Your First Job?

sightunseen
sightunseen Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭
Unofficially, I had a short-term gig waiting tables at a relative's Chinese restaurant when I was 9 or 10 [insert Chinese child-laborer joke here]. It was for a week during my summer vacation. It was fun for me because of the novelty factor and the customers liked the "cute" factor. Channleing Calvin's father, my parents thought it would "build character."

Officially, I was a "Sandwich Artist" at Subway when I was in high school. Make sure to pronounce "artist" with a French accent.
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Comments

  • Hays
    Hays Posts: 2,335 ✭✭✭
    My mom's owned a cleaning business for like 25 years, so my first 'unofficial' job was janitor. I took over one of her clients (a corporate tile office), and for 4 hours a week, made $250/mo under the table. Wasn't bad as a senior, but when my car broke down (the first time of many), had to get a second job. Started out at Banana Republic in the mall, working the stock room.
    ¨The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea¨ - Isak Dinesen

    ¨Only two people walk around in this world beardless - boys and women - and I am neither one.¨
  • minibeezy
    minibeezy Posts: 257
    I worked for a friend's parents' music store. It was like getting paid to play in a toy store for a 15 year old musician (I use that term lightly).
  • I was a dispatcher for my father's trucking company when I was 14. Paid under the table. My first actual job was as a Sandwich Artist as well.
  • Krieg
    Krieg Posts: 5,208 ✭✭✭
    Well, I started out at A&P as a bagger/cart dude...then they shut down on me...then I got a job at Circus World Pizza as Lucky the Lion....then they shut down on me.....next...I got a job at Willy Platt's golf range...then he lost it in a card game.....next...I got a job at Boston Market....then they shut down on me....so I went to Chuck E Cheeses...and cooked pizza for a year, then I just decided I had enough pizza and walked....got a job at Target catching shoplifters for the next few years till I went to college....now that was fun job.

    "Long ashes my friends."

  • smoke_em_if_you_got_em
    smoke_em_if_you_got_em Posts: 4,992 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I was a host @ red lobster for the summer before my senior year of high school. All I had to do was open doors and take people to their seats and hang around cute hostesses all day!
  • PuroFreak
    PuroFreak Posts: 4,124 ✭✭
    I started out at 13 hoeing and spraying weeds in the cotton fields in West TX. Didn't make a lot of money and was worn out and sun burned at the end of the days, but made my own money and killed a sh*t load of rattle snakes. I've had a job ever since and at times multiple jobs. Might have multiple jobs again soon.
  • cabinetmaker
    cabinetmaker Posts: 2,557 ✭✭
    Busboy at the (now defunct) Outpost restauraunt at 14. I used to bus the bar after closing and make myself drinks when noone was looking. Noone ever looked, I'd stagger home at 4 in the morning...
  • stephen_hannibal
    stephen_hannibal Posts: 4,316 ✭✭✭
    Started working at my church in Jr. High mowing lawns during the week, and running the audio production during the weekends.
    Later on I wrote lesson plans for the youth pastor while in HS.

  • wwhwang
    wwhwang Posts: 2,878 ✭✭✭
    Bagged groceries at Winn-Dixie. Wasn't much, but that's all a 15 year old really needs for a summer job.
  • LeftFive
    LeftFive Posts: 184 ✭✭
    I did summer maintenance work at the Stickley factory, and weekends at their local showroom as a first job.

    I was a sandwich artist directly after that. Too funny, wonder if there's any correlation.
    Also funny, I went for the interview sporting a black eye I had caught the night before brawling at a gas station. Guess they were desperate!
  • I cleaned up a Taco John's parking lot when I was around 11, paid in food.

    First real job was digging pools during the summer. I was 15 working almost 60 hours a week making $7hr, I thought I was rich.
  • fla-gypsy
    fla-gypsy Posts: 3,023 ✭✭
    Worked a summer job for an electrical contractor digging trenches for secondary cable. 48" D x16" W @ 8 hours a day. Too this day I can do wonders with a shovel. Pay was $2 and a hour and a killer tan
  • I was a "hamburger artist" at Burger King in high school.
  • i started off working for quiznos right across from my high school....started good.....turned into switching stores and being a manager at another store
  • Heavy
    Heavy Posts: 1,589 ✭✭✭
    I was a fry technician and a dish sanitation engineer at a Hardee's for a couple of months in high school. For all you left coasters, a Hardee's is pretty much like a Carl Jr.'s except with killer biscuits!
  • jlmarta
    jlmarta Posts: 7,880 ✭✭✭✭✭
    You're not going to believe this but my first job was as a helper on a horse-drawn milk wagon in Detroit delivering milk to customers door-to-door. I was 12 years old and the job was weekends only until school was out and then it was every day. I made $1.25 per day plus all the milk I could drink or cottage cheese and such that I could eat. And, every now and then, I got to drive the horse-drawn wagon.

