What was your first job?

(Not counting the Navy from '85-91) Mine was a car dealership in New Orleans, downtown actually. Caddy/Chevy/Lexus/Sterling/Rolls Royce. I was supposed to be a Quality Inspector, testing fixes when mechanics were done. Trying to make whatever the customer said was happening, happen, if he couldn't find it. And test driving new cars on the lot looking for any issues when nothing else. But pretty much a glorified porter and taxi cab.

Didn't pay worth E36 M3 ($6) but fresh outta the Navy I had no perspective. Hell, it was more than minimum wage! It also got me the chance to learn my way around New Orleans (had just moved there for a girl, oops) and a chance to drive some nice cars (and total E36 M3boxes as well). If nothing else I learned to drive a manual there. Remember that the next time you drop your car off somewhere...

And testing a brnad new ZR-1 Vette that has wheel shake at 80mph? Well, I'm dedicated to my job so......

Curious what you guys started with?

Carpentry. I spend each summer through high school working for my father and uncle building houses on Cape Cod.

Dishwasher. That and subsequent Landscape Construction, convinced me that I should not totally destroy my brain cells because I was going to need them to make a living that did not involve my muscles!

I was a parking lot attendant in downtown Indy when I first started college there. Coming from a town of 1300-people, that was quite a shock. The lot I usually worked required us to park the cars because we packed them in tight. In general, the nicer/more expensive the car, the less the owner cared; while the bigger of POS it was, the more like the owner would outright protest allowing anyone else to drive it.

I remember hopping in a new(at the time) 944, as well as an AMG Benz. However, the one I remember most was one of our daily customers - a woman with a POS early Accord. She had no problem allowing us to drive it...just stick the screwdriver in the ignition slot & turn, it starts right up. The clutch was also about shot. I had to turn it around in the alley one day & couldn't get it up the slight incline into the lot, so we ended up pushing it. I was terrified she would be pissed, but somehow she got it home & kept driving it.

I worked exactly 1 day as a dish washer at a local restaurant. When I came home my mother told me about an incident that happened a few weeks before that she just found out about and told me she didn't want me working there anymore. Which was fine, because it was terrible.

I got a job a few weeks later with QuikTrip. That was a great place to work in High School and College.

First full-time job? Assistant buyer in the China department at a Chicago based restaurant supply distributor.

First job? Not counting lawn/snow work as a kid and paper routes - I worked 3-1/2 years through high school for a single family home builder as the "clean-up" boy. I swept and picked up all the garbage on a construction site. I learned a LOT. The 45 year old concrete guy taught me how to hot wire an old 1967 Chevrolet truck so we can move our scraps more efficiently. Every so often the drywaller guy would ask me if I wanted to smoke a joint.

Not counting yard/snow work, my first job was a Caddie at 13. Stuck with that until I graduated college, and even went back a few weekends while working my first "real" job. I started making $25 a round, ended the summer with $1,000. Big money for a 13 year old. By the time I finished I was making $120 a round. There was at least one summer I made over $10,000, cash. Great job.

At 12 I started my own lawn care business in our neighborhood. I had four customers. I charged $20 per lawn. I paid for my own gas and gave my Dad $2 per lawn as rental for using his riding lawn mower. I still have most of the Hot Wheels I bought using that money.

Pumping gas and changing tires at the local Gulf. I also washed dishes and bused tables at the restaurant next door on weekends and for weddings. I was 13.

Chic-fil-a did it for 3 years.

Then a stint at Sears, selling appliances.

Then I graduated and got jobs in engineering.

Built and repaired computers at a used PC store (back when those were a thing).

This is back when a 386-DX-40 was FAST!

First day I went to work? I was 8 and I really wanted a LEGO set. I asked to go to work with the old man. Not really having anything for me to do, I moved a brick pile about 10 feet. 8 hours later and I was $8 richer.

First job in high school was working as a warehouseman for a vending machine company. As a fringe benefit, I ended up hauling off a lot of just-past-the-expiration-date cookies and candy.

First actual job ever was a telemarketer for the Police Benevolent Association, part time the summer after I graduated high school. Next summer I worked OT on a framing and vinyl siding crew. Summer after that I washed dogs in the grooming department at a PetSmart for minimum wage. After that it was full time summers and part time winters on the counter at Advance Auto Parts until I graduated College.

