My mom and dad made me find a job when I was in high school.
I wanted a car, but my father insisted that I needed money to pay for the insurance, gas, and oil.
It didn’t seem fair at the time, because none of my other friends had to work during school. I found a part-time job at an ice skating rink. I worked every afternoon from 4pm until 9 p.m. and I worked all day on Saturday and Sunday. I was in charge of renting ice skates to local visitors. I sat inside of a small shack and it was barely big enough to move around. I had a small table with a cash register and all three of the walls were lined with ice skates. I didn’t have any heat in the building, but my boss gave me a space heater when I started to complain about the winter temperatures. The space heater helped a great deal, but there were times when it did not work well. One Saturday in particular, I had to work all day and the heater was off. I tried a number of ways to fix the heating problem, but I was not successful. My boss never came to work that day and he did not answer any of my phone calls. I was stuck working without heat all day. By the time I came home, my fingers and toes were numb and blue and I was concerned about frostbite. My mom and dad were upset that I worked all day outside without heat and they agreed that it was time to look for a different job to pay for insurance and gas.