TOADTalk: Preparing for Jobs that Don’t Exist Today
Juan Sanchez explained how picking coffee and dying hair helped prepare him to be a teacher.
This morning, students, faculty, and staff gathered in the Milligan Center for Assembly, and Juan Sánchez opened the gathering. As the Teacher on Active Duty (TOAD), he gave his TOADTalk; a chance for one faculty member to share something of interest—a reflection, a story or song, a demonstration of some sort, or a simple poem—a way for the community to get to know one of our own a little better. Mr. Sánchez, whose TOADTalk is shared below, came to Thacher in 2013. He teaches Spanish and is the sustainability coordinator. Juan was born and raised in Costa Rica.
Last year Ms. Hawkins talked to us about the jobs of the future and what skills we will need to have in order to be able to land one of those jobs. One of the most memorable things that she said was that for the Generation Z (that’s you) 65 percent of you will work in jobs that don’t currently exist. So, how do you prepare for these jobs?
Well—that got me thinking about my past jobs and experiences and how they helped me prepare for my current job.
What was I doing when I was your age?
What skills did I develop during my teen years?
Besides being in high school, of course, I did a lot of random jobs to support myself. So I am going to share with you some of them and what skills I gained from those jobs:
Picking coffee
Picking coffee is a very difficult job. Besides having to apply yourself to the task at hand, picking the coffee cherries—yes, coffee is a cherry—,you have to pay attention to your surroundings at all times to make sure that you do not get bitten by a snake, a tarantula, or stung by bees. It is also very hot in the tropics, so you have to start the day super early in order to avoid the intense midmorning sun. So, what did I learn from this job?
- Go to bed early. This was essential so I could wake up early. 4 a.m. alarm to take a one hour bus to the coffee plantations. Started picking by 6.
- Be efficient. When picking coffee you get paid depending on how much you collect. If you don’t work hard, you don’t get paid well and waste your day.
- Be a team member. While you collect the cherries individually, you work with other people to complete areas that are assigned to your group.
Construction
As you know, construction is a very physically demanding job, especially in the tropics where the sun can be brutal. This was a very special job for me because I learned so much in very little time. As a matter of fact, I lasted only two days on the job. Let me explain. When I was in tenth grade, I decided that I was going to quit school. I was doing OK academically, but I was tired of not having money and seeing the financial struggles at home. So, one day after school, I told my mom that I was not going to go to school anymore. She looked at me and said, “OK.” I thought, “That wasn’t bad.” Well, the next morning at 4 a.m. my mom woke me up and said that my food was ready and that I was going to work with my uncles, Juan, Manuel, and Carlos in construction. I thought it was hard, but I had no idea how hard it was until I had to do it. After two days, my hands were destroyed from carrying material, making holes in the dirt, etc. So, what did I learn from this job? That I wanted to stay in school and do well. I went back to school that third day.
Hair color technician
After the construction debacle. I did a bunch of farm jobs after school. Until one day, when getting a haircut from my good friend Jose, he offered me a job as a
hair color technician. His previous technician had left suddenly and he needed someone to help in the salon. Sure, I accepted the job; it was much easier on my hands than construction. So, what did I learn from this job?
- To deal with clients. Some were nice, some were not. I had to develop some“soft” skills to be successful at that job such as problem solving, adaptability, interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, communication skills, etc.Do you think that I get to use some of those skills now?
- Responsibility and more teamwork. We were a small business and had to work together to make it work.
- And of course, to dye hair.
My message with the talk is that we are constantly learning, it doesn’t matter what you do, you are always adding tools to your toolkit. Or as a good friend of mine put it, is like having a bag of tools and you might not even know that you have them until you do, and all you do is to pull them out of the bag when you need them.
As Ms. Hawkins said, most of the jobs you will be applying to don’t exist yet. So, the best thing you can do to prepare yourself, is to work hard and take advantage of any academic and job opportunities even though you might think that they are a waste of time or not worth it.
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