Out of all my friends, I believe I'm the only kid whose dad made us work to cut rebars; we laid bricks in construction sites and did other real work every summer for minimum wage. Our dad said that it's important in the future that when we tell people to dig a hole, that you personally know how long it will take to dig that hole.
My daughter is a freshman in college and my son is - well, our daughter and our son - is a sophomore in college. So they come home on selected weekends, they come home on vacations and they're home in the summer, although they have jobs.
People of my age who went to college, go into college, you know what it cost back then? Nothing or next to nothing. At the most, you had to work at Dairy Queen during the summer and that would pay for your college education.
I had a really nice childhood; I had great parents. I earned my allowance by washing dishes, and in the summer I earned my allowance by working in daddy's garden.
I mean, if somebody said to me, junior year of college, you can go anywhere, your old man's paying for it, I'd have been gone in a flash. But I had to work. Every summer my mother would say, 'Get that job and hold on to it until August 30.'
I worked at an ice cream parlor called Chadwicks. We wore old-timey outfits and had to bang a drum, play a kazoo, and sing 'Happy Birthday' to people while giving them free birthday sundaes. Lots of ice cream scooping and $1 tips.
Under the leadership of President Obama and a whole host of partners, including nonprofits, foundations, and advocates, the Department of Labor has made historic investments in community colleges, apprenticeships, coding boot camps, and summer jobs.
My first job ever was working a ski lift when I was 16. I also worked at a garden center, which I loved. I did that for two and a half years.
I did my first apprenticeship when I was 15, then joined the union when I was 17. I worked every summer in high school and college.
I helped my dad do landscaping from when I was 14, and then every summer when I'd come home for college, I'd play on a travel baseball team, but during the day, I'd do landscaping.
I started working myself from about 14, really, so I wasn't a burden on my family. I did a paper round and a milk round. When I was 15 or 16, I worked in a supermarket on Saturdays stacking shelves, and then every summer I temped, right through university until my working days started.
I was an economics major in college, and every summer after school, I would drive my car from California, from Claremont men's college at the time, to New York. And I worked on Wall Street.
I was working summer jobs since I was like 11.
I hated the summer jobs I had when I was a teenager. They were so mundane and repetitious, they deadened my soul. On the bright side, it was good training for this job.
When I grew up, the thing boys would do during the summer is work tobacco because it was a cheap product back then. I didn't want to do that. From an early, early, early age, I was like, 'I like music. This performing thing comes easy.' And perhaps that's how I ended up doing what I'm doing today. Being a musician.
I grew up working on farms. You'd do anything for money. You'd pick blueberries in the summertime for weeks; you'd cut down, like, spruce and fir trees for pulp.
Young people need the hands-on training that comes with a summer job. They need to know how to dress for success and nail job interviews. But most of all, they need mentorship, guidance, and inspiration.
When I was in college, every summer I would work for free at a theater.
Teachers can go on cruises with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and anyone can spend the summer as a volunteer in a National Parks and even earn money doing it.
I spent my summers in Connecticut scooping ice cream and babysitting.
So I came home and I had a resume and everything, but the only job experience I had was just playing in bars and clubs on my summers off. So, I was temping and stuff during the day and playing music at night.
In my junior high and high school days, I would just pick up a mower and go mow the neighbor's grass and make an extra 30 bucks.
I was a garbage man in New Jersey in summers during college at Yale. Everybody else got to go to Switzerland and I got to go to the dump.
My dad was a carpenter and I would work with him during the summer and umpire on the nights I wasn't playing.
I was practically born and raised at 20th Century Fox studio, started to work there selling papers when I was around seven years old, and every summer vacation from school I would work in a various department at the studio. So I was an old-timer when I was 15.
