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Everyone remembers their first job.

Maybe you were flipping burgers, stocking shelves, mowing lawns, answering phones, babysitting, working a register or spending a summer outside in the heat. Whatever it was, you probably weren’t thinking much about career development or transferable skills. You wanted a paycheck, a little independence and maybe some spending money.

But something much bigger was happening.

For many of us, that first job was our first real introduction to the working world. Someone outside our family or school was counting on us to show up, be on time, learn something new, work with other people and take responsibility for something that mattered.

We didn’t know it at the time, but those early experiences were beginning to shape how we’d approach work for years to come.

Preparation Is Intentional

I’ll go first.

My first job was as a certified lifeguard at the community pool on the Air Force base where we lived. Years before they paid me to sit in that lifeguard chair, I was one of the kids swimming in that same pool.

Becoming a lifeguard wasn’t simply a matter of knowing how to swim. Our instructor was a former Air Force special operations commando, and let’s just say he didn’t believe in taking it easy on us.

The training was rough. We’d tread water for an hour while holding a 20-pound brick over our heads. We practiced rescues, CPR, first aid and emergency response until the movements became second nature. After every training session, we swam a mile.

That’s 16 full laps in a 50-meter pool. I know because that number is still etched into my brain.

Overkill for a bunch of punk 16-year-olds working at the community pool? That’s certainly what we thought.

Looking back, not at all.

Our certification instructor understood something we didn’t yet. Parents were going to drop their kids off at that pool and trust us to keep them safe. If something went wrong, nobody cared that we were teenagers working a summer job. We were their lifeguards, and we needed to be ready.

The job could be hard, so the training had to prepare us for the responsibility that came with it.

That lesson has very little to do with swimming. Preparation is intentional. You practice, learn, ask questions and do the uncomfortable work before you’re called upon to use it. When somebody eventually counts on you to be ready, that preparation matters.

Thankfully, most jobs don’t require swimming a mile or treading water with bricks. But nearly every job requires us to prepare for responsibilities we may not fully understand until we’re carrying them.

First Jobs Teach Things Classrooms Can’t

Think about what you learned from your own first job.

It may have been the first time you had a supervisor who wasn’t a teacher or parent. Maybe it was the first time you dealt with an unhappy customer, worked alongside people from completely different backgrounds or made a mistake that affected somebody other than yourself.

Those experiences teach us things that are difficult to recreate in a classroom.

You learn pretty quickly that being on time isn’t just about following a rule. It means your coworker doesn’t have to stay late waiting for you. You learn that sometimes you have to do the boring part before you get to do the interesting part. You learn how to accept feedback, ask for help, communicate with coworkers and figure things out when the instructions aren’t perfect.

You also start learning about yourself.

Maybe that first job showed you that you loved working with people. Maybe you discovered you liked building things, solving problems, working outside, organizing chaos or taking care of others. Maybe you discovered something you absolutely never wanted to do again.

That’s valuable, too.

A first job doesn’t have to launch your career to help shape it.

Someone Gave Us a Chance

Here’s the part that can be easy to forget once we’ve been working for a while: we weren’t always experienced.

At some point, somebody looked at a pretty thin résumé and hired us anyway.

Someone answered questions that probably seemed obvious to them. Someone showed us how to do things we now do without thinking. Someone corrected us when we got it wrong and, hopefully, recognized us when we got it right.

Those first supervisors, coworkers, teachers, coaches and mentors may have had a much bigger influence on our lives than they ever realized.

Eventually, many of us find ourselves on the other side of that relationship. We become the employers, supervisors, coworkers, educators and mentors welcoming another generation into the workforce.

That means we have an opportunity to give someone else what was once given to us.

High Expectations and Room to Grow

Young people entering the workforce are going to make mistakes. So did we.

They’ll ask questions, misunderstand instructions and occasionally need to be shown something more than once. They may not know some of the workplace expectations the rest of us take for granted because they haven’t had the opportunity to learn them yet.

That doesn’t mean lowering expectations. In fact, some of the people who made the biggest difference early in our careers were probably the ones who expected more from us.

My lifeguard instructor certainly didn’t lower the bar because we were 16. He raised it because he understood the responsibility we were about to carry, even when we didn’t.

There’s a difference between expecting less from someone and giving them room to learn. We can set high standards, explain why the work matters, hold young workers accountable and still recognize that becoming good at something takes time.

That’s how people grow.

Now It’s Our Turn

There’s something pretty remarkable about looking back at your first job from wherever you are today.

Once, you were the kid trying to figure it all out. You were the new employee asking questions, learning the rules and hoping somebody would give you a chance.

Now, somebody may be looking to you.

And how fortunate are we to sometimes be tired from doing work we once hoped we’d have the opportunity to do?

Careers can wear us out. There are long days, difficult weeks and plenty of moments when work feels like, well, work. But every once in a while, it’s worth remembering the person we were when we were just getting started.

Someone opened that first door for us. Someone trained us. Someone trusted us before we had years of experience to prove ourselves.

Eventually, it becomes our turn to do the same.

The teenager working their first shift today may someday be leading a company, caring for our families, building our communities, teaching our kids, starting a business or training the generation that comes after them.

We have no idea where that first job will take them.

Neither did we.

But we can make sure their first exposure to the working world gives them something worth carrying forward.

So, heading into the weekend, think back to where your working life began.

What was your first job, what did it teach you, and what are you doing to help the next generation get their start?