Foo - First Jobs

Anyone remember their first job? I kind of had three "first jobs" since I started them roughly at the same time right at the end of high school.

Dishwasher at a fancy French restaurant.

Stockperson at a Toy store.

Traveling jewelry salesperson.

I worked at Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers.

Delivering flyers door to door.
Wolfe Nursery - general help, we all did everything from unload trucks to caring for plants to selling plants.

Construction worker working for my dad. But at 13 it was more like getting to hang out and raid the roach coach all day long :)

He did make me work some of the time :D

Archery counselor at a day camp.....yes, they actually entrusted me with their little kiddies and potentially lethal weapons. No one got hurt.

Pin setter in a bowling ally before the automatics came out.
Ten cents a line, good night about three dollars. Included
one meal. Burger, fries, and a drink. I was twelve. That
summer I got a general help job at a summer resort.
Dishwasher, grass cutter, bell boy, fish cleaner. Twelve
hours a day, seven days a week, twenty five dollars a
month, room and board and laundry, hair cuts, included.
Got more tips than wages. made about three hundred dollars
that summer. Worked there two summers, made forty dollars
a month the second year. Then I got a job running the projectors
at the movie house, Seventy five dollars a week. Stayed there
five years. Then the army.

Burger King ---- when we had to wear those ridiculous hats.

http://lynnh.com/images/blog/bkuniformsm.jpg

Burger King ---- when we had to wear those ridiculous hats.

http://lynnh.com/images/blog/bkuniformsm.jpg

Is this where the striped sock fetish came from?

Meat department at a supermarket. I learned many things; Butchers are generally crazy MF's, it doesn't pay to cross them. They are also fiercely protective, I may have been the lowest guy in the place, but I belonged to them. The old quite guy that is weeks away from retirement, doesn’t have to take any poop from anybody, and won't. If somebody is being nice to you, they want something. Some people are always nice, some peole are always nasty.

Meat department at a supermarket. I learned many things; Butchers are generally crazy MF's, it doesn't pay to cross them. They are also fiercely protective, I may have been the lowest guy in the place, but I belonged to them. The old quite guy that is weeks away from retirement, doesn’t have to take any poop from anybody, and won't. If somebody is being nice to you, they want something. Some people are always nice, some peole are always nasty.

A high school friend worked in a supermarket. He was the only kid I ever met in HS who had benefits. He even got a vacation day!

I washed dishes in a diner. Woah, google has photos! This is the place:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5010/5337362854_6f3ba7648c.jpg

I hear it got packed up and moved to Spain as part of a chain of American-themed road food. When I worked there it was actually pretty snooty (but cheap, for the good stuff at least; $10 for duck, but also $10 for a burger)

I used to deliver the local paper once a week by bicycle. I would intentionally wait until it got to be too late so that my mom would have to drive me. $15 every two weeks. That was so much money that I actually couldn't even spend it all! Then I quit that when they made it driver's-license mandatory. :(

After that, I worked with my mom at a small company. I worked there for six weeks before we realized that I made $1 more per hour than my mom--which was quite significant at the time--and she was a full-time, career-type employee!

Then I did yard work for my grandmother because she didn't want my grandpa exerting the energy anymore. She severely unpaid me so I "quit." I think she still holds a grudge some 28 years later.

Then I got a real job and the rest was history.

First job was a Hostess at Denny's, then a file clerk at a Dr's office....ugh to both

My first job was delivering papers, I also mowed all of the neighbors lawns growing up. I have been a dishwasher, busboy, waiter, daytime cleaning guy, gas station attendant, cashier, etc. Hated all of those bs jobs.

My first 'real' job (as opposed to neighborhood odd jobs) was doing scutwork at a hospital lab, starting midway through my senior year in high school. I actually stayed there throughout undergrad (along with working for the fire department EMS unit) for the benefits and that as I moved up the ladder, I made more money than I would have in the work-study jobs at school. I paid my way through college and living expenses this way.

Score keeper at a skeet shooting range.

Mine were fairly crappy.... the first real job (I used to babysit when younger) was a counter clerk for a Chinese Take out place. The owner yelled at me in Chinese every day! I hated that job. The next was a clerk at a W T Grant. Another bad job. I finally got a good job with an signficant increase in pay (from $1.35/hr to $2.75!!!) doing data entry for Medi-Cal billing. Thankfully they laid me off - that job sucked as well.

target at a skeet shooting range.

But how did they fit you into the launcher?

Stocking shelves at a grocery store. Most new-hires were started as baggers, I got lucky somehow.

Stocking shelves at a grocery store. Most new-hires were started as baggers, I got lucky somehow.

When I started as a bagger (age 13), that was a level-up from stocker at our store. Stockers were the guys you couldn't trust not to put a half gallon of milk on top of a loaf of bread, or dishsoap and draincleaner in the same bag with your sugar and oatmeal.
Plus, baggers often got tipped when we helped people out to their cars.

Cooking chicken for Colonel Sanders.

Technically, first job was at age 14, self employed teaming with a 16 y/o who had a truck, and we developed a lawn service.

