[DING] Hello.
Welcome to self-serve frozen yogurt.
Is this your first time?
Yeah, we got it.
Thanks.
Ooh, vanilla.
Oh.
Oh, no, no.
That's not...
[BUZZ] Oh, no.
Hey, why don't we try that with a spoon?
Thanks.
[DING] What the...
$7 for ice cream?
Yes, ma'am.
It's 50 cents per ounce, and it
seems like your son got quite a lot.
This place is ridiculous, such a scam.
I swear.
Eww, my ice cream is sour.
What?
Let me see that.
Oh.
The flavor he chose is tart,
but we have a sign for...
Come on, Billy.
Let's get some real ice cream.
But Mom, they have gumballs.
[DING] [SIGHS] Hello.
Welcome to self-serve frozen yogurt.
Is this your first time?
Yeah, we got it.
Thanks.
[WHISTLE SOUND]
I've worked a couple minimum wage jobs,
but my very first one was at a small
business self-serve frozen yogurt place.
For the sake of this video,
I'll just call it Sugar Spoons.
It was just like Menchies or Yogurtland.
It worked the same way.
Pick the flavor you want,
pick the toppings you want,
weigh it, pay it, and slay it.
And even though North Carolina state law
mandated employers must pay their workers
no less than $7.25 per hour,
I seriously loved my first job.
Ew, this isn't vanilla
because it taught me a lot
about how the world works.
Sugar Spoons was a small business
run by a group of hardworking women.
They didn't have commercials
and billboards like all the other
big business dessert places.
They just had good old-fashioned word
of mouth and yelp. So, they really
had to stand out, and they did.
Frozen yogurt was a very new thing to us
small town southerners back in the 2010s,
and froyo was marketed as this slightly
healthier alternative to ice cream.
We were also one of the only dessert
places I could remember that always had
non-dairy and sugar-free options
for people with dietary restrictions,
making it the perfect
place for the whole family.
When a friend from school referred me
to work there, I soon learned being
a froyo girl was quite
the scrumdiddlyumptious job.
A lot of my time consisted of gloving
up to refill the toppings bar.
I was snipping sour belts down to size,
cutting cookie dough into cubes,
slicing strawberries into slivers.
I loved prep work.
But sometimes I'd take a little too long
in the back, and I'd be lying if
I said that wasn't on purpose.
Back in high school,
I was terrified of talking to customers,
especially when I needed to be assertive.
Excuse me, ma'am.
Could you please get
a cup of yogurt first?
Why?
It's just a piece of candy.
Right, but that's the toppings bar.
You're supposed to add
those to your yogurt.
Well, I don't want yogurt.
But [SLAPPING SOUND]
Is there a problem?
Well, yeah.
You need to pay for that.
For thi- What is it, like 30 cents?
I'm just tasting it.
It's not like you give people sample cups,
so how am I supposed
to know if I like anything?
[WHISTLE SOUND] Gosh, Illy, if they're
such a problem, just kick them out.
Listen, I would if I could, but again,
this wasn't a corporation with a customer
service hotline to scream at.
And I was so scared of doing anything
to make Cheryl over there ruin
our five-star Yelp reputation.
But if I could respond with zero
consequences, I would say this.
What is your problem, Cheryl?
This place only needs three F
words: froyo, family, and fun.
And yet, when you come in,
I want to say a fourth F word.
But I would never.
I would never.
[NERVOUS LAUGHTER] Besides navigating treacherous
conversations without exploding, another
useful skill I learned was cleaning.
And I know, I know.
Hold on, you've never cleaned before?
Please understand, I'm not talking about
a bit of decluttering,
a little sweeping, or some tidying up.
I mean cleaning a bathroom floor
to ceiling because some lovely
customers get very creative in there.
I mean whipping out the gum scraper
because some amazing customers will put
their gum anywhere
except into a trash can.
And I sure as heck mean emptying those
trash cans that the most incredible
customers like to use to dispose of their
literal sh- Shifts normally lasted
from 4:00 or 6:00 till closing,
and closing time was 10:00 or 11:00,
depending on the season.
And again, I was in high school
when I worked at Sugar Spoons.
There'd be weeks I was so exhausted.
I had swim practice, homework,
a horrible boyfriend, college essays,
SATs, musical theater.
