Abby and Eason,
I want to wrap up with a few thoughts on high school jobs. First, I had a cool and unique experience with high school jobs. I was able to take a talent (gymnastics) and make a really cool set of job experiences out of that talent.
I want you to know you can do the same thing, but you don’t have to in order for your high school jobs to be great learning experiences. You could do what I did and build your jobs around your passions. Or you could take a more mainstream job and pursue it. Either way works.
But, I want you to think about a few things. First, I had the same jobs throughout all of high school. I am not saying you have to, but I do want you to be aware of something that you get to learn in high school that will be important for the rest of your life. It is this – don’t run!
I have seen a lot of job seekers with resumes that show that they leave a job as soon as it gets hard. Occasionally, there is a really good reason to leave a job. But, most commonly, there is a problem you need to learn to work through. It could be an area where you need to grow. It could be a tough conversation that you need to learn to have. Or it could be expectations that are on you that you need to learn to manage.
Communication will help you resolve most problems at work. It is hard and scary to learn, but it is so important for your long term success in your career. High school jobs are amazing grounds to test communication and figure out how to be respectful yet direct.
The other thing you learn in high school jobs is what you like. Even though I taught gymnastics and cheerleading in all of my jobs, each one presented me with new opportunities to learn different things.
I wish I had been more aware of what I was learning because I could have learned what I liked and didn’t like. This would have helped me make better decisions in what type of job to pick when I went to college.
And that leads to my 7-11 story…
Much later in life, after I had been in corporate America for a while, I learned how deeply integrated performance is into the American mindset of work. People hire with an expectation of performance. If you achieve that expectation, you receive a reward, possibly in the form of more responsibility or a promotion to a new role. If you don’t achieve the expectation, you are likely given a few more chances before it is deemed that the task is too difficult or you are not the person to do it. (By the way… later in these letters about work, I will write to you about failure. Don’t be afraid of it. It is part of learning).
This realization made me start watching the world around me. There are lots of jobs. Was this concept true in all jobs? The answer – yes. But the bigger revelation was that there were a lot of people, like me, who weren’t yet aware that that concept was true.
Every job had a measurement of success. But did every person understand how they were being measured? I started asking people. Beginning with my friends at 7-11. I saw them way too often, so they were easy targets. I got a soda and asked a question.
What were their job responsibilities? How many other similar jobs had they had? How was their performance measured? What did they do that made their boss really happy?
Most of the time they hadn’t thought about questions like the last two. They knew the obvious. Check out the customer, stock shelves, etc. But what could they do beyond the expectations they were given? How did they measure more?
There are always drivers of success. When we check out at 7-11, they ask us if we want a newspaper or gum. This drives up the business’ revenue. What if the store clerk knew that and kept a tab on how much they upsold every day? What if they shared it with their boss and the boss got excited and had a contest for the 5 clerks on that person’s shift to do the same? Would the additional revenue from those 6 employees make them “more successful” in their roles? Of course. Would the proactivity they were taking to see the needs of the business make them more likely to be considered for larger roles? Of course.
There is a difference between simply doing our job and committing to seeing the needs in our job so that we can do it well. In both cases, the job gets done. But in the second case the employee learns more about how to make the business successful. And, their learning allows the boss to relax knowing that their employee is doing their best to make the business successful.
My point… Opportunities to learn won’t always be laid out clearly. They might require you to pay attention to your job. There are always needs and ways to improve a business. Where can you help beyond what is asked of you? Challenge yourself to be an employee who steps up.
Some of my friends at 7-11 took the challenge. They grew and took on more responsibility or different jobs.
I love you guys so much! Thanks for letting me tell the stories of my highschool jobs to you.
Mom