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High School Jobs

Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast number 106: High School Jobs.

English as a Second Language Podcast number 106. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.

Today’s podcast is about having a job in high school. Let’s get started!

[start of story]

I got my first part-time job when I was 15, working at a car wash in the summertime. A friend of mine, Rob, worked there and got me the job. I think it paid $2.90 an hour, which I considered a fortune. There were no allowances in my family, so most of my brothers and sisters started working as soon as they could to get spending money. I hated working at the car wash, drying cars all day. After only about six weeks working there (though it seemed much longer), I up and quit one day. I felt badly about not giving a two-week notice, but I had it up to here with the job. Luckily, another friend of mine got me a job working at a nursing home, washing dishes in the kitchen. I started the day after my 16th birthday, qualifying me for a slightly higher minimum wage.

Life scrubbing pots and pans was no picnic, let me tell you. I lasted there for only three months, working after school and on weekends while trying to keep up with my homework in high school. My next job was much better: Making keys at a locksmith. The working conditions were much better and I had flexible hours around my school schedule. I stayed at that job for nearly seven years, right through my college years at the University of Minnesota. To this day I still know the names of all the common key blanks, but it doesn’t come in handy very often!

[end of story]

We’re talking about having a job, a part-time job in high school, in this podcast. I should explain that in the United States, it’s very common for many students to work in high school when they are still studying for their high school diploma. This is especially true among middle class and working class – those students who come from families with less money. It is very common to have people work after school and on the weekends and this is something which can cause a problem. Sometimes you have students who are working fifteen, maybe twenty hours a week and going to high school during the day. But as I say, it is quite common and getting jobs during the summertime or during the school year is a fact of life. It’s a common occurrence in many, many families, as it was in mine. I got my first “part-time job,” and a “part-time job,” in the United States, would be anything less than forty hours a week. I had a part-time job when I was fifteen, working at a car wash. Now, I should say that normally, it’s not legal to work in most jobs until you are 16 in the United States. However, there are some exceptions to that rule and it is sometimes possible to get a job at a lower salary, at a lower “wage,” and a “wage” (wage) is how much you get paid – at a lower wage, if you are fifteen. And when I was fifteen, I got a job at a “car wash.” A “car wash,” two words, is, of course, where you wash your car. In this case, it was an automatic car wash so it was washed by a machine and then it was “dried,” that is, you take a towel and you take the towel – put the towel on the car to take the water off. It was dried by hand. Sometimes, these are called “hand car wash” – “hand car washes,” rather, because the drying is done by hand.

I got this job in the “summertime,” all one word – “summertime,” “wintertime,” those two words are, of course – mean the same as summer and winter. You can’t say, “fall time” or “autumn time” but you can say, “springtime.” I don’t know why but you can say “spring time,” “summertime,” “wintertime,” but not autumn or “fall time;” you just say “autumn,” or “fall.” Anyway, I got this job and it paid, I believe, $2.90 and I thought that was a “fortune.” A “fortune” (fortune) is a lot of money. And there is a magazine in the United States, a business magazine called “Fortune,” and every year, this company – this magazine publishes a list of the 500 biggest companies in the United States. This is called the “Fortune 500,” and if you are a Fortune 500 company, like Apple or Microsoft, McDonald’s, then you’re a very big company. The center for Educational Development, for example, is not a Fortune 500 company.

In my family, there were no “allowances.” An “allowance” (allowance) is money that parents give their children so they can spend it however they want to. So, in some families, each week or each month, the parents give the child, I don’t know, 15, 20, $30 in order to spend on buying candy or going to a movie or whatever the child wants to do. In my family, because I come from a family of eleven children, there were no allowances. We were lucky just to get food. No, I’m kidding, but there were no allowances and so, if you wanted to have “spending money” – and “spending money” means, of course, money that you can spend that isn’t essential. If you wanted spending money, you had to get a job as soon as you were old enough. Even before, of course, we would work at other informal jobs like, cutting the grass of our neighbors, so we would “mow their lawn,” that is, cut the grass. We would, in Minnesota, shovel snow and get paid for shoveling the snow off the sidewalk of our neighbors.

