I feel bad for the young people of today who might have never recieved any mentoring about how to behave socially. You know the how to live ‘life in general’ how to behave ‘publicly’ or how to read ‘body language’…it seems that more and more young people are fending for themselves and only communicating through texts, Facebook etc. All of these tools are great to use and I for one use them. But, I am proud to say that I had a foundation built on how to treat people, what not to say and to treat people like I would like to be treated before being plunged into the technology world. What happened to that foundation? Why does it not seem to exist anymore? Why is this information not being passed on to our teens?
The reason that I am commenting on this is due to my experiences over the last few years with seeing young girls attend beauty school and how they behave when they are there with the clients or with their educators. I have seen and heard over the years the horror stories of these young people trying their best to get a job and making the effort to search for employment, but not knowing how to behave when they get there.
I once heard about a girl attending an interview who commented that the reason she thought she wanted to work for the company was “well, you are close to my house!!!” Huh? Don’t parents give them a little background information on what ‘not’ to say?
I also recall a time when asking a young girl why she felt she would be good for the position applied. Her comment was “well, it seems pretty easy!” Oh heaven’s above! I feel bad for these people trying to find employment, when quite clearly they have not had the mentoring that is needed from their peers, their parents or why not even from their teachers at school?
A friend of mine shared a story with me about a time that he was interviewing a candidate where he had to lean over the desk, hand the potential hire a tissue, so that she could put her gum in it, as he was so distracted by the huge ‘gum bubble’ covering practically half of her head!
If ‘mentoring’ our children especially in today’s economy was as important to us as our Facebook pages our cell phones or our Twitter accounts, I think we would be setting our children up for success as opposed to failure. Is this where the issue lies do you think, that parents today are busier than their children with technology and have bypassed the ability to discipline?
I do have to share a story with you about my teenage son who decided to fill in a job application for a position to work after school a few days a week. He decided to do this without asking me for help, but even though this is funny and quite sweet, i still wish i could have been there to guide him. He crossed the box requiring ‘full time’ and when i asked him why he had crossed that box and not ‘part-time’ his comment was “oh, i thought it meant putting your ‘full’ effort into the job, which is what i intend to do!!” Those little things, that we take for granted are the things that we can guide them with!
Due to my emphatic nature I feel that it is my job to make the future for our children a brilliant one, and I wish that I could take all of these young people under my wing, employ them and mentor them….but when you are trying to run a company a babysitting job isn’t one that I signed up for. Maybe, my next career path will be to open up a beauty school/etiquette learning center! Or maybe the answer is for the not so lucky applicants a lovely rejection letter with a ‘one page easy to read’ article about the do’s and don’ts during an interview? Or would that come across as politically incorrect? Let me know your thoughts!
