Your first job

[2jakes]

The first job I had was working after school and weekends for
my father helping sort out the empty bottles of Dr. Pepper.
Putting them on a wooden crate and placing them on the delivery
truck.

When my dad became foreman of the bottling plant I enjoyed
free Dr. Peppers.
On weekends was treated to the best seafood in town.

I had other minor jobs as a kid but this one is memorable because I
was able to spend some time with my dad.

I worked hard for the money, I learned to spend it mostly on important
things and not waste it.
Although my very first payday, I went overboard on chocolate malts
and got upset tummy.
(malts cost 50¢)

 

[scottyrocks]

My first job - not really my own, though, was filling in as a paper boy on my brother's route when necessary.

My first real paying job was when I was in high school. I became a do-all at a start-up baby clothing factory. We would rubber-band onezies and load them into the three washing machines we had on premises for tie-dying, and then the dryers. After they were dry, the owner operated a silk screen machine, and he would print cute sayings on them. When the ink was dry, they were boxed up to be shipped out to various stores.

Pretty soon we got so busy that our few dryers couldn't keep up with demand. So the boss had me load baskets of wet onezies into his station wagon (pre-minivan and SUV days) and drive over to the local laundromat to use their dryers.

Of course, this ticked off the local laundromat patrons, who had no dryers to use when I was there because I was using every available dryer, snagging every one that was emptied so I could do my business and get out of there.

So between chewed up hands from rubber bands and hot water, and having the laundromat manager threaten to throw me out more than once, and all that for minimum wage, I quit when I got a lead on a catering job. I did that all through college and made a decent amount of money, but my weekends were basically mostly working days, and/or nights.

 

[GHT]

My first job was working for my Grandmother, I was just ten years old. Reason being, my mother died young, she was 33, Dad had four kids to raise, the authorities were keen to remove us and put us up for adoption, but Dad was having none of it. He arranged various family members to take care of my siblings, whilst I stayed with Dad. The one problem that threw up was the long school breaks at Easter, Summer and Christmas. My Father's mother had a fish & chip shop, so I stayed with Grandmother during the periods of school closure, and worked in her shop, well not exactly the shop. She had a covered yard with all the machinery for peeling and chipping the potatoes, and gutting & filleting the fish. I operated the peeler and chipper. Granny gave me two shillings a day and a pound at the end of the week. This being 1956 I was probably one of the highest earning ten year olds around.

My second job was just as lucky. At the time of leaving school, the college that I was due to attend was having an extention built, this would cause quite a delay. In fact from leaving school to starting college I had about nine months to spare. How it happened I can't quite remember, but I was in France and heard about a need for labour in the vinyards, grape picking. I managed to get work in the South of France, then followed the harvest as the grapes ripened, all the way up to the Belgium border. The pay was pathetic but the wine was free, better still, in that time I learned enough French to be able to think in the language, so although not completely fluent, I could keep up.

After graduating from college I joined The Hays organisation as a trainee manager. Hays were an international company, that knowledge of French came in very handy, more than once.

 

[Zombie_61]

My first job was at a local hospital while I was still in high school. I was an Environmental Services Aide II; in layman's terms, a janitor. Part time, three nights a week from 5:00 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., my job was to remove every piece of equipment from two Operating Rooms that were not being used, strip and wax the floors, then put all of the equipment back exactly where it was before I started. A few of the surgeons were egotistical jerks, but the others and all of the OR nurses were very nice. It was a pretty relaxed environment, and I rarely saw my immediate supervisors; once they felt comfortable that I knew the job, they left me alone to do it. And there was always fresh popcorn to snack on--they went through four or five popcorn makers a year. The pay wouldn't have been enough to live on if I'd been a single adult, but for a teenage high school student still living with his parents it was pretty good.

