What was your first job?

[Demovictory9]

Mine was paid tutor in high school. then fast food.

Link to tweet

[Phoenix61]

1. Summer camp counselor. nt

[Demovictory9]

2. counselor in other fields, needs certifications, summer camp counselor youngsters

[elleng]

36. Ditto-ish;

'waited' on camp tables, then 'taught' riflery and archery!

[alwaysinasnit]

3. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service (clerk).

[Demovictory9]

5. out in a park, or office job?

[alwaysinasnit]

7. I would have loved to be out in the field, but no, it was in the Federal Bldg. in San Francisco.

[underpants]

4. Bagging groceries

Someone dropped a glass jar of molasses my first day on the job.

[Demovictory9]

11. messy!

[Harker]

6. Cleaned an independent doughnut shop before school.

Bought cigarettes for Bill, the cook.

More 120s.

[Demovictory9]

8. I remember when kids could purchase cigarettes for adults

we took a note to the store. lol

[Harker]

12. Nobody carded me for anything

until I hit 30.

Different world.

[Demovictory9]

14. first trip to vegas, wasn't carded for the free alcohol, yes...was different world

[rsdsharp]

9. Started as cleanup boy in a full service meat department

in a small grocery store. That was the summer before my sophomore year in high school. Worked my way up to counter hop and then meat cutter. I worked there until the summer after I graduated.

[Demovictory9]

10. did you wear that mesh metal glove when meat cutting?

[rsdsharp]

17. No. This was in the late 60s, early 70s.

Nobody wore one. I never even saw one.

[Demovictory9]

20. ok. I cut meat in the 80s. by law had to wear the glove

[rsdsharp]

25. I was 15 when I started. I was probably 16 or 17 when I started using a knife,

mostly for boning then. Later I did anything anybody else did. I was a little slow cutting up chickens. It took me 12 seconds using a boning knife. My brother could do it in 10, and our boss in 6 seconds. He could cut up a chicken faster than you could put the parts in a tray.

One of my first jobs was to rake the sawdust on the wood floor. I’m guessing sawdust wasn’t part of your experience.

[captain queeg]

62. I remember a lot of that stuff. Used to throw sawdust on the blocks

And then scrape them. I started as a night time clean up and that was part of my job. Took all the equipment apart and cleaned it. I had a key to the place and I could do it when ever I wanted as long as it was done by the time they opened. When I was 16 I started working after school and when
I was 17 at a packing plant boning cows. I ended mostly boning over the years and got pretty fast. Finally got out of it and went back to college when I was about 27. I’d sure hate to be doing that kind of work when I was older.

[rsdsharp]

76. Yeah, I dusted the blocks, too, and them use a stiff wire brush.

I told a guy in the grocery store meat department about the saw dust and he looked at me like I was crazy. He was hiding the floor down at the time. The only drains we had were in the cases, which we cleaned every other week.

[captain queeg]

82. One time back then I was at a friends drinking beer

They had a butcher block table. In my mind it was at least two feet think and weighed 100s of pounds. I got up to use the bathroom and to avoid going thru people I jumped on the table to get by. Oops, it wasn’t really a butcher block. His wife wasn’t too happy but my friend was amused and he just glued it back together.

About the chain mail gloves, I never saw those till about 5 years into my career. We only had ones that covered your thumb and first two fingers on your non knife hand . Also the first time we were issued belly guards. Both of those things would have prevented me getting stitched quite a few times. I mostly boned beef on a production line. I always say I stopped counting my stitches after the first hundred, though that included a major surgery I’d had.

[rsdsharp]

84. I have 13 scars on my left hand and arm, and 2 or 3 on my right hand.

The only one still visible is a cut on my left forearm. I should have had a couple of stitches in that, but didn’t, and the scar is about 1/2 inch wide.

My brother stabbed himself in the upper leg/groin — twice. Both times he was cutting around the pelvic bone on a round as he was hurrying to make up a rump roast for a customer. Trying to slap a bandaid on that was fun.

[captain queeg]

91. It's surprising the amount of blood you lose depending on where it happens

I stuck myself in the wrist one time and got the artery. Blood was squirting 2-3 ft. That made sense of course, but one time I nicked myself close to the belly button. I just cleaned it up and put on a bandaid after work I stopped at the grocery and the checker sort of screamed. I looked down and my shirt was soaked with blood. That night it was still bleeding so I dressed it and even wrapped a towel around my midsection. In the morning the towel and the bed was soaked in blood. Went to the ER and got 2 stitches and that stopped it.

