Ex.......................my first job I had when I was 17, and no laughing... was a secratary, then on to a receptionist, the funny part was what I had to wear, the white blouse, the skirt, nylons and high heels.................that is so NOT me!!!!
I had a paper route at 10, and was weeding gardens and raking leaves by then.. Snow days were heaven --i was knocking on doors, shoveling driveways and walks and rolling in the big bucks (probably amounted to about $4-5 after shoveling all day.
My first 'real' job was stripping and refinishing furniture when I was either 14 or 15. I made $1.35/hr to stand in a vat of industrial strypeeze type stuff that was extremely nasty (and probably illegal now) and scrub furniture clean all day...
I delivered The Washington Post when I was in fifth grade which would have had me at ten years old. I delivered 70 papers seven days a week. I was up at 0400, and out the door by 0430. Finished the route 0600. I made 70 bucks a month. Did that for two years. The next job was that of working at an Esso Station pumping gas. I was in the ninth grade when I started that one. Ninth graders are 14 I think. And the rest is.....history.....
I picked rasberries on a farm when I was 12...got 8 cents for each quart I picked...
when I was 16, I went to work in a pallet factory and learned to drive a fork lift and run saws...I got $1.65 per hour...did it after school and on weekends...in the summer, I worked 50 hours a week...
When I was 14 (I think that was the age I got my work permit) I went to work as a waitress at a resort near my house. I worked Friday nights and weekends during the school year and then I worked 40/week hours during the summers. I did that all through High School.
Before that I had the usual regular babysitting jobs -
I had regular weekly babysitting jobs from 11 - 15.
At 15 I spent a summer working for the school district in their printing operations during the day and doing telephone sales for another company at night.
At 17 I got a job in a fast food joint and moved out of my parents house.
I started playing in little bands in about the 8th grade.
Parties, school dances and that kind of thing.
Then, in about the 10th grade, I started playing in bar bands.
Pretty good money for a kid.
One night we were setting up in this little club and a couple guys right out of "The Godfather" came through the front door.
"Hey, kid", they said, "Lemme see yer union card".
"Huh?"
Long story short, they let us play the gig but by the next night we were all card carrying members of the American Federation Of Musicians.
During high school, I had a day job in the summer working in an amusement park operating kiddie rides. Sometimes it was cutting it pretty close getting from there to the band gigs.
Hmmm. I think I'm beginning to see why my grades were so bad.
My brother and I had a nightcrawler and cucumber stand( we lived in the county) when I was in grade school. Had a sign on our fence. Sometimes we'd have asparagus, too, because it grew wild all over the neighborhood. We'd walk through our yard at night with flashlights and catch the nightcrawlers.
Baby sat a two year old girl 5 days a week the summer I was 13. The next summer I set flats of annuals and perrineals for a landscape business where my mom worked, did that for several summers, then got a job at Mcdonalds--but would try to get two weeks off during cherry season so I could work 12 hr shifts culling cherries on a conveyor belt--really good money for a kid for two weeks work.
I babysat for the first time when I was eight. I sat on my neighbors patio with her new born who was sleeping in an old fashioned pram while my mother, 20 feet away, weeded a flower bed in our yard. His mom was home from the store in under 30 minutes and the little angel never woke up.
My first paying job was selling Avon door to door when I was 16.
Then during the summers while going to college I worked as a maid in a motel. I guess this would be my first real job, with a boss and a paycheck.
Babysitting at 10 years old, paper routes at 12, but I guess my first real job was a janitor on weekends at an small Drafting Company at 14 years old for $1.25 an hour.
I had a paper route at 10, and was weeding gardens and raking leaves by then.. Snow days were heaven --i was knocking on doors, shoveling driveways and walks and rolling in the big bucks (probably amounted to about $4-5 after shoveling all day.
