First Paid Work

[rimfired]

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As the oldest of five, Dad had me working, mowing and helping out early at home. We had over 4 acres
Had my first paying job at ten, 1960, at Charlies corner grocery store, North End Market. I worked Friday's after school till closing and all day Saturday 8-8. Stocked shelves, stoked the basement coal furnace, helped deliver to the car or on my bike. Sam the beef man would bring in beef 1/4's, hung on the scale and the two butchers, characters both, would cut portions. End of day I got to clean all the meat trays and wirebrush scrub the butcher block. .50 cents an hour.

 

[pawngal]

First real job, Dairy Queen 1964, 55 cents an hour.
Before that a penny a piece for digging thistles and pouring kerosene down the roots in the farm yard & garden.

 

[RudyN]

Started at FMC Ordnance Division for $1.75 an hour as a bicycle messenger in the plant. Then went to work for the County Superior Court at. $2.50 an hour and retired 40 years later.

 

[kozmic]

My first paying job was in 1970 at 11 years old selling newspapers at our local hospital. Amazingly, I pretty much had full access to all of the patient rooms throughout the entire hospital. I saw some pretty sad stuff.

5 days a week (someone else did the weekend) after school. The entire process from my house walking to the hospital, 4 floors of rooms and walk back home was about 2 hours. I averaged a few bucks a week.

 

[arjay]

Started mowing lawns at 11 followed by a paper route.Worked full time in the summers and on Saturdays for my dads construction business starting at 13 for $1/hr.

 

[Fat Frank]

At about 10, I would go up and down our street asking if they needed their lawn mowed. All were about the same standard size - $3 for the job. As far as regular "paid" work, then starting in 9th grade, during the summers I would crop tobacco (north Florida - lots of tobacco farms). $15 per day, however long it took us to fill the barn. Started 6:30am until usually 3pm or so. A couple of summers, I also worked at the tobacco warehouses, helping to load the trucks after cropping season was over. Hard, hot work, but it helped me buy my first car.

 

[vigil617]

First real job, Dairy Queen 1964, 55 cents an hour.
Before that a penny a piece for digging thistles and pouring kerosene down the roots in the farm yard & garden.

Wow, that's a coincidence!

My first paying job was in the summer of 1972 (the year I got my driver's license) at the local Dairy Queen, cooking burgers and fries and making all manner of ice cream treats.

Before that, I nearly ran my dad into the poorhouse one summer when he was paying me a penny apiece to pull up dandelions (tap root had to be included) in our 3/4 acre yard. We had a gazillion dandelions when I started, and a buzillion when I was finished....which was in only a few days, when my dad realized what it was going to cost him to clear our yard of those not-so-dandy lions.

 

[Mr Pokeyman]

My first job was in 1963 at the first McDonalds in Lima, Ohio. I was in the 12th grade and the school left me leave at 2:00 instead of 3:00 so I could get to work. I got 50 cents an hour plus I could eat 10 cents worth of food for every hour I worked. I remember that a hamburger, fries and milkshake was 55 cents. I don't think we served soda type drinks and there was no place for customers to sit, they took their food and left or ate in their cars. I got offered a nickel more at a place called the Red Barn plus all the food I wanted. It was similar to McDonalds but it had cokes. I took that job and stayed until I went to the Navy. It was a great learning experience and I have good memories of that time in my life.

 

[sophie]

In 1954 I had my first paper route. Don't remember how much I made but not much. Went on from there to sack groceries and stock shelves ( .55 cents per hr) and quit when they said I had to wear a tie. Soda jerked after school for .85 cents per hr and worked for Standard Oil for $1.00 per hr after school later. Gas was .19 cents a gallon. Those were good times and I wouldn't change a thing.

 

[googily]

My first paid job was at about 10 on my grandfather's farm for a couple of cents per pipe. Before I started getting paid by my grandfather (and after), I moved many a pipe and bucked many a hay bale on my father's farm for "free" (room and board ha ha

 

[loeman]

My first job other than mowing lawns was in 1960 when I became old enough to detassle seed corn for the Pioneer Seed Corn Co. in Flora, Indiana. I think our pay was less than a buck an hour as I remember my checks as being around $35 for 40 hour week.

 

[Mike SC Hunter]

My first job at the age of 13 was for a neighbor farmer. He would pick me up at sunrise and bring me home at sundown.....$3.00 a day and dinner which his wife would leave on stove for us.......I ask Mr. Coley at dinner one day if he was going to say the blessings......He looked at me and said "Damn The Meat There s The Skin Back Your Head And Cram It In". I never ask Mr. Coley to say the blessing ever again.

 

[Fishinfool]

My first real paid job was as a masons laborer. My ol man was a stone mason, and I would work for him on the weekends doing side jobs. Started when I was about 12 years old. I remember he used to tell me, "if you are a good laborer, the mason will never have to wait for fresh mud or materials, it will always be sitting there, ready for him".