[magicarpet]

13. Cash register clerk at a Rexall Drug Store,...

... rang up tons of cigarette purchases. I was only 14 at the time,.. (lied on app.). They were not so fussy back then.

[Aristus]

15. Newspaper delivery.

It gave me some pocket money, and made some use of the fact that I'm a naturally early riser.

When my parents got divorced, and my dad skipped the country leaving my mom holding a huge mortgage she couldn't afford, it became a lifeline.

I delivered papers in the morning before school, worked at McDonald's after school, and caddied golf on the weekends. I remember falling asleep in class, I was so tired all the time.

[Demovictory9]

22. jobs that kids held are no mostly held by adults.

[hatrack]

35. Collecting was a serious pain in the ass . . . . .

But hey, $40-50 a month in 1974 - that was some serious jack!

[Ka-Dinh Oy]

16. I can't remember which my first job was.

My first jobs were working at an animal shelter, a game farm, and a grooming shop. They were all so clustered near each other that I forgot which was actually first. I think at one point I was doing the dog grooming at the same time that I was working one of the other two.

[MyOwnPeace]

18. Was a 'helper' on

a bakery truck starting in 6th grade.
Worked at the bakery through high school and college - Saturdays through high school - every weekend through college and each summer.
Ultimately became a "master baker." (no, don't say it fast!).

[Demovictory9]

21. 6th grade? 2021, someone would go to jail for that

[MyOwnPeace]

39. Yep!

Working for my Dad's friend who owned the bakery. Got paid $.50 an hour! NO paperwork, no taxes, just a little paper envelope with somewhere between $4 and $5 in it! Every Saturday - up at 5 and waiting on the corner for the bakery truck to pick me up.
GAWD, would NEVER have allowed my kids to do that!

It was a different time, for sure..............

[Ocelot II]

19. Washing dishes.

[Fla Dem]

23. Working a refreshment stand at Pleasure Island.

Pleasure Island was an amusement park north of Boston. It was billed as the East Coast Disneyland. Unfortunately with winter weather not the same as Los Angeles, it only lasted 10 years.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQIw7WFMTWTm4mz8-zxKngSPa3G99nNXpVeyQ&s


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure_Island_(Massachusetts_amusement_park)

Of course before that I did a good amount of babysitting. 50 cents an hour.

[tinymontgomery]

24. Working on a fishing boat in Atlantic city

Working on a fishing boat in Atlantic city back in the late 60’s

[Runningdawg]

26. Working in the family business cleaning meat lockers. First PAYING job - prep work in a restaurant.

[brewens]

27. Shinning shoes and cleaning spittoons at a local massage parlor. Or that's what I claimed on the

same post from a local FB buddy. I got a lot of laughs on that one. "Boxboy" at a local grocery store was the real first job. I wasn't very good there, better at the next store, then became a good employee once I took it seriously at a Skippers.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

28. Delivering newspapers, age 7. (Got my SS card to do it.)

Lots of kids delivered newspapers, so if that doesn't count...

Busboy at Bob Evans restaurant, age 16.

Edit:
It was only a weekly town newspaper at first. The man who gave me the job kept beaming at me like I was such young "go-getter", but my mother made me do it. She was a total freak about her kids having a job after her childhood trauma of growing up poor during the Great Depression, often going to bed hungry.

[2naSalit]

29. Picking fresh strawberries...

at a farm up the road, the next job a couple years later when we moved to the city was at a Dunkin' Donuts for$1.18/hr no tips allowed.

[Cartoonist]

30. Usher in a movie theater

$1.10 an hour. Saw Patton and MASH about a hundred times each.

[fierywoman]

31. Waitress in a kosher deli ( -- I'm not Jewish.)

So there was a lot to learn.

[Beakybird]

32. Got fired after 30 minutes. Chased out with a butcher knife. Busboy.

In hindsight, a half hour was too soon to ask for a raise.

[El Supremo]

33. I mowed lawns for cash then...

I was a window-man at Jack in the Box for a paycheck with taxes withdrawn. I think I was 15.

[TlalocW]

34. Paper boy

Lived on about an acre of land on the edge of a small farming community. In 6th grade, dad came to me and said, "What would you think if I bought you and your brother a little motorcycle?" I remember being ambivalent about the idea as I wasn't a car/cycle guy, and what he meant was a mo-ped. So he bought one, and we rode them in the backyard for a year, and one day I come home from school, and Dad is putting a large chicken wire basket on the back of it, and another mo-ped. "Good news! I got you boys jobs as paperboys!"

