Be the Smart Girl: Money and Your Value

By e. yvonne chypchar

The problem with being told to be a good girl when you're young is that you think you're supposed to please people and keep the peace in your family and among your friends. Along with your peacekeeping duties, you assume it's impolite to talk about money when you're applying for your first part-time or summer job. No one teaches you that being good means being a decent human being who can properly look after herself. Being able to look after yourself includes having every right to talk about money! And money is tied to your sense of value, that is, how you value yourself.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: e.y.chypchar
• Release date: Sep 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502235107

Book preview

Navigating the world of part-time and summer jobs for girls 12 to 17

by

e. yvonne chypchar

Copyright

Be the Good Smart Girl, Money and Your Value: Navigating the world of part-time and summer jobs for girls 12 to 17, Version 1.0

© e. yvonne chypchar

Cover design. e. yvonne chypchar

Cover photo purchased from iStock®

Clip-art: royalty free Microsoft® Word®

Author photo: private collection

Author’s Note

I work as a technical writer and editor in the computer software industry. I am also a fiction writer. My education background is history/classics and modern languages.

I am not a social psychologist. This book is much like Google® - an aggregate of existing information. In this case, this book is an aggregate of current research and links to videos, alongside my editorial comments and personal anecdotes. I look at this book as version 1.0.

Please read it with a discerning and critical eye. If I have made you question your understanding and perception of the work world, then I have done my job.

How It All Started

My friend’s daughter Kate¹ had just landed a part-time job as a cook at a popular grill in town. Kate’s mother and I were sitting in their living room when Kate told us about her job. She was excited after the interview. I asked her if she knew how much she would be paid.

They didn’t tell me, she said.

Her mother looked at her and said, You didn’t ask?

Kate shook her head. No, she hadn’t asked. And they hadn’t told her. She didn’t know how much she was going to be paid.

Kate wants to attend a culinary school after she graduates from high school. She wants to be a chef. Getting this cooking job at a local grill would be a good match for her interests. She wouldn’t be preparing haute cuisine but she would have plenty of chances to scramble eggs and learn some basics about the restaurant business. But she was missing one very important factor in the job process: money.

I thought back to my own experiences as a teenage girl. I remember thinking it might be rude to ask about money and simply accepted the pay that was offered.

When I was 12, no one taught me that I could ask about my pay. I was brought up to be polite and I simply assumed that being polite included not asking about money. Wrong! That’s the problem with being told to be a good girl when you’re young – you want to please people and keep the peace in your family and among your friends. As you grow up, no one teaches you that being good really means being a decent human being who can properly look after herself. Being able to look after yourself includes having every right to talk about money.

I also thought about all the times I’d negotiated my salary as an adult female. I can distinctly remember the times when I had undersold my skills