I consider an hour unpaid lunch part of my day. I do 55 paid hour weeks on the regular. You're right it's not average. Neither is 9.5 average, so we're both exaggerating a bit. 10 hours paid day?
Pay: the dude is 16. If he were to start PT, and have an average tragectory with a similar couple contracts, he'll be making maybe 40/hr when he makes top rate (10 yrs from now? ) what's min wage gonna be then? Betcha its over 15. So yeah the numbers will be bigger but the lifestyle it buys will be smaller. I hope I'm wrong.
I'm not miserable here. I enjoy the work most of the time. But it's a fallback position, having messed everything else up. It does not reward excellence, it doesn't reward education, there's no promotion opportunities (unless feeders is a promotion? ) all of which make a career. It's a job. A good job, no doubt, but a job.
That's what I'll tell my kids when they ask, and that's what I tell other kids when they ask.