Growing up I would always hear the phrase “Austrians work to live, Germans live to work one day you will have to choose which you want to become”. That fact that I would have to choose such an important life goal at such a young age always seemed like such a far off problem. In my mind I remember thinking “why do I have to work at all?”. Now in my mid 30’s with two kids of my own I understand that my family was just trying to get me thinking about what I wanted out of life. In that regard they both succeeded and failed spectacularly.

As a kid all I wanted to do was play there never seemed enough hours in the day, and my imagination got a workout. Then in my teens I just wanted to survive long enough to make it to my 20’s, thinking that magically everything in my life would be better once I was out of high school. My first job was when I was 16 working at the local party supply store, walking to work everyday during the summer. It is still one of the worst jobs I have ever had. It was my first experience at working a retail job, and it was full of sexism and safety violations. Most of the people who I worked with that summer stayed on during the school year, making minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, I chose to quit after the summer and concentrate on school. I figured try to enjoy high school as much as I could while I could. It didn’t go exactly as planned, but I find life rarely does.

I thought that I would be making a bunch of money after graduating high school with out a college degree or much experience. It wasn’t until trying to find a job during “The Great Recession” of 2008 that it struck me how wrong I was. I remember going to 50 different stores (mostly retail and gyms) in one week, biking, walking or taking the bus, at the time my family had one car and my mom,who I was living with at the time, used it to get to work. Eventually I was hoping to make enough to get my own car, but that wouldn’t happen for years to come. With in three weeks half the stores I applied for were out of business. I remember, very clearly, going into a Circuit City turning in an application and the employee asking if I had any leads (with a sense of urgency in his voice) and was I willing to share where was hiring. It became a running joke in my family that I was the “business angel of death”

Eventually I found work at a Godiva Chocolate store, and started going to community college. It was a soul crushing experience with very little time outside of work or school. I realized that that question of working to live or living to work quickly gets answered for you if you don’t figure it out for yourself. Not to say all of retail was a bad experience. As anyone in the retail industry in America knows, your coworkers can be amazing (I attribute that to they are in the trenches with you) and you do talk to some very kind people. However usually management doesn’t know what they are doing and the majority of customers are terrible. You end up working long hours for little pay usually at a thankless company. (I worked at a retail store where our Christmas bonus/Holiday pay was a greeting card that said “Happy Holidays” and a container of Chips Ahoy in the break room)

If you want to avoid customers there is an army of overnight workers that come in like zombies and leave as if they had just ran a marathon as a zombie (which for some this is their second job and have essentially been working for 16 hours only to do it the next night). They can be some of the roughest toughest looking people but usually are very nice. The majority that I knew had families and worked at night to try to be able to afford everything they needed. With pay across the board for retail increasing companies are expecting their employees to cover more and work more hours and do harder and harder work.

My dad advice to you is something I wish I had known in high school. If you don’t know what you want to do in life that’s ok, but don’t assume that you have to work retail. More people work in retail today than the mining industry according to Forbes, with a much lower level of job satisfaction. Office jobs are available for those who have a friendly disposition and a drive to do well. Call centers hire kids right out of high school or even in high school. For more flexibility you can even find administrative assistant jobs, data entry jobs, and freelance jobs that will work with your schedule. I believe school is important, and an advanced degree helps with finding work, even if it’s not in the field you want. What I didn’t know for a long time is that working in retail is a choice that is made, there is nothing wrong with it if you enjoy the job, but no matter where you live, working 40 hours a week for minimum wage is impossible unless all you need is beer money. So work smarter for more money and for more time that is yours to do with what you wish.

As an employee you need to find a company that values you enough to pay you an adequate wage, that values your time allowing you to take time off not just when needed but when you want to, that shows you there is a potential for growth. Those jobs exist you just have to risk looking and risk applying for them, or nothing will change for you. Not only work smarter but work for your own growth, and with that growth will come working to live and a balance in life you can enjoy.