My first 'real' job was stripping and refinishing furniture when I was either 14 or 15. I made $1.35/hr to stand in a vat of industrial strypeeze type stuff that was extremely nasty (and probably illegal now) and scrub furniture clean all day...
I had a paper route, age 12-13.
My first entrepreneurial venture was around that time... I bought a used lawn mower with my paper route earnings and mowed lawns in the neighborhood... this was in Rochester NY... so, the mowing was definitely seasonal. Did some baby sitting... don't remember when I started, but did so probably until I was 14 or 15.
At 16, started working at a fast food place. I think I was making about $1.10/hour - $1.40/hour at a couple of places before going to college and doing some part-time work study job for/at the college.
First FULL time job -- age 18. Air Force recruit, basic training, rank -- E-1 (Airman Basic), 1973. Monthly salary -- $307.00/month.
Aside from the typical mowing lawns and shovelling show...
I was about 10 when I went "door to door" selling air freshners...
In 1976 I was 15 and got my first "real" job, and according to my social security statement I made $47.00
In 1977 I was working at a bakery as a dishwasher/janitor. I worked at that job till I graduated from high school in 79 (about 15 hours a week).
Hmmmm.... I just told everybody how old I am...
When I review my social security statement, I notice a drop in my earnings. The drop was due to me going out wow
Still younger than many of us...
btw, during one summer in HS, I worked at a plant nursery store, watering the plants in containers... and delivering pizza (summer before my senior year in HS, 1971)... I have no idea how much I made doing either of those.... and the summer after graduating HS, was a "soda jerk" at a drug store that had a genuine soda fountain counter like in the movies (maybe like American Graffiti?)... but I also delivered Rx's to old folks nearby the drug store...
When I was 13 I was the lawn boy for an elderly neighbor for $7 a week. The following sumer I worked on a celery farm in the river flats trimming, packing, stacking, crate making and hauling celery.... for $1.65 an hour. My mom loved the fresh celery I would bring home from work and we would chow down on a peanut butter and celery snack... still one of my favorites!
Doing odd jobs for the next door neighbor around 12 or 13, babysitting 15 (I made good money doing that) but my first "paycheck" job was 14. I got a job at the local Baskin Robbins (I lied about myage and they didn't check!) but I got fired about 3 weeks later after I was caught having an ice cream party with my neighborhood friends. :) OH the humiliation! The devestation! Just kidding. I was too young/immature to care anyway!
I babysat starting at 13 for 50 cents an hour, no matter how many children there were, but the parents usually gave me a little more. Then I graduated from high school, took PFAL, and babysat for free.
In middle school my kids babysit and do yard work/shovel snow. One has a regular babysitting job that pays $30 for one night's very easy work.
All the paper routes around here require a vehicle.
One kid is going to be painting the Latin teacher's house later this summer, with several other kids--I think they are getting $40 for a day's work. They also take turns babysitting the English teacher's nine year old now and then.
The hospital here hires 15 year olds to deliver and pick up food trays--for $8 an hour! My oldest is trying to get on there but competition is fierce!
During the school year--my kids have so much homework I don't know how they would hold down a job and keep their grades up. Serious homework, a couple hours a night, easy, and more during end of semesters. I didn't have that kind of homework every night back in the day.
The fast food restaurants here are not full of teens like when I was a kid--they are full of adults who don't want a job that does drug tests.
At sixteen my kids can audition for a competitive drum and bugle corps that travels the nation doing competitons every summer--they get paid for this. This is a huge goal, --kids of high school/college age from all over the country audition. My kids participate in a 'feeder' marching band in the summer--practice two hrs a day, 5 days a week, with a trip almost every weekend to march in parades around the state, so jobs have to work around this marching schedule. The feeder band does not make the competrtive corps a given, but it is very likely, since their band director is deeply involved in the drum corps and knows their standards.
I started babysitting very, very young and did that until I turned 15 - that's when we could get our driver's license in Mississippi. I got my license, my mom's old car and a job to pay for my car insurance. I had to pay Daddy some set amount out of each paycheck.
