Summer jobs teach teens life lessons: #tellusatoday

We asked our followers about their worst teenage summer jobs and what they learned. Comments from Twitter are edited for clarity and grammar:

Making sandwiches and teriyaki chicken bowls at 16. It taught me patience, though I'm still developing that!

— @sashasylvie

I shoveled shingles around houses for a roofing crew in the middle of a blazing hot, humid summer. Lesson: I didn't want to do that.

— @morfaleji

Going door to door selling candy that nobody wanted. I learned that working in sales wasn't easy.

— @KingCrabby

I worked in construction. It taught me to work hard for what I wanted, as you are not entitled to anything.

— @YoungC_Chris

Baling hay in a barn. It was unbelievably hot and scratchy. It taught me the value of hard work.

— @mikehanson28210

Working at a candy-packing factory, on my feet for hours! I learned I didn't want to be on my feet that much.

— @jessiland

There are no worst jobs as a teen. Each builds experience and moves you forward. No whining.

— @sddphoto

Letter to the editor:

Out of necessity, I started working at 14 years old, for 20 hours per week after school, summers and winter breaks through college. This was 50 years ago, and I was without a car ("Get a (summer) job: Column").

As a result, I started medical school and marriage with minimal debt. In addition, I learned lessons that have lasted a lifetime and passed them on to younger generations.

Jerry Frankel; Plano, Texas

Comments from Facebook are edited for clarity and grammar:

People sharing their summer job experiences should humble some teens who think the world owes them something.

Get up, go business to business and see if someone will hire you for what's left of the summer.

— Greg Gibson

Part of the reason that teen employment is down is because government regulations are so costly. It often is not financially viable for a business to hire a teen worker anymore. Cut the regulations, and more teens will get hired.

Also, calls to raise the minimum wage are not helping, either.

— Craig Gladson

The minimum wage has little to do with fewer teenagers working during the summers.

If a high school student plays athletics, the requirements of the sport during the summer can make it incredibly hard to work around the "voluntary" workout schedule.

I also think some of us parents have failed because we didn't require kids to do chores when they were preteens, so those kids have no concept of work. We give them everything they ask for, so there is no desire — or need — to work.

— George Sorrells

Many young people just don't want to work! Many expect to be taken care of by the government. Perhaps if one of the focuses in education was to teach personal responsibility, our youth would fare far better!

— Larry Mauthe

For more discussions, follow @USATOpinion and #tellusatoday on Twitter.