'I'm not cleaning toilets'

[boobashka]

I'm trying to encourage my 17 year old to get a weekend/ holiday job and have texted him a range of opportunities which I've found online. I asked him to chase up one which was cleaning camper vans to which he responded 'that's not the kind of thing I want to do - I'm not cleaning toilets'. This has really got my back up. Both myself and dh cleaned toilets, washed pots and pans, chambermaided, pulled pints etc as students. I'm annoyed that I've raised someone so entitled. Who does he think he is? Advice please?

As a teen I had a job in a fast food outlet and a manager told me to go out and clean up some vomit and I refused point blank, I was happy to clean the tables and empty the bins but I wouldn’t clean toilets (other than my own) and I don’t clean other people’s vomit. If that makes me entitled then so be it!

Is he a beggar?

I don't mean that facetiously - it's just that cleaning toilets is not a pleasant activity and tends to be the kind of thing you do when you have to. If he does not have to, it seems perfectly reasonable not to want to.

You say you want him to save for uni - does he realise WHY. Is there an element of uni you want him to fund for himself. Maybe his food and spending money? In which case, I'd make it clear now, make clear the benefits of saving ahead of time, make clear you won't bail him out of those elements and then let him make his own decision.

I have worked since I was 15. I got my first job and worked all days Sat and Sun right up until I went to uni. I then got a job at uni and worked at least 20 hours a week on top of my studies. I am 45 and never been without a job in 30 years. I have also always had more income than I needed. That's me.

My brother did not have a teenage job, did not work before uni and only took a job in uni that would meet his need. Until he was about 30/35 he never had spare income - he just had what he needed to survive.

Neither is the better way. In fact, he now has a rather exciting job he loves - having had so many more spare hours to develop hobbies and interests. I have a very dull job that is stable and well paid but which I will never love.

In some ways, he remains the richer of us.

I do graduate interviewing for my company for data graduates, I always count any job as a positive regardless of what it is as a graduate. Occasionally I get someone with relevant experience but more often it these kind of jobs that might not give "relevant" experience but prove someone is willing to work and get life experience.

When up against some graduates who have never worked, all jobs are useful when applying, not just some.

A shitty job teaches you to get up and ready in mornings, punctuality, co-operation, maybe working with the public, handling money, presentation skills, persistence... Cleaning toilets means you can make great job interview jokes about starting at the bottom!

On the other hand, as someone who worked in horrible food factories thru uni holidays while my posh friends swanned about the Algarve and did work placements, I think you can go too far and do so much that you get turned off work.

Cleaning toilets just as part of a job is better than doing something really, really monotonous for hours on end, day after day.

A very long time ago, pre-office computers, I spent a summer working for a quantity surveyor. He needed endless estimates checked for arithmetic. I spent six weeks with a basic calculator adding up and re-checking column after column after column of the dullest stuff you could imagine. I so wished I’d got a job in a pub, toilets and all.

I imagine crop picking jobs are extra terrible too, as a pp has said.

If you want to encourage him to get a job, surely you just stop giving him money and let him sort it out instead? I had jobs from 14, and my parents didn't get involved at all- I sorted it all myself.

I wouldn't be able to clean pub toilets and I'm unsure why you're focusing on this particular task. Saying that I have mucked out hundreds of fields and stables but it's a very different kind of turd.
I had several jobs before I was 18, paper round, I worked in the local shop, I swept the hairdressers floor, chambermaid at hotel, bar work as soon as I turned 18. He has lots of options but he needs to be prepared to deal with difficult situations which is what I think youngsters are least able to do these days. 👵🏼

Is he aware of the possibility that when a dream job at the specialist shop comes up it will go to someone who has done a menial job before because they can prove they can turn up and get on with it?

@WhatsTheUseOfWorrying oh that sounds very monotonous! I agree - something with a bit of variety (even if that means cleaning the odd loo!) and which is busy will mean the time will fly by.

Given we've just spent some of their socially formative years telling teenagers not to touch things other people have touched, not to breathe other people's air, not to do anything that might share germs with them, to keep 1m away from them etc etc, to then be angry with them because they won't clean strangers' excrement out of toilets is probably unfair.

I'm 47. I don't need a job. I have also interviewed graduates.

One of my friends when I was at university was planning on working through the summer at the chicken factory where he had worked when he was 18.

We thought that was a shit job and told him he could do better.

