Except for a year and a half from my senior year of high school to my second semester of college, I've had a job since I was able to work. My first job was a small town grocery store, little more than a convenience store by larger town standards. Still, it was useful and let me afford to fix up my truck and keep my BBS running, buy OS/2 upgrades, etc. I make significantly more than minimum wage now, but I might not have even gotten the experience to get this job if not for the minimum wage being $4.25 when I started. As a high school student, I was used to doing things that paid me $5 per *day*. Working 3 hours a night for $4.25 an hour was a raise.

I think the minimum wage is a big part of the problem with why younger people can't get jobs now. If you can't try them out for a reasonable price, how will you know if they're worth paying more? I've heard a point recently about this. If the minimum cost of entry level positions goes up, companies will turn more to unpaid internship for those entry level positions.

My THIRD 'job' is as a Motor Racing Official [FIM / FIA] for the Formula One, MotoGP, and Superbikes [and others] and again, the other day there I was in the heat [34c] all day...no shade... picking up bikes ....and a guy who cleans the porta-loos had a chat..... he wasn't impressed he was getting only $18.  I had the temerity to ask "Per day?" and he looked a bit odd and said "per hour".

I said it's a bit better than what I get.....1c more would make it ..... 1c.

It amazes me I can still find people sort of 'in the industry' that don't know we're NOT PAID.  It's volunteer only, and the reason is probably that [for me] 36 years of 'professional' experience in Comms in Motor Racing....such a 'specialist' field would probably justify $1000 per hour.... certainly more than some guy cruising around in a car all day cleaning dunnies.

OH....I should add...he is an engineer in WA mining..... gets $4000 a week clear after tax....and after ALL expenses [including housing].

I interview a lot of young people and most of them don't seem to have had a problem finding a job in their first 20 or so years of life.

Oh, so you were just making a general comment about how a lot of college graduates specifically have no job experience!  Well that's different.  I was thinking (and think a lot of others in this thread though this too) that you were saying most young people were coming to you with no job experience.  So your comment was more that "a lot of college graduates haven't had any job experience" rather than "a lot of young people haven't any job experience".

Btw: did you directly post to all forums?  Your post doesn't mention any particular Stardock forum.

I had an opportunity to co-op in grad school, and I chose to turn it down in favor of graduating sooner.  My logic was that if I took a semester to co-op., vs. work full-time a semester earlier, that I would make more doing the latter, and I would get jump-started doing what I was ultimately going to be doing anyway.  I actually don't regret doing that.  Nowadays, though, with the job market being tighter, it might be a good idea to co-op and get that experience, simply because if you don't get it you can always fall back on doing classwork.  Sure beats the heck out of graduating, no job, no dorm room to live in, nothing. 

Someone who has never worked a day in his life can go to Harvard and then become the President of the US... I've seen it happen.

I post on my JoeUser.com blog http://draginol.joeuser.com

This was just posted to YouTube today. You may want to stick it in the OP. It ties into the subject of todays youth getting jobs very nicely. If nothing else, it is worth it just to get to the end and see how the father aims to rectify the situation.

Some Forum sections will show on all sites.  If the source isn't listed it'll be from JU...

Yeah I know.  It's just that the Draginol OP has JoeUser listed, but Frogboy's posts don't have any listed.  Is this is a special thing with JoeUser, or just with Frogboy's forum account?

Well....there MUST be perks when your UserID is '1' ..... really he SHOULD have better ones than that...

OK...so maybe he opens up the Forum server drive directly with a can opener and inputs comments directly with a Biro....[and white-out]....

Reality is....it'll be all about logins....and whether Frogboy actually NEEDS to...

Wouldn't that be...wait for it.... frogin?

I think I broke Google Image Search trying to find a face palm big enough to respond to that.

My apologies to the internet.