Difference Between School and Work
At the end of each year, I often give my words of wisdom to my students. One rule that I always follow when giving life advice is that the advice I give is the same advice I would give to my own children.
Of course because I know that I’m talking to teenagers who pretty much have the attention span of gnats, I try to break my life’s lesson into a tangible and manageable way. And since most of my students will have summer jobs this year for the first time, I decided to compare and contrast their school and work environment.
School vs. Work
- A school will give you credit for making an effort, in fact schools might even give you an A grade for your efforts. But your work or more specifically your boss, will ask you why you couldn’t get the job done and gives you a warning.
- Your school will accept a note from your parents when you’re sick and ask if you need more time to stay home so that you can fully recover, but your work will dock your pay when you’re absent.
- Your school will be patient with you when you don’t get the day’s lesson and most of the time, a teacher will stay after school to help you even more with your lessons. But a boss will show you how to do things only once and expect you to know it right away, and if you fail to get it, then your boss will replace you.
- Your school will stroke your ego, build your confidence, and give you candy when you get good grades. But your work will expect you to do your job exceptionally with or without compliments because you’re being paid.
- Usually schools will take your bad attitude and tolerate you mouthing off, but if you do the same thing at work, then you just signed your termination notice.
- A teacher will encourage you to express your opinions freely, but a boss will ask for your opinion only if she or he wants it.
- A teacher will stay up all night thinking of ways how to help you improve yourself and your life, but a boss will stay up all night thinking of ways how you can improve the company.
- Schools have no choice but to work with you. But at work, your boss chooses you if he or she wants to work with you.
- At school teachers will ask the class nerd to help you with your work, at work, the nerd is your boss.
I hope that my students will take my advice to heart. At school, we sometimes forget that our job as educators is not only to have our students reading at grade level, but it’s also to prepare our students for the rigors of the real world. I strive to have my students succeed in school and in the workplace.
So as my students exit our halls of learning and enter the world of earning, I tell them to remember that the world is less forgiving than their school, so they must be vigilant and always be prepared to do their best.
