8-Year-Old Boy Applied For A Job As A Dishwasher After He Realized He Did Not Have Enough Money To Buy An X-Box
"I just wanted to find my friends that were on Xbox and play Xbox."
YouTube An 8-year-old boy decided to go out and try and find a job after realizing that he needed money to afford a new game console.
Unlike other children his age, Nash Johnson, a third-grader from Lexington, Kentucky, wanted to get into the workforce as soon as possible so he could afford to buy himself the game console that he had been wanting for quite some time.
He applied for a job as a dishwasher so he would be able to get a new Xbox.
While speaking to WCNC, Nash revealed that unbeknownst to his mother, he had sent in his application to work as a dishwasher at a local restaurant in his area called Drake's. After seeing a hiring sign on display outside of the restaurant near his grandmother's house, Nash realized this was his chance.
"I'm very good at washing dishes," he told the news outlet. His only incentive for wanting a job was to be able to buy himself a new Xbox console so that he would be able to play with all of his friends. "I just wanted to find my friends that were on Xbox and play Xbox."
Nash, who didn't have any prior experience with having a job, but had learned the importance of saving, earning, and giving money from his family, sent in his resume anyway. On the application, he made sure to let the management know that this would be his first job.
While his having no prior work experience wasn't an issue, the actual problem was his age. At Drake's, they require employees to be at least 16 years old to work there. "It didn’t ask for my actual age and it didn’t ask me when I was born, so I put I was under 18,” he told the news outlet.
His application immediately caught the eye of the restaurant's owner.
After sending his application in, the kitchen manager was incredibly intrigued by it that he eventually sent it over to Mark Thornburg, the chief operating officer at Drake's.
"At the very bottom of the application, he put that he was 8 years old … and when the kitchen manager saw the application, she just assumed that he forgot to put the 1 in front of the 8. And so she called him in very innocently," Thornburg told Good Morning America.
"The number that he put on [the application] was his grandmother's house and … she asked for Nash and Nash gets on the phone, and he says, 'Well, I'm only 8 years old.'"
While Nash wasn't given the dishwasher position, the team at Drake's did invite him and his family to join the restaurant team at their hiring orientation and later, the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the company's new location in the Leestown area of Lexington.
"I said, 'We got to do something for this young man. He's obviously very special,'" Thornburg told the news outlet, adding that in his 30 years in the restaurant industry, Nash "definitely is the youngest applicant" he's ever come across.
Once Nash arrived though, Thornburg gifted the 8-year-old with his own custom uniform shirt as well as a brand new Xbox. Nash's mother, Belinda Johnson, also told Good Morning America that her son was astonished at the gift.
"He was like, 'I'm just so shocked and I'm so happy. I don't know why I want to cry though, Mom.' And I'm like, 'Sweetheart, that's a normal reaction,'" Belinda recalled. Despite getting his Xbox, Nash revealed that he is a little disappointed he didn't get the job as well.
"I was, like, shocked, very shocked,” Nash said. “I wish I had the job and the Xbox. I do have the Xbox, but I wish I had the job.”
Nia Tipton is a Brooklyn-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.