Office Depot vs Burger King

[Babzu]

So I live in an apartment going to school and am quickly running out of money, my options that im looking at is a burger king next door or an office depot 13.5 miles away.

Everyone tells me that retail is better than food, however when it comes to saving money via gas, is it worth it to get the next door burger king job or the "bit of a drive" office depot job?

What pros and cons could there be?

IM curious, what about pizza driver jobs? Thats also an option.

[Darsithis]

This isn't related to World of Warcraft, so I've moved it to General Off-Topic

[PoisonPoptart]

I worked for Office Depot for nearly 4 years and in that time received one single raise was making a grand total of 25 cents over minimum wage. Granted a job is a job and if you need money take what you can get but personally speaking i would never work for the business again

[someotherguy]

I know nothing about either, but how does the pay compare? Would it cover the cost of gas? would it be worth the extra time you could have spent studying?

[Deleted]

Retail.
Possible sales bonus schemes,
Store discounts,
Better prospects, even though your only looking at short term work it looks better on a resume to have been "team leader for one of the departments" than "stuck flipping burgers"
Clean environment (by which I mean you dont go home every night stinking of stale fat and burgers)
More professional people in the work place, IE you dont have to deal with screaming kids.

I could go on, but needless to say that The retail sector is always going to be better than flipping burgers.

[Raptor With a Saber]

O..i have to admit i read the title and thought ok this is gonna be funny how do you compare a store that sells burgers to one that sells paper. Then i opened it up and read, burger king all the way free/discounted food no gas spending. Save alot of money

[Sky High]

retail blows, but so does working at a fast food place. so I guess you have to weigh what you think will make your life more miserable.

[thefinalwarden]

I don't know how much office depot pays, but as a person who has worked both retail and fast food, they are comparable as job. You have to hustle more consistently at fast food and it is more difficult than people give it credit for. You might get paid more at office depot (Big might there), but when you factor in gas, unless you make a good deal of hours, the fast food might be a better bet since it is close. Just make sure you explain that you cannot work during your school days or else they will schedule you whenever they feel like it regardless of your availability, then again retail does the same thing.

The bigger question to ask yourself is, is your nearby burger king steadily busy? If so, you might get decent part time hours there, then compare that to the amount of foot traffic at the office depot to see if you would get hours.

Working at fast food isnt a death knell on a resume. You can play up time management, team work, and other things like that in it. Fast food requires a good deal more effort than retail and a good deal of jobs take note of that. It's all how you word what you did.

[PoisonPoptart]

People can say that retail is better than flipping burgers all they want, @Sigma the sales bonus schemes that Office Depot has are based on store goals aka you can bust your ass to get your bonus but if your co workers slack nobody gets anything, there is little to no room for advancement in that company, clean.. ok i'll give you that one and on the subject of discounts yes and no i was getting 10% off anything but tech items which where i was living at the times covered taxes

@thefinalwarden they start out at minimum wage 25 cent raise after a few months and any raise after that is "optional" nobody at the store i was working for ever saw a raise after that

[Shennanigans]

Burger King, retail sucks gas is expensive. Will save you loads of time and expense. Nothing wrong with working fast food while a student. It's easy, you get free food.

[Mifuyne]

Burger King, retail sucks gas is expensive. Will save you loads of time and expense. Nothing wrong with working fast food while a student. It's easy, you get free food.

For that reason alone I wouldn't work there; would be fat and unhealthy in no time.

[Silhouette of Seraphim]

So I live in an apartment going to school and am quickly running out of money, my options that im looking at is a burger king next door or an office depot 13.5 miles away.

Everyone tells me that retail is better than food, however when it comes to saving money via gas, is it worth it to get the next door burger king job or the "bit of a drive" office depot job?

What pros and cons could there be?

They both pay shit.

Get the one that's closer.

[chrisberb]

Not contributing much to the conversation, but good luck at either..apply at both to double your chances of getting a job at either.

[DrStiglit]

So I live in an apartment going to school and am quickly running out of money, my options that im looking at is a burger king next door or an office depot 13.5 miles away.

Everyone tells me that retail is better than food, however when it comes to saving money via gas, is it worth it to get the next door burger king job or the "bit of a drive" office depot job?

What pros and cons could there be?

They are both bottom of the barrel jobs that could also lead to a very rewarding career. I imagine though, like most people getting jobs in this category; you don't plan to make a career out of it, do you? If that's the case, weigh the benefits.

Do you get any sort of commission from the depot? If so you may also be pressured to meet quotas and forced to try and make uncomfortable sales. Are you comfortable with that?

At the King you are going to smell like grease when you get off work everyday, but you often get dinning benefits which can help you save money on food (if you're into that sort of thing).

In both places you are going to have to deal with terribly stupid, ignorant customers with unreasonable demands.

Unless the pay is significantly greater at one, I would choose the closer option. That way you can get home sooner to take a shower and wash of the pain in misery both of the jobs are going to leave you with.

Good Luck and enjoy your new job!

Source: Worked for McDonalds for 6 months (had a friend become a Regional Director and now banks). Also worked for Toys R' Us for 3 months (had no friends become anything there). Granted both of these jobs were 8-10 years ago.. Maybe things got better?

[Azgraal]

For that reason alone I wouldn't work there; would be fat and unhealthy in no time.

I worked 6 months at a McDonald's. Granted all my health levels might have not been the ideal (i didn't check) but i actually managed to lose weight from all the work i did there.... And that's including the soup, big sized fries and drink, burger, icecream/yoghurt and coffee id have every day at dinner (i did a 6pm to 2am shift) plus the food i'd bring home when i clocked out.

[gaymer77]

My little sister worked at Office Depot for 3 years and got 2 small raises the entire time and they never worked her over part-time hours. I'd suggest Burger King because they offer things like discounted food (most of the time you just pay what tax would be on what you're buying) and its within walking distance. Unless you're lucky enough to have a Prius-type car, you'll end up forking out a lot of money on just gas going 27 miles round trip at Office Depot getting min wage.

[Deleted]

For that reason alone I wouldn't work there; would be fat and unhealthy in no time.

Can save you a bit of money in the long run though. If it's anything like the fast food place I worked at the closing shift can take any extra food home. Sometimes there's healthy options.

McDonalds where I worked at got you a load of discounts at many stores, and sometimes there are local deals (We got free gym membership and cinema in exchange for them getting staff discounts). So the BK might have deals as well, could save a bit of money on college essentials.

[Gheld]

I'd go with the BK.

Front end in retail and food both pay crap. So it's the cost of getting to work that will make the difference here.

Plus food has a higher turnaround, so as an employer the BK is probably more likely to offer flexibility with your hours.

[Klutzington]

For that reason alone I wouldn't work there; would be fat and unhealthy in no time.

Who the hell cares? You get FREE FOOD while RUNNING OUT OF MONEY. Don't eat too much... get through school and get a job and make it into a career.

[The Casualty]

If those HAVE to be your only two options, I would say go with the closer one. Gas is pricey, and nothing beats avoiding a long commute when all you want to do is just be done with it.

However, you do (I assume) live in a college town. Most of the time, the population shrinks drastically as people go home for the summer, if they haven't already. There has to be more openings available during the summer than just minimum wage at those two crappy places.