Tough times demand a strong work ethic, and not every kid has that today
Heather Ijames' Sept. 5 column about the current lack of a strong work ethic was right on. ("Won't do your job? Let someone else.")
High school students should read this column. Unfortunately, I think today's young people expect a good life. And if they don't have it, some beg, steal and borrow for it rather than look for a job and work hard to keep it.
I used to go "uh-huh" when my dad talked about how difficult life was during the Depression. He told about struggling to pay $8 a month rent, walking everywhere because they couldn't afford gasoline, and scooping up a dozen eggs my mother dropped. (They scrambled them right away after sorting out the shells.) He talked about 25 cents an hour being better than not having a job. I can still hear him saying, "I was just glad to have a job." He loved talking about it. I am sorry I didn't listen more.
As a pre-teen and teenager, I picked strawberries in the Oregon hills, picked beans in the valley and trained hops up strings in my dad's hop fields. That's how we paid for our "must have" Jantzen sweaters and matching socks (equivalent to today's "Juicy"). My second job was the summer of my senior year in high school at the night shift in a bean cannery. When I went away to college I worked the switchboard in my dorm. What a blast! I knew which girls were getting phone calls from guys.
After college I worked in the mailroom at Allstate Insurance Co. I had a fleeting thought that I should have a better job, but I was glad to have the one i had. After a few weeks in the mailroom, I "moved up" to the file room. Soon I became a typist in the typing pool and then I was promoted to policy rating. Those were the days when premiums were figured on a slide rule. I loved it.
At age 21, I left home and moved to California with three other girls. We all got jobs right away and we loved our jobs. We took classes at the local college and continued to strive for better and better jobs.
I learned about credit cards when I moved to California, too. I found a beautiful blue cashmere coat in a local store, but it cost $100 and I didn't have $100. The clerk said, "Why don't you open a credit account?" I thought, "Why not?" I loved it but it wasn't worth paying on for six months and staring at it in my closet. In California, I learned, you don't need a cashmere coat that often.
Thanks, dad and mom, for the strong work ethic. Parents and grandparents, hand this to the young people in your family. They may need to know a lot about how to keep a job in the days to come. Ya, ya, ya -- I know things have changed but people will always need jobs to have a chance at a decent life.
Caroline O. Reid of Bakersfield works part-time and is a retired executive assistant.
