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Go apply to places that you will be doing slave labor. Learn how to really work... it seems that you have been applying to cushy easy jobs. Go get a job that nobody else wants. My first job at 16 was slinging sledgehammers , loading/unloading trucks and just being a little slave to the senior workers for about 16 hours a day every day during the summer. I stayed at that job for 5 years and I still work there on the weekends as a supervisor and truck driver and intern at a company through school right now during the week.
Hard jobs teach you excellent work ethic, patience, and a firm understanding of what some people really have to do every day to survive. You will be working but you won't be surviving (assuming you live with your rents still). And trust me landscaping companies, construction, tent companies, roofing companies... anything thats tough work their is demand!
[raises hand] first job was packing bags at the supermarket.
Everyone has a first job, and they stink. But it's good experience; it's an easy-to-understand task, it teaches you to be on time and to understand your role in the hierarchy of the workplace (aka being respectful of your superiors).
Thinking you're too good for landscaping, construction, or fast food is the excuse all the pro-illegals use for why they are needed here to do these jobs so teenagers don't have to.
Go for it, and get your hands dirty; you'll be glad for the perspective it gives you and it'll make you grateful for the "grownup" job you wind up with later in life.
Doing hard work as a teen taught me what to avoid. Then I joined the Navy and my tour in 'Nam taught me more stuff to avoid. Eventually, I found work that I didn't want to avoid. Now, as I am ready to retire, I expect to avoid all work. I'll probably be doing some difficult and tiring things but, as they will be done because I want to do them, they will not be work.
Thanks to everyone who has given me advice so far.
Try your local library and book stores see if they have any open positions. Also look into something other then retail stores. Try labor jobs for other options. If your good with computers and fixing them contact your local small computer stores and service businesses. As far as appearance remember were you are applying if your looking to work at gap talk to manager with the same type of clothes. Also retail clothing stores take appearance seriously.
There is an old saying, beggars can't be choosers. It is better to have a crap job and get paid than to have no job and not. Think about it.
That's amazingly awful advice. You assess the supervisors, staff, establishment, and decide if you're looking at a place that fits you.
OP, do you have goals? Do you know what you want to do? Find something in line with that. Go some place you can learn something... but be careful that you don't get caught in a profession/trade that you're not interested in. (Many people, myself included, pick up a summer job when we're your age... before you know it, you're on the money merry go round and you keep going back to it because no one else will pay you as much... as you drift further and further away from your dreams...)
Most of the jobs kids used to get are now filled by immigrants, legal & otherwise.
Not sure where to point you but as a kid in Norwalk CT I worked in gas stations (Back when an attendant pumped it), resturants washing dishes, cutting grass, pushing carts at Stop&shop, laboring for masons & other trades.
as I said, most of these jobs are filled by people who hardly can speak English now.
The good thing, if you can get in the door & are really responsible is you can move up real quickly being as you speak, read & write English.
Be patient, be persistent, Be annoying, make them hire you just so you stop pestering them.
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