Then I broke my left arm in a car accident and had to take 12 weeks off. By the time I returned for work they had filled my previous position, and I was assigned the glorious duty of emptying the trash in all of the patients' rooms--four floors, four wings per floor; the only areas where I was not allowed access were the maternity ward and the psychiatric ward because I was under the age of 21. And if/when I finished that, the night supervisor would assign me random tasks like vacuuming the carpets in the lobby, polishing all of the fish-eye mirrors at every hallway intersection, or mopping the floors in the morgue in the basement (the walls of which were painted blood red). The work wasn't particularly strenuous, but all of that walking caused severe cramps in my calves that would regularly wake me up during the four hours I was trying to sleep before I had to get up to go to school. I stuck it out for two or three months, but between the leg cramps, the lack of sleep, and the monotony of my new duties, I decided the money wasn't worth the hassles and I quit.

 

[Doctor Strange]

My first job was working in my parents' little commercial photo studio.

By the time I was 13, I was working there every day after school and during the summers. I was developing b/w film, making and drying prints, loading 4x5 film holders, moving lights and holding reflectors, retouching litho negatives, and being Dad's assistant on occasional location shoots. I was even a hand model on occasion, and after I began driving I was sometimes sent out solo to do liquor license photos or other straightforward 35mm documentation work. They initially paid me hardly anything, but by the time I stopped working with them in the year after I got out of college (1978), I was up to around $250/week.

After a bunch of stuff - failing to break into the NYC-based movie industry, more photography, working for an import firm, assorted jobs at printing plants and type shops - I ended up (sort of) using my creative writing degree, becoming a tech writer. I wrote mostly software documentation (manuals, online help, etc.) for over 35 years. I retired last year.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Other than babysitting and yardwork, which I was doing at 13, my first actual paycheck was from working in the office at our gas station as soon as I was legally old enough at 14. I worked there all thru high school -- a full 40 hour week during my senior year, by which time I had taken over most of the bookkeeping from my grandmother. The place closed on my 18th birthday, so I did a bunch of random jobs after that -- painting signs for the county bus company, counting empty bottles in the back of a grocery store, working in a deli, working in a sausage factory, writing fortune cookies, and finally ended up in radio when I was 20. Other than a delightful idyll working for a year in a t-shirt factory, and a very short tenure in an offset-printing plant, I spent the next fifteen years in radio, either writing, performing, or reporting news. I still keep a hand in broadcasting as a freelance writer.

While I was still working at the gas station I also worked with my uncle at the drive-in theatre he managed, apprenticing on projection equipment, and picking up skills that would come in handy once local radio died.

 

[31 Model A]

Shoveling snow off neighbors sidewalks when I was eight (8). First job paid 25 cents. Then came mowing yards, .75 to $1.25 a yard. A couple of years later I put up hay and straw at $.75 per hour or sometimes 2 cents per bale. A couple of years later I was paid big bucks at $72.00 a month w/room and board as a Pvt in the US Army. I saved a lot of money from no longer having to pay for my school books and clothes each year. Uncle Sam provided all that too!!!!!! What a deal!!!!

 

[PrivateEye]

Not counting a paper route, first job was washing dishes and floors, and scrubbing the grill at our local diner, freshman year of high school for minimum wage, which I believe was $3.35 at the time. Only lasted 'til the start of basketball season.

 

[ChiTownScion]

First real job was as a trap boy at a gun club (trap & skeet). I'd be hunkered (sometimes for hours at a time) in a concrete bunker- type structure, placing clay "pigeons" on a mechanical trap arm that would fling them through the open front and into the air for guys with shotguns to blast. The trap machine itself could rip a hand or an arm off: the ones they make now are all mechanically fed and it's doubtful now that 15 and 16 year old kids could get near what I dealt with back then. OSHA would have a fit about those older models: they actually may have had such a fit, for all that I know.


Loved that job, although it paid little. My boss was the most generous, decent, fair, and funny guy I've ever worked for. He'd been a tank officer under Patton in the Big One, and had little use for General Blood & Guts. He really was like the mischievous uncle all kids wanted. The members of the club were by and large a decent bunch as well. Trap and skeet (and now, sporting clays) are sports which attract (my opinion here) a more genteel and better educated clientele than some of the other shooting pastimes. The shotguns themselves were expensive, and could cost upward of $12,000 for a custom made Perazzi (1971 dollars, mind you) so it was not a place that drew trailer park gun nut types. Mainly those at the club were people who worked hard at their professions and businesses during the week and just wanted a few hours to enjoy their hobby/ sport.


