Thursday, August 23, 2007

Tit for Tat

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my son was starting work as a gopher/busboy/toilet cleaner at a local ice cream store. He loves the job and it continues to be a great learning experience for him as he applies the work ethic that I have tried to instill in him. His employers have told him that he has a job there as long as he chooses to stay and that they have never seen anyone who works so hard.

I, of course, have seen the other side of my son -- the typical, teenage male posturing and worse. We won't talk about that here, at least not right now. I am grateful that he lets his employers and the world in general see the best of himself. I think that is fairly typical, at least from what friends have told me about their kids.

In my son's case, he is now seeing that making his best effort, regardless of whether it is commensurate with his pay, has its benefits. It makes him feel good, like he has accomplished something positive. It makes time fly by. Time crawls for the lazy but passes in a flash for the industrious. It enables him to save up for things he wants and that I am unlikely to buy for him.
Interestingly, when he agreed to take the job, he didn't ask what he would be paid. He still doesn't know his hourly rate and appears not to care too much. He recognizes that in order to be of any value to anyone as an employee, he needs experience. He had none. He recognizes that any job is potentially a springboard to another, better one, eventually. If he does well, works hard, is polite and helpful, he will get recommendations when he leaves someday. And, along the way, he will get raises without having to beg for them. Reap as you sow. Tit for tat. That's the way the world turns.

A lot of our young people don't get that. I am invited occasionally to speak to college classes where I live and am always stunned (I should have learned better long ago) at what these kids think they will earn and how they will be employed when they graduate. For every college or university student who gets that dream job with a stupendous starting salary, there are many others who get some grunt job with a salary to match. They are surprised to learn that their education is often mostly useless and that what really counts is what they learn on the job.

University or college degrees, these days, are often merely the equivalent of high school diplomas when I was a young man. Those expensive pieces of paper can mean nothing more than a way to favour some applicants over others. If the post-secondary degrees truly meant that the graduates could read and write and think, it would make sense to filter out those who don't measure up because of a lesser education. These days, however, that is by no means certain.

Growing up, getting an education, entering the workforce -- all these things are as difficult today as they were way back when I was a young man. Maybe more difficult. Teaching our kids to think that schools and employers owe them anything beyond what they actually earn is a mistake. A big mistake. Don't inflate their grades. Don't overpay them. These actions lead to unrealistic expectations and ultimate disappointment.

4 comments:

  1. Your son reminds me so much of myself when I was younger - classically lazy around the parents but willing to go beyond the extra mile in the work place. I was appreciated and rewarded by many employers but also terribly taken advantage of by others. I hope your son never experiences the latter category to dim his drive and faith in a tit or tat fairness.

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  2. Your son is behaving for YOU as you expect him to, because he knows what you expect...And how to play it to his advantage: I am the child of people who never had anything good to say about anything I did, and were the primary obstacles to any progress I tried to make in life. Since that's all they expected, that's all I did, and once I became "too big" to be bullied around, it was amazing how "quid pro quo" came into play.
    He expects greater rewards - now and eventually - from his employer, because they have no preconceptions, and are therefore, easy to make a positive impression upon, and therefore, expends all his efforts in those regards. I was amazed to discover how much easier it was to get on in life outside my home than it ever was inside it, but aparently, it's not that uncommon an experience.

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  3. It is unrealistic to expect a quality education from the government indoctrination establishment, which is tantamount to nothing more than union-labor-monopolized babysitting, in light of recent no moron left behind regulations.
    In the end, an individual's education is his own responsibility, as I learned upon leaving socialized miseducation and entering the working world. Parents can help, if the child is willing to be taught, but failing that, there comes the eventual enrollment in the "School of Real Life", where all shielding from harsh realities is gone, and lessons one has failed/refused to learn will be taught the hard way.

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  4. Given what we all go through as teenagers, I sometimes wonder why we have a sense of nostalgia about those years. Maybe it's because it is a time of firsts: first job, first girl or boyfriend, first kiss, first everything. The time may well be tough to live through in some ways, but it is also exciting and rewarding in others.

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