For some high school or college students now is about the time you begin to figure out that you may need to find a job this summer.  If you think about it, it’s already the middle of June; that means you will be back in school in about two months or so.  If you started working today and received a paycheck every week you will receive a maximum of nine paychecks.

Now let’s do some math.

If you earn $5.15 an hour, minimum wage, and work 40 hours a week for the next nine weeks that is 360 hours of payable time.  You would gross a whopping $1,854.

Keep in mind that is best case scenario because the fourth of July is thrown in to the mix and if your family takes a vacation you will probably not be working because of that.  So for arguments sake lets say you did work five days a week for the next nine weeks bringing your wages to $1,854.

Uncle Sam, your state government, your local government, social security, the privilege to work tax, and a few other government organizations will all take their ridiculous share of your wages bringing your take home pay for those nine weeks to about $1,390 if you assume your net pay will be 75% of $1,854.  $1,390 divided by nine week is roughly $154.50 per week.  Ouch!

With that said a summer job can be one of the best experiences of your life.  Since I live in Pittsburgh and the US Open is right down the road from me it reminds me of my summer job during high school.  I worked at the local country club in a number of different capacities; bus boy, dishwasher, bag room attendant, and then finally the Mecca of all country club jobs Pro Shop attendant!  I loved my time working at Wanango Country club in Reno Pennsylvania.  My brother and I along with our cousin Chad worked there for a number of years.  We had a blast.  At the time the money was much better than I could have made slinging French fries at Burger King.

Here are few memories that I will cherish for a long time to come:

• Stepping in a five gallon buck of paint that my cousin put under my ladder when we were painting the pool house.  Why would they trust three 16 or 17 year old kids to paint the entire pool house?  I am sure they had to redo most of what we did no long after we finished.
• Watching my brother spill the very same bucket of paint all over Cloye Moser’s parking lot because he was driving to fast around a corner.  Then watching Cloye yell at the top of his lungs because my brother was trying to wash the paint off the cement with hose which apparently was not the right thing to do in Cloye’s mind.  Chad and I watched in hysteria from the dish room far, far away.
• Playing golf for free every Monday.  Rain or shine.
• Learning the ropes of professional networking by hanging out with business men from around northwest PA on a regular basis
• Observing Scott Sundstrom, the club pro, run a very successful retail operation in the pro shop.  Scott was a very thorough business man that I greatly respect.
• Picking up kegs of beer on the course only watch them fly off the back of the cart and roll down the hill after a large tournament.
• Receiving $100 tips from Dr. Kenzor for simply getting his bag out of his trunk.  My friend Scott Ginsbeg is right.  If everyone worked for tips customer service would be much better!

Those are just a few of the memories I enjoyed from my summer job at the club.  Even though the money wasn’t that great the memories far out weighed my hourly wage.

Do you have any summer job memories?  Post them in the comment section of this article.

If you haven’t landed your summer job yet or maybe you have just started one.  Whatever the case, make sure you are doing something fun and exciting because the memories you will take with you will far exceed any amount of money you will make.