Our youngest son, Chuck, returned to Saudi Arabia last week. After ten days at home, he’s back in Qassim province, a three-hour drive north of Riyadh, helping his consulting team there to develop a strategy with the provincial government to broaden the economic advancement of the region.

During the first four months of this engagement, in the most conservative area of the country, Chuck has adapted at least superficially to enough of the local mores to gain credibility with his clients. He avoids looking at women, all of whom are fully covered in the traditional abaya (long cloak) and niqab (veil). He knows better than to try to access alcohol in the Kingdom (except at U.S. Embassy parties!). And he’s gotten used to receiving expurgated mail – our clipped articles from the Globe or the Times don’t survive the Saudi inspectors if the other side of the page happens to include a picture of Paris Hilton in a typical pose.

So Qassim is a world apart from familiar Cambridge or even westernized Dubai, which is where Chuck will be based for the next two years. The signals are very different and the pressure is intense. “I’ve been forced to learn how to build relationships from scratch, and quickly, which is a skill that may have been a little underdeveloped previously,” he writes. “That these new relationships are with people for whom I work, or who work for me, only raises the degree of difficulty and steepens the learning curve… and it is especially complicated given the fluid, non-hierarchical, brain-based work we do…”

My wife, Annie, and I read that and look at each other, wondering where this adaptive self-assessing ability came from – this, in a kid who’s just three years out of college. It probably wasn’t the three early-teen years with the paper route, though that taught some useful customer-service skills. And his summer with Tiger Floors Company produced mostly calloused knees to go with an increased appreciation for hard work. But understanding relationship-building and fluid management structures – where did he develop those insights?

Ah – from Gentle Giant . The moving company. From Larry O’Toole (Founder and President) and his core cadre of permanent staffers. A summer job: two years for Chuck, including one as a crew chief, and one for brother Will. Dealing with people in stressful situations. Performing to high standards. Solving problems. Motivating a diverse work crew. Writing up invoices. Collecting from the customer. Reporting in.

They didn’t absorb the whole business structure, by any means, but their three months provided an important window for Chuck and Will. Partly as a result, both have gotten up to speed quickly in their career jobs since college. Both can draw lessons from Gentle Giant and from their other summer job experiences about organizations and about management. Both can remember good and not-so-good examples of planning and organizing, supervising and evaluating, administering and reporting, and – yes – building relationships, as they begin to establish the basis of their management careers.

So here we are in the U.S. less than ten years after Chuck and Will’s summer job experiences. Who’s doing the paper route? An adult with a reliable vehicle. The floors? Another immigrant family, hiring more immigrants. The moving? Still a few ambitious kids, but good ones are getting harder to find (see Alligator Bites, below), just like lifeguards, lawn mowers, baby sitters, and retail clerks.

Summer time for teens is less and less about finding out how the world really works and developing some independence. It has become more and more an extension of the other nine months of the year – summer academic programs, or parent-sponsored travel, or organized sports.

Does it make any difference to a small-company owner or manager? Only if you’re looking for people to help you build your business. See how your next few job candidates respond to the following interview questions:

1. What was your most significant accomplishment before you graduated from high school?

2. What events or activities in your childhood most contributed to your perspective on life? How?

3. What were the key factors that influenced your choice of a career in business?

4. When and how did you learn to manage your own money?

5. Do you consider yourself financially independent of your parents or others? At what point did you achieve this? How did you meet your college expenses?

Self-starters start early. Summer jobs aren’t the only measure of maturity, motivation, reliability, and responsibility, but they’re a good one. When those traits get planted early, roots run deep, and our twigs end up weathering the storms of life… in places as disparate as Cambridge and Qassim.

Alligator Bites

From USA Today, July 9, 2007:

“Most U.S. teenagers were not working or looking for work at the beginning of the summer for the first time on record, suggesting teens are forgoing traditional summertime jobs at ice cream stands, camps and pools.

“Only 48.8% of teens ages 16 to 19 were working or looking for work in June, the Labor Department said Friday. That was down from 51.6% in June 2006 and below the 60.2% in the labor force in June 2000.

“Labor force participation among teens in June peaked in 1978, when 67.7% of Americans ages 16 to 19 were working or looking for work. Data have been collected since 1948.

“But the decline doesn’t mean students are idle.

“Perhaps the biggest reason teens are bypassing work is to spend more time studying, even during the summer: 37.6% of teens ages 16 to 19 were enrolled in school in July 2006, up from 36.5% a year earlier and more than three times the share enrolled two decades ago, according to the Labor Department….”

Draining the Swamp

According to a source in a major (not Big Four) accounting firm, starting salaries for budding CPAs are up 20% this year. Top tier college grads signing on with Big Four firms reportedly are commanding annual compensation of $60,000, often coupled with a contribution to their required fifth-year accounting studies.

This may have been a factor in a double-whammy that hit us last week. On behalf of a client, I offered a candidate for an Assistant Controller position an annual salary of $65,000, a full $10,000 above her current compensation. She turned us down in favor of $75,000 in a new (for her) industry.

Two days later, a potential Controller for another client, currently earning $77,500 plus a potential $5,000 bonus, walked away from our $85,000 offer in anticipation of getting $95,000 elsewhere.

Hmmm. Maybe it’s time to rethink Financial Managers’ rates.