Wendy's - still my favorite fast food burger joint. At school all of us who worked in fast food would swap horror stories. Wendy's was by far the best!
I was there about a year until a friend of mine got me hired on working with her making circuit boards for a small company run by two brothers right out of college. That was a great job! I learned about transistors, capacitors, soldering AND made twice as much as I did working at Wendy's.
My favorite jobs while I was in school, though, were the college library and B-Quik, Starkville's convenience store chain. Loved both those jobs! In fact, I still go see the owners of B-Quik whenever I'm back home.
I had a "TV Guide" route when I was about 12-13 years old. Sold "American Seeds" on a couple occassions (never did earn enough to get my pic
on the back of those comic books though). Mowed some lawns. Did some babysitting. Had a brief stint working at the town dump on Saturdays with some other kids.
By the time I hit high school, I got a part time job as a janitor at the town post office,
to where I would walk each day after school, and hitchhike home when I was done. Worked for an old farmer during the summer, helping him
with the garden and painting his house. My first full-time job after school was in a factory, where I worked for a couple years.
My first paying job was babysitting 3 kids. What a wild bunch they were. In fact, a year or so ago, I ran into the youngest one at a basketball game. My brother had to tell me who he was!!!
I graduated from high school 1/2 year early and went to work at a sewing factory. I sewed the back pockets onto blue jeans. Worked there for a year. It was interesting to see how those different parts came together to be a pair of jeans at the end of the line!!
Then I worked for the local country club restaurant for 3 months before going out wow, where I worked as a waitress...so many years ago!!!!
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Nottawayfer
I baby-sat from 12-15. Then I got my first job at a fast food restaurant at 15.
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year2027
God fisrt
Beloved excathedra
God loves you my dear friend
at 10 I help in the garden plus help put away hay at home
I was about 14 or so and it was farm work
I was help a store owner unload the truck about that time
when I was 18 I begin factory work
thank you
with love and a holy kiss blowing your way Roy
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Cowgirl
Ex.......................my first job I had when I was 17, and no laughing... was a secratary, then on to a receptionist, the funny part was what I had to wear, the white blouse, the skirt, nylons and high heels.................that is so NOT me!!!!
Yuck!!!
Cowgirl
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mstar1
I had a paper route at 10, and was weeding gardens and raking leaves by then.. Snow days were heaven --i was knocking on doors, shoveling driveways and walks and rolling in the big bucks (probably amounted to about $4-5 after shoveling all day.
My first 'real' job was stripping and refinishing furniture when I was either 14 or 15. I made $1.35/hr to stand in a vat of industrial strypeeze type stuff that was extremely nasty (and probably illegal now) and scrub furniture clean all day...
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J0nny Ling0
I delivered The Washington Post when I was in fifth grade which would have had me at ten years old. I delivered 70 papers seven days a week. I was up at 0400, and out the door by 0430. Finished the route 0600. I made 70 bucks a month. Did that for two years. The next job was that of working at an Esso Station pumping gas. I was in the ninth grade when I started that one. Ninth graders are 14 I think. And the rest is.....history.....
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GrouchoMarxJr
I picked rasberries on a farm when I was 12...got 8 cents for each quart I picked...
when I was 16, I went to work in a pallet factory and learned to drive a fork lift and run saws...I got $1.65 per hour...did it after school and on weekends...in the summer, I worked 50 hours a week...
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doojable
When I was 14 (I think that was the age I got my work permit) I went to work as a waitress at a resort near my house. I worked Friday nights and weekends during the school year and then I worked 40/week hours during the summers. I did that all through High School.
Before that I had the usual regular babysitting jobs -
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Abigail
I had regular weekly babysitting jobs from 11 - 15.
At 15 I spent a summer working for the school district in their printing operations during the day and doing telephone sales for another company at night.
At 17 I got a job in a fast food joint and moved out of my parents house.
