As adolescents, my wife and I both had summer jobs. In Iowa, she pushed a cart around the library, reshelving books. In Oregon, I pushed a mail cart through the antiseptic-laced hallways of the hospital where my mother worked. I also collated and stapled thick packets of photocopies by hand and alphabetized hundreds of files.
Though technology has taken over those particular tasks, that first job taught me other, more lasting lessons. I gained independence by mastering new skills without a parent or teacher’s guidance. There was also something special about seeing my labor transformed into a check and then cash in hand. This earned money had a different value to me.
Finally, I learned — almost immediately — that I did not want to spend the rest of my working years alphabetizing files. As I watched the clock’s slow-moving minute hand tick toward my lunch break, it dawned on me that the surest path away from this sort of tedious, repetitive work was getting into college — and that my GPA was going to have long-lasting, real-world consequences. That’s the sort of feeling I wanted my son to experience, too.
A summer job was hard to come by where we live
My wife and I agreed that a summer job was a formative teenage experience that we didn’t want our kids to miss out on. When we asked our then 15-year-old what he wanted to do for the summer, he simply replied, “work.”
This presented a challenge. Here in New York City, job opportunities for younger teens like mine are limited, and many kids apply for them. We did know a place, however, where seasonal positions were plentiful, and teens were welcome to apply.
My wife’s family hails from the north shore of Lake Superior, in Minnesota, and her cousin now owns a small business in a town that swells with tourists in summer.
This generous cousin asked around, and my son soon had his first formal job interview, via Zoom, with the owner of a local ice cream shop. Soon, he had a job offer.
While our younger daughter and I stayed in the city to work and attend camp, my wife drove herself and Max 1,300 miles to the north shore. She worked remotely from an inexpensive sublet and visited family while Max clocked in at his first job.
The job provided a great learning experience
Our son said his first-day nerves quickly dissipated once he arrived at the shop and was assigned a task.
“I got into the flow of washing dishes and bussing tables, and I liked it because it was kind of meditative,” he told me, demonstrating a much more positive attitude than I had toward my early filing duties.
He also said he enjoyed the human interaction with his coworkers and customers, and even though he wasn’t scooping, he knew he was developing customer service skills that would come in handy down the line.
This plan worked out so well that he’ll be returning to the same ice cream shop this summer. This year, he’s been promoted to scooper, and I couldn’t be prouder.
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