I was fifteen years old when my parents said it was time for me to get a job. When they suggested this I was far from excited, but I was enticed by the idea of earning a regular income. Pretty soon, I was punching the last four digits of my social security number into a machine and washing dishes throughout the week. Since then, I have worked three minimum wage jobs, and I can safely say that I’ve benefited from my experiences, whether they were good or bad.

As I browsed through clothes at different stores after I had been working for a while, I was suddenly shocked by the prices for items of clothing. Items that were purchased for me before now seemed ridiculously overpriced. I would see that a pair of jeans that were forty dollars, and I was brought back to reality. In order to buy one pair of jeans, I would have to wash dishes at my job for at least five hours. It may seem extremely simple, but after I had worked for my money and had taken the costs of things I’d purchased every day into consideration, the value of money became more clear to me.

The difficulty of some minimum wage jobs had never occurred to me as well. When I started working as a dishwasher, the number of dishes that piled up in a matter of minutes was staggering to me, and it was a job that I couldn’t handle myself. On top of this, if even a small particle of food was discovered among the mountain of dishes I washed, it would have to be washed again. One day, I was particularly clumsy, and I dropped an entire trash bin into a dumpster as opposed to one bag. I ended up having to go dumpster diving in the rain. I found myself feeling overwhelmed and stressed. I eventually got used to the job, and I was lucky to have friendly coworkers.

Two of the minimum wage jobs I’ve worked involved customer service. Interacting with people I didn’t know was never something I’ve been good at, so when it came to talking to customers, I came off as awkward and uncoordinated. It was only until a customer commented on my shaking hands as I bagged their groceries that I realized how nervous I had gotten. After a month or so, I became more relaxed and most of the shaking in my hands eventually stopped.

Numerous jobs are available at the moment, and I would definitely recommend applying somewhere if you haven’t worked before. Through my work experiences, I have learned many new skills that I have found useful and that I think will benefit me in the long run.