First there was American reality TV star Kim Kardashian, who said her baby daughter with the rapper Kanye West would have to find a job and pay her own way when she is older. Now Karren Brady, a judge on BBC1’s The Apprentice, has told The Sunday Times that she believes youngsters should get Saturday jobs to avoid future failure in the workplace. ‘Saturday jobs teach you about responsibility, about turning up on time and not letting people down.’

A Saturday job may teach you the aforementioned, but the main lesson it teaches is the importance of getting a decent education so you don’t end up doing that clock-watching, lowly-paid Saturday job every day. Comedian Chris Rock puts it brilliantly in his sketch on jobs and careers…

Apparently, a recent survey revealed business leaders’ concerns that the digital generation lack people skills. ‘The research showed that youngsters are using their mobile phones for long periods, taking long lunch and coffee breaks and failing to turn up on time,’ Brady said. I doubt technology is to blame; some teenagers are just being teenagers…

The japes we got up to in our part-time jobs are a teenage rite of passage. And sometimes the customers behave even worse. I once worked in a pub where a guy would steal from the co-op across the road and try to sell his goods at the bar, customers rolled joints and openly discussed their dodgy dealings. Soon after I left, there was a shooting.

I’m sure Brady’s daughter doesn’t experience such extreme behaviour while folding clothes at her local branch of Hollister’s, but I expect her communication skills are improving… At the artisanal bakery I spent one summer working at, an old lady in twinset and pearls commented on the loaf of bread I handed her, ‘That bread’s as burnt as you are.’