The Problem with the Country...

My 16 year old son is looking for a job. (The one on the front of the Hallmark card you just hav'ta have. If you haven't gotten one yet, don't miss out - get yours here! Hurry!) He's been looking for quite some time - but there just aren't many positions open to 16 year olds right now. With the economy the way it is, adults are taking the jobs usually open to teens.

So he's filling out an application online. He's in his bedroom, I'm in thedining room. He keeps yelling various questions from the application out to me, not sure how to answer. The recent questions are about the experience he has. This will be his second job - currently he he has an eight week job as an intern at a government office, his paycheck coming from stimulus money awarded to our state just for this purpose. The idea behind this program is to help adolescents gain experience in the work force - beyond flipping burgers or working in retail. He's been in this "position" for exactly seven business days now...four of which I've had to "make" him go. He does "grunt" work - everything the social workers and other employees either don't want to do, or don't have time to do. He spent three days organizing a supply closet, taking the inventory of its contents. This is the full extent of his work history.

Ok. He's filling out this online application, for a company that has about 6,543 stores throughout the country.

Our conversation:

"Can I build a display?"
"Yes...you can put like items together in a pleasing way."
"Can I lift more than 10 pounds on a continuous basis?"
"Yes." (I say to a 16 year old, 5'11", 215 lb man-boy.)
"Can I handle cash?"
"Yep."
"Can I do customer service?"
"Yes, honey."
"I can work a computer..."
"Yes, in general - but you don't have experience with any specific computer programs."
"I can do bookkeeping..."
"What?"
"I can do bookkeeping."
"Since when??"
"At my job, I put books in A-B-C order...so I can do bookkeeping."
"Uh - I don't think that's what they mean by bookkeeping."
"But I organized books and kept them in order. That's bookkeeping, so I'm checking that box."

Seriously?!?!