The car washes, I say, was not a very happy place to work, not a very pleasant place, so after about six weeks, I “up and quit.” The expression, “I up and,” means I suddenly decided to do something. Usually, it has to do leaving a place. “I up and quit,” or “I up and left.” It’s just an idiomatic, strange expression. Don’t try to analyze it grammatically but it’s common – “I up and quit” as an informal – means I quit suddenly. I didn’t even give a “two week notice.” Again, a common custom, at least in the United States, is that when you leave or quit your job, you give your employer “two weeks’ notice,” meaning I tell you two weeks before I plan on leaving. I said, “I had it up to here” with the job. The expression, “to have it up to here,” means I was tired of the job, I could no longer tolerate, I could no longer put up with the job. So, you can say, “I’ve had it up to here with the bad weather” – means I can’t take it anymore. I can’t tolerate it anymore. Luckily another friend of mine got me a job at a “nursing home.” A “nursing home” is where usually older people who cannot take care of themselves go, and it’s usually – there are forty, fifty maybe a couple of hundred people. It’s not a hospital. It’s a place where they live, but it has medical care. I said that because I had started after my 16th birthday, “I qualified for a higher minimum wage.” “To qualify” means that you are able to do something. You have the “qualifications.” you have certain something that allows you to do something. For example, we use the term, “to qualify,” often for a sports event or in the Olympics. For example, a certain number of people qualify to be on the Olympic team and you compete against other players, and you “qualify” if you have what it takes to be on the team, and you can go to Torino for the winter Olympics this year – next year. The “minimum wage” is the lowest amount that a company can legally pay you. In the United States, a company normally has to pay you a minimum amount. They can’t just pay you a dollar or $2. It has to pay you a legal amount and each – the federal government – rather, the national government has a “minimum wage.” I think it’s $6.50 or $6.75 an hour.

I said that “life scrubbing pots and pans was no picnic, let me tell you.” “To scrub” means to rub very hard in order to clean. “Pots and Pans” are what you cook in, so you put soup or whatever you’re cooking and you put it on a stove. You turn on the fire – those are called “pots and pans,” the actual things that you cook with. I said it was – “life was no picnic.” That expression, “it was no picnic,” means it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t fun. A “picnic” (picnic) is when you go to a park or somewhere, to the beach and you have a little meal and you relax. “Well, this was no picnic, let me tell you.” That is a very common expression. “Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy,” meaning you should listen to me. I know what I am talking about. “Let me tell you.”

“I lasted only three months there,” meaning I stayed only three months, because I was having problems “keeping up” with my homework. “To keep up with” means to be able to do it – to do my homework on time. The “working conditions” of my next job were much better. My next job was at a “locksmith.” A “locksmith” (locksmith), all one word, is a place where you make keys, car keys, house keys, and so forth. “Working conditions” is a term we use to mean how comfortable, how nice of a place it was. It can include whether it’s a safe place, a clean place. All that is part of the “working conditions.” “I stayed at that job for seven years and “to this day, I still know the names of all the common key blanks.” The expression “to this day” means from then right up until now or still. Okay? I still know even after all these years, “to this day.” A “blank” – a “key blank” is a key before it is cut, so it has the shape but it doesn’t have the cuts in it. I said that this doesn’t – this knowledge doesn’t come in handy very often. “To come in handy” – and “handy” is (handy) – “to come in handy” means to be useful.

Now let’s take a listen to the story this time at a native rate of speech.

[start of story]

I got my first part-time job when I was 15 working at a car wash in the summertime. A friend of mine, Rob, worked there and got me the job. I think it paid $2.90 an hour, which I considered a fortune. There were no allowances in my family, so most of my brothers and sisters started working as soon as they could to get spending money. I hated working at the car wash, drying cars all day. After only about six weeks working there (though it seemed much longer), I up and quit one day. I felt badly about not giving a two-week notice, but I had it up to here with the job. Luckily, another friend of mine got me a job working at a nursing home, washing dishes in the kitchen. I started the day after my 16th birthday, qualifying me for a slightly higher minimum wage.

Life scrubbing pots and pans was no picnic, let me tell you. I lasted there for only three months, working after school and on weekends while trying to keep up with my homework in high school. My next job was much better: Making keys at a locksmith. The working conditions were much better and I had flexible hours around my school schedule. I stayed at that job for nearly seven years, right through my college years at the University of Minnesota. To this day I still know the names of all the common key blanks, but it doesn’t come in handy very often!

[end of story]

That’s all we have time for today. Thanks for listening. From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. We’ll see you next time on ESL Podcast.

ESL Podcast is a production of the Center for Educational Development in Los Angeles, California. This podcast is copyright 2005. No part of this podcast may be sold or redistributed without the expressed written permission of the Center for Educational Development.