When was your first actual job and how much did you make?

[Bennyboy]

70. GEEZeeeeee Products.

$ according to this http://www.dof.ca.gov/HTML/FS_DATA/STAT-ABS/documents/D23.pdf 2 dollars an hour. I thought it was $1.65 but I could be wrong there.

May of 1974 I worked for family off and on after High School (June of 73 grad) and didn't really have a job like before that...

They made fiberglass products, mostly grommets for bombs. Baja Buggie bodies and the very beginning of the hot tub industry.

My friends all worked there so I applied. fresh out of school and deciding i gotta have a job.

I was in my interview and a foreman told the boss that (Whateverhisnamewasdidn'tcare) quit. the boss turns to me as says "can you drive a forklift?" I had driven plenty of them working as teenager for my Dad's shop so I relied "yeah" and he hired me on the spot. "take these to here, these to here, come back and do it all over again" was what he said and off I went. Stacks of boxes of finished grommets. from the line to the loading dock. Every trip I made there was a guy giving me the evil eye,the evilest of evil eyes. His job was to wipe the grommets, fresh from being glassed, and hanging from a rack. The absolute shittiest job ever IMO (that assumption would prove to be incorrect a week or so later).

I did that for a week and everyone of us went to Reno to see the Grateful Dead. Everyone at the plant and all of the Fair Oaks hippie crew. (that story is right here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/ben-baity/reno-1974/383356354123)

When I came back on Monday (the show was Sunday) I saw the guy that I thought had the shittiest job ever in the boss's office. I clocked in, (still kinda high from the show after sleeping in the lot with everyone that night so we wouldn't miss work) and the Boss called me over and told me that do0o0o0d, was gonna start driving the forklift (he had been there for 11 years, wiping grommets). He told me to go over to the OD machine. the aptly named OD machine.

The big slab of grommets that the guy wiped for 11 years moved down the line,got cut into ten pieces, put on a conveyor and I put them on this wheel, pushed a button, and the Outer Diameter was sanded (OD). I took it off and put it on the line to go the next stop (and you already know this right) was the ID machine which did the same thing. (yes, inside diameter).

Sounds easy huh? Well it was like Lucy in the candy shop. They kept coming, and try as I might, i could not possibly keep up. No fucking way. the other OD operator couldn't either and we kept stopping the line, but that didn't stop nothing......

I worked until lunch and my friends were all "The OD machine, that's too bad" and saying that was the worst job ever (and right they were... I was thinking "grommet wiper" was looking pretty good to me then).. I go back to the OD machine after lunch and here they come again, more freaking grommets. All of a sudden I notice the station across from me is vacant. The other guy, without telling me anything, just up and goes to the bathroom. I gotta cover his grommets and I can't keep up with my own. I am freaking out thinking the entire shop is going to collapse because of the huge stack of grommets I have backlogged. I was Freaking out.

The guy came back, I dropped my gloves and walked out. That'll show em, fuck this.

Went to get my check on payday and they didn't even know I left.