Back to "Basics" ?
In an earlier blog, you learned that I had my first "job" outside of the home at the age of 8. My grandfather was a businessman, and most of us couldn't wait until we were 10 years old and allowed to "work" at the 'Shops'. My first job was as a "human sign" for a white restaurant owner (see earlier blog). To work at the shops, we had to be older because we were exposed to dangerous machines and dangerous chemicals. From some of the memories of the "adventures" my brothers and I engaged in, I have enhanced respect for my grandfather and uncle who had to tend to us as they also served their drycleaning and haberdashery customers. My job as a "human sign" made me an experienced worker by the time I turned 10.
By the time I turned 12, I moved on to restaurant work and learned over the next six years to do various tasks, from bussing tables to dishwashing, to soda-jerking, to waiting tables, to cashiering, short-order cooking, and, of course general restaurant cleaning that would pass state health inspections. By the time I graduated high school, I had saved enough money to enter college at our state Capitol. Over the years, my top salary grew to $0.26 per hour. The FLSA of 1938 established the hourly minimum wage rate at $0.25 per hour https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42973.pdf .
Drucker taught us that Child Labor Laws changed child labor around 1956; making children no longer a capital good, converting them to comsumer goods thereafter. Agricultural workers were exempted from the law. http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/childlabor101.pdf
Children who grow up in family businesses still have access to the many advantages provided by learning business basics early in life. It should be clear to everyone by now, that the Great Recession of 2008 permanently changed the "normal order" of school-to-work/careers, that we took for granted after 1960. It is unreasonable to expect grown children or youth who are exposed to the work-for-wages world for the first time after that age, to do so without great difficulty. Business skills are not innate -- they have to be learned!
The fastest-growing job sector today is that of food-handlers. I'm reading Saru Jayaraman's book: Behind The Kitchen Door. This book brings the reader up to date on just about all aspects of the reasturant business. Recession or no-recession, the impact of women in the work force shifted the terrain for the food-service business. People have lost cooking skills/efficiencies and, yet, everyone still has to eat. The combination of all of this is toxic!.. Seriously! Read the book.
Stay Vigilant! Watch what you eat! Tip your Server!
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