Most of my friends have jobs and are at University, a few of them are doing trade apprenticeships or TAFE. Recently I was speaking to one of my female friends who works at a local cafe, she was whining about how her pay sucked and that she wasn't learning anything relevant to what she wanted to do in life (shes studying law).
I told her to quit her job and find something more suitable like clerical work at a local law office or something similar. She looked at me like I was a mad man who had a shank and smoked crack out of a light bulb.
I told her that there was absolutely no point in working a job with bad pay and no future prospects (it's ok to earn $1 an hr if its going to lead to something you love with reasonable pay). She agreed with me and then I asked her when she was going to quit.
"I don't know, I'll probably line up another job first."
"When are you going to do that? Don't you have Uni Monday-Wednesday and then work Thursday-Friday? Most places do their interviews during the week between 9-5."
"I guess I am just to busy to find something better then. I'll just stick it out at the cafe until I can find some time to look for something better"
She is never going to leave the cafe, until maybe she finishes her degree and then she will have trouble finding work because she has no relevant experience. She gets paid a measly $10 an hour + tips (Australians don't tip much, so she might get an extra dollar or two an hour more). I did some research into the type of work she wants to be doing and the average pay is about $18 and its considered part time work so you get super and holiday hours (this adds on average an extra 20% onto your salary).
She might be taking the 'safe' option by not quitting her job and having to take out a loan to pay her bills, but in the long run she is selling herself short. Really short.
Lets do the math. She is in her second year of university out of four and works 16 hours a week. That means she is going to work another 1664 hours (16*52*2) before she graduates (Actually, its more because she has just started second year, but lets be lenient). If she got a job at a law firm doing clerical work then she would be getting an additional $6 per hour. This is taking into account the maximum she would be getting in tips and not including the super and holiday pay from the law firm job. Thats $9984 she is missing out on by not taking a risk. Add the super and holiday pay and you get $11980.4 ($9984 + (9984 * 0.2)). Easily enough for a deposit on your first house, or an extremely nice holiday.
None of those figures include the experience she will get from working there either, she'll find it easy to get a job once she finishes up her degree and will most likely be able to land a higher starting salary because of it.
Not taking a risk might seem like the safe option, but in the long run the only thing you are doing is selling yourself short. If you aren't doing what you love, take a risk and see where you end up. If at the end of the day you can't find anything, there are plenty of local cafes around that are always hiring and if that fails I hear McDonald's is a nice place to work this time of year.
Comments