Many American teens have to work after school to support their families. But a case must be made that those who… do not must work, must have a job.
Conditions can no longer be optimal. Unemployment, almost a 50 years lowhas made the kind of jobs well-suited for children – no previous experience, minimum wage, part-time – more widely available.
Yet fewer teenagers work today than a generation ago. The part of teens in the workforce has risen from a low of about a quarter in 2010 to about a third of older teens in some kind of job since the pandemic. But when I was in high school in the late eighties, about half of it of 16 to 19 year olds had a job. Gen X parents who grew up with after-school services at the local drugstore often lament the fact that their own children haven’t always had the same opportunities.
Many instead prefer a range of extracurricular activities that polish their college applications, such as student governance and peer tutoring. This may even be a mistake for those parents and kids who are more concerned about college admission than what happens next. Remember that having a midday job cultivates skills such as time management and instills a sense of independence and personal responsibility – traits that many college administrators have. miss students today.
But after-school jobs also teach more concrete lessons. Personally, I learned more by working outside of school — starting with three afternoons a week when I was 14 and ending with three different jobs, seven days a week, my senior year of high school — than in the classroom.
Here are 10 valuable things I learned:
1. Being good at school does not mean you are good at work. In my very first job, in a real estate agency, I learned how difficult it is to type an address on a business envelope and the result that the average mailman can read. Touch typing my A in seventh grade was pointless in this arena. At the end of the day I was released.
2. Being fired isn’t the end of your career – and neither is it. My second job, at a bakery, suited my skills and (say) appetite better. But what looks good on display doesn’t look nearly as appetizing in the back room, where roaches were snacking on the same sprinkles I’d snuck into my mouth in the front. This job taught me that you can quit.
3. You learn what it’s like to earn minimum wage. That meant $3.35 per hour in my case. If that was a lesson worth learning then, it’s even more important to understand now, at a time of grotesque income disparities and stagnant wages for the working and middle classes.
4. You get paid for your time. Possibly per minute. A boss of mine would occasionally yell, “Don’t lean on that counter; clean that counter!” I didn’t like it, but it gave me an indelible appreciation for the transactional nature of work. Employees are there for no one’s pleasure.
5. Promotions are not automatic. For example, restaurants can be rigidly hierarchical, with people serving as hostess or busses for years before ascending. I’ve learned that you don’t necessarily get a promotion, even if you perform well. It takes patience.
6. Bosses can behave badly. Like the married restaurant owner who pinched me when the mood hit and whispered deeply inappropriate things in my ear. I was less traumatized than stunned. Most 15-year-olds today probably aren’t as naive as I was, but even they can learn surprising things about supposedly mature behavior and what they’re willing to endure and what they swear they’ll never do if they’re ever in a position of authority. You learn how the world works, for better or for worse, and how you might want to change that world.
7. Being in a workplace means working with people who are not like you. Almost every Laura Ashley employee has committed shoplifting. Some coordinated their theft by wrapping stolen perfume bottles in stolen sweaters while another employee stood guard. In any workplace, you will have to work with people of different backgrounds and values than your own, and you will still need to figure out how to interact with each other.
8. Not everyone is as lucky as you. In service jobs you often work with immigrants with an uncertain legal status. You learn to be grateful for the protection you get by being in the books and being considerate of others less fortunate.
9. Boredom is part of the job. In a warehouse, I was paid to paste pictures of merchandise into handmade catalogs for sellers. Again and again. At Grand Union I checked out and packed groceries. You’ll learn to tolerate boredom or make the ordinary work interesting, whether it’s memorizing four-digit product codes or figuring out exactly which item prompted the middle-aged man to buy a single zucchini, a six-pack of beer, and a box. with tampons on the market.
10. School skills can be acquired outside of school. At the weekend I took the train into town to work in a French boutique where I could practice my French. In those days of non-automated cash registers, my math also received regular training.
Given my weekly work schedule, I had limited time for extracurricular activities. I didn’t do any sports. I didn’t play an instrument. I was not a class president. Despite these shortcomings, I applied to a good university early on and was accepted. One of the first things I did when I got there was look for a job.