What was your first job?

Summer before my senior year I cleaned up a self serve car wash. After flunking out of college I washed dishes. A few months later I spent a little over a year as daycare for my niece.

At 14 i moved appliances into houses and did basic repairs for a small used appliance dealer.

First legitimate job was actually wal-mart TLE. They started out at better pay then the local dealers.

at 14 I was working at a Fresh fruit and veggies market making fresh squeezed orange juice, taking out the trash, and cleaning up.. it lasted all of about a month before I got fired as I was not really fit enough for the job.. 6 months later my health fell apart completely, so I am sure it was just the beginning symptoms

Had been helping dad w/ handyman work since I was a kid; roofs, porches, lotta painting, concrete, firewood, yard work etc. Missed a lotta cartoons. At 14 worked summers and weekends on a farm, started at $1/ hr. That was good work for a kid and you knew you earned your dough at the end of the day. Don't miss puttin' up hay tho.

I worked in a (plant) nursery at 15 loading cars and going on deliveries to plant items. Occasionally my boss would ask if I wanted to make 12 bucks an hour and go help the landscaping crews. Pretty much jumped at that chance every time.

Then I got a job doing network support for a local ISP at 17. I'm pretty sure it molded me into the bitter jaded individual that I am today.

Painting Propane Tanks in Davis County Iowa, $4.35 /hr. Driving around in a 1ton reg cab long bed 4x4 Chevy with propane power. During the winter and inclement weather I stocked shelves and swept warehouses. It was an awesome job.

I was a paper boy from age 7 to 10, until we moved. 37 customers, six days a week. The paper cost $1.10 per week.

My father had a printing business. We put sequential numbers on the ends of envelopes, mainly for the state government. If you had a car registered in the state back then, you had a yellow envelope in your glove compartment that passed through our hands.

In middle school, I started loading and unloading trucks. By eighth grade or so, I was running a small press. A carton contained 2500 envelopes, divided into five boxes of 500 each. I would cut open the carton, remove the five boxes, grab a handful of envelopes, fan them out and feed them into the printer. While they were running through the printer, I had to hand number each box and carton to indicate the range of numbers inside. The envelopes came out of the printer, onto a conveyor belt and down a chute. Then I would scoop up 500, put them into the proper box and then put them back in the carton. Everything had to remain in sequence. I got paid $1 per thousand envelopes. If I kept the machine clean, inked and oiled, I could easily do 12,000 per hour. If everything was running perfectly and I kept hitting the rollers with rubbing alcohol (on my fingertips) I could get up to 15,000, but I was constantly at risk of looking like Lucy in the candy factory. Also, the machine liked to jam when it was running too fast.

I haven't run that machine in 30 years, but if I could get my hands on a Pitney Bowes Ticometer right now, I could have five labelled cartons of numbered envelopes for you in less than an hour.

fasted58 wrote: Had been helping dad w/ handyman work since I was a kid; roofs, porches, lotta painting, concrete, firewood, yard work etc. Missed a lotta cartoons. At 14 worked summers and weekends on a farm, started at $1/ hr. That was good work for a kid and you knew you earned your dough at the end of the day. Don't miss puttin' up hay tho.

Ugh, I used to put in hay for a farmer by the house, got 5$ per wagon we did. That's hard sweaty itchy get stabbed under the fingernails work

wearymicrobe wrote: Man you guys had some good first jobs. Mine was separating meat that was like a day past the toss date from the bone and dyeing it blue and filling up 55 gallon drums with the waste and the kurf from the butchers band saws. Learned real quick how to sharpen a knife and show vaparub up my nose.

My first real job that wasn't with my dad or putting in hay was at a grocery store as a stock boy/ bitch. We got to clean the meat room at the end of the day so the meat room guys could just go home. I can still smell that smell from when they did liver that day.... I still have never tried liver and never will

nepa03focus wrote:

fasted58 wrote: Had been helping dad w/ handyman work since I was a kid; roofs, porches, lotta painting, concrete, firewood, yard work etc. Missed a lotta cartoons. At 14 worked summers and weekends on a farm, started at $1/ hr. That was good work for a kid and you knew you earned your dough at the end of the day. Don't miss puttin' up hay tho.

