I empathize bud (gender neutral bud). I really do, I have 5 years mcdonalds and 5 years retail under my belt and people. fucking. suck.
The general public are just the worst to deal with, especially if they view you as “beneath them” in the societal ladder. Boomers by far were the most hateful generation, an entire generation who has been handed everything and just throw childlike tantrums if they don’t get what they want.
Nothing humbles you like being screamed at by some 60 year old woman because you put “too few” pickles on a $1.50 burger. Or too many. Or who really cares, no one should care so much about how many pickles are on their burger enough to literally scream at an employee. But these people are so unaware, they have no idea that they look like the idiots in that situation. The managers don’t want a fight so they’ll just give them what they want so they leave.
As for what to do with money. SAVE. Save what you can. If you have a 401k put that money into it, 10% is a good measure if you can. Pay off all of your debt if you have any. Finally, invest. If everything else is done then invest. The economy is in a downturn and the way I like to think is that “stocks are on sale”. Use that money now to fund yourself in the future, you’ll thank yourself later.
A good order of operations is
401k/retirement, 5-10%
If your work doesn’t offer it you can still open some at your bank, look into IRAs
Pay off debts
(like a lot, don’t just pay minimums, do principal only payments and get that stuff off your back. Then you’ll really have a lot of extra money)
Save 6 months expenses for rainy day fund
High interest savings accounts like Ally can give you some interest on this too
Save for down payment on a home if you’re interested in home ownership
Some people aren’t, but imagine all that money in rent going towards your own equity, not someone else’s. That’s a game changer for sure.
Ad-hoc investing
This comes after everything, but can be stocks, funds, or a managed account of some sort.
Also we absolutely should get a talesfromretail going somewhere. I know we have !talesfromretail but that’s just a clone from Reddit and it’s pretty much read-only. (and the reddit stories you can really tell are just karma farming)