My son is afraid of reporting this to police because many of his friends work there, and he’s afraid of retaliation at school for being a “snitch”. This is not the first time he’s witnessed something very wrong and had to report it, that time to police, and he was targeted at school both physically and just with asshole kids treating him the way they do (while also influencing others).
Management made up an excuse and fired my son after it became apparent that he knew about the meth situation and was not ok with it.
He does want corporate to know all of this and take action, so we plan to report it to them.
Part of the trouble is this: My SO’s daughter had a similar situation at another fast food joint, it was reported to corporate, and the response was basically “we can’t do anything because that location is a franchise”. The problem manager in that instance was promoted soon afterward.
I’m not sure if my son’s restaurant is corporate owned or franchise. If it’s a franchise as I fear, and corporate will take no action, what recourse can we take without police?
I’m super pissed my son was exposed to this and I’m concerned for the girl that informed him, not to mention the other employees. This obviously cannot stand, but I also don’t want to ruin my son’s social life over it. I remember being a high schooler, it’s hard enough without being targeted by jerks.
EDIT: Thank you for all the replies. I plan to wait awhile to give my son some distance, then contact police. To all who said we live in a broken place, you’re right, and if we could move immediately we would. It helps to get outside perspectives on stuff like this, and I appreciate all your replies.
Also fuck Spez!
You should teach your son to mind his own business - his life will be easier going forward because of it.
Virtually all restaurants have drug users. You’re not going to stop a systemic problem by trying to narc to the police or corporate. The owners of the restaurant, the people who actually have hiring abilities, desperately need warm bodies and they’ll more or less take anyone. I would never let a child of mine work at a restaurant. Have them volunteer at an animal shelter or something.
Assuming the police do anything at all, you’re looking at criminal charges for someone who will likely be replaced by someone else willing to do the same thing. Potentially even the young teen might get charges out of it.
Is that really helping anyone? If the teen is willing to take meth in the first place, that’s the real issue that needs to be addressed. She will just find someone else to get it from- that shit is rampant. I understand that meth is a terrible thing (I’ve been through heroin addiction myself, been clean 6+ years by now). But sometimes we just have to accept we can’t regulate everyone’s life without risking potentially worse consequences by doing so.
If you really want to help then you, the adult, should talk to this young girl who is using meth. Either talk to her or talk to her parents. Tell her what she’s doing is dangerous and she should get help.
Beyond that, what else can you do?
Yknow, I would almost agree with you if adults weren’t giving children fucking meth
Also, think about why an adult is giving a child girl meth. It’s not fucking good.
Maybe I should work spell it out for the thread OP since he seems like an idiot. Rape at a minimum, and very possible human trafficking.
I mean, can you really not see a difference between adults using drugs in the workplace and adults in a position of power giving children dangerous drugs?
The question is “what should you do about it” not “should this be happening”
Instead of trying to prevent a teen from acquiring drugs, you should raise a healthy teen that doesn’t want to use drugs. If she is drug-seeking, you could arrest the adult in this scenario and her life would not fundamentally change. It’s easier to get drugs as a teenager than it is to get alcohol.
So the crime of giving meth to a teenager. Ok, that definitely deserves a prison sentence. So let’s call the police. But we have to look at the chances of
A) the police doing anything at all
B) the police doing a cursory investigation which reveals nothing and nothing comes from it
C) b) but with everyone at work knowing OP’s son called the cops
D) police somehow find enough evidence or probable cause required to arrest him (unlikely)
E) d) but with everyone at work knowing OP’s son called the cops
We could go all day, but having experience with calling the police… they won’t do anything. Even if they do a small investigation the real risk is retaliation against the son.
That is much more likely outcome than the young teen improving her life and stopping the use of meth.
You see what I mean? I am not condoning the adult that is feeding drugs to a child. I’m just saying in a game theory sense the best move is not to play.
You could have not written these two comments and have been better off.
OP asked for advice and I gave it. Wrong or right it’s my opinion and I have a feeling I have more experience with these things than most of the people here.
I wouldn’t risk the physical safety or mental health of my son by causing a drama at a workplace that won’t actually improve the lives of anyone involved. Girl will keep using meth and you’d have caused a giant headache and upended the son’s life for nothing. I guess everybody loves a telenovella
If you son’s manager was giving him meth, would you like someone to let the cops know?
No, by their own admission they want their kid to OD or get raped because someone doing anything about it is snitching and that’s far worse then anything else that could happen.
Teenagers acquiring drugs from adults is not inherently predatory. If it wasn’t the manager it could have been friends, family, neighbors, people at parties, sketchy street dealers, etc.
In none of these cases is anyone trying to take advantage of the person. Did we all forget our teenage years? I had adults buy me alcohol when I was 16 and 17. Meth is not alcohol but to a junkie it might as well be.
There is a such thing as context and if someone is being raped then I think the perpetrator should be in prison.
But in my opinion, OP calling the cops has a much higher probability to do harm than solve anything. So many risks
OP’s son gets ostracized from whatever social group he has at his job, if not physically retaliated for calling the cops (you ever met a methhead? They are not calm rational people)
Girl gets interviewed and is either high or has drugs on her. Now she has a felony charge for possession
And if it at least had the chance to help the girl with her drug use then maybe it’d be worth it. But it won’t. She will continue to use drugs because the root cause has nothing to do with the manager. Healthy and balanced people don’t use meth. She has mental health problems. If we cared about her, that would be the one and only thing we would do.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. These two scenarios are more likely than the adult actually facing legal consequences for giving a child meth. If I could snap my fingers and put the guy in jail, I would. But we don’t live in fairyland. The criminal justice system is fucked
This is blatantly untrue and you should think twice before giving any advice about drugs again.
Yeah far better to let some girl OD or get raped by the guy giving her the drugs then to do the right thing.
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