Our 16 year old daughter has been working at a local movie theatre for 5 months as her first “real job”. She is the only person that was still working there from the group that started with her at the same time. She was hired with the knowledge that she was only to be scheduled max 16 hours per week and no more than 2 days as she has a demanding school schedule (full honors and AP classes).
Initially when she started they had her one day on one weekend day, usually Saturdays until from 3-11 or 4-midnight and then one weekday, usually Wednesday as she had early release on those days so she could do 3-10.
This schedule was pretty consistent until mid-October as they lost many of their student staff and new people came on. She never missed a day or called in sick during that time. Then in mid-October she was asked to swap a shift with another coworker and she ended up working both Saturday and Sunday from 4-11pm. Well, they must have liked that ad they then scheduled her every weekend with the same shift since mid-October so she hasn't had a free weekend in 6 weeks. She tried telling her scheduling manager last week that she needs can't work both weekend days and if they could get her back on 1 weekday and 1 weekend shift.
They didn't like that and told her that in the theatre business, weekends are the busiest days (yes, we are aware) and that weekends need to be available to work.
We thought it was very mature of her to stand up for herself and explain her situation. As her parents, we won't allow her to work more than that as school and her teenage years are still the most important thing for her development but she also is earning money to help pay for her car, insurance, and any extra money she wants to have.
Then, she got her schedule for Thanksgiving. We knew that she'd likely work Thanksgiving as that's one of the busiest days, but then her schedule came out today. They had her scheduled for Thursday 2-8pm, Friday 3-10pm, Saturday 4-midnight and then Sunday 4-midnight (yes, she has school the next day at 730am). So not only did they gaslight her weekend concerns, but they decided that as a 16 year old she should work 30 hours in 4 days without any break for Thanksgiving. We told her that wasn't acceptable and we said she was quitting immediately and can look for another job after the break (which she already wanted to do anyway).
She sent her thoughts and concerns to her manager and let them know that effective immediately she was quitting. Some part of me feels disappointed it went down that way, but as a parent I wasn't going to let them railroad my child into a bad situation we weren't comfortable with.
Was this wrong? She's a good kid, straight As, responsible and she'll find a new job as all the places around us are hiring.