Head Strong | Summer jobs teach the basics of business

I got an introduction into corporate accountability working as a maintenance man at the McDonald's in Doylestown in the summer of 1978. The manager of the McDonald's in Lansdale called to warn my manager that the "Mac Bus" was in the area, which caused us to go to DEFCON V.

The "Mac Bus" was staffed by a team of roving inspectors who would arrive unannounced, stand in line, order food, and assess everything from their wait time to the warmth of the fries and the store cleanliness.

That day was a learning experience, like so many other days on so many other summer jobs. But this Labor Day weekend, there is reason to believe those types of lessons are being lost. That's because, when the kids return to school this week, a diminishing number will bid farewell to summer employment, which doesn't bode well for us, or for them.

The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston reports that the year I worked at McDonald's (1978) was the post-World War II peak for summer employment rates among American teenagers. That year, almost 50 percent of the nation's teens had summer jobs. By 2000, that figure had fallen to 45 percent. Today, it's down to 35.1 percent.

Put that in perspective: If the current teen employment rate matched that of 1978, almost 3 million more teenagers today would have jobs, the study reveals.

I think it could also explain why we are graduating large numbers of high school seniors who are ill-equipped for employment. A recent survey canvassed more than 400 human resources executives and found that 70 percent of respondents reported that recently hired high school graduates lacked so-called applied skills such as professionalism and work ethic - things measured as punctuality, working productively with others, and time management.

Professionalism?

Work ethic?

Working productively with others?

Time management?

Those were the basics I learned: sweeping the parking lot (for $3.25 an hour) at a women's clothing store called Wear Main Meets Union; delivering the Sunday Bulletin; washing dishes at Philip Arthur's Ice Cream Parlor; delivering arrangements for Grau's Florist; and even painting street address numbers on curbs to assist emergency personnel throughout Central Bucks. And, of course, working at McDonald's.

I'm not unique. My friends all had jobs. Such was the climate then that the local chamber of commerce even had a program called "Rent a Kid." (Today, some PC type would probably claim that was indentured servitude.) But today, suburban kids don't want to run the fry bin in a fast-food joint. Or their parents don't want them to. And whereas we wanted to expand our wallets, they want to build their résumés.

Kay Hymowitz, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, notes a trend among youth toward amassing credentials, which translates into landing internships instead of flipping burgers. She told me the result has been a shift in what we think of as real-world experience. Office culture has replaced deep-fried kitchens. The camaraderie of flipping burgers while a coworker cooked fries has been replaced by the exchange of a handshake and a business card.

Hymowitz rightly worries that many middle-class teens today miss out on the "democratizing experience" of working menial jobs - at least part time - alongside kids from different classes and backgrounds.

In my neighborhood, many of us worked together. On our street lived the Stachel family. They were known for having the only in-ground pool on Mercer Avenue, hence our moniker for their home: Stachel Valley Country Club.

Mike Stachel built pools for Sylvan Pools until the day he decided he could build them on his own. That's when "Mt. Lake" was born. Soon after it was up and running, his wife, Arlene, recognized that she had a talent for patio decoration, and so "Pool & Patio" was added to the name. Their success with Mt. Lake Pool & Patio was itself instructive for we who lived nearby.

The Stachels were also willing to hire any kid in the neighborhood who wanted to work. That's when I handed in my apron at Mickey D's. But I wasn't building my curriculum vitae - I wanted gas money and Spectrum concert tickets.

My job even had a hint of celebrity. One day I was asked to deliver chlorine to Larry Kane's house. Mike Stachel Jr. came along for the ride. We brought an Instamatic camera, one of the old Polaroid models where you'd take the picture, and then hold it for 30 seconds while it developed.

Kane had done the news the night before and was sleeping upon arrival. We told his housekeeper that he had to personally sign for the bucket, overlooking that we had nothing for him to initial. When the television anchor finally appeared, it was sans the usual makeup. He had bed-head and was wearing a pair of cutoff shorts with his belt loop unbuckled. We threw our arms around him and snapped away. Thankfully, he was a good sport.

No wonder today I sometimes yearn for just one more day driving a panel truck with patio furniture in the back, and getting that trucker's tan: left arm only, and just half way up the biceps.