My son got a job today.

No, he hasn’t graduated college (yet). He’s only a freshman. He got a job for this semester break while he’s home from college.

This continues a fine family tradition:  that you should always be working, and if not two jobs of some sort, then one extra-long, extra-hard one.

My father owned his own business, which of course left him plenty of time to… start another business.

My brother-in-law works full-time for the township. While, of course, running his own business.

My brother owned one business, hired me when I was a teenager to help him start another one, and ran both for a while. (Eventually, he sold that first one.)

What did my two nieces do when they came home from college on winter break? Get jobs. Then go back to college.

In one form or another, I’ve run a business since I was 11. My first business was selling comic-books through the mail. At the same time, I was sending things off to magazines to get printed. (Well, actually, to get rejected.) Eventually, I got better at both; at least, I like to think so. Now I run my company, I write and direct, and I teach. How many jobs is that? Or, given the advent of technology that makes work ever available, perhaps we should consider that we’re at a stage where we should stop thinking in terms of “jobs” and start thinking about effort — and which efforts pay, and which don’t. (It’s worth noting that efficiency expert David Allen doesn’t distinguish between things that are “work” or “fun” — each is still a time commitment that must be checked off.)

So now my son, who will be here only through mid-January before heading back to college, has gotten a job canvassing for a group that fundraises for AIDS Project LA. Although it’s not his first job, it was his first job interview, and he nailed it. He should be proud; I know I am. His first job was with my company, Counterintuity, where he worked for a year. No, it wasn’t pure nepotism; first, he volunteered here at our client open house, then when he said he’d like to work here, I made him go see my partner and apply. She decided to hire him, and I don’t think she regretted it later. (Or I would have been sure to tell him.) So I guess that’s two job interviews of sorts that he nailed. Good for him, because there will be more in his future. And probably a business or two as well.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.