Your First Job?

xavier mcdaniel · October 2013

Day camp counselor where I met a few of my friends that I'm in touch with 16 years later. Got the job by responding to an ad in the paper over the phone.

SVRDhand13 · October 2013

I worked at a clothing store. Not mentioning which one :oops:

.

StillHere · October 2013

Weiner King! Located in a really quaint outlet shopping village in Flemington NJ. Right next to the steam train ride station. Chili weiners. I think I made something like $1.45 an hour. I was 14 and I was in heaven.

After that it was Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips, remember that place? I did whatever I could to avoid working Fridays cuz everyone crammed the place on Friday afternoons and the boss acted like a madman. Obviously there was a huge Catholic don't-eat-meat-on-Fridays population in town. Do we still do that?

After that, I became "important"

and worked afternoons in the high school main office typing and mimeographing. If you remember mimeographing then you're letting on your age. I loved it!

dankind · October 2013

PureandEasy wrote:

Taco Bell, back when Taco Supreme or Enchilada were biggest menu items.

Me, too! Also, the Chilito was still a Chilito, and the joint still had green sauce.

LloydXmas · October 2013

SVRDhand13 wrote:

I worked at a clothing store. Not mentioning which one :oops: .

You worked at Abercrombie and Fitch?

supadupa · October 2013

I worked at a men's clothing store, part of a small chain that no longer exists. It sold a lot of brands that were popular with young guys. The staff was mostly female because male employees always ended up stealing.

SVRDhand13 · October 2013

LloydXmas wrote:

SVRDhand13 wrote:

I worked at a clothing store. Not mentioning which one :oops: .

You worked at Abercrombie and Fitch?

Close, but not as bad

(and I worked at a camp for a few years but it was volunteer, this was my first paying job)

gregkitefan · October 2013

Caldor.

Pingfah · October 2013

Saturday job in a rare records shop when I was 15. We also used to do record fairs up and down the country. Absolutely amazing first job!

It's all been downhill from there actually.

guacamolejoe · October 2013

Stock boy at the local liquor store Nov - Jan .............17 year old

No wonder I had a drinking problem when I was young :fp: ,

pints were easy to hide when leaving the store :shh: ........................ :shifty:

Jason P · October 2013

1st job was stacking hay bales

2nd job was stacking lumber at a sawmill

3rd job was as a day laborer stacking cement blocks

Needless to say, I studied my ass off in college so that one day I could tell others to stack stuff.

MayDay10 · October 2013

Dishwasher at a holiday inn.

It was hell. Banquets with hundreds of people taking place simultaneously, plus a restaurant... one dishwasher, the machines were always broke. you had to put the dishes away and they were hot as fuck. Poor management/supervision, the kitchen was an absolutely disgusting shit hole. I didnt last too long, maybe a month?

hedonist · October 2013

whispering hands wrote:

I was a groundsman for a lady that went to our church, and she owned a Stock farm for race horses. I worked as a groundsman for her, feeding horses, cleaning stalls, bathing horses,cleaning water buckets and troughs. I woke up at 4 every morning to get there by 4:30. Worked til 7, then went home showered got ready for school, and then went back after school. It was hard work, but I learned tons!! And I absolutely loved being around all the horses!
I got paid 3 an hour but at 11 yrs old that's RICH!! I worked for that lady til I was 13. I saved for those three years and bought my first horse by my 14th birthday!!

Wow! Some excellent life-lessons must've come from these experiences at such a young age.

Am I the only one impressed by this?

My first "real" job was at 17, as a temp at a major department store that no longer exists (but the behemoth it existed IN is still there). Worked my way up over the course of four years, but burn-out got me.

No wonder I now avoid shopping centers at all costs :P

ldent42 · October 2013

You ever find menus that got slipped under your door?

My first paying job was doing that. for a store though, not a restaurant. In the projects. at 13 years old.

