There’s one rite of passage every 16-year-old South African has to go through. Standing in a Home Affairs queue to get their ID card. But there’s another one that is just as important. Getting a weekend or holiday job, and learning valuable lessons about life while earning.
In South Africa, turning 16 means you get your first ID card. It’s one step towards becoming an adult. In my household, however, there’s a second step: I have strongly encouraged (yes, that’s a euphemism) both of my daughters to get a weekend job.
My elder daughter has had a Maths tutoring position for about 18 months now, and the younger one has just a few months of freedom left. Early next year it’ll be her turn to find some casual work. Why? Because I believe that getting a weekend job – while you don’t have to earn to survive – teaches you a whole lot of skills that will stand you in good stead for the rest of your life.
Of course, most schools have a mandatory job-shadowing component to Grades 11 and/or 12, and I think that’s a great idea, because I’ve always thought it’s a lot to ask of a 17 or 18-year-old to choose a career when they know absolutely nothing about life or the world. But nothing prepares you better for working than some hands-on experience, and it really doesn’t matter what work you do, just as long as you are working.
By the time I got my first full-time job, I had quite a few part-time jobs on my CV. I’d spent one summer holiday selling sunglasses in Edgars, I’d done my fair share of waitressing, I’d worked as a cashier in a small shop, managed a pizza restaurant, and there was one particularly hot and uncomfortable morning spent in a bright blue velveteen mouse suit and fibreglass head, at a petrol station, handing out something or other to small children.
That meant that by the time I was looking for a job to feed, clothe and house myself, I had that elusive ‘experience’ that everyone is looking for. Of course, it wasn’t in my chosen career, but it did show future employers that I was employable – that other people had been prepared to pay me to do something. And that is an excellent start.
But there are also many other benefits. First, your teenagers learn responsibility. They learn how to conduct themselves in the workplace. They learn that you arrive on time for work, and you don’t leave until the end of the shift; that an hour’s lunch break means an hour’s lunch break, and there’s no helpful bell or siren telling you when to return to your post.
They learn to work with other people’s money, and do so accurately, because it only takes one short cash-up of the till and having to pay in some of your hard-earned wages for them to learn to pay attention while they’re ringing things up. They learn to talk to customers and make conversation with people from all walks of life. They learn how to put the phone down for several hours at a time. They learn that people can be unreasonable and irrational and downright rude, but if they’re the client you smile and nod and help them with whatever it is they need.
It’s also a wonderful opportunity to teach them to work with money. My daughter has learned to love that notification from the bank that says her money has landed. It’s good for her self-esteem to see that balance and know she’s earned it herself. She’s learned just how hard she has to work to earn that money, so she has a greater appreciation of the value of money.
I’ve taught her to put at least 15% of it away immediately – practice for her retirement savings one day. She’s learnt to budget, and to spend her money strategically, to check prices and interrogate specials, and sacrifice this so she can buy that.
And I don’t think she would have learnt any of that on a pure pocket money system. Because there’s something about money you’ve earned by working long hours that makes you appreciate it more. You engage with it differently.
And yes, of course I have to drive her to work early on Saturday and Sunday mornings, when I’d rather be in bed with a book, but I think it’s worth it for the hands-on lessons she’s getting in some vital work, money and life skills.
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