I started working at my first job when I was 12 going on 13.  School had let out for the summer and I had just finished the 7th grade.  During the final weeks of the school year, I had enrolled in a summer program for young teens.  Doesn’t quite sound like a job, you may be thinking.  Nonetheless, there was an application, an interview (which took place in a guidance counselors office), and, once our work starts, 4 hour workdays for 5 days a week over a four-week period.  And, importantly, on the 2nd Friday of each two-week period, I got paid.  $2.00 per hour X 20 hours per week X 2 weeks = $80.00 per paycheck.  And, I got a real company check with my name on it.  (Plus, my paychecks were not subject to any income tax, since I was 12.)

Here what I did to earn my $2.00 per hour.  There were maybe 250 kids (my coworkers) split up into roughly 20 teams.  I was assigned to a group of about 12 kids with 2 older teenagers who served as team leaders.  We participated as a group in different team-building tasks and individual exercises.  One of the tasks that was assigned to every employee was to keep a DAHTED (pronounce “dotted) chart.  DAHTED stands for Do A Hard Thing Every Day.  Similar to a Cub Scout manual, we were told to keep a journal of our actions;  but, rather than counting our good deeds, we had to do at least one thing every day that took us outside of our comfort zone and which, often, forced us to confront the fear of failure.  Our journal was a calendar that was taped to the wall of the church auditorium where we worked each day.  Each morning we filled in our DAHTED chart with an entry from the day before.  Hard Things could be physical challenges like doing 50 situps, but we were encouraged to take a more balanced approach and also focus on social and emotionally challenging actions, like helping a distressed sibling or asking a parent to explain why they were yelling.

Let me also mention that most of the other kids in this program came from different neighborhoods and backgrounds.  In fact, all but one of the 250 or so participants were from other school districts, and most of the kids in my group were from tougher communities than where I had lived.  My school was predominantly white;  most of the kids in my group were black.  Many of my friends parents were doctors or bankers.  Many of my groupmates grew up in single-parent households.  The differences were stark, but at that particular age, and given the nature of the program, we seemed to make friends easily and get along well with each other.  34 years later and I can still think back and remember most of their faces and think kindly towards them as my friends.

During the final week of the program, my team leaders conducted an exercise where we sat in a team circle and every kid was asked to share with the entire group the hardest thing that they had experienced in life so far.  Suffice it to say, this was not an easy task.  When my name was  called, I described losing my grandfather during the prior summer. My Papa was a gentle giant who loved his grandkids.  At the age of 69, he suffered a massive stroke that left him paralyzed along one side of his body and the other side of his face.  He had also lost and could not regain his ability to speak, walk, or care for himself.  After a year of rehab, he chose to stop trying.  By refusing to eat, he hastened his physcal deterioration and soon he passed away.  On the day of my 11th birthday, for the first time in my life, I had lost someone whom I loved.  As I told the story to my group, I cried. My team gave me hugs and thanked me for having the courage to share my story.  My groupmates share their stories about losing siblings to drugs or accidents, about being yelled at by an angry parent, about physical and sexual abuse.  I’m pretty sure that each of us cried as we shared our stories.  Each of us got hugs and support from the group in return.  I learned that some of my groupmates had lived through much harder experiences than I had at that time in my life.

At the end of July, my job was over.  Thinking back, to a 12-year old, a month can be a long time.  On the final day of my first job, I felt proud of myself.  When I cashed my paychecks, I’m pretty sure that I bought candy and baseball cards.