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Summer jobs do teach skills. Customer service, working in a team, working independently... you take those things for granted, but a fourteen year old is not usu

• BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  Those jobs also aren't effective teachers of skills. Some exceptionally engaged employees will pick them up. Most of the rest will pick up the attitude that it doesn't matter if you get fired from one jobby job because you can get hired to do the same thing across the street and then take your original job back once you're fired from the other place and your current manager has left for better opportunities. A strong concern for long-term professional reputation is for white-collar work and independent tradesmen.
  • ip26 5y ago
    That’s an interesting perspective I hadn’t considered. How would you envision nudging “the rest” to pick up skills over their summer, assuming they weren’t working?
    • BeFlatXIII 5y ago
      The "assuming they weren't working" adds a major wrinkle because my default suggestion would be to get them into better jobs where professionalism and responsibility actually matter. At least as far as teamwork (and possibly independent work) is concerned, sports or marching band are the first two summer opportunities to come to mind. However, that still leaves out customer service (and the effectiveness of that actually being picked up by most teenage employees is debatable, at best).