The First Job

My granddaughter got a job.  Her first job – outside of babysitting.  She’s finding that responsibility now has a much broader meaning with planning, scheduling and developing her work ethic.  She’s certainly experiencing a rude awakening insofar as her sleep schedule is concerned.  Gone are the days of Snap chatting until the wee hours of the morning and being able to function at peak performance.

While she doesn’t have a burning desire to obtain her driver’s license (preferring to be chauffeured), she’s one of the first in her peer group to become employed.  While some of her friends were looking to become summer camp staff, her ordered list of priorities included:

• Air conditioned
• No cleaning of bathrooms
• Preferably, not food service
• Starting wage greater than minimum wage
• Slight schedule flexibility regarding school events

These goals were met and a job offer provided during her very first interview.  Ever.  (If you can’t tell, I’m a proud grandpa)  🙂

Since she is Gen-Z kid, I had to do a little research on her nature and whether it is atypical for her generation.  In George Beall‘s Huffington Post article, the eight characteristics compared, (Gen-Z to millennials), fit her to a T.  While this job may only be fleeting (likely entrepreneur?), I was flat out shocked that she received Day 1 eligibility (auto enrolled) to her companies’ 401K with a 50% match.    Back in my day there was a two year wait for  eligibility.  Talk about a game changer.  She may experience a roll-over years before I ever did.

The one negative is the limited selection for investment options, but I consider the match an offset to this.  Plus there is profit sharing.  As a private company there are no stock purchase options.

If you ask her, she’ll swear I always look to profit from all the angles.  She could only shake her head and groan when I pointed out her retirement plan was provided by a subsidiary of Great-West Life which in turn is 66% owned by one of my companies – Power Corp. of Canada.