Once, when answering a phone call at her workplace, Cascade Roadhouse, junior Rebekah Roub picked up the phone and said to the receiver, “Forest Hills Central, how can I help you?”
“I don’t know why I said that,” Rebekah said. “I just hung up because I was so embarrassed. The person called back, and then I had another host answer it.”
Although this mildly humiliating moment is one she’d like to forget, it tends to remind her of the two most consuming aspects of her time: school and her job at Cascade Roadhouse, a popular American restaurant situated conveniently on Cascade Road.
Rebekah joined the workforce at the age of 15, an age when many establishments won’t hire employees yet due to their inability to drive and relative inexperience in a high-stress environment. However, Rebekah knew she wanted to acquire a job as soon as she could due to the many benefits that having a job can offer—especially for a teenager.
“[Having a job] helps to make a little extra money on the side, and then you don’t have to rely on your parents,” Rebekah said. “So, it moves you into the perspective that your parents aren’t paying for everything. You can actually learn how to provide for yourself.”
She landed on the decision to apply to Cascade Roadhouse due to its advantageous location to her house and school; they also offer a free dinner after every shift, a benefit that Rebekah enjoys greatly. Additionally, the managers of the restaurant are kind and not intensely strict, making for a perfect environment for younger workers looking to enter the job industry without enormous pressure.
Currently, Rebekah is working as a hostess at the restaurant, which is one of the entry positions that earns her $14 an hour. She’s been working diligently as a hostess for two years, so this coming summer—when she will turn 18—she is planning to train to become a server. In the restaurant industry, servers tend to earn the majority of their wage from tips, compiling up to a hefty amount of cash by the end of the week. This is Rebekah’s primary goal, which she wants to accomplish in the coming years. To get closer to this goal, she picks up shifts frequently, working about three to four times a week for four to five hours at a time.
During these long shifts, Rebekah gets a reprieve from constantly helping out customers when she gets a chance to talk to her coworkers, who are some of her great friends. Sadly, two of her friends graduated from FHC last year, but she still remembers their times together fondly.
“I used to work with two girls that I liked a lot, [FHC alumni] Bryn [Pennington] and Sophia [Durkee], but they graduated, so I don’t work with them anymore,” Rebekah said. “But we would always have fun and make TikToks during our shifts.”
Even though Rebekah loves her job, there are, of course, slightly negative aspects of the tiring lifestyle. Cascade Roadhouse is open until 10 p.m. most nights, and unfortunately, Rebekah has sometimes been required to close the store and clean up afterward—an endeavor that can take a mental toll, especially on school nights.
“Sometimes, when I close, I leave at 10:00 p.m., and I start at 4:30 p.m., so if it’s a school night, it’s kind of stressful, especially since I have a lot of homework,” Rebekah said. “So there’s been lots of times where I brought my homework [to work], and I’m like, ‘I don’t care, I’m doing my homework during my shift.’”
Although the duality of balancing a work and school life can have its downsides, Rebekah still finds time to enjoy time with her friends and family outside of school and live in the present moment. She is also part of a church group that she attends regularly, so to balance her work-life load, she avoids scheduling conflicts so she can still have free time during the day.
Overall, having a job as a teenager has improved Rebekah’s life greatly, from earning a good wage to saving money and learning how to adapt and reason with customers. She appreciates the opportunity to work at a young age and encourages her peers to do the same.
“I recommend working a job as a teenager because it teaches you a lot of life skills,” Rebekah said. “It’s taught me how to be patient, especially with customers when they think they are entitled to do things that they aren’t entitled to do. It also brings money in, so you can get Starbucks anytime you want.”