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waysider
I started playing in little bands in about the 8th grade.
Parties, school dances and that kind of thing.
Then, in about the 10th grade, I started playing in bar bands.
Pretty good money for a kid.
One night we were setting up in this little club and a couple guys right out of "The Godfather" came through the front door.
"Hey, kid", they said, "Lemme see yer union card".
"Huh?"
Long story short, they let us play the gig but by the next night we were all card carrying members of the American Federation Of Musicians.
During high school, I had a day job in the summer working in an amusement park operating kiddie rides. Sometimes it was cutting it pretty close getting from there to the band gigs.
Hmmm. I think I'm beginning to see why my grades were so bad.
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Bramble
My brother and I had a nightcrawler and cucumber stand( we lived in the county) when I was in grade school. Had a sign on our fence. Sometimes we'd have asparagus, too, because it grew wild all over the neighborhood. We'd walk through our yard at night with flashlights and catch the nightcrawlers.
Baby sat a two year old girl 5 days a week the summer I was 13. The next summer I set flats of annuals and perrineals for a landscape business where my mom worked, did that for several summers, then got a job at Mcdonalds--but would try to get two weeks off during cherry season so I could work 12 hr shifts culling cherries on a conveyor belt--really good money for a kid for two weeks work.
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Zshot
Aside from the typical mowing lawns and shovelling show...
I was about 10 when I went "door to door" selling air freshners...
In 1976 I was 15 and got my first "real" job, and according to my social security statement I made $47.00
In 1977 I was working at a bakery as a dishwasher/janitor. I worked at that job till I graduated from high school in 79 (about 15 hours a week).
Hmmmm.... I just told everybody how old I am...
When I review my social security statement, I notice a drop in my earnings. The drop was due to me going out wow
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templelady
I babysat for the first time when I was eight. I sat on my neighbors patio with her new born who was sleeping in an old fashioned pram while my mother, 20 feet away, weeded a flower bed in our yard. His mom was home from the store in under 30 minutes and the little angel never woke up.
My first paying job was selling Avon door to door when I was 16.
Then during the summers while going to college I worked as a maid in a motel. I guess this would be my first real job, with a boss and a paycheck.
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polar bear
Babysitting at 10 years old, paper routes at 12, but I guess my first real job was a janitor on weekends at an small Drafting Company at 14 years old for $1.25 an hour.
Great thread.
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dmiller
Can't remember back that far. :)
First *real job* was working at an auto parts store.
Then I worked a factory job at Otis Elevator.
Quit that to do missionary work in Italy.
Have had some interesting ones since. ;)
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Rocky
I had a paper route, age 12-13.
My first entrepreneurial venture was around that time... I bought a used lawn mower with my paper route earnings and mowed lawns in the neighborhood... this was in Rochester NY... so, the mowing was definitely seasonal. Did some baby sitting... don't remember when I started, but did so probably until I was 14 or 15.
At 16, started working at a fast food place. I think I was making about $1.10/hour - $1.40/hour at a couple of places before going to college and doing some part-time work study job for/at the college.
First FULL time job -- age 18. Air Force recruit, basic training, rank -- E-1 (Airman Basic), 1973. Monthly salary -- $307.00/month.
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Rocky
Still younger than many of us...
btw, during one summer in HS, I worked at a plant nursery store, watering the plants in containers... and delivering pizza (summer before my senior year in HS, 1971)... I have no idea how much I made doing either of those.... and the summer after graduating HS, was a "soda jerk" at a drug store that had a genuine soda fountain counter like in the movies (maybe like American Graffiti?)... but I also delivered Rx's to old folks nearby the drug store...
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Greek2me
When I was 13 I was the lawn boy for an elderly neighbor for $7 a week. The following sumer I worked on a celery farm in the river flats trimming, packing, stacking, crate making and hauling celery.... for $1.65 an hour. My mom loved the fresh celery I would bring home from work and we would chow down on a peanut butter and celery snack... still one of my favorites!
