When our kids are little, we take every story from the teachers and the playdate host mom about how well-behaved our kids are out in public, and we eat that ish up. It's how we survive the at-home tantrums that make us feel like we're total failures at this parenting thing. And then come the teen years.
And suddenly, sending the kids out in public is a whole new ballgame. Because if you have ever left your house, you know what happens when you get a group of teenagers together, in public, without parental supervision. They act like little pissants! No matter how well-behaved they'd be on their own, no matter how well-raised, teenagers in a group feed off of each other's need to act like a rebellious jerk.
Is it any wonder we've got a whole group of people in society who flat out hate your teenager? Just take a look ...
Waitresses: Let's explain how this goes. Teens walk into a crowded restaurant. They order the cheapest things on the menu. They whine and moan about how long it takes. They spread the ketchup on the table making funny designs and shoot the straw wrappers at each other (but never pick them up). They leave a penny tip, in the bottom of the cup of soda where it has to be fished out. And then they walk out laughing like hyenas. Just say it: teens in restaurants are assholes.
Road Construction Workers: They spend half an hour setting up road cone after road cone to ensure traffic flows efficiently and safely. And then they stand there, watching the beater circa 1994 come flying through the work zone at unsafe speeds, stop in the middle of the roadway, and a teenager come tumbling out, grab two of those cones, and climb back in.
Convenience Store Clerks: There are people who come in to buy their beer and quietly hand over their ID when asked. Then there are the underage turds who come in, grab five cases of Natty Light, waltz up to the counter, and get nasty when they're asked to prove they're old enough to make the buy. Any guesses who makes the biggest mess when they're denied the chance to buy some brewskies?
Baristas: When you need to make big tips to pay the rent, a bunch of kids who spread their stuff across half the tables in the coffeehouse and park there all day, talking loudly, and scaring off the other PAYING customers, you tend to get a little angsty when you see someone under voting age walk in the door.
Parents With Young Children: George Carlin was all too right about the many uses of the F word. It is indeed a noun, a verb, and so on. But do they really have to try out every single one while standing right beside my impressionable 6-year-old?
Movie Theater Employees: Two words: popcorn throwing. Because it isn't the teenagers who have to clean that mess up.
And now for a quick disclaimer. I know these are generalizations folks. Not EVERY teen acts like this. But the ones who do are the ones who are making a bad name for the others, and if you've ever been in one of these positions, you've encountered many of them.
Have you ever worked a job that made you hate groups of teens? Why is it that the most well-behaved kids at home seem to act like little jerks out in public?
Image via bradywahl/Flickr