My first job at 13 was working on building sites during school holidays. My first weekend job was working in a high end HiFi shop.

Were these the bests jobs I ever had? No.

Working on a building site taught me my future was office work. Working in a shop taught me never to work with the public again.

In reply to Steven :

Thanks, Steven, I lasted about one hour on a building site before running off. Please can I use this quote for my blog? Would you like to contribute to my podcast?

just enough money to have fun, buy clothes and run a car

Run a *car*?? I could just about make rent.

Was your favourite weekend job the best job you ever had?

In classic interview style, I'm going to ignore your question and answer a different one first. I had three jobs before I joined the Army that probably fit these criteria. I worked at WHSmith for one summer. That was great. I enjoyed the work and the people and the customers. It wasn't difficult, although my abiding memory is of challenging a customer on their credit card signature only for them to produce their Police warrant card to prove their signature. I still made them do it again.

The next one was the funniest. I spent three months working in a sock factory. But I wasn't making socks. Oh no. I was the sole employee of a wholly-owned subsidiary sock *importing* business based in the same factory. I had a little platform all of my own that was full of imported socks and my job was to remove the imported socks from their boxes, to remove the importer's packaging, to add my employer's packaging and then to put them back into a different box. I didn't talk to another human being for eight hours a day. I listened to Radio 4 on headphones for the entire time.

It was heaven.

The third one was working the bar at my local pub. That was the most fun job I've ever had and I'd do it again in a shot. Obviously much more sociable than the factory job, but having a clear role in a social context, with the comfort of an entire bar between me and the rest of the world was great.

Do you still see people you worked with all those years ago?

Hell, no.

Does your company employ weekend workers?

Yes, but not many teenagers on the NHS Bank.

Should a weekend job be a rite of passage as a teenager?

Absolutely not. Some teenagers are motivated to work. Some are not. It's as simple as that. Let the motivated ones work, but don't push the others into doing something they're not ready for.

What are teenagers missing if they do not get this experience?

Very little, imo. Or, perhaps more expansively, they are missing out on both positive and negative experiences that, overall, balance out. The single most significant benefit of having a job before the age of 18 is to have a CV to speak of, and a job reference, and a tax history. Those really are the only important elements and they're helpful but by no means the end of the world to not have when starting work as an adult.

As a parent of 3 teenagers with current weekend jobs I am proud of their work ethic.

What I am not proud of is the way employers treat these young workers - with 2 notable exceptions all 3 of my children have been employed illegally in the Saturday/evening/holiday jobs that they have had. All have had minimum wage but (apart from those exceptions mentioned) all have been without contracts, on 'zero' hours, had last minute shift cancellations, penalties for not being available at 10 minutes notice (one child was 'sacked' for not attending work on a Sunday after missing the email sent at 2230hrs calling her in at 0800hrs the following morning after not being needed for 2 weeks) , no holiday pay, no tips paid, no safety training, no food hygiene training, no breaks etc etc.

All 3 of my children now know what a good employer 'looks like'.

My first job at 14 was a Saturday morning in our local shop and then over school holidays. I was slicing ham and cutting cheese (cheese wire) and cleaning equipment down at the end of a shift. Before I left I was also serving in the post office (which probably wasn't allowed as you had to be 18 and trained)
But I loved it, I had enough money to buy clothes and go out at the weekend, I met so many people and as a shy teenager it really helped improve my confidence.
However, unlike Steven I found that I enjoyed working with the public and forged a career in hospitality after university :-)
My 16 year old works on our family farm at weekends and school holidays but has decided this summer he is getting a job of the farm. Says his dad is too hard to work for, lol I would say he is in for a shock as he can currently choose when he takes his breaks and start times etc, so do him good to get a touch of the "real work world"

Brilliant question.

I had multiple Saturday jobs - the main one I loved, selling jewellery for a neighbour's business on a (cold) market stand in different shopping centres in West London. However I also worked for a bakery which should have been lovely but involved sweeping up the cockroaches and being bullied by the owner, and a hairdressers which was possibly worse.

Was your favourite weekend job the best job you ever had? What did you learn from it? No, but it was fun and taught me so much about dealing with customers that still applies today.

Do you still see people you worked with all those years ago? My best friend today is still someone I met on that market stall, so yes!

Does your company employ weekend workers? A 2020 report by the Resolution Foundation indicated that the employment rate of 16- to 17-year-olds with weekend jobs had halved in a two-decade period.
No - working in a school makes that less of an option I'm afraid. It's definitely much harder to get work as a young person these days, and where it is a possibility it's often with organisations who don't have good practices in my experience.

Should a weekend job be a rite of passage as a teenager? What are teenagers missing if they do not get this experience?
I think it's a brilliant thing to do, and my older two daughters both had weekend jobs - but like Tania, with varying experiences. The eldest worked for a farm shop/garden centre with a brilliant approach, training, proper contracts/pay/holiday etc. My middle daughter however had massively dodgy HR experiences - dismissed during Covid because she had to isolate (working in a chemists no less), no holiday, no pay slips, no contracts. I'm not saying they weren't valuable learning experiences, but not in the way that you'd want.