Caddie @ a country club... then moved into food service @ the same club

First job, 13yo, putting bicycles together at a local hardware store. 1.00 per hour. Hey, it was 1958.

Very first was running a paper route at age 12. First permanent/full-time job was in the USMC as a radar technician for this ground-to-air missile defense system...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/jVQ8Yhbhp8E

First job was mowing lawns, from middle school through high school graduation I had about 10-12 customers with residential 1/4 acres that could be mowed, bagged and edged in 1-1.5 hours for $20-$30 under the table in the early 2000's. I was happy. I didn't make that much per hour after taxes at a real job until several years after graduating college. Heck, my mom kinda took over the business during college because it was easy money in the evenings. I'd still knock out a few when visiting for an easy $60.

First real job at a company and stuff was working summers as random help at ATI Performance products. Assembling dampers, running a laser etcher, painting flexplates, boxing up orders, painting the...roof, etc.

Taco Bell 1988. Back when they still sourced their ground beef and cheese locally. Nothing was pre-made. I had to cut the tortillas into wedges and fry them to make the chips, cook 25lb batches of ground beef and 50lb batches of beans from whole dried pintos.

I remember the food being pretty good. Then corporate mandated the freeze dried/boil in bag stuff and everything went to crap. Customers stopped coming in and the store was closed. I wound up as the night cleanup guy at another taco bell across town.

"software sales" at CompUSA. This was right as the internet was becoming widespread, so it was an interesting time, to say the least

When I got kicked out of school at 14 I started in construction working for my dad who was the site superintendant. Spring summer fall working on buildings, winters plowing and shoveling snow at all the owners properties. I was 14, driving around getting parts/materials, running equipment on site, and mostly getting stuck with all the bitchwork, like moving block and staging drywall. Or my favorite "here's a shovel/hammer/pick, go break it busting out that concrete" Worked there almost 10 years, usually with a night job once I was old enough for a work permit and to be legally employed.

It sucked, at times, but paid cash and was steady steady work for years. Tons of fun when new guys would think I had it easy because my dad was the boss. Nope, I was expected to do twice as much as everyone else, because when I berkeleyed up at home, I paid for it at work. "You came home drunk at 3am, and woke the whole house up. See those 4 cubes of 16" ivony blocks? Move them to the other side of the parking lot. By the way, the petibone is down, so you gotta walk'em." good times.

Lot of fun at 18 firing guys in their 30s and 40s for doing absolute crap work though.

First legitimate job was Sam Goody. Selling crappy overpriced cds to crappy fake people. 5 winters in a mall, christmas music still sends me into rages.

First real paycheck paying gig? I was 16, February and March, 1986: Braum's Ice Cream shop at 71st and Mingo, Tulsa. It was miserable.

After gritting my teeth for two months, I finally ditched it on a Friday night to go to a Dokken/Queensryche concert with my friends That job sucked so much that being bad felt really good.

Jumper K. Balls wrote: Taco Bell 1988. Back when they still sourced their ground beef and cheese locally. Nothing was pre-made. I had to cut the tortillas into wedges and fry them to make the chips, cook 25lb batches of ground beef and 50lb batches of beans from whole dried pintos. I remember the food being pretty good. Then corporate mandated the freeze dried/boil in bag stuff and everything went to crap. Customers stopped coming in and the store was closed. I wound up as the night cleanup guy at another taco bell across town.

The youngsters at my current job think I'm crazy when I tell them how close-to-homemade Taco Bell used to be. We shredded cheese off the block, diced the tomatoes, and shredded the lettuce, too. My third high school job.

Lifeguard- super easy job as long as nobody was drowning. You get all the morning shifts when you're the only guy who can consistently fix the ancient pool vac, too, which means afternoons off all summer- or 16hr days when I needed the cash.

Appliance repair for my dad during summers in high school. Though technically I started as gopher and tool box carrier, he wanted to make sure I knew what the working world was like.

Later during grad school I worked at a Home Depot. Not a bad gig, work was certainly easier than with my dad. Now I'm back working full time with my dad while he attempts to taper off and maybe someday when he's 75 (not too long off) he plans to retire.