As winter turns to spring, businesses around Evanston are receiving phone calls and frantic emails from high schoolers wanting to apply for jobs. Initially, many of these calls and emails come from teens just looking for a way to make some money. But as many find out, the perks of a summer job go beyond the income. In Evanston, there are many ways for young people to find employment, like the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program or the Youth Job Center.
For Miriam Cortelyou, a junior at ETHS, the job-search process was not so linear. Encouraged by her mother, she drafted a list of seven places in Evanston that she could see herself working.
“I was like, ‘Hey, are you hiring? Is it okay that I’m 15?'” Cortelyou recalls asking the seven different locations on the phone. After looking at several jobs in retail and food service, Cortelyou eventually landed a job as a cashier and hostess at Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria. While hourly pay was a consideration, Cortelyou says she ultimately wanted a job that was fun.
“That’s why I like food service, because it’s different. I like the restaurant, I like their food and the environment wasn’t boring,” she stated.
Paul Biegel, the market supervisor for Smiths Farms at the Evanston Farmers Market, says that the life-skills garnered by a summer job can start even in the interview process. At Smiths Farms, Biegel and his coworkers interview teen employees with a hands-on approach that prepares them for higher-level job interviews as adults.
“First, we want to meet them to see if they’re going to be good with customers. That’s a major part of the farmers market, just having a conversation with customers,” Biegel said, “we like to give them a shot, and I just say, come try one if you don’t like it. No hard feelings, right?”
According to Biegel, the world of the Farmer’s Market is fast paced, and requires teens to be able to make quick transactions and sharpen their mental math.
“We’ve had people that come and be like, ‘Yeah, that’s not me, I’ll come in a different role,”’ Biegel remembered.
By trying out the job to see if they would enjoy working there, teens gain a greater understanding of their working environment preferences and get useful experience they can take into future jobs. Thankfully for Cortelyou, her interview experience was anything but anxiety-inducing.
“They asked me a lot of questions, but they weren’t difficult. They were about different scenarios,” she recalled.
While hands-on working experience is fundamental for future careers, a summer job can also give teens something that is irreplaceable in the joy it sparks: lifelong relationships and bonds.
“I found a really good family there,” Cortelyou said, speaking about her time at Lou Malnati’s.
“When I would take time off, it was heartbreaking because I had made a second family.”
For Mahalia Bonner, a senior at ETHS who worked two summer jobs, one as a gate attendant at the Evanston beaches and one as a camp counselor at Art Maker’s Outpost art camp, the bonds she formed with kids were equally as rewarding as the ones with adults or other teens.
“I really like hanging out with the kids – they’re really nice,” she gushed. “I love seeing what they make with their creativity.”
For Biegel, a summer job is a necessary part of the transition into adulthood.
“I played sports all through high school, and I was very involved, but I also always had a job,” he noted, “when you’re done with all the schooling, whether you go to college or not, you’re gonna have a job that makes you a living so that you can earn money.”
He sees teens as a necessary part of the workforce.
“It is really important to society to have people that are willing to work at a lower wage,” Biegel said, “you have to build an understanding of how to work, what a job is, how to work for people that are in charge of you and how to communicate with those people.”
Cortelyou agrees, reflecting on the challenges that arise with being in food service.
“Some people can just be really rude,” she laughed, “once the business really starts picking up around the dinner rush it can be a lot because there could be angry people calling about their order. It’s just chaos for two hours.”
While discouraging and a hassle at the moment, this conflict teaches young employees something.
“I feel like a lot of people don’t realize we’re still people behind the faces they’re talking to,” Cortelyou said, and she is right.
It is a hard lesson to learn, but something fast-paced jobs in food service teach teens is that sometimes hard work goes unnoticed, and that situations and people can escalate out of control quickly. These difficult moments allow for building skills like compromise, time management and appropriate customer service.
Bonner said that having a summer job made her more fiscally responsible.
“I didn’t realize how much I was spending until I got a job and started making money. I looked at my bank account and was like, oh, I need to stop spending money,” she remarked. While it was stressful at times, Cortelyou is thankful for all that having a summer job has given her.
“By getting a summer job I have learned a lot about responsibility and taking accountability. It’s important to get a summer job because it helps you move forward,” she relayed.
And as for Biegel, he had some parting words: “Don’t do any job just for a paycheck, because you’ll hate it and you won’t get anything out of it.”
His sentiment rings true; summer jobs only become valuable when you take an active role in enjoying them.
