Very useful teenagers
by Miranda Spary
I was having dinner at the bar in Little Aosta this week, and noticed the young woman working like a demon in the kitchen. She was bubbly and bright and SO efficient, whipping pizzas and steak in and out of the woodfired oven, cheerily calling “SERVICE” to the waiters when dishes were ready, quick with a “YES, CHEF” when he gave her an order.
She seemed very young, and when she had a tiny moment of standing still, I asked her how old she was. “17”. This is her last year at Wakatipu High School and she has been working in the restaurant for two years. She was on dishwashing to start with, and as there was a lot of standing around, she was told to watch how Ludo the chef plated the dishes. When he had an accident, she was able to help out while he recovered.This girl is going to go far!. She’s hoping to travel overseas and maybe work on superyachts.
Before this job, she had been helping her mother’s friend in her cafe. ”I used to be superquiet and reserved, but working in kitchens has given me self confidence.. I’m mostly an art student at school with my favourite classes being photography and media studies. My photography assignment last year was on Aosta and the process of handmaking pasta.”
Gwynie is a very smart girl - not only is she earning good money, but she’s learning some very valuable skills. It’s actually fun having a job. It’s not an easy time for most locals - mortgages are going up, supermarket prices are skyrocketing, rates are set to do a major spike and small business owners are now about to have to pay the new higher minimum wages - pretty tough when they can’t even open 7 days a week because of staff shortages. Local teenagers are helping hugely.
Another energetic WHS student is working at Dorothy Browns Cinema, Bar and Bookshop. Eion McGlynn is in his last year at Wakatipu as well and is SO knowledgeable about books and film - he’s been terrific at recommending new books to customers. I asked him what the best bit about having a weekend/holiday job was (thinking it was surely the money) but he said he really loves getting to know people and thinks he’s picking up all sorts of useful skills that will help him in future jobs.
These two are excellent ambassadors for Wakatipu High School - hardworking, intelligent, young people with such good people skills. According to them, most of their yeargroup are working for local businesses - congratulations to all of them making such a useful contribution to the community.
