President Barack Obama said his unglamorous first job scooping ice cream at a Hawaii Baskin-Robbins as a teenager taught him valuable lessons about responsibility and hard work.
In a post Thursday on the LinkedIn social media website, Obama said he wanted the same experience for other teenagers, especially those without resources and opportunities.
"Scooping ice cream is tougher than it looks," Obama wrote. "Rows and rows of rock-hard ice cream can be brutal on the wrists. As a teenager working behind the counter at Baskin-Robbins in Honolulu, I was less interested in what the job meant for my future and more concerned about what it meant for my jump shot."
He went on to write that while the job wasn't glamorous it taught him these valuable lessons: "Responsibility. Hard work. Balancing a job with friends, family, and school."
Obama's essay titled "Here's the Scoop: Why My First Job Mattered" was timed to the administration's announcement of a project to help young people get their first jobs.
He's calling on businesses to give more people their first job this summer and to help recruit, train and mentor teenagers who are out of school and work.
The budget Obama sent Congress this month includes $6 billion to help more than 1 million young people get that first job.