I have since learned to make better employment decisions. :thumbup:

dimitrispearljam · October 2013

at a bar

decides2dream · October 2013

if i ignore babysitter, first real job was as a salesgirl in a jewelry store as soon as i could get my work permit.

oceaninmyeyes · October 2013

Dairy Queen, putting swirls on cones and making Buster Bars, hot fudge sundaes and chocolate malts

shetellsherself · October 2013

oceaninmyeyes wrote:

Dairy Queen, putting swirls on cones and making Buster Bars, hot fudge sundaes and chocolate malts

Whoa! Parallel lives once again!

mine was at the Dairy "Keen" our little rural town's version of the same

oceaninmyeyes · October 2013

shetellsherself wrote:

oceaninmyeyes wrote:

Dairy Queen, putting swirls on cones and making Buster Bars, hot fudge sundaes and chocolate malts

Whoa! Parallel lives once again! mine was at the Dairy "Keen" our little rural town's version of the same

oooh are you hearing that Twilight Zone music or is it just me? :shock:

wasa1971 · October 2013

My title was a " kiddie wrangler" I looked after kids between shoots on a local tv show.

jmurray · October 2013

Yokens, a seafood place in Portsmouth, NH in the back kitchen

youngster · October 2013

I was 15 and got a job at a deli/sandwich shop. Since state law says you had to be 18 to use the meat slicer, I was relegated to cleaning up, stocking drinks in the cooler, making chicken/ham salad and cooking chicken cutlets in the oven. It wasn't bad but I quit when football season rolled around so I could play.

mookeywrench · October 2013

Warehousing & packing at a sign/print shop on the night crew over the summers. $10 per hour with no limits on working over time. Can't imagine why that place had to lay off their entire night-shift the next year. :fp:

Eraserhead · October 2013

Data entry monkey some 17 years ago. I still work for the same organisation, now doing project management.

Thank you Civil Service.

Sprunkn7 · October 2013

Besides babysitting which I started at 13, I was 15 when I worked in a greenhouse. Funny because my sister and mom are great gardeners and I kill anything that isn't seasonal or goes into a terrarium....

Get_Right · October 2013

Indifference71 wrote:

Caddy at a country club.

+1

PeTaLuMa · January 2015

StillHere wrote: »

Weiner King! Located in a really quaint outlet shopping village in Flemington NJ. Right next to the steam train ride station. Chili weiners. I think I made something like $1.45 an hour. I was 14 and I was in heaven.

After that it was Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips, remember that place? I did whatever I could to avoid working Fridays cuz everyone crammed the place on Friday afternoons and the boss acted like a madman. Obviously there was a huge Catholic don't-eat-meat-on-Fridays population in town. Do we still do that?

After that, I became "important" and worked afternoons in the high school main office typing and mimeographing. If you remember mimeographing then you're letting on your age. I loved it!

Just saw your post NOW.... did a search on Flemington to see if anyone in the neighborhood was a fan & this post popped up. I remember Weiner King. It was the best. Wonder if you ever took my order??? I still live in the area. Arthur Treacher's is now Taco Bell. They just got the steam train up & running again. I love hearing the whistle

mca47 · January 2015

Landscape at a golf course. Played so much golf back then I was pretty damn good. The work part of it suuuucked though. Getting up at 5AM on a weekend to do physical work....no thanks! hahahaha!

Wobbie · January 2015

a glue factory.....not kidding.

beaver adhesives.....no, we didn't use horses (at least not that I know of)

PJ_Soul · January 2015

I woke at this discount designer fashion store called Fashion Ltd 2000. It was awful. It was owned by this super creepy and very intimidating and misogynistic man who sexually harassed the young female staff (i'm talking 15 - 17) in a really fucked up way. As their boss, he got them to model slutty outfits and bathing suits for him after hours, and used his position of authority to pressure them into doing it, and if he wasn't actually molesting at least some of them I'd be shocked. I just couldn't believe these girls would actually do it. He had this very disturbing psychological hold over his staff that completely shocked and disturbed me. Well, for some reason, I guess because I was a kid, I couldn't bring myself to quit - I was scared of the perverted boss - so instead I sabotaged my employment. Within a week of being hired (once I realized what was going on behind the scenes) I started coming to work in inappropriate clothing (that REALLY covered me up - baggy everywhere, lol), and no make-up and without doing my hair, and i just acted like an uninterested, lazy employee with an attitude. It took 3 weeks to get fired (he tried to draw me into his sick little operations for a while before giving up)... 3 very long and horrifying weeks. Then I got a great job as a hostess at a fun Tex-Mex themed restaurant, the Lone Star Cafe. That was fun. OMG, how we partied, lol.

Of course, I wish I'd called the cops on that pervert now, but back then I just didn't know how to deal with it, plus it was a different time. Stuff like that didn't usually get reported back then.

Your First Job?

Comments