My Sunday job was working at my local riding stables where I learnt to ride. I volunteered when I wasn't old to work officially and then as soon as I turned 16 my boss offered me a job. I was mucking out stables, following feed schedules, grooming, tacking up and helping out with lessons. Then I began teaching beginners lessons as well.

Was your favourite weekend job the best job you ever had? Probably yes as it also happened to be my hobby.

What did you learn from it? Speaking with people of different ages, patience (customer, especially parents of children were usually more testing than the horses...), time management, first lesson starts at 9am all horses need to be fed, groomed and tacked up by 8.45am at the latest, balancing schedules for horses, who was needed for which lesson, how long had they already been ridden for and did we need to swap around. Thinking on your feet, horse 1 is unexpectedly lame who can put little timmy on instead that matches his ability and is ready to go. Answering the phone, all while making tea and keeping things looking tidy and running smoothly. That even when it's minus 2, pouring with rain, work still needs to be done especially where you're responsible for another living beings wellbeing.

Do you still see people you worked with all those years ago? No

Does your company employ weekend workers? - No

Should a weekend job be a rite of passage as a teenager? - Yes

In reply to Gemma:

Oh and I definitely wasn't earning minimum wage or enough to run a car. Cash in hand! But I learnt a lot and I loved it.

A highlight of early employment was working on a farm stacking straw bales one summer. I'd ride my bike across farm tracks from the village where I Iived, put in a shift, and at the end of the day the farmer came out with beer for us all. First time I'd done physical labour with a gang of people of all ages & backgrounds.

Also worked for a Christian Wholefood Cooperative in a job I obtained through a church youth group. The work was partly serving in the shop and partly repackaging dried goods. I developed an expensive taste for banana chips, cashew nuts & Bombay mix. We were paid peanuts for packing peanuts, strangely enough all the church members who had set the thing up moved to much larger houses shortly afterwards.

Had a few stints in packing factories. Again, a great chance to meet a wide range of people. My supervisor in one was a former school dinner lady from my primary who had bullied me a lot for being "posh" & found that as a teenager I wasn't such a pushover. The seasonal staff were mainly university students and we all took great pleasure in subverting all the rules. My sister & I became legends on the local parents' dinner party circuit as we lasted a full summer, conditions and treatment of casual staff was so bad (like prison, being allowed to have the radio on was a privilege often removed) about three days was the average service, and one person who joined when I did disappeared never to be seen again after the morning break on the first day.

I went to University after serving in the Army so from then on my income came from the TA. My degree should really have been in site recces & communications rather than Classics as I expended far more energy on being a troop commander than studying...

I think the paucity of weekend and summer work for school aged people people these days largely comes from the need of university students to work so much to afford to live. My partner's teenagers are having a really difficult time finding anything, especially as they want to go for things they see as "glamorous" like bar and restaurant work. We did suggest the local bakery, but the mornings were seen to be too early. That they would then have from shortly after lunch until the next day free really wasn't enough of a draw!

In reply to Paul Carter:

Paul, of course, happy to contribute to a podcast and to quote me.

Paul, what a brilliant topic!

When I was a teenager, my dream job was working in a shop. Sadly, everyone else in my small town also wanted to work in the shops, no one ever gave me any interview training so I failed to get a feted Shop Job. I also lived in the middle of nowhere so I was limited where I could get to. My job aged 14 - 18 was Sunday lunch waitress at the hotel across the road. I also occasionally helped with weddings and other weekend events, if it didn't interfere with my teenage social life (ironically, a good 70% of my earnings being spent in other hostelries...) Was it my dream job? Absolutely not - tales range from being locked in the cold room, having to sweep up a dead mouse, pouring pints from old fashioned pumps age 15 ("if anyone asks, how old you are Gemma?"), many inappropriate advances from older men (often colleagues) who really should have known better, being scalded and burned times beyond number. In short, in many ways a very short and fast introduction to some of the hazards of work.

What did I learn from it? If you are friendly and confident, you can earn more money in tips than wages. Organisational skills - being easily bored I worked out the most efficient way to set up a banquet with silver service so I had more time to sit and read. Also, the starts of being a supervisor - being one of the more reliable and organised ones, I was often put onto "training up" the new recruits, and sometimes the heady joys of assigning the minions to set up the banquets for me... Also, when the restaurant was not busy, I got drafted into helping my friend in her role as a Chamber Maid and (hat tipped to hospitality workers) that was even worse than my normal job. So I guess, like others, it also taught me to understand more about what I wanted out of work and what I was suited to.

No friendships sustained - I moved area for Uni and then work. I did manage to rope a Uni friend into one of my Uni jobs and she and I had a happy time making sandwiches hungover in a deli in Manchester....

In reply to Robey:

Hi Robey, thank you for this fantastic response which drew pictures in my mind. I will be referencing your experiences in my blog. Please let me know if you would like to contribute to my podcast.

In reply to Tania:

Hi Tania, thank you for this response which casts a light on the less fun aspects of casual work. I would be very grateful if you could contribute to my blog and podcast. It would be anonymised feedback (not naming the employers). Please let me know.

In reply to Tracey:

Thanks Tracey, working for your parents must be difficult.

In reply to Nina Waters:

Hi Nina, this is a great response, very insightful. Would you be happy to contribute to my podcast for my website watchingworkingliving.co.uk The episode will be shared on podcast platforms too. Thank you