By Lauren O’Malley
@lomalleycourant
For many students, once they turn sixteen, after school jobs become a good way to make money, gain experience in customer service, and interact with different people. A job can help a person become more confident and learn new skills. Although working teaches you beneficial skills, good experiences, it can be challenging to balance a job on top of a busy school schedule. It may come down to choosing which comes first: work or school.
Junior Chloe Lopez has been working at Pennyweights, a jewelry store in New Cannan, for a year and a half. During December, one of the busiest months for the store, she typically works six days a week, with a 2:45 pm to 6:00 pm shift.
Her schedule typically comes out a month in advance, making it challenging when school and other commitments come up. Working also makes it difficult to participate in extracurricular activities like clubs because they conflict with her work schedule.
“I take each day step by step but I also plan out my schedule,” said Chloe. “If I have a ton of homework, I make sure to get some if not, most of it done before work, to make sure I have time to complete everything.
Senior Izzy Kaufman has been working at Greenology for sixteen months making new friends and having positive experiences.“I just love working in a restaurant. It is so lively,” she said. “Obviously the food is amazing and my coworkers have become some of my very good friends.The whole atmosphere is very good especially, at a place like Greenology.”
Jobs can also help people become more confident in themselves and their abilities. “I think that working has made me really comfortable speaking to customers,” senior Stella Turner, who has been working at Greenology for seventeen months, said. “It has helped me gain the confidence to be able to pick up the phone and say, ‘Hi, this is Greenology. How may I help you?’ I used to be nervous to place an order for myself at restaurants but this job has helped me become more confident in myself.”
For senior Amelie L’Henaff, learning about new people is the best part of her job at Rosies. “I really like the human interaction of my job because I like getting to know new people and having discussions with them,” she said.
It can be difficult to work during weekdays because of homework and extracurricular activities. “I generally work three to four days a week, but it is very stressful when I have to go to one activity and I need to go to my job at the same time,” junior Charle Besgen, who works at Starbucks said. “I have to pick priorities and find a way to balance it all.”
“When I have a lot of homework, my job takes up a large amount of my time during the day. I needed to learn how to plan around my schedule,” junior Paige Della Bitta who works at Hashi Sushi said.
“It is hard on Sundays to come home and relax after an eight hour shift after you have been running around for so long,” Stella said. “I just want to go to bed so that’s been a little bit difficult, especially during the college process, and having that on your plate all at once.”
“After school clubs sometimes conflict with my work schedule so it becomes challenging to participate in them,” Chloe said.
Time-management can be tricky; especially in a high schooler’s tightly packed schedule. “The way Starbucks works is they schedule us three weeks in advance, but many of my activities like theater are scheduled a week in advance, so it is often easier to say that I can only work weekends,” Charlie said.
It is essential for students to ensure that they prioritize their school work over their jobs. “For me school comes first, especially with my parents, they insist that school comes first and work comes second,” Izzy said. “I think that my boss really understands that because he knows that highschool students have very busy schedules, so he is often accommodating. In the very slight chance that my schedule gets switched around, I make sure to do as much work as I can during my free period.”
Many students’ bosses try to be flexible to student’s schedules. “My boss is very nice about being flexible, especially if we have after school shifts,” Stella said. “I had volleyball this fall and was not able to work as there were too many things going on, but he was really nice in letting me take a couple months off.”
So, how should working students make the most out of their free time? “Organize yourself,” Amelie said. “One thing that I did when I first started working was I created a calendar and everyday I had a list of things I needed to get done and literally blocked time out in order to get everything done,” Amelie said. “It tends to look like a lot when you are not organized but once you break things down, it becomes more manageable,”
“I definitely learned a lot in terms of responsibility and time management,” Izzy said. “I now value free time a lot more. This is my first real job aside from babysitting so it’s been a really good learning opportunity and something that looks good on the resume. It will be something that will benefit me later on in life.”
