Page 10 - The Edge: Issue 5 2020

Having a job is something that is difficult to juggle as a student. On the one hand, earning money from your work is thrilling. On the other, a job is a huge demand on a student’s time, and often leaves little left over for schoolwork and other activities. So why work? For your future, if nothing else.
In Florida, anyone above the age of 14 can work, although many employers have their own company guidelines restricting employment to those younger than 16 or 18. Anyone in high school could legally begin working now,
they just need to find
somewhere to work.
That is what
Rogue Pintner, 11,
did last year. For
three months, she
worked in fast food. For
three months, she worked weekends, doing everything from frying food to taking orders to making
drinks for the drive-through. In the end, school and homework took precedent for her, but the experience she got
was invaluable.
“It’s pretty stressful, work
crawls by, and the jobs you have to do can sometimes be difficult. Management and workers are really what makes it or breaks it,” Pintner said. “It is good for work experience though. Having
extra money is
even if it’s not a lot. Plus, the schedule is pretty flexible.”
Fast food is always a viable option for starting to work now. And, if you start working now, you will have experience: experience that will be invaluable in getting a better job when you do need to work for a living. Better to make mistakes now than when you are a fully-functioning adult and your mistakes have much greater consequences.
“[Getting a job] teaches you real life experience that school can’t give you,” Ms. Elizabeth Snyder, said. “It teaches you how to work with others... it teaches you structure and being on time, and things like
that.”
Ms. Snyder
teaches Career Research & Decision Making for ninth graders. While ninth grade year is perhaps earlier than most of you will be job hunting, the lessons you get there will be invaluable for when you are. So maybe keep those notes around after
the class is over.
A question you do need
to ask yourself: what kind of
job would be best for you? It depends on, most of all, you. Do you have lots of activities after school, but very little to do on the weekend? Or, if you do not mind staying up late, and have busy weekends but free afternoons and evenings, working after
school might be your best bet.
“I can’t really talk for people who have it during the school week, so I can’t really say about a job on a Tuesday afternoon,” Talia Sigurdson, 11, said. “It’s kind of sad sometimes that I don’t have a Saturday to do nothing or hang out with friends. But, it’s a good job that gives me money to
do other fun things.”
Sigurdson works at the Port for a
company called SMS. The company
really
nice,
9
Getting a job:
what you need to know.
Story by Rhiannon Drysdale
Photos by Shannon Reid and Talia Sigurdson
WORK!