Sometimes easier said than done....

Decided then I didn't want a career in construction. Wanted something less dangerous, where I was not always busting up my knuckles, having to work outside in bad weather, dealing with PIA people, coming home, feeling beat at the end of the day.

So I chose law enforcement.....

Larry

 

[loknload]

First job @ 1969 was at 13 as a dishwasher in a restaurant,made $1.25 an hour plus a meal. Usually a cheeseburger and a coke. I worked for the owner of this restaurant until I graduated high school. He also owned a horse farm that I worked with him.
I also worked a full time 2nd shift job my senior year in high school., made $5.25 an hour running a screw machine. We even made piece rate. Worked 3 to midnight, got off of work, then we went out and had a few beers. I was lucky to have time left to go to school

 

[bricker]

My first real paid job was as a masons laborer. My ol man was a stone mason, and I would work for him on the weekends doing side jobs. Started when I was about 12 years old. I remember he used to tell me, "if you are a good laborer, the mason will never have to wait for fresh mud or materials, it will always be sitting there, ready for him".

Sometimes easier said than done....

Decided then I didn't want a career in construction. Wanted something less dangerous, where I was not always busting up my knuckles, having to work outside in bad weather, dealing with PIA people, coming home, feeling beat at the end of the day.

So I chose law enforcement.....

Larry

I feel your pain. My Pop was a brickmason, as well as two of my uncles. I started out being a "hod" when I was 12. I actually enjoyed it and became an apprentice at 18. Thirty plus years later the knees were gone and the back was going south too. I sure do miss it.

 

[THEWELSHM]

My first Job was when I was 11 delivering papers. I got a job with local milk man delivering Milk shortly afterwards. From there in the school breaks I milked cows, bottled milk, combined fields, stacked the hay, and collected eggs from the chickens. Wow I guess my old bosses would go to jail now for that right?

thewelshm

 

[finesse_r]

From age 11 and 12 I was an independent yard maintenance man, a job done mostly by illegal aliens these days. It was primarily a summer job, but I did some week end work in the spring and fall. At age 13 I got my first Chronicle paper route (7 days a week) and at age 14 I added a second route. I threw papers after school and on weekends for nearly three years until I got a job working at the local grocery store, where I worked after school and on weekends until I graduated from High School. Back then the paper boys were independent contractors. We bought the papers from the Chronicle, we bought string, rubber bands, and plastic bags, and we collected from the clients. Each month we paid our bills to the Chronicle and the difference between what we collected and paid out was what we earned. If someone skipped out without paying, it came out of my pocket not the Chronicle’s. Now I think most people just mail in their payments, but back then I was responsible for keeping up with all the records and for collecting from the customers.

By the time I graduated from high school I had the equivalent of degree in business. I was experienced in keeping books, handling credit, and collecting from customers. I learned to evaluate people first hand. I probably learned more from those paper routes than I did from any other job.

As a 14-year-old paper boy, I knew more about handling money, credit, and keeping records than most adults ever learn.

It is no wonder I would later own my own company.

 

[boatme99]

I never had a paper route. I had friends that did, so I knew better.
At about 11 1/2, I started working at my father's gas station. $2.00 a day, however long it lasted.

Started out pumping gas. Remember when full service was the only way? Of course, I checked the oil, water, windshield washer fluid, trans fluid, and washed the Windows.

I did all the opening and closing stuff when I was there. Rolling out the tire racks (B. F. Goodrich), stocking the oil cans in the island rack, filling the windshield washer and getting the squeegee s.

I had one of those cool four tube change makers on my belt.


Gas was 17¢, 19¢, and 21¢ for premium.

Soon after, I started doing simple tune ups, helping on brake jobs, cleaning parts, mount and balance tires, and tons of other small jobs.

I've managed to keep working ever since, although in hindsight, I should've told my dad "No thanks, President Johnson said I can be a leech and not work."

 

[Marshwheeling]

Starting in 1959 at age 11, I mowed lawns, babysat neighbors' younger kids, has a paper route and bagged groceries at the neighborhood market. I guess the grocery store job was the first paid job.

I didn't have a job in high school because my school was academically very rigorous, and they discouraged us from holding outside jobs. Because I was a scholarship boy, I waited tables in the dining hall, no money but still a good deal due to first crack at extra desserts - apple crisp was a favorite.

My first job after graduating was in an asphalt plant across the road from the very toney school, making asphalt roofing and bending up trim for aluminum siding on a 6 ft. hand brake.