Well played, Dad. Well played.

So from 7th through 12th, I got up at 3 am most of the year (guy in my class who lived next door to me eventually took over the third paper route in town, and we could take over each others' routes if we went out of town). Cops didn't care we were driving without a license because the W boys were good kids, and we paid them off with a paper every morning. It was actually a good job for a teenager. Good money for only working an hour a day, could easily stay caught up on sleep, didn't interfere with school and could get another job in summer if I wanted. The little old ladies on my route would give me homebaked goodies during Christmas (and delivering papers in the stillness of the night on Christmas morning when everyone left their lights on was magical).

Only problem was that my first semester of college, I would routinely wake up at 3, sit straight up and think, "Oh, shit. I've got to deliver papers!" before looking around, realizing where I was, and immediately going back to sleep.

TlalocW

[TexasBushwhacker]

37. Dairy Queen for $1.25 an hour

My boss said I made the best curls with the soft serve.

[asiliveandbreathe]

38. My first job, summer between junior and senior year, volunteer

at Pondville hospital ..a cancer hospital across from the Max. security Walpole Prison (Mass)..I was 16..I would walk up the hill to the hospital - we would bring mail, flowers to patients, wheelchair patients to x-ray, those who came into the hospital for admittance, (yes, even prisoners)..you knew that by the guards with them..

Middle of my senior year, paid, I started working Part-time for NETCO (New England Telephone Co.), as a cord board operator..went full-time after graduation.."one ringy dingy" comes to mind..I swear, everyone worked for the telco, or Western Electric in those days..retired after 30 years from AT&T... wonderful career..

[littlemissmartypants]

40. Babysitter at 8 years old, paper route at 12 years old and tomato grading and packing at 14.

That was my first job that I paid taxes. Was this an OK answer?

[Demovictory9]

65. can you imagine people letting an 8 year old babysit today?

[littlemissmartypants]

68. No, I really can't. I remember it like it was yesterday.

I was deeply serious about my job. I remember where the emergency contact numbers were to this day. ❤

[Arkansas Granny]

41. A typist at an insurance agency. Some of the forms had up to 8 carbon copies.

You had to be very accurate and able to make undetectable erasures and corrections.

[TomSlick]

42. Pumping gas at a full-service station.

Only the elderly among us will remember such businesses.

[hunter]

43. I was my parent's worst nightmare.

I quit high school and got a job cleaning toilets.

I usually tell people I quit high school for college, but college wasn't a sure thing at the time.

Mostly it was about quitting high school.

And no, cleaning toilets did not increase my motivation to go college.

Some of the jobs I got with my university degree paid a lot more than toilet cleaning, but exposed me to people who were themselves shit.

[csziggy]

44. Clerk at the university library

Checked books in and out, and re-shelved books. Since I'd always loved libraries, it was a good job for me. It was also good for my major, library science, since I learned the Library of Congress numbering system and some of the obscure corners of the collection.

[Mr.Bill]

45. I worked in a Deli

that was a concession in a Supermarket. Made 1.65 an hour over 50 years ago. 1969 to be exact. We sold Rotisserie Chickens for 1.59. That's for the whole chicken, not per lb. We pretty much bought things in five gallon buckets like macaroni salad, potato salad, etc and sold then by the pint. We did very little actual cooking there. We made crappy Pizza there, pre-made frozen crusts, sauce that came out of a big can, frozen mozzarella cheese.

The real magic was we had one of the first Amana Radarange microwave ovens. They were very expensive and no one had them in their homes. We sold pizza by the slice for 25 cents and we would heat it in the microwave. I swear people bought the slices just to see the magic of the oven heating it up in 30 seconds. I can literally say I was cooking with a microwave 50 years ago.

It was a good job for me because I had Friday and Saturday nights off while most of my friends had to work that shift in some fast food joint. I worked there for three years without a raise and one day my mom (she was a union steward at the supermarket) told me to go to my boss and say that if I am not worth another ten cents an hour than the day I started after three years then they should fire me.

So they fired me. I had just graduated and was starting college soon so it was time to move on anyway, I suppose.

