Everyone wants to find that perfect summer job. You know the kind of job I’m talking about-one that doesn’t restrict your time in the sun, has manageable hours and might even help you with your major or career.
You might search the newspaper and Internet endlessly and not find any leads, but something still tells you it’s out there, somewhere. Like a distant friend, it calls to you from afar…
I’m going to assume that you’ve seen fliers or heard offers in which everything sounds GREAT, but then you promptly found out that the pay sucks bricks. The perfect workplace isn’t hard to find, but suitable compensation is practically non-existent.
I hate that.
You are the one waking up and going to work. No matter how unskilled and inexperienced you are, if you show up, you should get paid, right? Isn’t that only fair? It’s not like your employers had the chance to hire someone else who actually knows what he or she is doing.
I have been considering an alternative, and so far I see no downside. Are you ready? OK, here it is: thievery.
Just think about it.
You get to choose when you work, with whom you work, and even how hard the job is. It’s flawless! I admit, there is the whole “I could get arrested” thing, but come on-in any other job, there is the risk of being let go without notice: a comparable fate.
Seriously, the worst-case scenario is being caught inside the building-be it bank, warehouse or parking lot-with items in hand. Even in that situation, you just do the whole handcuff thing and go to jail or prison for a substantial number of years.
Hmmm, on second thought, thievery does not look as appealing. Forget I mentioned it.
So, if not a life of crime-and if the job thing sounds too hard-what is a college student to do? You might be thinking, “Well, at least I have a significant other to spend time with,” but unfortunately for you, that can’t happen.
Job and love interests go hand-in-hand, and this is not just because dating requires money. It’s an in-case-of-drowning situation: If you don’t have another activity to occupy your time, you may run the risk of smothering your partner-or vice versa; and a lot of experienced date-warriors know that those battles are often far too messy to merit the effort. Perfect dating environments require a balance of both responsibility and recreation, work and play.
That brings us back to square one: What the heck are we supposed to do for work all summer? Well, perhaps we should look back into low-in-pay-but-high-in-learning employment.
When it comes down to it, if you really want that perfect job, you probably should have to work toward it. You might even get something out of it, like those skills or experiences I mentioned earlier.
My advice to you, growing office worker, is to consider that slave-labor intern job you heard about. Maybe aspiring teachers can tutor their neighbors, and future entrepreneurs can at least open up a chain of lemonade stands.
The point is, if all life gives you is lemons, shut up and eat the freaking lemons.
