Launching Teens into the Workforce Without Even Dying

Ah, the Salad Days of parenthood when life’s still new and skies are blue. We’re at the top of our game. But parents don’t always go skipping through the challenges of these days, if I remember correctly, and history backs me up on this.

Cleopatra recalled her Salad Days — heck, she even gave us the phrase — when she lamented her youthful dalliances with Julius Caesar, that Roman hunk of hers who dressed in leather skirts above the knee and wrote lilting prose, in Latin, yet, as he went marching off to conquer Gaul. But things have changed and new workers today have to find other ways to express themselves.

An asp came in to toss Cleo’s Salad Days into the dirt, while my salad was merely chopped. And our teenage daughter bore the hatchet in her lovely little hand.

Helping her land a summer job was about as much fun as wearing tight shoes to the fair. And the end results were remarkably the same. She had a system that looked something like this:

Five-Point Scheme for Instant Success

1. The job must not require her to touch food. “I’m not about to clean up after some gross little kids,” is the way the young lady explained it to me.

2. The job must not expose her to scrutiny by her friends. Since she could not be seen by anyone she knows, the market was narrowed considerably. Movies, clothing stores and gift boutiques fell into this category leaving the jobs of night watchman in another town and undercover agent wide open.

3. This one is a little tricky. It states that she must not be required to work on Friday or Saturday nights when she has made other plans or thinks she might make other plans. Week nights that are not already filled with school activities are fair game, but double pay for wearing any ridiculous article of clothing such as a visor or shirt with her name on it is requested. Or maybe it was required. I really don’t remember.

4. The job must not be a “stupid one” in which she is asked to do mundane tasks that do not require her sophisticated thought processes.

And the last one is really the first one. It’s the Mother of them all!

5. Paycheck with a capital P. The money must be good. “Massive bucks,” is the way she put it and that one knocked me right out of the ring.

I no longer knew how to help her so I suggested she go the next day to apply for the position of President of the local bank. It was the only job that met her criteria, after all.

This Young Worker Thing is Not So Easy from the Parent’s Side of the Fence

Another young worker’s father said his daughter had diligently held the same job for eight months now but she hadn’t seen a dime for her labor. She works at an up-scale clothing store in the Galleria and ends up wearing her paycheck home every month. But all’s not lost. She’s captured the coveted position of Best Dressed in family competition.

A young man’s mother reported that her son’s situation is a little different. “He wants to make some real money this summer so he can buy a few things he really needs,” she said. “You know, important things like oversized tires, some banana colored sneakers, and a compass tattoo for his forearm to make him look “instantly hot.”

Well, I guess when you have motivation like that you don’t have time to worry about the little things. If only Cleo had known.
carolcraver.com