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When we’re young and get our first jobs, those things we do to earn a little cash can be quite random. From newspaper delivery routes to waiting tables in a restaurant, manning the drive-through at a fast food restaurant and even cleaning out animals at a petting zoo, these eclectic early steps into the world of work can be really helpful to building transferable skills to build towards something bigger in the future. While it’s great to earn some cash, it’s also good to get a reference for your resume, as well as something to put on it.

But while you’re still at school, it’s also important that your studies come first – after all, those high grades aren’t going to earn themselves, and they’ll be worth a whole lot more than your paper route in the long-run.

The student in this story is quite aware of this, and trying to keep their working hours low, and restricted to the weekend as a result. However, due to bad management, those hours keep increasing – and it’s got so ridiculous that the student is having to put their foot down.

Read on to find out why.

AITA for making my co-workers work ridiculous hours so that I can finish my education?

I am currently seventeen years old, and in my final year of A-levels (UK).

I have a part-time job at Subway, where we are severely understaffed.

There are three full time workers and one part time – bearing in mind that we are open from 7am until 9pm.

Let’s see how this understaffing is affecting this student.

My boss has been scheduling me ridiculous hours since a few people left.

This has got to the point where this week, I was scheduled 32 hours on top of my 40 hour week at school, plus 20 hours of revision and homework.

I am currently sitting my mock exams and completing coursework, which I am very behind on.

Read on to find out how the student is tackling the issue.

I have told him that from now on, I only want shifts on a Friday and Saturday, at a maximum of about ten hours.

Of course this means that people who are already doing ridiculous hours must now cover for me.

Am I wrong for forcing my colleagues to do fifty plus hours so that I can have an easier time studying?

AITA?

This student is absolutely right to be putting their foot down – because exploiting a young workforce is never okay.

If the manager is dealing with understaffing, they need to be making recruitment a priority, not potentially sabotaging a student’s exams by trying to force them to work basically full time hours on a part time contract.

Sometimes in life, you need to be selfish – sure the others will have to work more hours, but that’s the manager’s problem to deal with.

Let’s see what folk on Reddit made of this.

This person agreed that the student was right to put their exams and coursework first.

While others pointed out that the real problem here was the manager.

Meanwhile, this Redditor made quite clear that other people’s schedules were not this young worker’s responsibility.

The truth is, if this student’s colleagues want to blame anyone, it should be the manager. They could also, to some extent blame the other employees who have quite, but you have to ask why the boss wasn’t organised enough to hire new staff immediately. Or is it the case that the Subway location is so badly managed that no one wants to work there anyway? Whatever the truth is, it is not this A Level student’s problem to deal with – they’ve got much bigger and better things to prioritise in their lives.

Even in their colleagues do, unjustly, get mad at them? Well, too bad. One day, this young worker will be moving on to another career, and the job that they had when they were studying will just be a small part of their past. Meanwhile the manager will still probably be a bad manager, still dealing with staffing issues as a result. Because who would want to work for someone with so little care or regard for others?