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In reply to the discussion: Article: I was fired from my internship for writing a proposal for a more flexible dress code [View all]Hekate
(90,564 posts)....as a sales clerk all the way through university. The store had a strict dress code, which we were instructed in when we were hired. The pathetically low wage covered food, rent, clothing and not much else (ie, no car, not much entertainment). Fortunately my savings covered tuition and fees, which were orders of magnitude lower back then. While I was under my parents' roof I was required to find summer jobs -- which, aside from everything else was supposed to teach me responsibility in the adult world, things like showing up on time and taking orders from the people who paid you to be there.
I would have loved to have had the opportunity for an internship to learn something in the career world that didn't involve sales clerking, babysitting, or canning pineapples, but kids of my social class didn't even know what internships were, or at least my parents certainly did not. They had no "connections" and they had no means of paying my way if I was living away from home.
I do not begrudge any young person who has it easier, but it flabbergasts me that their parents would fail to let them learn the essential life lessons involved in holding that first crummy job at 16 or 18 years old. Then by the time they get to be an intern in the industry they want to have a career in, they will have some basis on which to judge the incredible privilege that involves.