There's also been a corresponding dramatic drop in the number of teens who have had any sort of job. Not many things are as fulfilling as doing a job and getting paid for it.
I remember when I realized I was making enough money that I could pay all my bills and no longer needed anything from my dad. It felt really good. For me that was the dividing line between being a child and an adult.
That and there are also fewer jobs available to teens / young adults. The types of jobs that we are making obsolete, whether through automation or regulation, are the types of repetitive, "unskilled" jobs that were previously offered to people just starting out. I'll take a chance on my 16 year-old nephew if I can pay him $5 / hour but if I have to pay him $15 / hour by law I'd rather have someone with more references. I'm also likely to ask that person to take on more responsibility, too, since my overhead just went up and my margins were paper thin to begin with. So now I need someone with additional experience.
Or you get an unskilled immigrant who has his back against the wall. I read an article claiming this is where teen jobs went, not sure how well supported it is.
It is an well-known secret that the largest and most successful farm in my area extensively uses illegal immigrants for labor. They say that citizens are too unreliable and unproductive for them to be profitable.
How do you know they’re illegal? There’s legal immigrants that get bussed in from Mexico to all the corners of the country for seasonal labor. Just cuz they’re immigrants doesn’t mean their illegal. Of course they could be. But I’m not sure I’d trust the rumor mill to know the difference.
They all but admitted to the practice during a tour. I own a farm and was asking lots of questions, and they actively avoided answering some of my questions on the topic. It was clear as day that they do not care about legal immigration status.
The problem stems from the fact that there are not enough legal immigrants to go around. If they limit themselves to legal immigrants, they would not be able to run as large an operation as they do.
Not many things are as fulfilling as doing a job and getting paid for it.
Sorry, I don't get fulfillment from a job, nor do I base my personality on it. A job is a thing that I have to do to live and do some stuff I like.
That's it, nothing more. I'd never do actual work unless I had to, and I'd never work full time if I didn't have to. I'm never going to be motivated to work harder for a fancy car if I can have a reliable, efficient car. I'd like more space, but it needs not be huge or pretty (though, I'd like to cook and make art).
Making art is fulfilling. I enjoy making food - work means I eat more convenience foods. I don't need to be paid to help folks, either. I can get a sense of accomplishment by doing things that are difficult, from projects to playing games.
I DESPISED my first job (I delivered newspapers), but the independence it afforded me, the ability to buy clothes I like, to invest in a computer of my own and to take my girlfriend on dates was extremely fulfilling.
Productive work, in general, is fulfilling even if you don't happen to like your current "job." It is not the job itself, it is the act of taking action in order to achieve your values. If you value producing art, that is productive work even if it's not your "job" and even if it doesn't pay the bills. You are achieving some value from that. If you are truly fortunate you can find a way to monetize doing work that you would do even if it didn't pay ... but if your job is "just a means to an end", that end is clearly a value and the job is helping you achieve it. It's the achievement of the value that is rewarding.
My first job was delivering newspapers, too. I didn't despise it, it was easy work, nobody looking over my shoulder, the pay was good enough to put money in my pocket.
Fundamentally, people value what they work to achieve. Things gotten without effort are not valued.
BTW, having a job does look good on a college application.
Our teens problem might be they only value the number of likes on their profile.
Note that I won't get any credit to what I'm saying : I have less than 10 followers.
Your words, not gp. A part-time job as a teen helps you navigate and integrate into society. Part-time helps you get out of your bubble and interact with the public, who may be different to your upbringing.
It is immediately clear to me who has had a job as a teen (read: service job), and who has not in my experience. This may be a form of reverse-classism on my part, but learning to sweep a floor and take out the trash for a few months during summer is not going to KILL YOUR DREAMS which seems to be the meme. In fact, you could view it as service to your community!
While I was working 10h/w during high school, I was also making DOOM wads and learning BSP algo in my extremely ample free time.
Also note, that many skills gained in these jobs can directly translate to irl skills. For me, working at a deli taught me how to make food, be on time, measure crap, clean things, interact with people not in my generation, and more!
Maybe you don't get fulfillment, but as a teen with nothing going on it was nice to have some extra money and essentially a playground to learn new skills on someone else's time. It wasn't to live, it was to prime the pump for later in life.
> While I was working 10h/w during high school, I was also making DOOM wads and learning BSP algo in my extremely ample free time.
I don't recall having what I would call "ample" spare time in high school. I recall being at school 8:30 to 4 every day, then a few hours of homework daily and/or exam prep for the endless exams ("don't fail" they said, "or you'll never go to university and your life is ruined forever!"). I wasn't even that social and rarely spent time at friend's houses, let alone partying or clubbing. In fact, I had so little time I didn't explore "computers" as an industry until I finally did get to university and could actually spend 6 hours a day after lectures fiddling with a laptop and this thing called "Python".
