Interviews

Besides making money, what are some of the lessons of life that we can learn by having a full-time or part-time job?

1. Everyone should have a part-time job while they are in school.
2. First jobs are more about learning than earning money.
3. It’s okay to quit your first job if you don’t like it.
4. First jobs teach important life skills that school cannot.
5. It’s better to have any job than to have no job.
6. Your first job often influences your future career path.
7. Young workers should not be expected to do difficult tasks.
8. First jobs usually don’t pay enough for the amount of work.
9. It’s important to have a good boss in your first job.
10. People often remember their first job for the rest of their lives.

Here are some words and expressions that appear in the video:

red flag (idiom): a sign of danger, a warning signal
– It can be a red flag if your partner has three different phones and doesn’t explain why.

do something on the spot (idiom): immediately, without delay
– I can’t play the piano on the spot. Instead, I have to look at the music beforehand to get things right.

duty (noun): something that you are expected to do, an action that is required by your job
– You have to carry out your duties at the office if you want to keep your job.

Now, watch the interview and answer the comprehension questions. You can also turn on the automatically-generated captions for the video once you start it.

Aubrey: In this video, Aubrey and I are going to be talking about our first jobs that we ever had. Aubrey, Let’s talk about your first main job. What did you like? What did you dislike? And describe some of those duties that you did at work? 

Randall: Yeah. So my first job was at a pizza restaurant. Honestly, I didn’t know any better when I was applying. There were a lot of red flags, like they hired me on the spot. Maybe don’t work for a place like that. Half the staff . . .

Aubrey: Now, what do you mean? Hiring you on the spot?

Aubrey: They hired me on the spot.

Randall: And why wouldn’t that be a good idea?

Aubrey: Half the staff had quit, including the manager.

Randall: Okay. Okay, so that, that’s a red flag. Okay.

Aubrey: Yes, yeah. So it was really hard at first, uh, but then they got a better management in, we got better crew in and I actually ended up enjoying it. I got to, you know, work with a lot of different types of people, um, as employees, right, than I would have normally interacted with working with customers, you know, And we would do fun stuff at work that we weren’t supposed to like, you know, baking cookies in the oven, not supposed to do that.

Randall: So what were the . . .

Aubrey: But we did.

Aubrey: What were the what were the general duties that you had at the pizza restaurant?

Randall: Yeah. So I first started at the front, um, as doing customer service stuff. I think I was a customer service maniac, I think is what we called us. But, you know, I would take orders, you know, make sure everything got to the right person. Not super exciting. Um, and then I moved kind of into the back for a while where I, um, you know, actually made the pizzas and I got really fast at it, uh, really fast at making those pizzas. I was like, the fastest pizza cutter.

Aubrey: Well, thank you for sharing some reflections on your first job.

Look at the list below and rank the top three qualities of the ideal job.

• paid holidays
• a good salary
• opportunities for advancement
• working hours
• work environment
• benefits such as health and life insurance
• job security
• retirement plan

The following activities deal with related topics to give you additional language practice.

• Job Hunting
• Job Interview
• Job Search
• Part-time Jobs – Video
• The Workplace