So, when I was alone in that store,
and I had the chance to recharge my social
battery, I'd soak up every second of it.
I'm gonna let you guys
in on a little secret.
Sometimes when it was slow,
my manager would run to the store across
the street for strawberries, peanut
butter cups, whatever we were low on.
It'd be the middle of winter,
not a single customer in hours.
It was just me, all alone
with the store's busted little iPod.
And for about 15 uninterrupted minutes,
I was a Disney princess
in my frozen yogurt castle.
You always make me blush so hard.
My parents always stay on guard.
I drop my cool when you're around.
You are the hottest boy in town.
I'm dreaming of a kiss from you.
And hoping it will all be true.
But this is my imagination.
And it's reality.
I'm a girl in love.
And that was the cherry
on top of this dream job.
I'm kidding.
That's not true.
What made this job great was that even if
10 Cheryls came through the door,
there would always be at least one amazing
customer that brightened
my day without even trying.
I loved decorating for kids' birthday
parties and seeing how excited
they got when they arrived.
I loved recommending yogurt flavors
and watching people's faces light
up when they tried something new.
And I loved all the regulars who would
come in and catch up at the counter
because at the end of the day,
whether you're on the clock or off,
we are all part of the same community.
And I think that's something we forget
when we go to a restaurant,
a store, a cafe, anywhere really.
Minimum wage workers make the world go
round, and yet they're treated like dirt.
Not just by some customers,
but also by lawmakers who think $7.25
an hour is fair pay
for this kind of hard work.
Well, if these people want respect,
maybe they should get a real job.
These jobs are real jobs.
McDonald's feeds 70 million
people worldwide every single day.
Call me crazy, but if those so-called
burger flippers are what makes
a multi-billion dollar company grow even
more filthy rich every year,
I think they should be able to afford a
car, a place to live, a vacation to go on.
And you know what?
[HONK] it, a Nintendo Switch, an iPhone,
and dare I say, the very burger they flip.
You know how I said when I was 16, I
made $7.25 an hour because
that was minimum wage back then?
Well, I'm sorry to inform you, I'm old.
I'll be turning 27 this year.
But more importantly,
at the time of writing this video,
the minimum wage has not yet increased
in North Carolina or many other
states in the US in over 10 years.
To be exact, it's been 16 years.
It was $6.55, but it went up to $7.25
in 2009 because of a new law.
Of course, that didn't stop companies
from breaking laws to underpay
workers because why would it?
A $26 million fine is nothing for a
company that makes $20 million every day.
And don't get me started on waitresses
and waiters or how it's perfectly legal
to pay disabled people less
than able-bodied people.
According to the American Federation
of Labor and Congress
of Industrial Organizations,
if the federal minimum wage had continued
to increase, it would
be at $24 an hour today.
And you may think, well,
why does someone who flips burgers or
brings a cup of water to my table or bags
my groceries need to make
more than $7.25 an hour?
They're just some high school or
college kid working a no-skills job.
Minimum wage work is not a mindless,
skill-less position.
This is cooking, cleaning, managing.
This is work that everyone
benefits from every single day.
And even if it wasn't,
no matter who is working the kind of job
where it's commonplace these days
for people to throw food at you,
I hope we can all agree that that person
does not deserve to live in poverty.
We all know that big companies can afford
to pay their workers a living wage,
but lawmakers, for whatever alleged
reason, don't wanna hold
these companies accountable.
Instead, they'd rather convince us
that this work and these people are
worthless, which couldn't
be further from the truth.
But I have a college degree and even
I don't get paid $24 an hour.
Then it sounds like your employer is
taking advantage of you, and you and your
coworkers should join or form a union.
Link in description for details.
Yes, some minimum wage workers are high
school and college kids, but they're also
moms, dads, your neighbors, your friends.
And this might sound crazy,
but there are people out there who do
enjoy cooking, cleaning,
designing birthday cakes,
answering phone calls,
taking out the trash,
helping you find the toothpaste aisle,
even handing you a sample
cup at a frozen yogurt store.
Whatever job it may be,
minimum wage workers are not
personal servants or punching bags.
They're part of your community.
So, with that, thank you
for watching my videos.
If you sprinkle when you tinkle,
please be neat and wipe the seat.
And as always, stay safe.