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While the author of this quote, Orison Marden, was not thinking about teens with a summer job when he wrote these words, I do wish that every youth with summer employment had these words taped to their bathroom mirror to reflect upon daily.

Character is ultimately about showing up; it's about congruent actions and words. Teens with summer employment have a great opportunity to practice the foundation of character development - consistency in thought and action.

I remember my first job. I worked at a driving range. I didn't need to be a brain surgeon to do the work. Often, my job found me unloading golf balls to clean and then re-load into buckets. It was not thrilling work, but I knew, because my boss told me, that customers expected clean, uncut balls to hit.

With that knowledge I looked at my work as if I were the manager of the golf range. I knew that customer satisfaction required clean balls. I took on the commitment to make sure that the customers got what they were paying for.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? The fact is, I was internally motivated to perform with excellence on behalf of my employer. Far too many employees, often part-time employees, look at their work from the filter of doing the minimum and not caring about the result of their labor.

These employees believe they're entitled to a job and a wage but not to work on behalf of their employer's best interests.

Character growth on the job requires more than minimum effort. The motivation to deliver more than mediocrity on the job is a hallmark of practicing character growth. As a summer employee a teen can stamp a superior quality on his or her work by remembering that character counts on the job by showing up to pursue excellence daily.

Russell Williams is president of Passkeys Foundation~Jefferson Center for Character Education. For information contact (949) 770-7602 or www.jeffersoncenter.org