The Outstater
A Teenage Work Ethic
Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
Sha-na na-na, sha-na na-na na (Ba doo)
Sha-na na-na, sha-na na-na na (Ba doo)
Sha-na na-na, sha-na na-na na (Ba doo)
Sha-na na-na, sha-na na-na na, ba
Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
Mum mum mum mum mum mum, get a job.
— “Get a Job,” the 1958 Doo-Wop classic
by The Silhouettes
I WILL TRY to avoid one of those “good old days” screeds. It is important, though, to be reminded that teenage work has immense community benefit.
A full-time summer job, one with adult standards if not adult pay, was a prestige coming-of-age marker until a few decades ago. And yes, I regale my bridge partners with stories of me as a 14-year-old shoveling manure through a quarter-inch screen in August at a Kansas feed lot for 40 cents an hour.
The point, though, is larger than a generational boast. It is said that holding a summer job as a teenager is the single best predictor of success in later life. Summer work, besides instilling self-confidence and a sense of purpose, teaches some realities of life that might not occur to the adolescent mind — absolutes such as coming to work on time, executing exact instructions, following up with the boss when the job is finished and then gracefully accepting suggestions as to how the work could have been done better.
But also, and perhaps most important, there is the impalpable element — a realization that if you keep showing up and doing your best, things will somehow fall into place. Hopefulness, in other words.
The great American philosopher William James addressed that aspect in a letter to his son. I paraphrase his advice: “If you show up every day and just try to do your best, in 20 years you will be premier in your field because few of your peers will bother to do that.”
And another thing, most jobs involve a degree of teamwork, that is, assessing non judgmentally the strengths and weaknesses of not only others but oneself — learning that life is more complicated than comparing scores on the SAT or times in the 50-yard dash.
The economist Stephen Moore has been writing along these lines recently. He notes that the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that only 35 percent of teenagers are working or looking for a job, down 50 percent or more from the Doo-Wop era.
“This is deeply troubling,” he begins. “Teen employment is highly associated with later success, even if the job is just lifeguarding or scooping ice cream. Young people learn the Woody Allen rule that 90 percent of life is just showing up in these first jobs, and we blame pampering parents for not teaching them that.”
But it is not just parents. Unions pressure legislators to discourage teen work in a variety of ways. They resist expanding apprenticeships, or allowing sub-minimum training wages, or easing child-labor rules for entry work.
All of this might have something to do with the fact that one in three out-of-work American men now isn’t even looking for a job. You may admire your new tattoo but productivity is how individuals and nations prosper, and how they survive.
Look, if our economy can support a generation of sub-par DEI hires just to make dubious social-justice points then it can give a few earnest but callow teenagers a chance to demonstrate — and to learn — what they can do. — tcl
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