Personal Narrative: Minimum Wage

Me and my family were driving back from Kentucky. In the previous weeks I had probably sent out 15 job applications to various companies asking for employment. So far, I had no response, until now. Meijers called me mid car ride asking me to come in for an interview in the next few days. My parents were really excited for me, they thought this would be a really good experience for me to learn and grow. I had been thinking, if I got minimum wage, then in what I was scheduled I should be able to afford a FitBit Blaze, an item I had wanted for a while but couldn't afford, and save what I would have left to save for college. I was really excited, I work out alot so I thought this would be a really cool item to help me track my calories and how much I have moved. However, to my horror, I couldn't even afford half of it with my first paycheck. …show more content…
My payrate said $6.25/hr, but Michigan minimum wage was $8.50. The computer must have messed up or maybe someone imputed it wrong. I decided I would overcome this injustice but going into my manangers office, and telling her that there was a mistake. When I walked in, I sat down to talk to her. I explained that my pay rate was too low. Michigan minimum wage is $8.50/hr and I was only getting $6.25/hr, so I asked if she could fix the issue. She looked more confused than I did. She explained that Michigan law allows businesses to pay minors lower than minimum wage (down around $7.00/hr) and that I should have already been told about this during orientation. This was not the case, during orientation I even asked and the person doing the orientation, they dodged the question, saying something like “It depends on your job, so I can't say as all of you guys have different jobs.” This still doesn't explain the $6.25/hr. She then explained that on top of the lower pay, I also had a training period for a month which would lower my wage an additional