My First Job: The Case for Apprenticeship Before Employment
Posted: Wednesday, November 30, 2011
by Mogama
http://www.mogama.info
One of the best times to begin your first job is while you are a student, or better yet, as a student. I had that experience in junior high school, when I taught first grade. Then I was blessed the second time to school and work during my seminary years. Work time started in the afternoon, after all of my classes for the day, and I eagerly looked forward to going to work, fully aware that most seminary students did not have the opportunity to work for income.
But it was really not employment. It was something better. It was part of my schooling ... for the real world.
Being a student-worker gave me that old-fashioned apprenticeship safety net where I could test my wings long before I would fly out of the nest for the last time. Rev. John Mark Carpenter and Mrs. Jones, the president and secretary of the Liberia Baptist Theological Seminary (LBTS), were not just my boss and supervisor. They were my hands-on mentors.
With the first draft in hand I would carefully read through it, show it to Mrs. Jones, before anxiously knocking on the president's inner office door for his authoritative proof-read.
When you are typing a dictation your greatest challenge is the placement of punctuations. And it almost felt like a teacher grading my exam every time that draft was being read by another person. Except that Mrs. Jones and Rev. Carpenter actually looked forward to using every typed document to train me in better grammar. This was like privileged private tutoring, and I relished every bit of it, though I sometimes felt like a fool for some of the dumb mistakes of throwing commas, semicolons, colons, and punctuation marks in really strange spots. I still do.
As long as I remembered not to commit the cardinal sin ... typing a letter without reading what I had typed ... it was usually a pleasant experience going one on one with either the seminary secretary or the president.
Besides the part of my job, which I really enjoyed, there was the other parts: typing a program or flier on stencil paper, and then making copies of it on the mimeograph. If it was a program, I had to sort the pages on the large table in the conference room. That process was so boring I had to sing to survive it without feeling very sleepy and spent. Finally, I'd staple each pile of sheets into a pamphlet or booklet, before stacking them into a box or into boxes, ready for the big day, whenever that was.
The gentleman, who was in his senior year, helped train me in all that office work, so I could successfully take his place after his graduation. In my senior year, I would do the same favor for a younger seminarian.
My later interest in computer, which has included A+ certification, can be traced to the interest that office experience stirred in me.
How I wish my 16-year-old son, who is seeking his first job, could land a similar position, where he can be an apprentice before he can become an employee. Apprenticeship should once again be the rite of passage to employment. A youngster's first work experience should not be under a picky boss, but in the tender hands of a patient coach. I harbor the notion that a return to apprenticeship might curb the animus that often exists in the minds and attitudes of young workers towards their supervisors and bosses. I just could not picture myself being hostile or resentful in any way towards Mrs. Jones or Rev. Carpenter, whom I considered ... more than a boss ... a teacher, a coach, a mentor. The really neat thing is that, in the numerous jobs since those years, it has seemed unnatural not to look at my supervisors and bosses through a similar lens. And that, I think, has resulted in better, more cordial workplace relations between me and those over me, as well as my coworkers. ~mogama~
Being a student-worker gave me that old-fashioned apprenticeship safety net where I could test my wings long before I would fly out of the nest for the last time. Rev. John Mark Carpenter and Mrs. Jones, the president and secretary of the Liberia Baptist Theological Seminary (LBTS), were not just my boss and supervisor. They were my hands-on mentors.
With the first draft in hand I would carefully read through it, show it to Mrs. Jones, before anxiously knocking on the president's inner office door for his authoritative proof-read.
When you are typing a dictation your greatest challenge is the placement of punctuations. And it almost felt like a teacher grading my exam every time that draft was being read by another person. Except that Mrs. Jones and Rev. Carpenter actually looked forward to using every typed document to train me in better grammar. This was like privileged private tutoring, and I relished every bit of it, though I sometimes felt like a fool for some of the dumb mistakes of throwing commas, semicolons, colons, and punctuation marks in really strange spots. I still do.
As long as I remembered not to commit the cardinal sin ... typing a letter without reading what I had typed ... it was usually a pleasant experience going one on one with either the seminary secretary or the president.
Besides the part of my job, which I really enjoyed, there was the other parts: typing a program or flier on stencil paper, and then making copies of it on the mimeograph. If it was a program, I had to sort the pages on the large table in the conference room. That process was so boring I had to sing to survive it without feeling very sleepy and spent. Finally, I'd staple each pile of sheets into a pamphlet or booklet, before stacking them into a box or into boxes, ready for the big day, whenever that was.
The gentleman, who was in his senior year, helped train me in all that office work, so I could successfully take his place after his graduation. In my senior year, I would do the same favor for a younger seminarian.
My later interest in computer, which has included A+ certification, can be traced to the interest that office experience stirred in me.
How I wish my 16-year-old son, who is seeking his first job, could land a similar position, where he can be an apprentice before he can become an employee. Apprenticeship should once again be the rite of passage to employment. A youngster's first work experience should not be under a picky boss, but in the tender hands of a patient coach. I harbor the notion that a return to apprenticeship might curb the animus that often exists in the minds and attitudes of young workers towards their supervisors and bosses. I just could not picture myself being hostile or resentful in any way towards Mrs. Jones or Rev. Carpenter, whom I considered ... more than a boss ... a teacher, a coach, a mentor. The really neat thing is that, in the numerous jobs since those years, it has seemed unnatural not to look at my supervisors and bosses through a similar lens. And that, I think, has resulted in better, more cordial workplace relations between me and those over me, as well as my coworkers. ~mogama~
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)That is a thought. Here is South Africa govt is giving private companies cash subsidies to take on apprentices after graduating to expose them to practical work because these companies are always complaining that the graduates are not employable so they don't want to risk taking them in. But now they take them in and bill the government for all the expenses on them viz use desks, salaries etc. But a problem now is emerging where these companies are taking apprentice even when they have to employ naturally and go to government to claim"...govt is giving private companies cash subsidies to take on apprentices after graduating..."
That may be a twisted version of how to institute an apprenticeship culture. I smell corruption in that. Is there any reason why private companies shouldn't pay for the cost of training apprentices, since those companies will be the biggest beneficiaries of a better-trained labor force? Why are companies so into tax payers' money everywhere in the world these days?
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