I was resting on a hammock one warm day early last summer with the pages of a Tom Clancy novel shielding my eyes from the midday sun when my father’s shadow came between me and the warm rays.
“Son, it’s time for you to get a job.”
It was a rude intrusion on my solitude. But, alas, responsibility beckoned.
I spent the next several weeks scouring the Cherry Creek North shopping district for help wanted signs, discovered few, and therefore filled out applications regardless of whether the companies were hiring. I had almost resigned myself to what analysts were calling the bleakest year for teen employment in 57 years when the manager of a nearby Jamba Juice called and invited me to an interview.
The next day, I struggled to answer such career-determining questions as: “What experience do you have making smoothies?”
None.
“What experience have you had with customer service?”
None.
“Why do you want to be a member of Jamba Juice’s juice-making team?”
Because I’d get to wear a gaudy uniform and listen to Jamaican songs repeated all day long.
Despite my uninspired responses, the benevolent manager hired me. Although the work was neither glamorous nor lucrative, it gave me a sense of purpose that summer. Concocting Razzmatazz smoothies, mopping floors, washing dishes, and manning the cash register replaced my former pastime of “hammocking.” And once I realized that an hour’s wages could be consumed in the minute it took to eat a Chipotle burrito, and a day’s wages could disappear with a single parking meter violation, I began to practice fiscal responsibility.
For the first time, I was a member of the working world – paying taxes, clocking in and out, and handling company money. As a child, I always stood on the other side of the counter. Now, even as a pawn in the business hierarchy, I had a feeling of independence and maturity that I had never before experienced.
I was a professional smoothie-maker.
One way or another, this is where we all start. Whether it’s mowing lawns, taking orders at a drive-thru, carrying golf bags or sweeping the aisles of a movie theater, summer employment is the first rung on the ladder of the American dream. I needed the experience even more than I needed the money. I needed to learn how to smile at every customer, and to be patient, humble, and timely. I needed to see the pressures my co-workers faced when their cars broke down and they couldn’t afford repairs. I needed to learn how to properly mop a floor.
Less than 42 percent of teens between 16 and 19 held paying jobs last year, and the 2004 annual average employment rate of teens was the lowest since 1948. Whatever the explanation for these statistics – a stagnant job market, poor teen work ethic, outsourcing – too many young people are missing out on the character-building experience of having a paying job. Only through summer employment can teenagers undertake a variety of jobs, however menial, without having to worry about promotions and long- term planning.
Ideally, working during the summer is like dabbling your feet in a stream. When your feet go numb, you can pull them out, try somewhere else, and then go back to school.
Summer jobs do more than build character; they represent teens’ first faltering steps toward financial independence. My generation is exceptionally attached to the preceding generation of parents, in part because many of us do not feel prepared to face the economic challenges of living on our own. Maybe there is a correlation between the decrease in teen employment and the increase in the number of college graduates moving back in with mom and dad.
The lack of jobs available to teens in the summer of ’04 made me feel lucky to have one. Since job openings for teens had been expected to increase this summer, I hope that the thousands of Coloradan teens who sought employment and found none last year will take another stab at those applications, only to hear the heart-warming phrase, “You’re hired!”
Luckily for me, with three months of Jamba Juice experience highlighted in my résumé, I’ve now landed the plush job of cashier at a sandwich deli. And my 11-year-old sister has happily taken over my hammock.
Michael Koenigs, a May graduate of Regis Jesuit High School, will attend Harvard in the fall.
