<p>I am sceptical of the claim that working a minimum wage service job teaches valuable skills for a professional career later on. I worked in restaurants during high school and college, and all I ever learned from those jobs was how to drink beer and when to throw out the clams in the walk-in (the ammonia smell, for those wondering). </p>
<p>I’ll never forget talking with one of the cooks, for whom the job was a career, and him asking me where I went to college. When I told him, he looked at me incredulously and said, “What are you doing here?”</p>
<p>^^ My restaurant/bar job taught me how to handle drunks. Sadly, that is something I need to do every once in a while with my college students, especially in early morning classes.</p>
<p>Lots of good responsible models for kids to follow.</p>
<p>But it depends on the kids . with ours, one works her tail off when she is working and is takes it real easy when not . . . since she needs the structure of a job, she should be getting a as close to full time job as possible during the summer . . . the other kid finds many productive things to do during her waking hours on her own that aren’t employment: playing and writing music; ad hoc volunteering . . this was the kid who got fired from one job, quit another, picked up 2 others, took almost 2 weeks off during the summer to travel and still earned what she needed to earn for her “skin in the game” / . she doesn’t need the “we expect you to get a full time job” kind of direction </p>
<p>so with 2 different kids we have 2 different approaches toward the same goal; in some ways parenting has a similar skill set to being an effective manager: having the wisdom and flexibility to be able to see what motivates different people then applying those motivations to the specific person</p>
<p>That’s why I’m sceptical of some of the posts here by parents that appear to be “one expectation fits all” parenting . . but maybe that’s because my kids are so different from each other</p>
<p>All work is an opportunity to learn something useful. You at least learn how to get along with people who may be far different from you but upon whom you may have to depend if you end up managing people. While the resumes might be different the “types” are pretty common. The golden person, the whiner, the slacker, the morose one, the angry one, the truly helpful who gets little credit, etc.</p>
<p>Any job in the service industry could also teach one how to be a “good customer”, treat others with dignity and respect etc. The value of working/how hard some unskilled jobs are. “Who the heck is FICO? and why are they taking my money??”<br>
Retail jobs could also teach someone how to be a “smart” shopper-my D realized what the markup is on trendy items, when they get marked down, what would probably be a short term trend and what is a wardrobe basic/classic.<br>
All transferrable to real life, if not always directly to her chosen career.</p>
<p>@LurkerDad- How about just the skill of showing up on time? That’s what many minimum wage jobs teach you, but it’s extremely important when you’re looking for a full-time job. </p>
<p>I’ve never worked an officially minimum wage job, but they’ve all been pretty darn close. However, they’ve all been extremely useful in teaching me skills ranging from dealing with difficult people (customers, co-workers) to being resourceful in a difficult situation.</p>
<p>I had clerical jobs in college, and I learned how an office works, and how service personnel feel about those who supervise them. Those lessons have proven extremely valuable to me through the years. I also learned how to deal with angry, confrontational people on the phone or in person.</p>
<p>Another lesson of minimum wage service jobs (which I also had) is that many people in this country work extremely hard for very little money, and if you can use education to get out of that rut, you’re a fortunate person. A lot of the kids I know live in an upper-middle-class bubble, don’t see or understand their own parents’ work, and have no idea how hard people have to struggle just to survive. These are the kids who all think they are going to graduate with a liberal arts degree from a top school and make 100K a year in creative, fun work. Grunt jobs bestow a sense of reality, which is always useful.</p>
<p>I learned the skill of showing up on time at school, where even a minute’s tardiness was noted. If I strolled into my job as a dishwasher 10-15 minutes late once in a while, nobody seemed to care.</p>