What was your first Job?

[PeterPanic]

My first outside of the family job was pumping gas at a gas station. They were just gas and repairs back then, no mini-marts. I made 50 cents an hours and got a 20 cent commission for every quart of oil that I sold. Many cars were just a little over full when I got through with them.

My second job was stocking shelves in a small mom and pop grocery store for 55 cents per hour before I hit the big time and manned the booth at a miniature golf course. 75 cents per hour...I was rich at that point. Might add this was all in one summer as I was going into my Junior year of High School. The last two were simultaneous until the owner of the store found out, and then I was just with the golf course.

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

can include work experience and stuff like that.

mine was work experience in a garden centre for a week in 2008 , it was ok.

When I was 15 (and I'm 42, so a LOOOONG time ago) I worked in a veterinarian's office. I wanted to be a vet, so it was a great job - or so I thought. I lasted a week. Couldn't handle them putting pets to sleep. Got a job at a TCBY frozen yogurt instead (do they even have those anymore?)

Needless to say, I didn't become a vet and I REALLY don't like frozen yogurt anymore.

 

[lisaviolet]

Movie projectionist at the local theater.

held it for several years until I joined the military out of high school.

Wow, what a first job!

I started work as a CNA at the nursing home when I was 15 and continued off and on until I was 21. Shifts were 6am-2pm though I couldn't start till 7 when I was 15. If I did a bath shift, it started at 5:30 am. My mom was the DON so that is the only reason I got into that. It really was pretty hard work physically and just knowing what to do for 50+ residents and all their preferences. I did have the patience for it! Some days were pretty awful but I still have lots of good memories of the residents too.

Hmmm, I can only imagine that having this a first job really impacted your life as in who you are/became.

______________________________________

I had a paper route at 11 or 12.

But my first fill in the paperwork/SIN # job was at a bakery at 14. I remember it clearly because it was $2.65/hour and a mere year later I made $4.45/hr at a pickle factory for the summer. I felt SO rich to jump that much in a year. I couldn't even believe that they would be paying me such a wage.

 

[bigbabyblues]

I worked as an admitting clerk of a hospital. I started when I was 18, during the summer after I graduated from high school, and I worked there full time on evening and midnight shift all through college.

 

[LindaG4458]

After babysitting from age 14 to 15 1/2 (at 50 cents per hour) I'd had enough.

That summer I worked at the walk-up window at a soft-serve ice cream/fried fish stand. I remember being very excited when the minimum wage (what I was making) went up to $1 per hour! It was OK, but there were no weekends off.

Beginning at the end of that summer until college I held several jobs at local "five and dime" stores as a clerk and/or cashier.

During college I worked in local factories. The money was fairly good, the hours were regular, and I knew a lot of other employees doing the same thing.

 

[tatolee]

First job was cutting grass at 13, but my first real job was at 15 working at McDonalds! Taking orders and flipping burgers....that was a long time ago!

 

[VAfamily1998]

Babysitting when I was 13-17

Then my first "real" job when I was 17 was at a children's boutique clothing store.

 

[WDWBarb]

Sales Hostess, Main Street USA. I sewed names on mouse ears at The Chapeau.

 

[Tink575]

My first job was as a cashier at our local supermarket, Waldbaum's, when I was 16.

 

[pigletgirl]

I was a life guard for an athletic club. I loved it! It's where I "officially" met DH. Lots of good memories.

 

[KaLyn]

A classroom aide in a daycare when I was 17.

 

[Chelley00]

Mine was when I was 13 putting drops in the eyes of the old lady who lived next door to us three times a day. She had dementia but her daughter refused to put her in a nursing home. She never remembered who I was. She'd sometimes be sitting there in her big old granny panties and baggy bras. That's not cool for a 13 year old girl to witness.

Once when my parents left for the weekend when I was 14 or so, they arranged for me to stay at her house so I could still do her drops. I woke up in the middle of the night with her staring at me and when I turned on the lights cockroaches scattered.

 

[Hollywoodhaha]

I was 16 and worked at Justice, a little girls clothing store that used to be called Limited Too.

 

[pigletgirl]

I was 16 and worked at Justice, a little girls clothing store that used to be called Limited Too.

LOVED Limited too!!

I think I pretty much owned the entire store!

 

[PigletsPal2]

We weren't allowed to work during the school year when I was old enough to work (our "job" was to learn!), and I babysat my younger sisters for free during the summer, so I didn't have a real job until I graduated high school.

Unlike most of my secretarial-trained classmates, I didn't go to work for the government. They only paid $3200 a year ($3500 if you had shorthand, which I did, and no, these amounts are NOT typos! I'm old, and this was a loooooong time ago!). I answered an ad in the Washington Post for a secretary, which turned out to be secretary to Chairman of the Board of a large travel agency, paying the princely sum of $4912 a year!

Queen Colleen

 

[mrodgers]

I am a long timer. I started at 16 in 1988 working in a local owned grocery store, evenings and weekends during school and longer during summers. I didn't go away to college, I commuted so I continued work at the grocery store. In the summers after I turned 18 I started working the night shift. I left temporarily to do a 3 month internship at HJ Heinz in Pittsburgh that extended out to 6 months into the summer. I had 1 more semester to finish up English and Speech courses (you know, those PITA non-important ones, LOL) and went back to working at the grocery store full time on the night shift for a year. I was there for 7 years.

After getting my little AAS degree I got a "real" job in 1995 at a new manufacturing facility that just opened up and I've been there ever since. It's kind of neat being one of the top 5 in seniority of non-management folks. Then again, I don't have anything to do with the largest production department anymore and when I venture over that way, everyone looks at me like they are thinking, "who the heck is the new guy?"

I was 16 and worked at Justice, a little girls clothing store that used to be called Limited Too.

LOVED Limited too!!

I think I pretty much owned the entire store!

A coworker of mine's daughter was working for Justice. He told me she wanted to quit but couldn't. She needed to work about another month to pay off her all the clothes she was having deducted from her pay, LOL.

 

[tvguy]

KITCHEN AND BATHROOM CABINENT HANDLE INSTALLER. Neighbors built 3 apartment complexes, didn't want to pay the going rate to have the cabinet makers put the handles on the kitchen cabinets. Had their son and I put the handles on. I was 15. I think I got a $100 savings bond as pay.

SECURITY GUARD: I was an Explorer Scout with the Sheriff's Department, local department store chain hired us as uniformed security guards since our uniforms said Sheriff's Department in big letters, and Deputy Explorer in little letters, so people thought were were real cops. We were there strictly as a deterrent. Under orders to walk the other way if we say the undercover security people making an rrest. I did this from age 16 to 18. $2.25 an hour, 25 cents above minimum wage.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Field labor on the family garden (1 acre garden plus orchards) from knee-high size until after college.

 

[wgeo]

Well babysitting - but if that doesn't count I was the sample lady "girl" at the local grocery store. I loved it! Everybody is happy to see the sample lady, my shifts always went fast!

 

[nicolita3]

My first job was working in a factory at 14. I did that for about a year then I worked in the kitchen of a nursing home, was receptionist in nursing homes, I was a resident care assistant and did activities in nursing homes. I also worked in the school cafeteria. I did all that during high school plus sports...it makes my head spin just thinking about it. My days off were Tuesdays and Thursdays. If I had a game or something special I would have to ask a couple of weeks ahead of time.