Goal as a parent for DC to never work non-prof jobs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC has to do service hours. (!!) That will be menial enough.

Oh no, however will they manage (??)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH started in the trades and worked his way up in a national GC company. HHI is about $1M. Both kids want to go into engineering. Both kids have summer jobs in the field. Dogs biggest pet peeve is that project engineers do not actually know how to built what they are managing. They have no idea of the order of the trades, why things work they way they do, or how work can be moved around.

So their summer jobs were as laborers on the job site. Next summer they might be allowed to specialize in a trade internship. It will be a few years before they get to work in the trailer.

This seems valuable because they are gaining knowledge they will need for the future and getting sun and exercise. I wouldn't recommend this for a future accountant or nurse. Maybe for a future entrepreneur.

[Anonymous]

I expected my then high school age sons to have a summer job. It was good for them to have responsibility, a boss, a schedule to keep track of, be punctual and have the thrill of a paycheck for their hard work. Once they were in college, they had summer jobs and were expected to pay for certain things above and beyond what we paid for.

[Anonymous]

I also grew up like you. I absolutely want my kids to do some "regular" jobs. I want them to question the value of interning ie working for free. I never did that. I couldn't afford to.

[Anonymous]

It’s not my goal but I don’t care if they don’t end up working these kinds of jobs. I think they can be valuable but I don’t think they are essential

[Anonymous]

Many colleges like to see jobs on college applications. Any activity where they had to show up punctually and execute tasks is considered to build skills and to be evidence of reliability.

Interestingly, a lot of the jobs I did as a college student just don't exist anymore. I was a survey taker in a shopping mall and a video store clerk. During the term time, I was a file clerk in the department that purchased books for the campus library. All of that is electronic/online now.

[Anonymous]

I can’t relate to OP at all but am not judging how others raise their kids. DH and I also both came from blue collar families and are now UMC. Our teen loves his fast food job. We didn’t require him to get it. He wanted to work and got it on his own. It’s a place with a lot of other teens. DH and I also have fond memories of our fast food jobs in high school so we understand. The job itself wasn’t the fun, the social aspect with the other kids was.

[Anonymous]

Essential / these jobs build common sense which seems to be in horribly short supply, exposes kids to different styles of management, and as others have said, gets them out of any sort of excessive bubble. DH and I both worked these sorts of jobs because our parents valued work ethic (which, is ironic in our case as some of them had zero) but nonetheless - now ivy educated and frankly, there are days I miss food service or planting seedlings in a greenhouse!

[Anonymous]

It’s not new. I grew up in a UMC area but my family was more regular old MC. Many of the UMC kids never worked in high school or college.

[Anonymous]

I think the goal for my kids would be to work menial jobs when they are 13-16 or 17 and then get "professional" jobs for resume starting after junior year of HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up like you and am now closer to UMC. I will consider it a failure if my child does not have at least one retail type job. I think they are essential to engaging in society.

PP. I worked a retail job (department store clerk) as my first job. I made very little over a summer.

I learned:

Employee discounts help your employer make back the pittance they pay you.

Favoritism/nepotism gets other people hours when schedules get cut.

People who say they will write a thank you for outstanding service actually don't.

You will be expected to look happy when you are not even if no customers are around.

Managers have unreasonable demands and may even throw things at you.

People steal and tag switch and by policy you must allow them to do it. You can report after but nothing will be done.

The customer satisfaction survey will be on the transaction that somehow went wrong. Mine was on the one where I was at the cash register during a crowded sale and either I or my bagger did not find and remove the theft prevention tag. That was my only transaction survey in 3 months.

You should definitely get motivated to get a better job that pays good money.

Of these, I'm not sure any of these lessons made me better off except the already logical lesson not to take a dumb job for bad pay.

Do you feel that working that job made you more understanding of how hard those jobs can be? Did you learn about dealing with difficult people, making small talk, meeting people from different circumstances/ages?
That’s what I feel is critical. Many kids these days really struggle with basic decision making, asking questions to get needs met, talking on the phone. I learned all those things working in a deli. I made good friends, was active and had money

[Anonymous]

As an employer, when i see a college grad with some experience at chipotle or bartending etc, i tend to respect them more than someone who did nothing over summer or just fluffy internships. Most of those kids know how to hustle and were very personable in interviews and didn't come off as if I the potential employer owed them a job. And all these kids have high grades already in hard subjects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an employer, when i see a college grad with some experience at chipotle or bartending etc, i tend to respect them more than someone who did nothing over summer or just fluffy internships. Most of those kids know how to hustle and were very personable in interviews and didn't come off as if I the potential employer owed them a job. And all these kids have high grades already in hard subjects.

Agree 100%. To a lesser extent, camp counselor, lifeguard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up like you and am now closer to UMC. I will consider it a failure if my child does not have at least one retail type job. I think they are essential to engaging in society.

PP. I worked a retail job (department store clerk) as my first job. I made very little over a summer.

I learned:

Employee discounts help your employer make back the pittance they pay you.

Favoritism/nepotism gets other people hours when schedules get cut.

People who say they will write a thank you for outstanding service actually don't.

You will be expected to look happy when you are not even if no customers are around.

Managers have unreasonable demands and may even throw things at you.

People steal and tag switch and by policy you must allow them to do it. You can report after but nothing will be done.

The customer satisfaction survey will be on the transaction that somehow went wrong. Mine was on the one where I was at the cash register during a crowded sale and either I or my bagger did not find and remove the theft prevention tag. That was my only transaction survey in 3 months.

You should definitely get motivated to get a better job that pays good money.

Of these, I'm not sure any of these lessons made me better off except the already logical lesson not to take a dumb job for bad pay.

Do you feel that working that job made you more understanding of how hard those jobs can be? Did you learn about dealing with difficult people, making small talk, meeting people from different circumstances/ages?
That’s what I feel is critical. Many kids these days really struggle with basic decision making, asking questions to get needs met, talking on the phone. I learned all those things working in a deli. I made good friends, was active and had money

PP. I would say it exposed me to people (mainly lower middle class women) who undervalued themselves and their labor. They also highly valued clothes and possessions. They weren't especially nice to me even though I was an outwardly pleasant and responsible person. Because they were lifers and friends with each other, and they knew I was temporary. Like I said, I didn't learn a lot of skills or earn much. My husband learned to cook from working as a busboy and waiter. He had greater life experience but was more exploited.

I guess we did gain a small amount of new sympathy for people that make very little but we aren't snobs so didn't need jobs to learn how to relate to people of different demographics. We mainly learned to keep focus on escaping such situations, thereby probably contributing to the stratified society we live in today.

[Anonymous]

My kid will have 7 summers and 8 school years between turning 15 and graduating college. There is time in there for a wide variety of experiences. I don't see it as "internship" vs. paid job vs. volunteering. He can manage to do all three, and learn different things from each.