close
    What was your first paying job ?

    +11  Views: 2334 Answers: 31 Posted: 12 years ago

    31 Answers (1-30 Displayed)

    I worked for an old man that recycled rags and junk metal. I went door to door asking people if they had any, and he followed with his old beat up pickup truck. I got 50 cents per day and a soda every time he stopped at a gas station, etc. that sold the same (3 or 4 a day). At the age of 12 I got a "real" job working 6 days a week on my cousin's farm helping with the "haying" and milking cows. $10.00 per week plus room & board.

    Tommyh

    Sounds like Steptoe & son.
    digger

    Aren't you glad they've outlawed slavery?

    My first job when I was about 13 was in a Nursery that grew Carnations, I had to make cardboard boxes up for the flowers to go into and weed in between the flower beds in a hot greenhouse in mid summer. I enjoyed it but it was really hot work, Although you were only allowed to work about 4 or 5 hours a day at that age, I  used to get  about £2.00 a week, but it was all mine.

    Babysitting....one year old twin boys!  (I was 12 at the time)...loved having spending money!

    ROMOS

    SO!!! You dispute my age O feathered one????HAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaHaaaaaaaaaaaaaaHaaaaaaaaaaaa
    KOTF.

    Paper route... I bought a 10 speed bike (red) and paid for my skating lessons.

    witchway

    Would that be ice-skating lessons? I still love to ice skate.
    digger

    @WW. Is there really any other kind?
    FISH-O

    I Love figure skating.
    Ducky

    Moderator
    @digger......Canadian eh?
    @Fish Fry....Canadian eh?

    I was a milk boy from age 11, my first wage was 18 shillings a week which is the equivalent of less than £1, that was for seven mornings a week , 4am till 8am, went to school, after school was collection time,1hr every night, loved every single minute of it, gave me the work ethic I have today, wish I could go back to simpler times, know it,s not possible, but hey ho, life goes on.

    Ducky

    Moderator
    Why I would NEVER dispute your age "Oh Kilted One". Why, I look at your picture and I say, that wee lad looks to be about 26!!! Ah yes he does! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

    Sorry...I didn't mean to laugh so long. :)

    selling pretty candles door to door in the sixth grade.

    ROMOS

    were they really that pretty?
    fjoel

    it seems like I remember colors like peach.
    Ducky

    Moderator
    @ROMOS...you are such a bug! LOL!!!!!!!!

    Other than baby sitting (and I did that a lot) I worked for Safeway as a baggier. then went on to checker....

    When i was about 12 i split a paper route with my buddy "chuck hill', it was my first taste of freedom as well as earning my own cash, i thought i was way cool having money that wasn't giving to me as a weekly allowance.

    Babysitting.  I really liked it if the people said to feel free to have a snack. I did a few times pray on my way home(I lived in the country) as the person driving was buzzed.

    Ducky

    Moderator
    One place I babysat always provided a big bowl of potato chips and a bottle of pop..loved going there! :)

    I had a job has a saturday girl washing hair  how I hated that job my poor hands then in the summer i picked potatoes and stawberries loved those jobs out side

    Sitting for baby photos, I was paid a silver dollar per photo. collected $37.00 which my parents put into a college fund. When I was 27 YO I closed the account but not in the silver dollars I had deposited. They would have been worth much more in 1972.  

    ROMOS

    Not with the photos now though,eh?..lol,would you still get the same?..KOTF.

    Selling's souvenir's at the Cleveland Browns football games with my oldest brother,I was 10 years old at the time I started helping him,we did it for fore or five seasons,yes every one we at one time had a good football team (60's) and when they won it was a good payday,not so much when they lost.I remember the first game I worked with him (we worked right out side the gates) and they would open up the gates for the people that wanted to leave early toward the end of the game and he told me to run in and check it out,WOW it took my breath away running up one of the ramps and seeing 80,000 people cheering on the Browns,I felt so small,but a time I'll never forget,and he always gave me a fair share of the money,what a great brother he was.We lost him to the vietnam war,not in the war it self,but after he came home he was not the same and he ended up taking his life and he let it be knowen it was because of what that place did to him,tried so hard to save him but he would'nt take the help from the VA or his family...Miss him so much.

    Tommyh

    Sad about your brother Rick.That bloody war! Will we ever get over it?
    Poppy3

    yeah how very sad for you losing your brother - and such a futile war too - s destroying for the men who were there.
    Bob/PKB

    Thank you for sharing your memory. You must have smiled through your tears as you wrote this. I did as I read it.
    ClevelandRick

    Yea Bob/PKB I always smile when I think of him,there was three of us boys and one girl in the family,I was the youngest and he was the oldest but the middle brother which was closer to his age would never come out of the house,not me I was a out door kid so was the oldest so we did alot of things together,summer or winter we were always out side doing something...

