Objetivos y características de la comunicación interna

"The full-time staff really resent us. There's a lot of nastiness towards

us 'cos I guess they just figure we might be more successful.... since

most of us are in Year 12, we're sort of thinking about careers" (Max, Year 12, department store).

He explains how most resentment comes from the full-time teenage girls of 16 who refer to the older casuals as 'kids'. Max believes that most left school in Year 9, feel trapped in a deadend job, and resent the advantages of college students.

Conflict is also experienced in customer-contact jobs, which in boring sales jobs, can be a blessing in disguise. Several sales assistants say that they like to watch and mimic customers to help pass the time. Customers offer a source of emotional release from the boredom of 'just standing around', in much the same way that students bait teachers when school work has no meaning. Compared to school, the routines of shop work are much more inflexible and the customer, unlike the teacher, is 'always right'. Mills has diagnosed the salesgirl's dilemma with characteristic percipience:

"Caught at the point of intersection between big store and urban mass, the salesgirl is typically engrossed in seeing the customer as her psychological enemy, rather than the store as her economic enemy" (Mills, 1951:174).

Students who work in shops are taught that the customers are always right:

What did you learn in the job?

"Getting along with customers, how to be polite when you're feeling down, talking to strangers.... (Sue, Year 12).

It may be subversive to suggest that the school should teach Sue to see 'the store as her psychological enemy'. But the themes oudined above, 'good jobs versus bad jobs, stigma and conflict', cry out for discussion in the classroom and for inclusion in the curriculum. It was clear during the interviews that students were pleased to be able to talk about these issues and several responded favourably to the idea of integration when asked if they would like to see their work experiences 'formalized' as part of the curriculum.

However, students appeared willing to have their school-sponsored placements discussed openly in class but were less willing to see their self-initiated part-time jobs formalised in this way. Part of the reason for this may be due to the widespread student perception of part- time employment as an entirely different experience and separate from the curriculum in a way that sponsored work experience is not.

School Work and Part-Time Work Compared

Students were asked to compare their part-time jobs with their school work and to describe its effects on their performance, for example, missing classes or not completing assignments. No student believed their part-time jobs had negative consequences for their school work. Most students found it difficult making any sensible comparisons between part-time employment and full-time schooling. They were asked specifically which was more important and which more enjoyable. College is universally perceived as more important in shaping theu" future life chances, while most also believe college is more

enjoyable. While students may complain of homework, assignments and the bookishness of school work, they see their subjects as infinitely more challenging than the mindless routines of most workplaces to which they are exposed. Apart from 'being able to add up' or

'reading instructions', students could see no connection between what they learned at college and did in their part-time jobs. From the students' perspective, they are separate worlds ~ school has an academic, bookish culture while the personality market of the new teenage workplace is an affective, rather than cognitive domain. It is for this reason that part-time work tends to be marginal to schooUng, although there are increasing signs in the 'new vocationalism' that the social skills of the personality market are being incorporated in the curriculum (Cohen, 1984). More will be said of this issue in Chapter 9.

5. Conclusion

In concluding this chapter, a final point needs to be made about the meanings students attach to their part-time jobs. Holding down a job, no matter how deadend, means more than financial independence. It is especially important to students who have tried

unsuccessfully to find a part-time job:

"I applied to Kentucky Fried Chicken but that was expecting a miracle!" (Hugh).

The meaning that comes from having a job is not tied to money and material earnings alone, although these are important. Having their own money provides a sense of being grown-up and confers a certain status on student-workers. Students with good jobs are esteemed by their peers. For example, being a McDonald's crew member has more status than being a check-out chic. Sally's good job is an example of how a student-worker looks for and finds meaning in a part-time job. Sally's reasons for working as a cashier are:

"For the money (material concerns). And its interesting. I meet a lot of people there

(social concerns)....! enjoy working with figures (real world concerns). I'm all right at it and its interesting for me" (participatory concerns).

These four concerns, as identified by Wilson and Wyn (1987), represent the meanings she attaches to the job. Sally is one of the lucky student-workers who look for and find meaning in their jobs. Most students are compelled to 'construct' their own meanings in jobs that are essentially meaningless. As we have seen in the present chapter, these students have engaged in the construction of various social interpretations of their world of work. Some examples of the meanings they attach to the jobs are given below:

'I know all the customers by name' (responsibility).'It gives me something to do' (use of time).

'I have to pay my own way' (independence). 'It gives me a feeling of identity' (identity). 'It gave me a lot of leisure time' (leisure).

'I'm doing something useful' (participation).

'How to be polite when you're feeling down' (emotional labour).

In the next chapter, the social construction of 'real work' in work experience placements is discussed and compared to school work and part-time work.

Chapter 8