    Marty

  • Jdorais
    Jdorais Posts: 652
    ah memories! First job was a gas station jockey at the neighborhood texaco. this was before the self serve madness. We had uniforms, the rag in the back pocket to check customers oil and squeegees that worked. And can you believe we even did repairs?
  • Dustin1981
    Dustin1981 Posts: 412
    My first was fixing ball marks on the greens at the local golf course when I was 13 and got paid in free golf. My first real job was bagging and cart guy at Reni Regos before Giant Eagle took them over.
  • stephen_hannibal
    stephen_hannibal Posts: 4,316 ✭✭✭
    jlmarta:
    You're not going to believe this but my first job was as a helper on a horse-drawn milk wagon in Detroit delivering milk to customers door-to-door. I was 12 years old and the job was weekends only until school was out and then it was every day. I made $1.25 per day plus all the milk I could drink or cottage cheese and such that I could eat. And, every now and then, I got to drive the horse-drawn wagon.

    Marty

    Dude, how old are you?

  • Lasabar
    Lasabar Posts: 4,464 ✭✭✭
    First Job was working at a 2nd run movie theater. Only 4 theaters, and all the Soda and Popcorn I could eat for free. All the movies would run at the same time so I literally had a 2 hour break inbetween customers! It was a dream job and I got fired for tipping the crane machine because the assistant Manager wanted a animal out of it and the Boss man found out!
  • jlmarta
    jlmarta Posts: 7,880 ✭✭✭✭✭
    stephen_hannibal:
    jlmarta:
    You're not going to believe this but my first job was as a helper on a horse-drawn milk wagon in Detroit delivering milk to customers door-to-door. I was 12 years old and the job was weekends only until school was out and then it was every day. I made $1.25 per day plus all the milk I could drink or cottage cheese and such that I could eat. And, every now and then, I got to drive the horse-drawn wagon.

    Marty

    Dude, how old are you?



    I'll be 74 in November. Thanks for asking.

    Marty

  • vegassparky
    vegassparky Posts: 365
    I was a ranch hand from the time i was 12 to about 17. at 17 i got a dish washing job to help pay for school. didnt want to spend my whole life on a ranch.
  • zoom6zoom
    zoom6zoom Posts: 1,211 ✭✭
    Mucking out stables at fifty cents per stall. Yes, it was a **** job.
  • docedwards
    docedwards Posts: 319
    Mowing yards when I was about 12. The day I turned 14 in '71, I started working for a family owned hamburger place for .95 hr. (Yes, that was actually below the minimum wage at the time)
  • j0z3r
    j0z3r Posts: 9,397 ✭✭✭
    While I was still in high-school I would work a few days during the summer if my dad needed help on a job, my first and only day of work was the day before school was back in session between freshman and sophomore year. We worked 12 hours on a school job and at the end I was paid almost $300 for a day of work, I was feeling rich. My first official job was taking care of things at a small RV lot, that entailed washing the RVs, hosing down the lot and any minor maintenance things....to say I hated that job would be a drastic understatement, but I was in school and it was nice to have a paycheck, even if it was a mere pittance.
  • jsnake
    jsnake Posts: 5,979 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Paper route
  • docedwards
    docedwards Posts: 319
    Krieg:
    Well, I started out at A&P as a bagger/cart dude...then they shut down on me...then I got a job at Circus World Pizza as Lucky the Lion....then they shut down on me.....next...I got a job at Willy Platt's golf range...then he lost it in a card game.....next...I got a job at Boston Market....then they shut down on me....so I went to Chuck E Cheeses...and cooked pizza for a year, then I just decided I had enough pizza and walked....got a job at Target catching shoplifters for the next few years till I went to college....now that was fun job.
    Virtually every place you go to work for goes out of business. I know you have a job now so I assume you don't mention that fact on your resume.
  • Jetmech_63
    Jetmech_63 Posts: 3,451 ✭✭✭
    Cleaning horse stallls and tending horses for a year. Was honest work for honest pay. Then worked as a caterer until i joined the navy.
  • lilwing88
    lilwing88 Posts: 2,812 ✭✭✭
    My first summer job, was a parking lot security guard at a bank when I was 14.
    Guns don't kill people, Daddies with pretty daughters do…..
  • kuzi16
    kuzi16 Posts: 14,625 ✭✭✭✭
    i mowed lawns for about 6 neighbors every week. could clear about $100- 150 a week. not bat money for a 13 year old.