Do you remember your first job?

[kayt707]

subway

[ami]

Originally Posted by NiceTom

My first job was at 16, being the janitor at a small factory. The only noteworthy occasion was during the big strike. I was in early in the a.m., cleaning the offices. When I unlocked the president's office door and opened it, my first sight was a revolver pointed at me from the dark room. The pres, worried about protecting the plant from the nasty strikers, slept in his office that night, and very nearly shot the high school janitor. At the time, I was too young to think there was anything unusual about the incident.

[PlayaGroom]

My first unofficial job(s) was mowing lawns, shingling roofs (and, I think it's weird that roofs is not "rooves") and painting houses in my neighborhood.

First "tax-paying" job was at the car wash when I turned 16. Only lasted about a year, then I became a lifeguard/swimming instructor.

[abachechi]

unofficially I was mowing lawns a babysitting at 12. Too bad I didn't keep that up, first 'official' job was at McyD's , I got paid better to mow the lawns and babysit

[PlayaGroom]

Originally Posted by abachechi

unofficially I was mowing lawns a babysitting at 12. Too bad I didn't keep that up, first 'official' job was at McyD's , I got paid better to mow the lawns and babysit

I hear ya there!!

[SunKneeMarie]

Originally Posted by kayt707

subway

the trains or the restaurant?

[Tommygurl]

KFC Baby....

I made $10.25 an hour & had full benefits & RRSP....in Grade 11...

[ryberg]

I wish I'd had Sol's job! That one's my favorite so far (although you have to admit that NorthMinnesota's is good, too).

I worked for 2.5 years, most of it on that early 80s $3.35 an hour min wage, at a Dairy Queen on the highway closest to my house. It was a DQ Brazier (hint: is not a homonym of any word for women's undergarments!) so I mostly ran the grill. It was an open flame grill, however, which was good -- none of that flat stuff.

Also got to help out the girls on the DQ side with the simple stuff when it was so hot that's all anybody wanted. Favorite trick there was to "accidentally" toss peanuts onto a no-nuts order, or instead of pecans, or something like that, and then whip this irreversible "mistake" to the back for quick consumption with 3-4 co-workers.

But you know, one of the best lessons about work I ever got was at that job on virtually the first night there during clean-up. I was sweeping ahead of the guy mopping and was working on a doormat (things get good and messy at DQs, you know), and the owner says something like, "Steve, you're sweeping like your mother told you to do it or something. This is your job." I still remember that line.

I got off pretty good on that deal, especially when my late grandfather offered to match everything I could save for college. That was a good bit of money, in those days.

Steve

[Ginger]

Originally Posted by James A.

I was 12 and I mucked stables for a woman named Betty Sain in Bell Buckle. She owned/rode the World Champion walking horse in the mid-sixties. She had a young buck that had gotten tame, and we would feed him expired Whitman Samplers that her Big-K manager boyfriend would bring home. When we'd clean the mice nests out of the the hay troughs, she'd have us feed them to her chickens. I made about $1/hour.

That sounds like a Disney movie!

[eccentrictinker]

Originally Posted by himynameisjan

weeding and picking cucmbers for Gedney pickles. I think I was 12 or 13. Really sucky job, but the money was good

You jogged my memory! Summer of 1959, I was 13 and we picked cukes for Gedneys. To this day I can't stand cucumbers, but I still like pickles.

My first real job, at 15, was as a "lot boy" at a drive-in restaurant near Minnehaha Falls. I picked up and washed trays, and kept the lot clean. Pay was only 65 cents an hour, but I was surrounded by 6 to 8 very pretty carhops.

[Mindbender]

At 14 I learnt a lot about TV production at a community Cable TV company. This was later bought up to become a commercial enterprise.

So at 16 I was offered a part-time job which ran for 5 years during art college etc.

It was rather good

There I'd be in the control room watching 30 TVs, listening to 2 channels at once, co-ordinating banks of hi-band video players whizzing left and right of the control desk on the wheels of my chair.

I was left all on my own with the responsibility to program the systems to transmit programmes, movies, deal with transmission faults, call out engineers to customers homes, work with clients in the studio editing their commercial work, camera work - inside and outside broadcasts covering local events etc, graphics, Teletext design, sound and vision mixing... then set the alarm and lock up. Looking back I realise what a big responsibility I had and how trusted I was. At the time you think, nice, this is cool.

[Coconut]

Oh, this is funny, my 1st job was a bus person at a place where 2 of my BF worked. I was 13 or 14 and used to hitch hike to work. The place was called the Pow Wow Restaurant (and no there were no references in the joint to any Indian; natives or otherwise) on Banksville Road in Pittsburgh. Little did I know that Alice (the owner a little on the manly side) and her right hand person Dorothy were lovers and that, was my first exposure to lesbians. Anyway, I graduated to dishwasher where I think I might have made 75cents an hour. I used to hose the girls as they came around the bend of the dishwashing area and that began my career at the Pow Wow. I did manage to get promoted to a waitress and got to split my tips with the cooks!!!!!!! I also managed to get fired and hired back in 15 minutes. I often wondered what happend to Alice and Dorothy, I'm sure they're in heaven now as they were pretty old back in the 70's.

[Seakony]

Hardees Hamburgers while in high school. after High school I got a job in quality control at a big electronic company. Later I went to to a dental assistat school and worked in a dental office a few years as an assistance..then I just started trying out new jobs.

[Rissask]

My first job was a summer job washing dishes at a resort bar/restaurant at a lake ten minutes from my farm.

I didn't have a driver's license so my mom would take me and pick me up if it was night- if it was a daytime shift I would ride my bike- it took me an hour each way , but often I would cadge a ride from friends who were at the beach for the day.

what a crappy job. (although not as bad as the summer job on the kill floor at an abbatoir/meat packing plant- THAT was gross.)

I decided to attend university after that summer.

[beach babe]

Mine is kind of unique....I cleaned stinky, gross, just worn Tuxedo Rental Shoes!!!
You got huge buckets of them on return day. Had to stack them up, shove your hand inside to hold it while you scrubbed the outside, polish it, spray with lysol, bag them and then put away. ICK! I got paid a whole $3.00 an hour to do this after school.
Actually, I still work at this store, but my family owns it now! I get to tell someone else to clean the stinky shoes!