[Serious] My high schooler worked at a fast food joint. Recently he encountered one of his underage coworkers under the influence of meth, which she said was given by management. What to do?

My son is afraid of reporting this to police because many of his friends work there, and he’s afraid of retaliation at school for being a “snitch”. This is not the first time he’s witnessed something very wrong and had to report it, that time to police, and he was targeted at school both physically and just with asshole kids treating him the way they do (while also influencing others).

Management made up an excuse and fired my son after it became apparent that he knew about the meth situation and was not ok with it.

He does want corporate to know all of this and take action, so we plan to report it to them.

Part of the trouble is this: My SO’s daughter had a similar situation at another fast food joint, it was reported to corporate, and the response was basically “we can’t do anything because that location is a franchise”. The problem manager in that instance was promoted soon afterward.

I’m not sure if my son’s restaurant is corporate owned or franchise. If it’s a franchise as I fear, and corporate will take no action, what recourse can we take without police?

I’m super pissed my son was exposed to this and I’m concerned for the girl that informed him, not to mention the other employees. This obviously cannot stand, but I also don’t want to ruin my son’s social life over it. I remember being a high schooler, it’s hard enough without being targeted by jerks.

EDIT: Thank you for all the replies. I plan to wait awhile to give my son some distance, then contact police. To all who said we live in a broken place, you’re right, and if we could move immediately we would. It helps to get outside perspectives on stuff like this, and I appreciate all your replies.

Also fuck Spez!

Candelestine,

Call up your local news station and newspaper, offer them the story. If they turn you down, call up another one.

someguy3,

Police, corporate, news, and raise hell on social media.

Meth? This ain’t no small thing. Save anyone from meth addiction and that is a good thing.

Corporate can defranchise them. So raising this on social media would work.

sodiumbromley,
@sodiumbromley@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I think there’s a couple of nested problems. The first problem is a manager is giving employees meth, which could have been your son, if not now then maybe one day. You know what to do about this, but it’s nested within another problem, which is how to do that without alienating your son.

So talk to your son about what bothers him about what happened and what he wants to do about it. Then, after he talks, tell him how it made you feel and what you want to do about it. Ask him if that’s something he would like to do, have help with, or have you do for him.

You’re asking the right questions, but I think you’re asking the wrong people.

moistclump,

I don’t know what you want to hear. You seem to understand the right thing to do and the potential consequences. There’s no easy way here but I know the decisions I’d be able to best sleep at night having made. When it comes to kids safety and well-being, helping a kid on meth takes precedence over potential reputation damage.

Another way to look at it… isn’t giving drugs to ”underage” people (children) pretty clearly child abuse, and required to be reported?

Wreckronomicon,

It’s a tough choice between ruining your kids social and school life for a few years or letting the lives of many kids be thrown down the toilet because of a meth addiction.

I know that you want to protect you and yours but, morally, you have to do something to make this stop. As others have said, go to the police, the school/s and the local news and make as big of a stink over this as you can, those managers need to go to jail and those kids need to be rescued from life destroying consequences of the actions of adults that should fucking well know better.

Have a talk with your kid and see what they think should be done and put a plan in place for them to be supported in the aftermath and even consider moving home if that is at all a viable option for you.

Izzy,
@Izzy@lemmy.world avatar

There is no proper age for meth. 😱

manitcor,
@manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech avatar

Report it to the police, corporate and consider talking to your local news. Make sure school admin is aware as well. If you can shift them to different schools (i know not always possible) do so.

My usual response to this kind of thing is to get louder not quieter, that said, I’m also able to put on an angry enough face to make people cross the road which is not a power everyone has.

Go with your comfort level but I would urge reporting to the police and doing what you can to get out of what sounds like broken area.

feedum_sneedson,

oh angry

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