“MY ADVISE”

I got my first job when I was 14. I quickly found out this was a mistake for me and the other 14 year old at the job. We were absolutely not emotionally prepared to take on a responsibility like this. Teen life is too stressful as it is…because I was not emotionally developed enough the job just made it all 10 x’s worse.

My Advise: Unless we have absolutely no other option, don’t kick start your adult life to early in your childhood.

If you do choose to work in your teens, practice serving dinner to your family a few times, and have them give you a really hard time. Let yourself see what you might be up against while in our safe and protective world. It teaches us how to be patient and emotionally tough before we are thrown into that world.

AL 16

I just turned 16 when I got my first job. I was NOT emotionally ready for what I dealt with the first 3 months.       It was a popular fast food place and the training was done by the on site managers, who were barely older than me. They sent me to 3 different restaurants for training, then, finally sent me to the one I would work in.  The managers of the first three were what I consider ‘power hunger’ or seemed to have something to prove.    They barely trained me then put me on the fryer.  I was lost for days and their idea of training was  ‘bulling’  me into doing a good job. The ‘formal training’ was about two days then I was thrown to the wolves. None of the other employees seemed happy.  It was too fast paced for anyone to help us learn nor did the boss allow us to teach each other.         I watched a manager accidentally ‘bump’ a co-worker into the fryer. She burned her arm and all he did was  turn to her and yell, “You need to stay the hell out of the way girl.” She quit two days later. It messed me up something awful to see that.

There was a lot of yelling and daily employee crying.     It became hard for me to walk in there every day.           

At 16 years old, with absolutely no experience what-so-ever at being ‘yelled at to do stuff,’ it was a complete shock to my psyche. I went home depressed, total loss of confidence and the stress just added to my already tough teen life.  It almost ruined me to ever work with a team again. To this day I don’t know how I hung in there long enough to get through this tragedy of training.

The saving grace was the fourth restaurant where I ended up. This manager really seemed to enjoy working with kids. We were trained better, always reassured when needed, patted on the back when we did a good job and helped every time we asked. Once a week we all sat down to talk about the week; what was working and what we, or he, could do better. He always made sure we concentrated on the job at hand, NEVER allowed any kind of gossip of co-workers or customers and he always kept his management stresses away from us. At the end of each day the partially frozen burgers, that couldn’t be used, became a ‘floor Frisbee contest’ before we scrubbed down for the day.

Of all the jobs I have had sense; I have never been anywhere that the youngest employees were so eager to do a great job and always asked the manager “what can I do to help you today?” That manager was absolutely my saving grace at learning how to be part of a team, how to keep a great attitude at work and how to WANT  to be the best employee I could possibly be!

My advice; when we are living at home, before we have bills to pay, we can change 1st jobs all we want to find the right fit for ourselves. Although I learned A LOT about what not to do from those first three managers, I was much too young for it at that time. The negative emotions were much too hard on me to add to my young life.

J K 18

 I’m 17 years old at my 3rd job. I have to work to pay for car insurance and my expensive high school life, so getting and keeping a job is very important to me. However, I’m one of the lucky ones whose parents have my back. The reason I’m on my 3rd job at 17 is the first two were horrible for me; just not the right fit. My parents are actually the reason I didn’t stay where I was miserable.

The reason I am so happy at my 3rd job is; the managers made me feel comfortable right off the bat. It seems no matter how many interviews I go on, I am always terrified to walk through that door. The Managers here just sat down with me to find out what my interests were, what I liked about school, what kind of schedule is going to ‘work for me with MY schedule,’ asked me about my family and more. It was just a conversation.

After I was hired I had a few days of computer training, then they sent me to professional trainers. It seemed their whole purpose was to ensure I was ready, not on their timeline, on mine. It gave me so much confidence, but still not quite enough to be put on the floor alone. So they did something I hadn’t seen before…they gave me a ‘work buddy’ to hang with for as long a time as I wanted.

Giving me that confidence, making me look forward to coming there to work was huge for me. It didn’t stop there though…they treat us that way all the time.  They are so patient and understanding to our needs, emotions and times of trial. We get ‘atta-boys’ and they have staff parties. They give incentives and goals to us. It’s a pretty cool place to work.

