Summer jobs

“I can't believe that I'm getting paid to help kids play and program video games. I love my job.”– My son talking about how much he likes his Summer job

"I'm only earning minimum wage. While I like my job, I wish I could get paid more." - My son talking about the only downside of his Summer job

Welcome to the latest post in my journey to build financial literacy for young adults and their families. Today’s post is about Summer jobs - what kinds of jobs you should look for and what you should strive to get from the job. Summer jobs are rites of passage for many young adults and I thought it would helpful to share what I've been talking to my son about with respect to the one he's currently got.

It's Midsummer and my son is more than halfway through his Summer job. He's working at a coding school which teaches young children the basics of programming through camps focused on video games and other cool things like 3D printing.

I'm very proud of him for having found a job that is aligned with his interests and long-term goals. He starts university this Fall focused on a Computer Science major - technology and working with computers have been his passion since a very young age so we've known for a long time that this is what he will study. Also, like a lot of other young adults, he really loves playing video games and is interested in the coding behind the games. As such, being a teacher at a coding school using video games as a learning medium is a perfect fit for his interests and he really enjoys the job. He often comes home with a big smile on his face saying how much fun he had at work that day. He also enthusiastically dives into pre-work over the weekends as he learns the content for the next week's teaching theme - a recent one was teaching kids about the game Minecraft so he spent all Saturday afternoon playing the game to experience what the kids will be doing.

Having so much fun at his job has been a really key revelation for him. The average American in 2021 works 1,791 hours a year (OECD data) and can expect to work 45 years based on starting at age 22 and working up to the current Social Security retirement age of 67. That is a lot of time! Seeing that a job can be fun is much more motivating for him as he looks to his future career than how many people typically talk about (complain about?) their jobs where they view them as a punishment that they must bear or a necessary evil to enable their "real lives". I have often talked to him about the importance of liking and enjoying one's job and career as work takes up a meaningful share of one's life and "life is too short" to spend it doing something you hate. While he has politely listened to me when I talk about this, actually experiencing a real job which shows he can have fun while working, is a much more motivating experience.

Despite enjoying his job, my son does join in with the other teachers at the school as they complain about not being paid enough money. Like most of the other teachers, my son is paid minimum wage and wishes he could be paid more. This is his first real job and I tell him that he needs to be realistic about what kind of money he can earn. As an entry-level position with minimal required skills in a market where there are a lot of other teens also looking for a summer job, there is little likelihood that he will be paid more than minimum wage at this job. To be a little more technical, wages are based on an employee's productivity. With limited to no experience and skills at this point in his career, his productivity is limited so his wages will be limited. While nobody likes hearing this, in life, you need to "pay your dues" and work your way upwards. As your skills and experience grow, you will be able to grow your income.

However, I remind him that his "pay" at this job isn't just the money that he earns. At this stage in his career, he is gaining experience and building skills which will improve his longer-term earnings power. He retorts that his job is to "mind a bunch of kids playing video games" so he's not learning anything that will help him with a Computer Science career. That's when tell him to expand his mindset and recognize that there are plenty of skills that he can actively try to build which are very important in the professional world:

• Teamwork: Coordinating with the other teachers and being able to work with the kids together is a great way to learn teamwork, a skill that's only becoming more important in today's work world
• Leadership: Motivating the children without being an authoritarian and getting them to focus on that day's lessons will be a key learning as and when he becomes a manager. Being able to motivate people to maximize their productivity in a positive manner is critical in careers where value is built based on people's creativity and intellectual output
• Discipline and dependability: Learning something as simple as being on time to work every day and being a dependable employee is very important
• Being proactive and innovating: My son has lots of ideas and sees ways that he can improve the children's experience at the coding school. I remind him that true value comes from innovation - if he sees opportunities to improve processes at the school or has ideas for new products that they can offer, he can help the business be more successful. Being proactive by suggesting improvements and then working to bring those to fruition is a very valuable mindset that he can develop now. Just because he's working at an entry-level job does not mean he needs to constrain his contribution to that same level

Through these conversations, I hope that he learns to maximize what he gets out of this job. At this stage in his career, the skills and experiences he builds are arguably more important than the money that he earns. However, it takes a conscious choice and effort to make the most of this part of his "pay".

This completes today’s post on summer jobs. The practical steps you can start taking from today’s post are:

Thank you again for joining me on my journey to build financial literacy for young adults and their families. If you have found this post interesting and have friends and family who would benefit from it, please share it with them. If you are interested in reading more of my posts, please consider becoming a subscriber by clicking the button on the right. You can always access all the posts I have published on my author page at https://shopping-feedback.today/authors/sudhir-sahay. Additionally, if you have any questions on today’s topic or if there are any topics you’re interested in my broaching in future posts, please let me know. I can be reached at [email protected].