When I left my freshman year of high school for summer, a vexatious dispute over how I should spend it engulfed my household. The summer programs I had poured my heart and soul into applying for did not accept me. The supermarkets and restaurants to which I had handed my crudely-crafted resumes did not accept me. It seemed like only the animal shelter welcomed me. I was ready to accept yet another boring, unproductive summer. But in late July, I received a fateful call and passed my first ever job interview. A few days later, I became an intern at Chapel Hill Magazine and a part-timer at Möge Tee.
While I usually spend my summers studying and preparing for the upcoming school year, the summer of ‘22 was different. This summer, I was out and about in my community with barely enough time for leisure. By the start of school, every high schooler I knew had matured tenfold. Is this something that happens to every teenager going into sophomore year? Did the reason for this change lie in interacting with the working world?
As students in high school and college leave school for the summer, the youth labor force grows sharply. The month of July typically is the summertime peak in youth involvement. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 55.5 percent of young people (persons ages 16 to 24) were employed in July 2022. In definite numbers, 22.9 million young people like us were beginning to work. Though this figure remained below its level of 56.2 percent prior to the pandemic in 2019, it was higher than the 54.5 percent in July 2021, meaning that youth were rebounding to join the workforce as before—an optimistic sign for the future.
As part of that wave of youth, being in the workforce this summer revealed to me the value of work. Effort and contribution are directly linked to rewards and pay, so I also improved in my personal money-management skills, which are not necessarily taught in school. Although I joined Möge Tee in late July, I got to know my coworkers quickly. When we had few or no customers, we took the opportunity to wipe down the counters, pop lids or refill toppings and ice. I was constantly looking to do something to make my hands and feet active, since I thought standing still would make me look incompetent among my more-experienced coworkers. When there was idle time, they would help me drill the menu and all the ingredients for the different drinks into my head. Since the full menu consisted of around five dozen drinks in total, my job was simply to take the orders and get basic toppings for the easily manageable drinks, then set it on the counter for the others to finish. With every customer, that was the process for making their orders; while it was tedious at times, I realized that some work was just like this. I began to think pragmatically about careers. I was more than happy to wash the pots and spoons, sweep the floors and even clean the bathrooms if it meant I was contributing to maintaining our little tea shop (and getting paid). Although my shift was shorter than my coworkers’, I always had a great feeling of self-satisfaction when I left the shop—my workplace—for the night.
At both my internship and my part-time job, staying poised and resilient was the key to efficiency. When studying at home, there is usually no tangible form of pressure that pushes me to finish something. When worst comes to worst, many students would even accept a late grade or missing assignment. At my part-time job, however, there was no time to worry about procrastination. There were customers in front of me, face-to-face. When we had lines of customers, there was less room for error. Every issue meant a potentially upset customer, and that took a toll on the employees, especially when a rule of thumb in the laborforce is “the customer is always right.” At my internship as well, there were constantly new assignments and due dates to finish each magazine, and the press does not wait for anybody. I kept this in mind when doing my work, hoping that someone would appreciate my efforts.
When my friends and I congregated at the movies the week before school, they looked refreshed, if not more fired up than last year. One of my friends, Troy, had just returned from a three-week trip in the mountains. He looked roughly the same—maybe a bit taller, more tan, or less zombie-like—but he seemed to have changed. My other friend, Minjae, had also gotten a part-time job. He was a runner, similar to a waiter, at a restaurant. His enthusiasm was relayed to me one night over text, when he described his revelations at his workplace including new thoughts on diligence, the importance of socializing face-to-face and the self-satisfaction from a good day of work. Though I didn’t have as much time as usual this summer to prepare for the onslaught of APs, I think I’ve prepared myself as an individual. I am thankful to everyone I met over the summer and to my friends for growing up with me. To my newly-enlightened friend, I nodded and agreed with a big thumbs up.
Photo courtesy of Teresa Fang