In fact probably the one thing that got me going on electronics and computers at university wasn't the lectures and assignments as much as the free time and ability to spend whole days on things, not to mention socialising freely and at length.
With the min-maxing of pre-university CVs that it seems you need to do to get into the Right Schools (TM) and then into university, I'm not sure it has gotten better since then.
In retrospect I should have told them all to do one and spent high school on what I wanted rather than another essay about WWII and the endless, endless coursework that would suck up any spare time ("I've got an hour, I'd better polish the portfolio even more"), and even if I'd gotten the dreaded lower grades and so not gotten into the same university it would probably have been better over all.
I think homework overload could be part of the problem.
When I went to highschool in the
Aughts, UC tracked students rarely had homework, maybe 30 min a day, and school got out at 2:15. If you had a good job, you could get 1 or 2 hours of school credit instead.
Young family members I know now talk about several hours of work per day.
Here's the difference: I was a mediocre student who did zero exam prep. I did homework in the classes I cared about and didn't in the ones I did not in high school. My GPA was mediocre, B-esque, high SATs, only extracurricular was Computer Club. I spent my time reading books and fucking off driving all over creation to go dumpster diving to slake my hunger for computer parts.
I did not have a "portfolio". I had a bunch of weak programming experience from books I checked out from the library and a compiler I stole from my high school because I wanted to program so badly. (1998~, open source compilers existed but to my eyes I wanted Borland Turbo C++) Yea that's right I copied that floppy! :D Imagine a time when you had to BUY compilers!!
I wrote an entrance essay that I used for all four of my college applications about how computer games were the next huge entertainment media, replacing movies. I didn't min max anything because I didn't care / had no idea / was stupid. I was accepted at all of them, Case Western Reserve, Drexel, Rutgers, Rowan. I went to a non-ivy competitive engineering school in my area, which I'm repeatedly discovering was a very good computer science program.
I went on to a fruitful research career for 10y, and now industry.
Maybe I'm telling on myself that somehow I have incredible luck or privilege, since compared to you I sound like a failure. I am the first person to go to college in my family, and worked while I was in college as well as paid internship at a research university.
The only skill I had was doing the thing directly in front of me and keeping my eyes on the next thing. The jobs I had were nothing special: a dogsbody at a deli, delivering newspapers, Toys R Us, Staples, Dominos Pizza.
Every job taught me something different:
- something can go wrong and it not be your fault
- if you have time to lean you have time to clean
- some jobs are just fighting entropy, and that's normal (note: this is in service of bigger goals, every time)
- everyone is happy to see the pizza guy
I'm not sure how old you are, I'm ~40, so it is entirely possible we have different eras. Maybe it's possible to over optimize, also maybe I'm too old for this discussion. Anecdotes aren't data.
In short, if you've never cleaned a toilet that isn't yours, it is less likely I will trust you.
I long ago lost all interest in playing games. The problem with them is nothing is accomplished. Play pinball and get a number on the display. Play Doom and - nothing. Although I invented the Empire game, most of my pleasure in it was developing it.
> Although I invented the Empire game, most of my pleasure in it was developing it.
Seems normal enough to me. I found a plateau in playing games, so switched to modding and making them, even as a teen. Everyone has different thresholds and can find joy wherever it suits them.
Also the freedom a job gives a young person will be unlike anything they've experienced up to that point. Prior to a teen's first job their experience of the world outside their home (i.e. school) is highly regimented, with little opportunity to just be a normal human being around other humans. A job provides that outlet.
It used to be good, but my guess is a modern kid, particularly a middle class one, doesn't get as much out of it. Minimum wage has stagnated, but also people these days have their eyes on internships that will secure a career. There's simply no point in pursuing burger-flipping if you can't find a way to hang around a law firm or a hedge fund, and those firms won't care at all that you worked hard in a menial job.
When I was a kid there was never a time when I could pay for everything. The first time that happened was an internship I got during college, and then my first job right after.
$12/hr is at or under the minimum wage in 19 of 54 US jurisdictions (50 states + DC, VI, PR, CNMI), so depending on where you are, that’s…not that significant.
What high school kids are interning at hedge funds? Jobs like life guarding, painting, tradesman’s gopher, fast food, etc are still great jobs for kids to learn a work ethic and make some cash. Trying to kick start a career in high school is beyond silly for most kids.
That’s clearly far outside the norm though. Normal high school kids aren’t aspiring to (or would even be allowed to) be interns at places like that outside of really unique situations.
Yes and thus the collapse in teen employment. No point in working if you don't find that unicorn internship. Flipping burgers is just not worth it, you may as well do exam practice or just have free time.
I wonder about the timing of these social changes. My impression was that the tradition of high school students having jobs started to fade away in the 1990s.
I remember when I realized I was making enough money that I could pay all my bills and no longer needed anything from my dad. It felt really good. For me that was the dividing line between being a child and an adult.