That job funded my social life and my first year of college- and my auto insurance when I began driving. I stayed with it until I landed a construction job that paid roughly four times more. A positive experience!

 

[2jakes]

When milk was delivered to your home on trucks with only one seat for
the driver....I was the kid that delivered the milk in pints, quarts or
gallon size glass bottles to your door step.
If you've seen "Rebel Without a Cause"....the scene where Dean drinks
milk straight from the bottle.
In my household... you did that...you would've gotten a rap on the
head for it.

My oddest job without a doubt has to be working for Jack Warner
in Beverly Hills.
Basically as a "butler". It was quite an experience meeting the
"stars" in person.

My favorite job in my 20s when I got out of the military,
was working in a big dept. store in the Camera Dept.

Worse was the "Trim-A-Tree" dept. during Christmas time.
I hated the fake trees and how the customers behaved during
the holidays.

Only memorable thing was selling Darren McGavin a polaroid kit.
This was before he made the classic movie," Christmas Story".
I remembered him from TV series,
"The Night Stalker"...not quite sure of the title.

 

[MisterCairo]

Not counting paid babysitting, my dad got me a job at the CN Tower in Toronto, working in the fast food booths, particularly the enormous fibreglass "orange" fresh juice squeezing centre (I can still smell the peels and mush and the mold from some of the oranges - "just wipe them off!"), and the exterior hot dog and soft serve booth, a mocked up caboose.

It was summer 1984, I just turned 17, and my first paycheque, exactly $77.00, I used to open an account at Canada Trust, which I had until just last year.

The only known photograph of me in my polyester uniform (black trousers, white shirt and red and white striped smock with matching visor) was taken by an elderly Japanese tourist on his way back to the bus.

Somewhere in an album in Tokyo or what have you, is the dopiest looking teenager in a fake caboose...

 

[2jakes]

Not counting paid babysitting, my dad got me a job at the CN Tower in Toronto, working in the fast food booths, particularly the enormous fibreglass "orange" fresh juice squeezing centre (I can still smell the peels and mush and the mold from some of the oranges - "just wipe them off!"), and the exterior hot dog and soft serve booth, a mocked up caboose.

It was summer 1984, I just turned 17, and my first paycheque, exactly $77.00, I used to open an account at Canada Trust, which I had until just last year.

The only known photograph of me in my polyester uniform (black trousers, white shirt and red and white striped smock with matching visor) was taken by an elderly Japanese tourist on his way back to the bus.

Somewhere in an album in Tokyo or what have you, is the dopiest looking teenager in a fake caboose...

Lol..I enjoyed your story.

I imagine somewhere in Hollywoodland... is a snapshot of
me in a “tux” when I worked for Warner Bros.
The "monkey suit” consisted of a white jacket with a bow-tie
during the day and serving dinner required me to wear a black
jacket.

Took a while to learn how to carry a food tray properly and
where each of those friggin silverware utensils were supposed
to be on the table.

Had it not been for Mrs. Warner who liked me, and patient with
me, I would've been out the door and on the street.

The Beverly Hills cops would've stopped me in seconds,
wanting to know what the hell was I doing there.

Practically nobody walks in Beverly Hills, except for the folks
working on the lawns.
EDIT:
On one of my days off, I put on my tennis track suit and went
for a stroll around the “Hood”.
In less than a block, I was stopped by the Beverly Hills police.
I showed them my ID and explained I was taking a stroll
enjoying the sights and possibly stop at a 7-11 for a soda pop.
They looked at me puzzled and told me,” son... there's no 7-11s
or convenience stores in B.H.

On the way back, I spotted some folks dressed in tennis gear.
I asked them if they knew of any public tennis courts.
They didn’t know of any but asked me if I was good at tennis.
I told them I won some local tournaments.
I was invited inside and played a game of doubles.
They enjoyed my game because when they were on my side,
they always won.
The maid who served us refreshments was dressed in black-and-white
just like the ones you see in ’30s movies.
I noticed the initial “E.G.” on the bar wall.
Turns out this was one of Eva Gabor’s homes.
She was in New York while her lawyers and managers were taking
care of the estate.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Oh, my gosh. To this day, my wife says I’m a “social chameleon” and can talk to anyone because I worked every job imaginable from high school through university. First a paper route, then busing tables. Then as a dish washer. Then working with developmentally disabled kids, fast food, tour guide on the Queen Mary, deck hand on a schooner, retail sales, chopping wood ( no kidding), camp counselor, market research. Office clerk. Oye! I’m sure I’m forgetting a few. Pizza cook. Worked my way through college, sometimes working two jobs Plus classes to keep body and soul together. Not to mention four years in the Army. Do kids have these kinds of experiences today? I’m exhausted just remembering it all. No wonder I’m spoiling my kids rotten.

