Help Your Kid This Summer

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Good for them. And, look what it did for you, proving again, that almost any job offers you more than one realizes.

GLH of MN 2:57PM May 29, 2008

was through a family friend at the end of 7th grade (wasn't completely legal) working at his bar as a short order cook. My parents encouraged me to get a job and refused to buy me some things I wanted (video games for one). Turned out i loved being a cook, worked the job off and on for the next 6 years. Other jobs I got were either to help out friends and family (Carpet cleaning for a summer) or to pay for gas (hardware store or H&R Block).

In the end I think the incentive was simple. My parents drew a line. They said they were done buying these specific things for me (CD's, Movies, Video Games, etc...) and if I wanted them, I needed to earn money (and they wouldn't pay me for the chores I was suppose to do either).

Brandon Alsup of 1:05PM May 29, 2008

Did you happen to read my recent post on my home blog about zappos? Here:

http://blogs.jobdig.com/wwds/2008/05/28/what-you-can-learn-from-zappos/

I am surprised they are paying $1,000 bonuses for summer help. Must be a lot of margin in my Bass weejuns.

GL H of MN 11:59AM May 29, 2008

Did you happen to read my recent post on my home blog about zappos? Here:

http://blogs.jobdig.com/wwds/2008/05/28/what-you-can-learn-from-zappos/

I am surprised they are paying $1,000 bonuses for summer help. Must be a lot of margin in my Bass weejuns.

GL H of MN 11:36AM May 29, 2008

But my kid outsmarted me. He got a job, alright. At Zappos. So for him, it'll be like, spending another month in school, with a thousand dollar cash bonus to start his abbreviated summer.

I'm not sure if I should be angry or impressed.

steve macdonald of AZ 11:27AM May 29, 2008

But my kid outsmarted me. He got a job, alright. At Zappos. So for him, it'll be like, spending another month in school, with a thousand dollar cash bonus to start his abbreviated summer.

I'm not sure if I should be angry or impressed.

steve macdonald of AZ 11:09AM May 29, 2008

Since you are slightly younger than me, what made you get that first job? I am interested in the incentives or motivation for kids to venture out.

thanks,

GLH of MN 9:36AM May 29, 2008

I leaned so much from my first jobs. People in the office joke because I relate so much back to the first 5 or so jobs I had. I was everything from a short order chef, to working on a farm, to hardware cashier. All of those jobs, even though some only lasted a summer, taught me a little bit about how business works. An edge I think i still have today.

Forget boot camp, try cleaning carpets in homes with no air conditioning from June to August, that will break you!

Brandon Alsup of WI 8:55AM May 29, 2008

The boot camp was perhaps a bit drastic. There is plenty of time, like 40 years for them to work, so maybe having a summer of fun is called for. Still.......

GLH of MN 10:15PM May 28, 2008

Have you forgotten what it was like to be young?

How mind numbingly, soul destroyingly b-o-r-i-n-g those "starter" jobs are? The cruel and awful shock of discovering that much of work (at least at first) falls far far short of the ideal portrayed by parents and teachers?

I'm just sayin'. . . . .have a heart!

(Boot camp? Yikes.)

Working Girl of WA 7:38PM May 28, 2008

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