[In_The_Wind]

46. Working in the pet department at Woolworth's 5 & 10 Store.

[Submariner]

47. Sold peanuts, gum and scorecards at Fenway Park

for Red Sox games. The pay was 5% commission on sales. Best sellers were hot dogs and cokes at 25 cents each at the 1961 All Star game.

[Ferrets are Cool]

48. Construction grunt at 14

No, it wasn't legal, but that didn't keep my father from selling my muscles for money.

[IcyPeas]

49. TELEX operator

I thought TELEX machines were fantastic in those days (70s).

[Demovictory9]

67. I had to look up Telex machine.

[IcyPeas]

78. and we had 2 machines.... one for domestic and one international!

early tech, but very good tech.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

50. Nurse's Aide in a hospital.

I was 16.

[Kali]

51. ironing hankerchiefs, then pillowcases

eventually my Father's dress shirts. babysitting, typing bibliography cards. "helping" Grampa on the ranch. first job with an actual paycheck was waiting tables, did that in a few places, worked in a pet store for a couple years too.

[hay rick]

52. Movie theater usher- first job with a paycheck.

Got to see John Wayne in Hatari! about 20 times.

[kimbutgar]

53. Working as a gift wrapper during Christmas at an exclusive men's store in SF called Bullock

And Jones on Union Square. I actually wrapped a gift for Bing Crosby. He wore a hat and actually had a pipe in his mouth!

[Demovictory9]

59. I remember Bullocks

[littlemissmartypants]

69. Very cool story! I was a Belk gift wrap girl in high school. I loved wrapping gifts.

Sometimes the customers gave me tips. Was it fun for you? Were you allowed to have tips? ❤

[electric_blue68]

54. 1st volunteer job: Headstart teacher's assistant. Paid:

An Art teacher's assistant at a Summer time Arts Academy held in the specialized Music and Art HS.

Mostly helping the teacher, with some admin paperwork in an office.
Pretty cool. He was interesting!

The HS one was between Sophomore & Junior in High school. The Art Academy between Junior and Senior HS.

I went back there next summer between Senior HS and first year of College at an Art College! 🙂

[yellowdogintexas]

55. Front desk receptionist in my college dorm. 1967-69

I got a lot of homework done, especially the reading kind.

I made a whopping 65 cents an hour. Of course all I had to do was answer the phone and call upstairs to tell one of the women her date had arrived.

[rickyhall]

56. I raised rabbits in 4H when I was 6. Didn't make a dime. 1961.

[ironflange]

57. Worked for a small chemical producer assembling containers

Cubitainers they were called. I had to assemble the cardboard outer unit, stick in the plastic liner, then fill it with nitrogen. Boring, mind numbing stuff, but in September I could tell my classmates that I worked all summer in a lab.

[Talitha]

58. Junior Underwriter at Aetna Ins, downtown Chicago

[Demovictory9]

60. Whatever happened to Aetna? I rhink theywere health insurance foe foemer job

[Talitha]

61. It was back in the '70s - I worked in the Personal Accounts Dept.

We wrote policies for Houses, Jewelry, Boats, Autos, etc. TBH, I don't think there was a Health Insurance division in my building but there might have been - it was a big place.

[Solly Mack]

63. I had to stand on a milk crate to reach the grill to cook and fill plates to send through

the window for pick-up. Sometimes I'd prep.

I was maybe 9.

I also worked up front pulling drinks, calling numbers for food pick-up, and stocking up for shift change, as well as bussing tables.

Family affair business.

Did the prep at my Aunt's place and delivered food to tables. Took orders. When my mother wasn't looking I'd draw beers. Get cold drinks from the coolers or fetch beers that needed to be opened.

[Demovictory9]

66. lot of responsibility for a 9 year old

[Solly Mack]

75. I saw it as fun and something new to learn.

If I got bored or tired, I simply stopped. I was 9. I wasn't doing it to support anyone. I was doing it to learn. No one minded when I went off to play. Still got paid though. lol

I'd usually do a breakfast or lunch shift during the summers or on weekends.

[Rhiannon12866]

64. Cinderella at an amusement park

I rode around with kids in a pumpkin coach.

[Jim G.]

70. My Mom Had A Pizza Parlor

She had a deal with a couple that sold pizza ovens to taverns & diners etc. to supply them with frozen wholesale pizzas. So when I started high school I would go in after school for 2 or 3 hours to make & wrap pizzas.

When I turned 16 I went to work at McDonalds making French fries for $1.25 an hour. I think I lasted about a month before I realized I made more money (with less aggravation) making pizzas for my Mom, so I went back to doing that.

