, and that what she’s talking about is just an occupational hazard when working with the public.

Gross. LW, maybe men will stop being like that when men like you stop tacitly condoning it and women and girls like your daughter stop putting up with it for the sake of a few bucks.

I bet those men would stop pretty damn quick if, every time, the manager came forward and kicked them out of the premises.

1, heeeyyy pandemic's not over! maybe she can actually wait a bit before starting a job where being infected by people is part of the job description! just a thought!

2. 'Men' aren't like that when they're out in a group, LW. If you see it every time you go out, 'you and your friends' are like that, apparently. Maybe stop???

3. I promise every customer service job doesn't come with harassment as an everyday part of the job. If you work at a place where management doesn't tolerate harassment and the staff knows it, the customers figure it out pretty quickly, too. (It isn't *never* but it becomes an unusual thing on a bad day, not an everyday hazard.) I'm pretty sure she can find one like that if she really needs a job.

Edited 2022-03-22 04:56 (UTC)

This makes me sad. Not surprised, just very sad. LW's daughter deserves better than him.
[deletes rest of comment because I am too sad to be able to discuss it.]

Edited 2022-03-22 05:29 (UTC)

He's only not thrilled with it because his daughter was on the receiving end. It sounds like he'd be doing the same thing to any other woman.

I have pointed out she has all the power here, and with a better attitude could be making money off these guys.

Yes, definitely! When a creepy customer leers at a service worker, the service worker should reflect on how they in fact have all the power in the situation, and should maybe offer a lap dance for $50 or so. Then, they can make extra tax-free cash to add to their below minimum wage earnings. If they reject the creepy customer's advances and the creepy customer complains to their employer, this is just another example of how the service worker is truly empowered.

I honestly don't know how these things work, but did the guidance counsellor mean just any old job? Waitressing seems about as significant except, I don't know, maybe to demonstrate Work Ethic (huh?)? sweeping the streets or some of the v crap jobs I did in summer vacations as a student. And how far is that going to be impinging on study - and healthful rest and relaxation from same - REALLY important for getting into college?

Let's also consider the impact this is having in terms of stress on her mental health.

Father is a gross ol' sexist and will be very surprised when daughter never comes home after she has left.

People have addressed most of this, but what had me seething with rage, like I-would-seriously-be-rethinking-my-husband'-influence-my-daughter is where he says "she has all the power." Not only is that flat-out wrong (these men could get her fired! to say nothing of worries of more predatory responses), but it is dangerous. Telling a teenage girl that when surrounded by grown men who think "flirting" with a teenage girl (and I wonder if dad knows the specifics that entails) that she has all the power is dangerous. Just in that situation alone, overestimating her power might lead her to allow these men to put her in an even more vulnerable position. But telling a woman, let alone a girl, that men's sexual desire for her gives her power is fucking dangerous, not to mention toxic. I really, really hope daughter has a mother or other female authority figure who can not only step into this situation, but refute this potentially deadly bullshit.

(I find it interesting, btw, that he categorizes her response as "taking offense." Not "makes her uncomfortable," let alone, "creeps her out," but "taking offense." I would bet real money that daughter feels a lot more than offense, here.)

I got to the part where the dad basically told his teenage daughter to "work it" and my brain shorted out.

Uh-huh. Dad just tacitly admitted that either he flirts with underage girls, or he sits there while other grown men do.

I swear, I know we read a thousand worse things, but this fills me a rage I don't usually feel. Probably because I have a daughter that age, but OMFG, this is AWFUL.

I'll carry the anger on this one for you, hon. I've got plenty.

There's a whiff of pimping to LW's attitude, like how Ivanka brought money and connections back home to daddy.

WORD.

I nearly called him a pimp in my reply but I thought people might think I was being hyperbolic. So I shall just emphatically agree, not least that he reeks.

I am damn near incandescent with rage, here. The specter of grown men trying to fuck my underage daughter haunts me, and shit like this DOES NOT HELP.

I can only say I'm with the rest of you (especially

cereta) with rage at the whole situation. But also, well, I'm no admissions officer, but you know what might impress me in an incoming student? Not a waitstaff job as such, but someone who walked into an ugly situation on the (BAD) advice of their elders, saw how ugly it was, and noped right the fuck out of it expressly against the wishes of their elders. Someone who can see that maybe those in authority are not just slightly misguided but pigheadedly WRONG and is not afraid to extract themself from the situation.

Note, "flirts" is *his* word for this behavior. I'm at least 75% certain that a reasonable person would use a different one.

I so hear you. *shudders*

It definitely would make a great interview answer!

(AUGH)

It depends what kind of story the guidance counselor wants the application to tell. If the school is in an affluent area and most of the kids are trying to get into Ivy League colleges, it'll need to be a job with more social prestige, showing that they did good things to help the world or somesuch.

If it's a lower-income area, then any kind of job may do, showing that the student has extra grit, or dramatizing their low-income struggle.

(I used to work for a company that made admissions software and was deeply involved in trying to encourage colleges to help quiet down the ridiculous arms race that US college applications have become.)

I mean, not that I would advise someone to go into a bad situation to nope out of it to show up someone in authority, but if someone has the wisdom and courage to see a bad situation for what it is (on all sides) and be able to get themselves to safety, that's not nothin.

who knew "being easily offended"="not wanting to be sexually harassed"

she is a fucking teenager. men are trash.

Oh God, no, I know you weren't advising teenagers go looking for trouble (they so would, wouldn't they?) But if I could turn getting expelled into a successful interview story LW's daughter could hopefully turn quitting-and-why into one, to get a good education and get the hell away from him.

Edited 2022-03-22 18:08 (UTC)

Could we just set the dumpster from which Slate is pulling advice columnists on fire? It would be more efficient.

yeah and the nicest one I can think is 'harrass' someone in this girls' life has raised her to know this bs and they need cheered. he needs an ice bucket to the head.

Yeah, that's the sentence that stopped me in my tracks.

My first thought was actually, "Kiddo, if Yale demands you submit to n years of sexual harassment to let you in, go to State State University instead and save yourself the trouble. And the money.

Or hey, a community college and transfer. Literally anything but dad's advice is how you end up the featured dead body of the week on a shitty forensics show.

This may be the most repulsive letter I have had the misfortune to read.

Aaaaaargh I have rarely been so tempted to violence a LW. This fucking guy!!! He's managed to be actually worse than the dreadful fathers who "joke" about how they would shoot anyone who looked at their daughters.

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