My advice: don’t stay somewhere that adds stress to your life if you don’t absolutely have to. Find somewhere that adds ‘cool’ to your life for your first jobs. There’s plenty of time for life stress later. We should always make sure what we do can add some kind of joy to our teen years. Those years are hard enough, but should be the best time of our lives.

MM 17

My first job was valet parking for a 4 star restaurant.  I was so excited to start because I have always loved cars and knew I would driving some fantastic, fun cars and get paid to do it.  Until…I sat in the very first one and realized I was responsible for it.  I was only driving from the door to a special section of the parking lot but my mind went crazy…”What if my foot slips and I hit another car?” “What if the car next to it dings the door?”  What if…What if….What if.  It was 30 seconds of TERRIFIED.  It stayed in my head every day with every car so it helped me be the most careful I could be and paid off in the end.  I only worked 2-3 nights a week and ended up making about $200-$300 per night.  And, of course, my dream…I got to drive some of the coolest cars in the world.

 My Advise, Pay attention to our inner fears and make them work for us to make us good employees so we can MAKE  M O N E Y…

A D M 18

     My first job interview was a little less unnerving because I knew so many kids who worked there so they were able to tell me what to expect.  It helped that the manager was friendly and spent time finding out about me first. 

The downfall of this first job was no professional training.  I was ‘thrown to the wolves’ and told to follow others and learn stuff.  I ended up on the chicken fryer and grill.  It was super busy, super hot and I continuously got burned.  Stuff would accidentally fall into the fryer, the basket would break and cleaning the grill stuff flipped up on my arms all the time.  I didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell the bosses about these issues so the company could maybe help us do something about it. 

    I had a devastating personal issue happen to me.  During that time the people at work were great to me, but my return to work was just too much.  I just couldn’t handle all the negatives anymore and gave my 2 weeks notice.  They did let me work out the two weeks and didn’t treat me any different during that time.

   However, I wouldn’t want to work there ever again if I didn’t have to.  It really wasn’t an atmosphere conducive to young kids. 

 My Advice:  It helps to take a first job where we know other kids who work there.

EG 19

I was 17 when I interviewed for my first job in this country. I had to take the interview in my second language. It was very scary. It completely lowered my self esteem to not get this job and no one would tell me why. I always felt I sounded stupid trying to figure out all the questions which were not in my native language.

I did learn from it however. I sought out a job where my language

was needed as their second language. I was hired almost immediately because I was fluent in Spanish and had learned a lot of English in school. The job helped me learn English so much faster and working there built my confidence to an all time high.

I ended up being the youngest manager in training the store ever had.

My Advise: Learn a second language as early as you can. It will benefit you so much later on.

JJ 17

FINISH: Terrified…my first interview was one of the most terrifying moments in my life. I don’t really know what I was scared of, I was just scared of all of it.

My Mom used to say I was too scared to get out of my own way…that I was scared of my own shadow.

WORK? Are you kidding me? I don’t want to work. Do you know how cushy I have it at home? I don’t want to be thrown into the adult world yet. Well, I’m sure I share these sentiments with many others. I had a busy, wonderful life with few worries. But, we have to grow up sometime don’t we. What I found out was it was easier to ‘grow up’ at home when I had a place for my soft landing when things went wrong. So, even though everything inside me said ‘wait til you absolutely have to work,’ I decided to

to get out there and try anyway. BOY am I ever glad I did. I didn’t’ have to get stuck in some dead end job I hated because I had bills to pay. I got to explore jobs and find a great fit for me which carried me throughout college. To this day I do not know what was in me that made me get out there long before I really wanted to. I am just so glad I learned that lesson early.

My Advice: Don’t listen to our lazy voice. The earlier we get out there, the better.

CLM 17

The BEST thing I did before my first job experience was talking to as many friends and acquaintances as I could to find out about their job and interview experiences. Each story helped me see if their job could be something I would like or could look forward to doing each day. It’s hard to find the right first job with no job experience what-so-ever, so I drew on the experiences of others to learn.

My Adice: Don’t be shy to ask everyone we possibly can about their jobs and interviews. Be brave enough to approach teen employees and ask them what they like or dislike about their jobs.

Everyone we talk to can steer us in OUR right direction.

LLL 20