 

[2jakes]

Oh, my gosh. To this day, my wife says I’m a “social chameleon” and can talk to anyone because I worked every job imaginable from high school through university. First a paper route, then busing tables. Then as a dish washer. Then working with developmentally disabled kids, fast food, tour guide on the Queen Mary, deck hand on a schooner, retail sales, chopping wood ( no kidding), camp counselor, market research. Office clerk. Oye! I’m sure I’m forgetting a few. Pizza cook. Worked my way through college, sometimes working two jobs Plus classes to keep body and soul together. Not to mention four years in the Army. Do kids have these kinds of experiences today? I’m exhausted just remembering it all. No wonder I’m spoiling my kids rotten.

"jack of all trades"!

Most frustrating job!

Working for Ma Bell "information".

Thought I was in heaven working with
lots of babes.
But that was not the case.

Had a supervisor who trained @ Gestapo
University.
Rude customers who asked for the phone number of a friend but didn't know their last name only the first.
Had to supply the phone number within a certain amount of seconds.
Was not allowed to chat with the gals sitting next to me.

I lasted less than a month!

 

[Harp]

My favorite job in my 20s when I got out of
the service was working in a big dept. store
in the Camera Dept.

I was 19 or 20 when I lucked out and selected for USO Playboy Playmates military bodyguard duty.
Thought I hit the GI jackpot.

 

[Peacoat]

I was 19 or 20 when I lucked out and selected for USO Playboy Playmates military bodyguard duty.
Thought I hit the GI jackpot.

I think you did.

My first job was as a lifeguard at age 17. Did that for three summers. As they say, it is tough duty, but some poor soul has to do it.

 

[Musher]

Paper boy for the Reporter Dispatch and cutting lawns. I do not really remember which I did first but by the time I was in 7th grade I liked earning money. I was the eldest of 5 in a working-class family and never had an allowance growing up so it was great earning money for movies and the ice cream shoppe. I also picked vegetables on a farm but I think that came later in 8th or 9th grade.

 

[Musher]

I was 19 or 20 when I lucked out and selected for USO Playboy Playmates military bodyguard duty.
Thought I hit the GI jackpot.

Lol - who did you know? (I was in the Army 74-77.)

 

[Zombie_61]

...A couple of years later I was paid big bucks at $72.00 a month w/room and board as a Pvt in the US Army. I saved a lot of money from no longer having to pay for my school books and clothes each year. Uncle Sam provided all that too!!!!!! What a deal!!!!

The moment the local recruiting office received my SAT scores they bombarded me daily with "Join the Army and see the Navy!" type propaganda. When that didn't work a recruiter came to my house with a legal-looking document that stated they would send me for officer training immediatly after boot camp, and assured me a position as an Army Lieutenant or a Naval Ensign if I graduated. I grew up watching the Vietnam war on television so that kind of life wasn't immediately appealing to me, but I had uncles and an older brother who had served during the 40s and 50s who made a military career sound like a grand adventure so I seriously considered it...briefly. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that my very anti-authority mindset (at the time) would not be a good fit for that career and that I'd either spend my tour of duty in the brig, peeling an endless supply of potatoes, or I'd receive a dishonorable discharge. So the next time I received a recruitment form in the mail, instead of filling it out properly I grabbed a black marking pen and wrote "Remove my [expletive] name from your [expletive] mailing list!" and mailed it back. That ended the barrage of recruitment paraphernalia, but there's probably a file in a government office somewhere with my name on it.

 

[31 Model A]

Lol - who did you know? (I was in the Army 74-77.)

T'an't nothing...I was in when Mary Pickford was everyone's pin-up!!!!