Ugh, I used to put in hay for a farmer by the house, got 5$ per wagon we did. That's hard sweaty itchy get stabbed under the fingernails work

Yea, that sweaty, itchy E36 M3 and the occasional snake under the twine, lol. I about had enough of hay when boss man was looking for a painter, hell yea I volunteered. I musta painted every outbuilding on the damn place but at least I wasn't puttin' up hay. Best job tho was sellin' sweet corn out on the highway. Seems I always lucked into good jobs.

Grass cutter.. then busboy (eyes opened to the food and beverage industry).. then nail bender/laborer for a remodeling contractor.

Pin spotter at the local bowling alley. 25 cents a string for 5-pin, 50 for 10-pins or ducks.

Was a paperboy for a while. Then did child-sitting. Usually boys that were too rough for girls to handle, aged between 5-9. Was a symphony musician (2nd chair trombone) in the community symphony, didn't pay well but did pay some. Painted apartments and custodial work after high school. That got me in the army which then turned into a career and 20 years later retired out of the army and was a full time college student while working at an auto parts store then teaching A&P at a small trade school before offered a job where I am now.

Mowing a lawn. A friend of my dad paid me to keep his 15 acre lawn mowed. about 3 of that was real mowing with about 100 trees to trim around (a former tree farm). The rest got brush hogged twice a year. Hardest part of the job was tracking hours and getting paid.

First full time job: Geek Squad. I had the beetle and all. Worst part was the awful costume, and going into hoarder houses. Best part was the car.

I'm not that old, but Geek Squad, CarMax, Taco Bell and Home Depot are names on this list that didn't exist around here when I started working.

I turned 13 in 1987. That summer I rode my bike to the high school (!) to get my first work permit. Then I started working the front counter at a local burger place called Rodees (we called it Grodees). I don't remember what I made per hour, but it was less than minimum wage.

That lasted three weeks. I never figured out the cash register, got griped at by customers for food that was made wrong, and was eventually told by my boss I was so stupid I couldn't even tie a trash bag right.

First for reals job was after college as a tool and die apprentice. I loved the work, but the industry was pretty shaky. Not one place I worked stayed in business more than a year after I left.

paranoid_android74 wrote: Not one place I worked stayed in business more than a year after I left.

2 weeks after I quit MediaPlay, who owned sam goody and a few other chains, shut down as a corporation. The hotel I worked at was sold and converted to an assisted living facility. I've seen the end of three restaurants, 2 telemarketing firms, and a block buster. It makes it really hard to list prior employers when they're all gone.

I think I'm cursed, or a bad luck charm.

Started work at a grocery store at 14 as a bag boy; stayed in the company for 11 years, moving into management, while I finished my Uni degree.

I vaguely had a paper route, but I don't remember for how long. Pay was under the table.

First real part time job when I turned 16 was at a hobby shop I used to hang out at.

Picking green beans at a local farm. Got paid by the bushel, then the fatbastard would sit on the bushel before he paid us.

Very thankful to work in the County Nursing Home kitchen, cleaning and serving meals at 15.

During the summers when I was 14-15, I did occasional work for my friend's dad's home construction business. I'd work a few days every couple weeks when they were really busy, mostly just as a gopher although I did get to do a bit of framing and other fun stuff too.

My first official job was cashiering in a grocery store at 16. Boring as hell for the most part, but not bad overall. I ended up staying there up through the summer after my freshman year in college, eventually moving to the seafood department after quitting for a brief stint due to sports.

What was Minimum Wage when you all started working? My mom talks about making $0.65/hr when she started at a farm stand. It was $4.25 for me in about 1993-1994. I go raises along the way to increase my wage to $5.15 just about the time they increased it to $5.15. Thanks Obama.

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine:

When I was 16, minimum wage was $3.75 an hour, which oddly enough, was exactly what a six pack of Budweiser cost back then.

Coinkydink? I think not...

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine:

In PA it was $3.35 in '83 (per google, my memory ain't that good). I didn't get that much because I was 13 years old, getting cash and $10 for a shift seemed like a ton of dough.

Washing dishes at Pizza Hut. Moved up to cook in a few months.