How to get teens to work?

[Anonymous]

I have 4 ages 16-21. They have all had jobs since the summer after their sophomore year which has included mother's helper, babysitting, dog walking, cat sitting, pizza delivery, bussing tables, liquor store stocker, camp counselor, lifeguard and server. DC minimum wage is now $17/hr. They make ridiculous amounts of cash which is especially good for the college kids since I don't give them beer money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like my teens want good jobs handed to them, ones where they can basically sit around and get paid, and they don't want to struggle to find or keep the job. But then that's what they see on social media, so I really can't very well tell them how important I believe the struggle is to their long term character building. They'll just say I'm old and out of touch.

It does seem like many kids aspire to grow up and become YouTubers and TikTokers after watching Mr. Beast and other social media stars. What they don't see is often the YEARS of hard work it took to create interesting content, on an almost daily basis, promote the channel, get sponsors, etc...

Not saying ALL kids, or even a majority of kids do this, but I think many here on DCUM would agree that an excessive amount of social media use can contribute to distorted perspectives on what it means to "work".

This isn’t new though — this is like all the kids I knew growing up who wanted to be Michael Jordan or to perform on Broadway. Some of them managed to get jobs at basketball or theatre camps; most of them just worked at subway like the rest of us and just talked a lot of hot air. It’s pretty normal for teens to be overly ambitious and for parents to tell them that’s all very well but they need a job now and they need to work hard on prepping for their ambitions if their serious about them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These jobs are not good for career they should be doing tech or legal work or something related to their future

Making money is directly related to their future. As someone who hires recent college grads a lot. I always look for the ones that haven't done all internships. Have you worked outside all summer? Have you worked in a non office job? Have you had a service job? Worked with the public? Those tell me a lot more about someone's ability to be flexible and communicate then a kid who spent all summer sitting in an office because their parent has a connection for an "internship."

Thank you! My rising college sophomore was unable to get an internship this summer, so he is working the graveyard shift doing night stocking at a big box store. It's hard work.

And a pp who was asking about what they put for availability? My kid put that he was completely open for the summer. No vacation for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These jobs are not good for career they should be doing tech or legal work or something related to their future

Making money is directly related to their future. As someone who hires recent college grads a lot. I always look for the ones that haven't done all internships. Have you worked outside all summer? Have you worked in a non office job? Have you had a service job? Worked with the public? Those tell me a lot more about someone's ability to be flexible and communicate then a kid who spent all summer sitting in an office because their parent has a connection for an "internship."

From K-12, my teen was doing volunteer work, ECs, traveling, camps and classes, and working as camp counselors and summer teaching jobs. Did not make a single cent. Just got lots of Learning Hours.

In college, he does one year-round research work in a university lab and a full time STEM internship (competitive internship) during the summer. He gets paid only for the STEM internship. Straight A, high achiever student.

My kids never had to work for spending money because their uncles, aunts, grandparents and cousins have always treated them cash, goods and experiences. Also, my kids are frugal and quite a bit nerdy, so what they want usually does not fall under the kind of things that teens spend money on. Simple living, high thinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you have teens, OP? Are you asking for advice on how to convince YOUR kids to get a job, or do you just think other people's kids should be working?

The thing about this "employee shortage" is that it's a bit more complicated than that. Yes, businesses want employees--but they don't want a teen that can't work on weekdays before school gets out, or that is restricted from working past/more than certain hours because they are under 18, etc. Stores want employees with "open availability"--willing to work any day (including weekends, holidays, etc.) at any time. Stores won't give a full time schedule--they'll schedule according to THEIR needs, which might mean 35 hours one week, but only 12 the next.

+1. They also want on call scheduling which is basically the employee being available to work if called in.

+2

My DC was part of a RIF and got a job in retail in the interim. The employees' availability isn't respected; hours are changed at random and without warning. One week it's nearly 40 hours, another week it's 6. There's no rhyme or reason to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My teen got a job at a coffee shop last summer and they regularly sent him home from a long shift after an hour of two because they weren’t busy enough, or would text him and ask him to come in immediately and then get mad when he couldn’t immediately drop what he was doing and show up. Then the customers were downright abusive; he’s an athlete and tough but people would literally come up and straight out of the gate start curse him out because their coffee order—which he didn’t even make— was wrong. All that for minimum wage. He quit early and this summer is working as a camp counselor where at least he’s guaranteed 40 hours a week.

