Desirae Romero, a senior at West Anchorage High School, works at Subway. She works a four-day schedule for five to six hours a day. On the weekends she opens with the assistant manager and closes with shift managers. Romero’s been there for more than a year and is one of many West students with after-school jobs.

When asked how it’s like to work in fast food she said, “It can get a bit tiring for one but for the most part it’s a pretty easy job the customers tell you what they want and you just go with it.” Romero actually likes her job because the people she works with are nice and the store is quiet.

Romero said that having a job could help you get set and have the basic employee skills. She said having a job has knocked down her grades a little when she first started, but after being there for so long she has formed a schedule and was able to get up her grades again. Having a job has put a small damper on her social life. She is not able to hang out with friends as often since a lot of her friends work the night shift.

Katie Radford, a senior at West, works at Urban Vibe. Right now she only works weekends. Radford works a seven-hour shift both days and has been working for five months. When asked what it was like to work in retail she said, “Well I have a really weird job. I’m the only person working there so you kind of have to do everything yourself.”

Radford likes her job because it’s really slow where she works so she is able to do homework. She believes that having a job while in high school will helps for college and to get better jobs in the future. Radford said she had a bad social life before working and working its just making it worse.

Lalaine Carreno, the Subway store manager, has been working at Subway for five years and right now she has three high schoolers working and three more applying. Carreno said that it’s sometimes hard to work with high schoolers since they can only work certain hours and they may have last minute after school activities so she has to find a last minute replacement.

When asked if she thinks that having a job as a high schooler would help them later in life Carreno said, ”Yes because it will help them be responsible And do save money for themselves but it would also teach them how to interact with other people.”