He got a summers paid internship with a drug company getting experience in pharmacological research, which is now his job.

Twenty something years down the line he has a PhD and a very senior job in chemical research.

Which was better, doing the job in the chicken factory because it showed he could cope with shitty work or actual work in the field he wanted to be in?

I feel like most people are spectacularly missing the point. Perhaps on purpose.
It’s not about the toilets. Very few people actively want to clean toilets for a living. There are many jobs that I would choose not to do but we don’t always get to choose.
It’s the attitude that’s the problem. What does it say about how he views those who do do that job? Are they beneath him? Is he better than they are in some way?
I don’t think he’s unusual but getting him to rethink his attitude is no bad thing.

@Smartiepants79 Yes, some people are totally missing the point! I'm not obsessed about my son getting a job cleaning toilets but for him to say 'I'm not cleaning toilets' rules out loads of basic teenage type jobs where the cleaning of a loo might be expected. You're right - it's his attitude that sucks. So who should be cleaning the toilets? Someone who is beneath him- who is that?

Again, I don’t think it’s about being beneath him.

I wouldn’t work in a fast food chain or a restaurant either. I don’t think people that work in those roles are beneath me, it’s just not something I would do. There’s SO many different jobs out there to choose from, not sure why you have to pick something that you wouldn’t want to do? Even for a first time job….

Does he seem to genuinely want a job or is he going through the motions because you're pushing him? Does he seem to grasp that he needs to look at the opportunities to decide, rather than decide he wants to work in his favourite store and if they don't have a vacancy throw his hands in the air?

I think I would have struggled to empty campervan loos, too - still would, though I did more than my fair share of jobs cleaning loos, and cleaning up after various animals too. Emptying camping loos is more gross than normal loo cleaning IMO - though I know I am missing the point.

(I kinda want him to get his perfect job in retail then find out that he has to clean the staff loos every shift 😄)

He knows and agrees that he needs to get a summer job but doesn't realise that he needs to start looking for one soon... I'm just putting the feelers out now to see what's out there. Agree @Grimchmas - I'm sure cleaning the staff loos would probably be part of his dream retail job 😂

I think you need to explain to him why he will benefit from a job, given he doesn’t actually need the money right now. I don’t think you can expect him to go out and do a boring and sometimes unpleasant job just because “it would be good for him”. Show him why he needs a job.

Sounds like he will need the money for uni. Have you sat down and gone through a uni budget with him? Shown him how working now will help fund his food/digs at uni?

It also has CV benefits… the job market post uni is competitive, someone who’s got a work history on their CV and a reference saying they are hard working and reliable will be preferred over someone with nothing.

I think the attitude of a lot of the posters (mums?) on here is the reason why we have so many young people who don't think they need to start at the bottom and work up. Who think they can pick and choose when they are only just starting out.

Absolutely this.

I did anything as a teen, luckily it didn't involve cleaning but if I had to do it, I would. I worked in shops and McD's, did telesales and door canvassing, even worked in a takeaway answering the phones, then when I couldn't understand the people calling in, worked inthe kitchen chopping onions etc, at 14yrs old. I washed pots for fuck all a couple of years ago because it was all I could find. All character building and I have a very poor opinion of people that won't do whatever they need to, to bring money in.

I worked in a gym as a teen and cleaned toilets and showers. I'm assuming the camper van toilets will be cassettes that need to be emptied, fuck that, not a chance I'd have done that.

Well he’s not a begar then is he? He can afford to be choosy.

if you want to push him to save I would cut of his pocket money and start putting that into a savings account he gets when he goes to uni. that might motivate him to get a job now.

Nothing nowadays about it! People have always been disgusting (ex-narrowboat cleaner and chambermaid in the 80s)

I am totally with you OP and can also see where lots of young people get their much derided sense of entitlement from - clearly their parents/mums if this thread is anything to go by.

I feel like a lot of people on this thread are overestimating how many places will be falling over themselves to employ a 17 year old who doesn't even clean the loos at home as a cleaner...

Are you sure it’s that he feels he’s too good for it? Maybe he just can’t stomach the idea of dealing with other people’s bodily waste? It’s not for everyone! Nursing isn’t the least bit demeaning, for example, and I certainly don’t think I’m too good for it, but I genuinely couldn’t face all the blood, sick, poo, wee etc. involved, without heaving in front of the patients!