[Sancho]

71. I picked tobacco in the summer

I was in Junior high. Rural Georgia in the 60s.

Chances are there were child labor laws or something, but no one seemed to care.

[radicalleft]

72. At a golf course

Mowing fairways and greens and general lawn work...

[malthaussen]

73. Busboy in the Waterfall Lounge

Willow Grove Lanes, 1972. At the time, it was home to three restaurants and the alleged "Largest bowling alley in the world." The Waterfall was the most expensive of the three restaurants, decorated in classic 50's pseudo-Japanese kitsch. There was also an honest-to-god Tiki Room, decorated in pseudo-Hawaiian Kitsch. The building was an architectural classic of the Populuxe style, and even got a picture in the book of that same name. Alas, torn down when the Willow Grove amusement park was turned into a mall.

-- Mal

[Hotler]

74. Paper boy. I think you had to be 13 to get a route. Threw the Denver Post.

and dog walking and lawn mowing. I used to catch night crawlers and sell them to the local hardware store that had a fishing department.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

79. That was around the same age when I delivered...

Last edited Sun Mar 21, 2021, 05:13 PM - Edit history (1)

... daily newspapers (Dayton Daily News).

I'm sure that my mother had learned the minimum ages to do various jobs in my area, whatever it was back then.

Edit: Lol, she demanded that our pets (always brought to the house by Dad) get to work too! If she saw our cat lounging around in the house, she's get angry about it. Then she'd put it outside (but not in a physically harmful way) while saying, "Catch a mouse, or anything useful, you lazy little shit!"

[lillypaddle]

77. The day after HS graduation

I showed up to work in the "junior department" at Montgomery Ward. If I remember correctly, minimum wage was $1.25/hr. (1966))

Wow.

[Demovictory9]

81. Montgomery wards was my store! Remember Electric Avenue??

[lillypaddle]

85. No, what was Electric Avenue? nt

[Demovictory9]

86. In the 80s and 90s..the appliance/tv area

[lillypaddle]

87. I worked there in 1966

No electric avenue back then. Electricity hadn't been discovered yet.

[LNM]

80. Cashier at a hardware store.

I loved it. Mostly happy customers and nobody messed with a 15 yo girl.

[Glorfindel]

83. Helping my father pick up and deliver laundry and dry cleaning

By the time I was tall enough to keep the clothes in their paper bags from dragging on the ground, I was allowed to help. I was about 11. My pay was five dollars a week. This was in the mid-50's, so $5.00 was much more money than it is now.

[Wicked Blue]

88. Babysitter, then sales clerk in a stationery store.

My last job: writing web copy for a major hotel chain as a freelancer.

[Demovictory9]

92. used to be lots of stationery stores. Now just one, that I know of, the Hallmark stores

which seems to specialize in Hallmark ornaments

[Wicked Blue]

93. Staples and Office Depot took over the market

Also, computers were supposed to make everything paperless

[3catwoman3]

89. Sales clerk in the women's dept of J.C. Penney's. I was 16.

Made $1.60 an hour. Got a raise to $1.65!

I did kid/baby sitting before that. Going rate was 50 cents an hour in the early and mid 1960s. My mom tried to convince me that I should only charge 45 cents an hour. I can't remember why. I told her that would make the math too difficult and people would have to have change available, or I would have to carry around a bunch of dimes and nickels. I prevailed.

[discocrisco01]

90. Taco Bell

Making $5.00 as a cashier at Taco Bell (that is 24 years ago).

[mnhtnbb]

94. Substitute secretary

in a one man law office for the summer so the permanent secretary could take two days off every week all summer long. This was 1968 and I was 17.The lawyer was rarely there, so I got to do a lot of reading.

I had done babysitting pretty regularly, though, from early teenage years.

My first full time job was the summer after I graduated high school. I was a floating nursing unit clerk in a local hospital. I worked med/ surg units, the ER, and OB/Gyn floors. Some days I was assigned two floors and I'd run up and down between the floors via the back stairs to provide coverage for both units. I worked the 7am-3pm shift. I did that job for three summers-- through college--until I stayed in Los Angeles for the summer before my senior year and worked all summer at the research lab where I had a part time job as a secretary during the school year.

I'm pretty sure I got the hospital job because I had racked up several hundred hours as a volunteer there during high school after I got my driver's license. I regularly went on Saturday mornings during the school year and at least one or two week days during the summers when school was out.