At age 16 through high school work in Winn Dixie (Kwik Chek), bagboy, stock, cashier.

From there I went to a mental hospital... :) ...3-11 shift as they wanted an additional male after hours. Initially receptionist and PBX switchboard opperator (yes old school plugging wires into the switchboard trunks) and later promoted to Psych Tech.

Paper route - 216 deliveries. It was tough to ride the bike with a bag of papers (not all 216 at once of course) that weighed about the same as me.

When I was 15 I worked at a local chimney sweep company, helping them move stuff on jobs. This was under the table; my first "real" (tax paying) job was at a machine shop polishing molds and making parts for guns.

When I started as a bagger (age 13), that was a level-up from stocker at our store. Stockers were the guys you couldn't trust not to put a half gallon of milk on top of a loaf of bread, or dishsoap and draincleaner in the same bag with your sugar and oatmeal.
.

I didn't add this since I grew up with it and i didn't get paid... my parents own grocery stores and from the time I was little I would stock, bag and then work the register (like at 9 years old!). Anyway I was a good bagger and today, still load my cart and then the conveyor belt to the register separating out products like dairy, can goods, soft items, toileties, vegetables, cleaning items etc. Sadly, the baggers today don't get it and still mix things up!

First job - gymnastics coach. fun and easy job until kids decide to pee in the foam pit.

Old Navy - it sucked :(

Grocery store - sucked even more.

Paper boy, working at my parent's bar and liquor store, janitor at a nursery, dishwasher.

After lawn mowing, my first real job was bus boy at the Marie Callender's in Pismo Beach, CA. To this day, I am pretty sure my grandfather (a regular customer) got me the job, because I was not that great as a bus boy. But it was just enough to get me through my first year of college. Food was 50% off while working... and I think 30% off while not working. I used to go home to Corona and take my friends out on the cheap.

I still love pie.

After a year and change of that, I moved on to being a computer lab monitor at Cal Poly. I got the job on a mistake... they had interviewed three guys named Ben that summer... I called and my future boss told me I was hired, not realizing that I was the wrong Ben. (They never regretted hiring me, though.) I answered questions and goofed off for $5 an hour. Thus started my slippery slope into the IT industry.

Jack In The Box, before they blew up the original clown and then resurrected him.

We used to have to slice the onions for the burgers by hand, a 5 gallon bucket at a time. It would make you reek of onions. The only way to get the smell off your hands was to rub them with the Secret Sauce used on the hamburgers.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_qleC7xLAvHg/RkTbDaRhGQI/AAAAAAAAADc/9MO4l_AxLZQ/s1600/jack-2.jpg

My first job was sacker at a Safeway grocery store. back then, stores believed in costumer service. If a costumer complained about you, even if it wasn't your fault, the stockers would grab you, punch you on the arms and throw you in the dairy cooler with lights off to cool off.
Ernest

But how did they fit you into the launcher?
Loaded the launcher too. That was dismal sitting in a cinderblock hut on a dirt floor loading the launcher one at a time. That was my first exposure to work. My first real job was driving a forklift in a large production bakery. I was racing a friend down the back lane on our brand new Peugeot's. He had a speedometer and recalls seeing 42 mph just as we both looked up and I rode right into our neighbors 74 Continental that had backed out of his garage. After I got out of the hospital, the neighbor gave me the bakery job so I could buy a new bike and pay for the damage to his car. My first wreck... :)

Family owned grocery store that was doing ~$250,000 a day in 2001, worked receiving on Saturdays (and got lots of free "stale" doughnuts). As soon as I turned 18 the owners would leave me and one cashier in charge on weekday nights to close. Making $8/hour when most others were making $5.15

Sadly they sold the business to a corporation during my senior year. They offered me $6.50/hr and I told them I wanted $10/hr. I got the $10/hr, elsewhere.

First job was delivering papers. Threw them on the customers' porches from my fast moving bicycle. That was about age 10.
First real job was assembling the meters that meter the flow of gasoline at the gas pump. That was at a place called Liquid Controls. I'm sure some Chinese or Indian teenager is doing that job now.

Worked at the golden arches in HS. In college, I worked on campus in food services, then the book store, then as a file clerk in graduate studies. None of them paid well, but they served their purpose.

Baling hay and shoveling cow s#!t on the neighbor farm when I wasn't busy Baling hay and shoveling cow s#!t on grandpa's farm

Chicken farm; feeding chickens, killing the rats, collecting the eggs, and shoveling the river of chicken poop that flows thru a chicken barn.

In high school I worked in a small bakery making bread. The German owner wanted nothing fancy, white and rye, that was it. I did it in the winter and spring, but quit when it got too hot in the shop. It was mostly pretty boring, the owner played German music all day, but I liked the spending money.

Burger King ---- when we had to wear those ridiculous hats.

http://lynnh.com/images/blog/bkuniformsm.jpg

Oh Thank God, that by the time I did that as a summer job in High School I didn't have to wear that. :lol:

As a kid I walked beans and after we moved got a paper route. The first job where I actually clocked in and out was a dishwasher at a restaurant

Stacking the shelves and general stuff in the frozen goods and dairy section of a big supermarket*. Was a great job in summer - so cool!