 

[WC145]

The spring of 1976 I was 14 and started working in a tire store that a friend of the family named Lou owned. He told me that he'd buy my lunch, sodas, and snacks and when I knew enough to actually do work that made money he'd start paying me. It took about 5 weeks of working after school for a few hours every day and all day Saturdays before I could put a car up on a rack by myself, use an impact gun, run a Coats 20-20 tire machine, bubble balance a tire, lube a front end, and do an oil and filter change. When I wasn't working on cars I was sweeping, cleaning, stacking and stocking. By the start of summer I knew enough to get paid and I made $40 a week cash plus lunch, snacks, and sodas. I also got an incredible education that summer because I spent it working with and around men that talked to me and treated me like I was one of them. I worked for Lou for a couple of years, until he sold the business and went to work for a distributor. Those were good times and I've never forgotten the lessons I learned.

 

[Lt JL]

1965. washing dishes in a hospital for a buck an hour. to thos day, I remember the final rinse has to be 180 degrees.

 

[soFlaNative]

Mowed 3 yards on the street for $5, gave Dad $2 for using his mower, walked 2 sets of dogs twice a day, cleaned a lady's house once a week and did some babysitting. Washed cars if I got lucky and talked the owner into letting me. Gave it all up at 14 for a 12 mile round trip Schwinn commute to BBQ Heaven in North Miami where for $1.25 cash an hour (plus a cut of the tips) I'd work 4-8 pm 6 days a week as a peon. Thankfully I was caught by the owner busting a 5lb.bag of shredded cabbage over a co-workers head because I was too stupid to quit. Great food but what a hellhole.

 

[rwsmith]

Did yard work.....

I did yard work for other people since I was about 8-9, raking etc. Paper route about when I was 12, grocery store, temporary appointment at the VA hospital. Several drafting jobs. First full time work for a government contractor, first 'permanent' job at the research department of a large paper company. Retired early due to health.

 

[da gimp]

In 1958 raking leaves out of yards with my 2 older brothers...... I was 5, Tony was 6 going on 7, Bill was 7 going on 8............ we got a $1.50 per yard or so. Bill was in charge of burning the leaves....... we saved enough to each get a set of hiking boots/winter boots that fall...... with plenty of Neat's Foot Oil to coat 'em while we shoveled walks that winter to help out.......

Every kid in our lil town had a job after school,. mowing yards, raking, shoveling snow etc..& the girls all helped either in stores up town or helped clean houses.

No kid in our town had a new pair of jeans without rolled up cuffs & a belt cinched tight for growing room........ & when you out grew them a younger cousin or neighbor thankfully got them from you.......

 

[erics]

Summer 1963 I was 13. Worked at the local city golf course. It was run by an old style pro and he had approx 30 kids ages 12-18. We did everything from cutting fairways to tending lunch counters. 75 cents an hour iirc. Old pro would sell you a golf club on credit and when it was all but paid for would sell you another. Don't think anyone of us took a penny out the door. Started next job in September in local sporting goods store, fixing bikes, sharpening skates etc. This was also lgs and tackle shop. Worked there six years. I cry when I think of the guns that went through there and wish I had salted a few of them away.

 

[Kernel Crittenden]

First job I really excelled at, 1972... selling Christmas trees at the Boy Scout Christmas tree lot. I was a natural salesman, but didn't get paid a cent of course. Then we sold guppies in little glass fish bowels in front of the Bitburg base PX. Didn't get paid for that either. First paying job was mowing the grass and clipping the hedges at the Officer's Club. Cut lots of other yards on the side. One thing for sure, grass grows really fast in Arkansas in the summer.

 

[Rustyt1953]

Carl's Pony Keg, 1966. I was 13. Spent most of the time sorting and stacking returnable bottles. Fifty cents an hour and three dollars worth of snacks. That was a lot of snacking back then.
My weakness was Honey Buns.

 

[DeathGrip]

My first was at a transmission shop. My friend worked there and got me in as the shop slave laborer.

Also known as A.S.R. or Automatic **** Removal.

My job was to be there before anyone else and get the dogs out and the mine fields gone. There were two dogs, actually more but I won't count the puppies. The female was a mix breed with a dense and greasy coat. The other was "Duke". One big *** Doberman with an attitude and a thin but equally greasy coat.

No one asked me to clean the dogs but I did. Duke became my pal and made everyone crack up. If you had a rag in your back pocked you could kiss it good bye.

I cleaned and organised the shop like it was new.

All of the time paying attention and buying my own tools. I still have them.

Within a year I was making some real good money for the times.

I was and still am a very quick worker and will never work hourly again. I prefer to get paid by the job.

 

[zelda]

1985 at age 15. Selling fireworks at Wacky Waynes stand, first exit off l-20 in SC. The pay was $3 an hour and the first gift l bought was a Speer #9 or 10 Manual l gave Dad at Christmas.

 

[4011]

Mowing yards. With a push reel mower. Glad we never heard of mulching leaves with the mower back then!