Do you remember your first paycheck?
When I was a kid I’d earn a quarter here and there from Mrs. McCann, our next door neighbor in Chicago. She was a widow in her 80s, and my dad used to send me over to shovel her walk or water her garden. Sometimes she’d come outside and give me a quarter, which in those days could buy you two packs of baseball cards and five Pixie Stix at White’s Five and Dime.
When I was 13 I got a job at a dog kennel. They boarded up to 400 dogs, and my job wasn’t on the feeding end. I was cleanup. And for that, I got $1.30/hour. I remember that first paycheck, which was so cool. Large format check. Green. My name written in there in script. A real amount. I opened a “passbook savings” account with that money. Saved enough to go to France. (For those of you who never saw a passbook savings book, it looked like a passport, and they used to stamp the date and the amount of money you had in your account. I’m old enough where they used to write in it. Eventually they automated it so that you could get it stamped with the new amount.)
Now my boys have their first real jobs. Sure, Dan’s been working at the ice making place for a couple of years. But the younger guys, Matt and Steve, have started. Matt’s working at the Acme down the street. He’s putting in some long hours, and on the days when he’s not bagging, it’s hot out there collecting carts. But he’s doing it. You should have seen the smile on his face when he got his first paycheck. Serious dough. Steve’s a karate instructor for Master Samane’s Karate Institute, where he’s a second degree black belt at age 14 (he’s that good). Pretty cool. Hist first paycheck last night was north of $175, so he’s doing pretty well.
There’s something really great about kids going out and getting jobs. Sure, we can afford to provide allowances, but when you earn your own money it’s different. You have stature. Dignity. A sense of accomplishment. I love that feeling.