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RottieGrrrl
Doing odd jobs for the next door neighbor around 12 or 13, babysitting 15 (I made good money doing that) but my first "paycheck" job was 14. I got a job at the local Baskin Robbins (I lied about myage and they didn't check!) but I got fired about 3 weeks later after I was caught having an ice cream party with my neighborhood friends. :) OH the humiliation! The devestation! Just kidding. I was too young/immature to care anyway!
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VeganXTC
I babysat starting at 13 for 50 cents an hour, no matter how many children there were, but the parents usually gave me a little more. Then I graduated from high school, took PFAL, and babysat for free.
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Zshot
I am noticing a trend here concerning at what age we started working. I wonder about the "current" generation of young people?
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Bramble
In middle school my kids babysit and do yard work/shovel snow. One has a regular babysitting job that pays $30 for one night's very easy work.
All the paper routes around here require a vehicle.
One kid is going to be painting the Latin teacher's house later this summer, with several other kids--I think they are getting $40 for a day's work. They also take turns babysitting the English teacher's nine year old now and then.
The hospital here hires 15 year olds to deliver and pick up food trays--for $8 an hour! My oldest is trying to get on there but competition is fierce!
During the school year--my kids have so much homework I don't know how they would hold down a job and keep their grades up. Serious homework, a couple hours a night, easy, and more during end of semesters. I didn't have that kind of homework every night back in the day.
The fast food restaurants here are not full of teens like when I was a kid--they are full of adults who don't want a job that does drug tests.
At sixteen my kids can audition for a competitive drum and bugle corps that travels the nation doing competitons every summer--they get paid for this. This is a huge goal, --kids of high school/college age from all over the country audition. My kids participate in a 'feeder' marching band in the summer--practice two hrs a day, 5 days a week, with a trip almost every weekend to march in parades around the state, so jobs have to work around this marching schedule. The feeder band does not make the competrtive corps a given, but it is very likely, since their band director is deeply involved in the drum corps and knows their standards.
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Belle
I started babysitting very, very young and did that until I turned 15 - that's when we could get our driver's license in Mississippi. I got my license, my mom's old car and a job to pay for my car insurance. I had to pay Daddy some set amount out of each paycheck.
Wendy's - still my favorite fast food burger joint. At school all of us who worked in fast food would swap horror stories. Wendy's was by far the best!
I was there about a year until a friend of mine got me hired on working with her making circuit boards for a small company run by two brothers right out of college. That was a great job! I learned about transistors, capacitors, soldering AND made twice as much as I did working at Wendy's.
My favorite jobs while I was in school, though, were the college library and B-Quik, Starkville's convenience store chain. Loved both those jobs! In fact, I still go see the owners of B-Quik whenever I'm back home.
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TheInvisibleDan
I had a "TV Guide" route when I was about 12-13 years old. Sold "American Seeds" on a couple occassions (never did earn enough to get my pic
on the back of those comic books though). Mowed some lawns. Did some babysitting. Had a brief stint working at the town dump on Saturdays with some other kids.
By the time I hit high school, I got a part time job as a janitor at the town post office,
to where I would walk each day after school, and hitchhike home when I was done. Worked for an old farmer during the summer, helping him
with the garden and painting his house. My first full-time job after school was in a factory, where I worked for a couple years.
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act2
Great thread, ex.
My first paying job was babysitting 3 kids. What a wild bunch they were. In fact, a year or so ago, I ran into the youngest one at a basketball game. My brother had to tell me who he was!!!
I graduated from high school 1/2 year early and went to work at a sewing factory. I sewed the back pockets onto blue jeans. Worked there for a year. It was interesting to see how those different parts came together to be a pair of jeans at the end of the line!!
Then I worked for the local country club restaurant for 3 months before going out wow, where I worked as a waitress...so many years ago!!!!
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