    Detasselling corn in Kansas corn fields for 2.35 an hour. Made enough to buy a cb radio, then quit.

    Not my first paying job, but a bet I lost saw me dressed as a pink doughnut in the local shopping center promoting a new cake shop, try sitting down for smoko in that!!

    McDonald..... One day... $16.81... I still have the paycheck... I was told that if I didnt respect the trainer that I would never make anything of myself in the company... I told them they could have their $4.00 and hour and choke on it... 


    All I did is tell them that a key was mislabeled.

    Jenn

    Training is not an eight hour event...

    At fifteen I started working in our local library, revising sheleves, for .50/hour.

    PAPER BOY


    ""

    At 12 worked in a chocolate factory packing Easter chocolate bunnies (and other chocolate animals) 


    Easter production began in early October ! The broken ones were there for the eating but after about 2 weeks of over-indulging, I couldn't touch the stuff any longer.

    Bob/PKB

    yep, too much of a good thing. been there. :o

    My  first job that gave me cash was delivering coal, paid £2 per week plus tips, that was when iwas 12 seems a life time ago, got to agree with Romos better days.

    ROMOS

    One TU, clickety click,happens to the best of us...lol..KOTF.

    Apart from the paper run I did from when I was about 11, I pumped gas at the "Blue & White taxi service" in Brisbane.For 3 quid a week.

    My first joh - paper round. It amuses me when in the America Movies they go from house to house and throw the Newpaper, in my day we went up the drive, feared being eaten by the dog as you pushed the newspaper through the letter box and possibly got your finger caught.    

    Poppy3

    Umbriel - thanks for your answer - not only the letter boxes were a nightmare - I did it all on foot not like the ones you see in the movies on bikes and throwing quite a distance to land at the doorstep, but you were delivering post so this more difficult. Your answers are so good. Cannot understand why you do not get a better response.
    Ducky

    Moderator
    I worked for several years in a newspaper office, dealing with the delivery kids. Throwing the paper from the sidewalk? Only in the movies!! It had to be placed in the mail box or between the 2 front doors, whichever option was requested by the customer. Otherwise, it resulted in a customer complaint and we had to deal with it promptly!
    Poppy3

    Ducka - I guess it was just the movies then - I am old don't forgetlol. Oh is that test speak.

    I worked at 7-Eleven as a cashier, when I was 17.

    Pet sitting.

    My first job that I can remember, was white washing the fences on the farm for my Dad, paid good think I earned $10.00 for a weeks work.

    Cutting grass in  neighborhood......    gas was cheap back then

    My  first job that gave me cash was delivering coal, paid £2 per week plus tips, that was when iwas 12 seems a life time ago, got to agree with Romos better days.

    I worked at 7-Eleven as a cashier, when I was 17.

    I AM LOOKING BACK TO  MANY YEARS. At about the age of 11 worked for a doctor assisting him in running errands, sterzing syringes, cleaning the dispensary and was paid equivalent of todays 25 cts a day and a chance to use his big  bicycle. I learnt a lot and respected value of money.   Good question

    Typing legal documents for an attorney in my home town. I was 17.

    digger

    17? What a privileged childhood !
    Bob/PKB

    You have no idea how underprivileged a privileged kid can be.

    Age 18, Kuss' Bakery, Mishawaka, Indiana.  Bagged hamburger buns.



    Top contributors in Other - Careers & Employment category

     
    Benthere
    Answers: 2 / Questions: 0
    Karma: 3045
     
    ROMOS
    Answers: 42 / Questions: 0
    Karma: 2715
     
    Colleen
    Answers: 92 / Questions: 0
    Karma: 2400
     
    country bumpkin
    Answers: 32 / Questions: 0
    Karma: 2205
    > Top contributors chart

    Unanswered Questions

    chefkevincottle789club
    Answers: 0 Views: 4 Rating: 0
    ysb66live1
    Answers: 0 Views: 5 Rating: 0
    b52clubbfit
    Answers: 0 Views: 9 Rating: 0
    anand-gcom1
    Answers: 0 Views: 4 Rating: 0
    789win1 Asia
    Answers: 0 Views: 5 Rating: 0
    sunwincampos08
    Answers: 0 Views: 7 Rating: 0
    bpmfilmhello88
    Answers: 0 Views: 6 Rating: 0
    > More questions...
    466445
    questions
    722243
    answers
    785371
    users