I'm a college student. Last summer, I got hired for a 1-month letters classifying mission in a warehouse in Paris for a renowned bank. It was a 7AM – 3PM shift paid the minimum wage. I had to travel 2h30 every day to get there and get home. We were around 10 working in the warehouse, I was the youngest, everyone else was 50+.
I soon realised I had barely nothing to do, since the letter flow was so tiny. Most of my coworkers spent their day sleeping on their desk, or reading the newspapers we received each day (which they then had to send to the CEO's tower). As for me, I read philosophy and political science books. Gradually, I left earlier (around 1 PM at the end of the month). No one ever reproached me for that.
One day, the warehouse boss passed by (between 2 holiday periods, I guess), and he came to me, since he noticed I was not suffocating with work. He tried and got on with me, telling me that the letter flow had been divided by 20 since the beginning of the 2000s because of the internet/going paperless (he could not fire the employees because of their permanent contract), but that it was still very important for him to hire young temps for summer, to help young people take their first steps in the professional world.
So in other words, he casted himself as the philanthropic employer who provides work and occupation for idle working-class people. I don't think “giving” someone a remote minimum wage paid uninteresting work is “helping” them. And I felt sorry the whole month for all these employees sleeping at work. Maybe they liked it, but I think they've been working there for years and they have seen the letter flow gradually decrease over the years, as well as their work value, and they were too old to try and switch carreers. They are stuck in a bullshit job, alienating because of its emptiness.
As for me, I felt insulted by this boss who thought he was making me a favour hiring me for this crappy job. But I also thought it was indeed a good start in the “professional world”, getting to know how to recognise all its toxic figures: the bullshit jobs, the condescending boss, the lying job descriptions…
And I enjoyed being paid (even the minimum wage) for reading.