Fun is fun, but it’s more fun with cash.

School’s out for the summer, and the young and restless are once again dancing in the streets (public health and safety mandates permitting, of course). After effectively losing last summer to the pandemic, I imagine most of you young folks out there are looking to get the absolute most out of this summer before reality reasserts itself in the fall. But while I’m sure you’d love to spend your days in the sun at the beach, have you considered getting a summer job? I know, that sounds like the least fun thing you could do this summer, and it very well might be, but the weird state of the economy presents an interesting opportunity for the financially motivated.

A lot of people have quit their jobs in the last few months, emboldened by a new sense of self-worth brought on by quarantine. This means that, currently, a lot of entry-level jobs are starving for workers. It’s a job hunter’s market out there, and they’ll bend over backwards to get working bodies on deck, even if it is only for the summer. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should just settle for the first job you find.

Ideally, a summer job pays not only in cash, but relevant workplace experience. It probably won’t be anything major, but if you can get something relevant to your skills that isn’t completely awful, that would be the best case scenario. Summer offers numerous opportunities for particular fields, such as public pool lifeguards and camp counselors, as well as the usual stuff like supermarket cashiers and car wash workers. Obviously, none of it’s gonna be glamorous, but hey, we should all work at least one somewhat-lousy job in our youths. It gives us perspective of the world, and some extra spending money for the weekends.