How old were you when you started work?

[slo]

16 - I was a custom picture framer and I did that for 25 years. Managed another persons store for 18 years (my first 2 years I didn’t manage) and then owned my own store for 5 years (this is one of my greatest life accomplishments). I then closed my store to be with my girls more (I couldnt afford more employees so I was working 50+ hours a week. I loved my store, but I love my girls more) and now I manage a Chiropractor’s office - I’ve been doing this since September 2012. So, I’ve been working with the public for 35 years and I love it!

 

[RUDisney]

I started when I was 12. My DH started when he was 11 and my DS started the day after his 10th birthday.

 

[Snowflakey]

I babysat before but my first real job was the day I turned 16. I got my license that morning and a job right after!

 

[Sleepy425]

When I was 13 I worked for WalMart for a promo event dressing as characters (Gumby, Barney, and Pocahontas). The event was only a week or two long and I got paid under the table. At 15 I started babysitting during mass at church and waiting tables at a pizza shop. Both jobs paid under the table. Finally at 16 I got my first legal jobs.

 

[nicolita3]

14

 

[Mysterian]

13 or 14. We were stationed in Germany, and I got to work at a missile base doing yard work and various odd jobs.

 

[mickeyfan9194]

12. Newspaper route during the school year, on a farm during the summers. At 15, I started working in a restaurant, which was so much easier that the previous 3 years. Of all of the jobs I've had, those first two were the hardest.

 

[mrodgers]

Like others, 16 at the grocery store. Grandpa was old friends with the owner (how that happened I don't know, Grandparents weren't anywhere around where we lived) and had the job lined up for when I turned 16, age when you could get a job in PA back then.

 

[dclpluto]

14

 

[mmbrad02]

I babysat "full time" in the summers between 16-18. The summer after I graduated I got what seemed like a real job working in my high school office answering phones and such. It was only for the summer though. I started working in a gas station/country store my sophomore year of college (weekends and summers) and then got my first real job at 21, working full time with benefits

 

[firefly_ris]

14, I worked part time as a waitress at a retirement facility.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

I did newspaper delivery from about 12 to 16 or so. I got a job doing support in the college computer lap at 19 and have worked since.

 

[goofyernmost]

I started working part time when I was a sophomore in High School. First I pumped gas (yea, I know that doesn't happen anymore), I stocked shelves in a grocery store, I was a employee in a local miniature golf course, I washed semi-trucks and when in college I had another job pumping gas and doing light mechanical work, plus I drove a delivery truck for a hospital supply company. After college at age 20 I went in the Air Force so I guess that is when I started working full time and spent the next 43 years working full time at a number of occupations. They only time I was out of work was from the time of my discharge until I got a job as a retail store manager, followed by careers in Printing, Publishing, Construction, Real Estate, Travel Agent, Owner of a Nursing Home and public Bus Transportation. Now I sit at a keyboard a few minutes a day, annoying people.

 

[Babs Johnson]

My first W-2 job was at 16 as a supermarket bagger and cart retriever.

 

[Sugardimples]

12. I had a summer job in a neighborhood luncheonette. The woman who owned it was also one of the neighborhood "number writers". (Number writers were the illegal bookies. Prior to the legal lotteries of today, there was a daily number that you could play with the number writer for a little as a nickel. The daily number was determined by the winners of horse races at certain local race tracks.) I would sometimes get sent home early because she was going to get raided that day.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

14.
I grew up poor, and it wasn't a choice.

yeah, I started working a "real" job at 14 too, because I grew up poor. But I was babysitting, shoveling snow, and working as a farmhand for 3-4 years before that.

 

[ftbaker1313]

I grew up on a small family farm. I started working earlier than I can remember. I know by age of 12, I was operating heavy equipment from farm tractors to bulldozers. My summer days went from can see to can't see. During school days I would work for 2 hours before school and around three hours after school.

 

[aprilgail]

Had 3 paper routes, cut neighbors lawns and babysat starting at 11 ( funny because now people hire babysitters FOR their 11 year old kids LOL)

 

[Conroy Family]

15 - In a mail room. The first day I had to stuff a bunch of catalogues into large envelopes. Noone told me there was a sponge to use to seal them.

 

[serenitynow]

11