Minimum Wage Doesn't Mean Minimum Intelligence.

I want to address the common misconceptions about people who work for minimum wage today. As many of you know, I work at a movie theater. This is a minimum wage job and since being there I have seen more of what people think about low paying jobs than I would have ever known before I worked a minimum wage  job. A lot of people assume that anyone who is in a minimum wage position such as cashier, fast food, concessions worker, etc. are stupid, worthless, a burnout and in some cases far beneath them. A lot of this comes from the fact that most of these jobs aren't high paid and the people working their are often young. Since working at the theater I have been called an idiot, a ticket nazi, stupid and I have been told that I lack ambition; This has all been said in the three months that I have been there and most of it has been said more than once.
What the people saying this don't realize is that I'm the opposite of everything they call me. I'm in college because I want to be a movie director. I had a 3.7 GPA in high school and currently have only A's and B's in every college course I have taken. I'm in one of the top all women's schools in the country and I absolutely hate having to card people for movies. So in essence, I have a lot of ambition, I'm highly intelligent and I only card people because if I don't I could get fined for it, not because I'm a "ticket nazi." I'm a person and it does sting every time a customer insults me because of where I work. Every person that I work with is in college or has been to college as well. None of them deserve to be yelled at or called names and quite frankly I get sick of seeing it happen.
People don't realize that someone has to do the job that we do or they couldn't go to the movies. We work hard and put up with a lot and usually manage to do it with a smile. When somebody comes in angry about not being able to get their underage kids into an R rated movie or how much concessions and tickets cost they don't stop and think that that isn't our fault or that we don't control the rules or prices. We are just doing our job, the same as anyone else who wants to get a paycheck would. They also don't stop to think how they would feel if they were us or if their child was getting treated with disrespect for doing his or her job. So the next time you go in somewhere with minimum wage employees be courteous and show them respect; even if they are slow or they make a mistake. They are human and they have feelings and ambitions just like everyone else and they most likely aren't the stereotype of a minimum wage employee.