This country’s retail businesses are not owed an endless supply of cheap child and immigrant labor to exploit for profit so they can sell low quality food and environmentally destructive fast fashion made by exploited labor in China. If a business can’t find good workers it’s because they suck and they should go out of business.

+1 Between the expectation of fully on-call workers + companies that say they are hiring, force you to apply online only, and then never get back to you (while complaining that they can't find employees), it's hard for teens to find a job where they can get hired and then treated with the basic respect we parents had when we were teen employees.

My DS worked summer camp counselor jobs in his earlier teens, worked at a local bakery for a couple summers, and this year after 2nd year of college is working at a mall clothing store (national chain) where they actually replied to his online application and give him a regular, predictable schedule.

For that first job, I recommend asking teen friends who have jobs to recommend them to their employers and also to focus on small, locally owned businesses. The bakery my son works at is mostly staffed with teens and they only hire via personal referral.

[Anonymous]

My has been applying to jobs since the beginning of June, (I told her to start applying earlier but she was finishing up high school) she wanted to
work mid-June to mid-August. Every place she’s has spoken to has told her to apply online and nobody calls back. I figure her availability is the issue.

[Anonymous]

My teen started looking for a job in March, got two offers and turned down one to take the second job. She’s had one half day shift in the last month. Her employer now says he “over hired” so it’s not a big deal if she looks for something else.
Some people have no clue how to run a business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I started working at the age of 16, in Giant Food.
Now there a huge work shortage and mostly because teens are at home playing video games or doing silly Dance videos.. Parents should make kids go to work. They are now paying kids $15-17 dollars an hour to work…..my first minimum wage job I was making $1.50 an hour I will have to work 10 hours to make what they are making now. There shouldn’t be a reason why there so many people not working.

HAHAHAHAHA. So people should force their kids to work at the grocery store or fast food so you aren’t inconvenienced? GTFOH with that nonsense. If you’re so concerned about the “work shortage,” go pick up a second job for $15/hr.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I started working at the age of 16, in Giant Food.
Now there a huge work shortage and mostly because teens are at home playing video games or doing silly Dance videos.. Parents should make kids go to work. They are now paying kids $15-17 dollars an hour to work…..my first minimum wage job I was making $1.50 an hour I will have to work 10 hours to make what they are making now. There shouldn’t be a reason why there so many people not working.

You made $1.50/hr? Then you’re elderly and out of touch. And the bolded isn’t true at all. Did you not take high school economics?

[Anonymous]

NP. Are you talking about your own kids, OP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My teen is dying to work and had a lot of trouble getting a job. He submitted dozens of online applications and heard back from almost no one. Maybe this os because he had nothing to put but volunteer gigs in the “previous experience”? Anyway, I keep hearing abt all the jobs going infilled but my teen got almost no response. (And these were definitely teen appropriate jobs-he wasn’t shooting high or anything.)

Teen needs to talk to request to talk to on duty manager when applying for jobs. In person always trumps online.

Nope. Not even close. You sound old.

[Anonymous]

Another out of touch OP, or maybe just the same one that keeps obsessing over this and getting all the ignorant parents riled up.

DCUM is divided between the lower class whose kids tend to have jobs;

and the upper class whose kids tend not to have jobs.

A job at Giant does nothing for one's future career if the family does not need the income from their working teen.

Teens these days have already developed work ethic, teamwork, etc, in all the expensive activities and internships that they've done over the years.

This needs to be repeated on every single thread where the OP moronically complains about lazy teens not working.

- parent of non-working teen. I didn't work as a teen either. Teen jobs are not a rite of passage. Indeed, most things posters tout on this board as "rites of passage" are... simply not.

[Anonymous]

Minimum wage was $1.60 in 1971. Ever heard of inflation?

[Anonymous]

You stop providing things for them that are not the basics and they’ll get a job.