From there I did a short stint at McDonalds, 'Boy Friday' at a large architects office, 'glassie' at a pub (collects empty glasses - busboy?), and so on up to some more professional stuff. We're not really going to include others such as being a night watchman at a backpacker's hostel and chasing garbage trucks...






* edit - did learn some cool stuff. Was a very Jewish part of town so I learned pretty quick what was kosher or not!

1st - detassling corn
2nd - detailing airplanes/janitor/general building maintenance/groundskeeper used airplane dealership
3rd - injection mold operator
4th - air hammer operator in paperboard box plant
5th - spot weld operator in commercial metal shelving factory
6th - media prep person/dishwasher in food microbiology research lab
7th - milk products (mainly baby formula and Ensure) quality control lab operator - Main Duty: taste testing reconstituted powdered baby formula for composition/freshness
8th - biochemistry teaching assistant
9th - math tutor for Big Ten university athletic department (teaching dumb football players to add)
10th - building UPS trucks (and other comercial delivery trucks)
11th - Grad assistant studying bacterial growth regulation
12th - postdoc studying antibiotic resistant hospital acquired bacteria and how to kill them

My first job was at Wal*Mart as a cashier. Honestly, not the worst job, or the worst wage. Meh.

Archery counselor at a day camp.....yes, they actually entrusted me with their little kiddies and potentially lethal weapons. No one got hurt.

Similar for me. Camp counselor. Then I was in charge of the Go Cart track. I found out later there were only 2 candidates, the other was my younger brother. (They had problems with the Go Carts the year before and someone they KNEW was reliable was the main requirement). By hte end of the year I also ended up with a few of the problem campers as assistants. Yes I was that good! (Well having the owners son as an assistant did not hurt, the kids knew any threat I made would come true as I had the pull with the boss. Though honestly that never got said explicitly).

Nearly got in a fight with one counselor when I ran the track. His kids were totally out of control. When they broke the cardinal rule (No one goes to the carts until Rusty or I said so. E.g. no one goes out to change drivers until all carts are in and stopped) for the second time I closed the track for the rest of their time that day. He thought camp was just to have fun and was too stupid to realize a trip to the hospital really ruins things, no fun at all.

My first job was at Wal*Mart as a cashier. Honestly, not the worst job, or the worst wage. Meh.

Only thing worse than working at Walmart is shopping there. ;)

First job was a part time one at the Francisco Torres Convention Center. I was the midnight shift desk clerk. Mostly it was sitting there studying or drawing.

My first full time job was as a Lamp Sander at Sculptured Lamps of California. I sanded ceramic lamps all day long. Everything was light grey from the dust. It lasted 3 days.

Then the boss pulled me off and put me on the production line, assembling the lamps. By the time I left, I was running 1/3 of the factory. I went to work at a Pizza place, for more money.

Summer job makin donuts in a deli. Hours were 3-10am. Had the afternoons to ride.

First job: at 15, got a special permission slip from the school to work 4 hours after school in a printing plant. I stacked lead ingots in the typesetting area and neatened that area up, I hand folded junk mail inserts and stuffed envelopes full of it, and then I ran a cranky old addressograph machine feeding the envelopes through in short stacks.

I believe I grossed $1.25 per hour, which was close to the minimum wage at the time.

Of course, gas was 27 cents a gallon, and other stuff was similarly cheap.


I did the newspaper route as a younger kid, and mowed lawns, raked leaves and shoveled snow, but I didn't consider them real jobs -- i.e. no paycheck.

General labor at Quick Service Laundry.
Started out feeding sheets & table linens into the mangler, then went on deliveries with the owner's 80 yr old father. I was 16, so I could not drive delivery more than 4 hours per day. The owner didn't want to risk me being stuck in traffic, so he had his father drive instead. Since the old man had plastic hips & couldn't lift, I was the muscle. I learned quite a bit about the history of our town from him. Also got to take naps in the truck while he drove. I went back for 2 more summers. 2nd summer was more of the first - ride along delivery guy. I also was trained on folding sheets that came through the mangler. 3rd summer I got to drive, because I was 18. I worked from noon until close, which was anywhere from 7pm to 11pm. I'd then go home, shower, & go out with the GF.

Mine were fairly crappy.... the first real job (I used to babysit when younger) was a counter clerk for a Chinese Take out place. The owner yelled at me in Chinese every day! I hated that job. The next was a clerk at a W T Grant. Another bad job. I finally got a good job with an signficant increase in pay (from $1.35/hr to $2.75!!!) doing data entry for Medi-Cal billing. Thankfully they laid me off - that job sucked as well.

Was that the W T Grants in Santa Ana? What time frame?

Stocker/price checker/cashier at Shopko for the holiday season. Wasn't a terrible job, but my feet were fried after stomping around on that hard tile floor all day long. Didn't reapply after the holiday season.

I was washing cars at the carlot on the corner of my street when I was 12. they paid me $2.50 an hour in 1983. I worked all summer and bought my first adult bike from childworld w/ the proceeds.
210735


my first "real job" was at mcdonalds in 88.