1st job employment experiences,, oh those wonderful first jobs..

[cowpuc]

Ok, I admit with pride that I did pick blue berries and even had a paper route when I was a kid. My first REAL job was even cooler though. It consisted of the nightly cleaning of a restaurant called Ole Taco's in Muskegon Mi. I was 16, had just gotten my Drivers License and had also found true love in the form of a 1969 Honda SL350 Motosport which I planned on purchasing to meet the instant transportation needs that came with having a DL - cant put gas in the scoot without a job to earn the cash for the gas - cant work without a bike to get ya there.. Funny how that works..

After spending a summer day earning my MMS, or Masters of Mopping and Scrubbing, my personal disposable income instantly went from $0 to $60 per week - NOT BAD!! A few weeks of sneaking into work on my 59 Sears Moped and I had the key to that GORGEOUS Motosport!! The summer dwindled by with me learning to ride the Motosport on the backwheel while shifting it thru the gears and lots of folks enjoying a taco with clean tables and floors to put their food on - win/win..

Then something really strange happened. It was late summer, I had arrived at the Taco shop at about 3 a.m., parked my Honda in front, unlocked the door, set the store keys on the counter, looked out at my scoot and realized I had left my bike keys in the ignition. Walked back outside to get my bike key's and heard the store front door go "click" behind me at about the same time I realized I had left the key's to the store inside:doh:.. BUMMER!!

I spent the rest of the night practicing my wheelies in the parking lot in front of the store and chatting with my gorgeous Gold colored 350 Honda.. I was just finishing riding a real pretty 3 gear wheelie when I heard a horn honk behind me. I dropped the front end, turned around and it was my Boss with a forlorned look on his face:confused24:. I parked the bike, we walked in the uncleaned store and HUSTLED to clean the joint before any customers came in. Afterwords my Boss told me that my time with them was finished. I told him I was sorry about what had happened.. He didn't seem to be that alarmed about the store not being cleaned but could just not get beyond the fact that "I could have been killed riding a bike like that" ..

 

Your turn:Cartoon_397:

[sgn]

Well ..... Go in your bathroom and lift the toilet seat .... See them plastic bumpers ... That was my first real job .... 3 seats a minute for 8 hours a day. Working on the left side of the assembly line because of being left handed. On third day left at lunch and never went back. Not even to collect pay. Think about it, how many toilet seats have you bought. 350+ people worked in that plant!

[etcswjoe]

Started helping on a beer truck when I was 13, did not pay really well but kept gas in my 1974 Yamaha DT125A. Joined the Navy when I was 17.

 

http://s760.photobucket.com/user/etcswjoe/media/Linked/407774_4147611451333_1794789152_n_zpsis1kr2yq.jpg.html

Edited August 25, 2015 by etcswjoe

[videoarizona]

Besides delivering papers in the snow (HD twine around bike tires for traction), my first real job was pumping gas in the snow...oil changes and all. 2nd real job was a REAL job. Laying undersea cable in ships during high school summer breaks. Man, that paid huge bux for working midnight to 8am...with overtime in the mornings when the day shift guys didn't show. After work, slept on the beach...then home for dinner, family time with mom and dad...a nappie then back to work. Then came college, radio jobs, Assistant Manager of a Bliss Marine store in Boston and the rest isn't history! It has been interesting, for sure.

[BlueSky]

Handing tobacco for 10 or more hrs/day for $3 when i was about 12. It was bending over, picking up several tobacco leaves from a sled and handing them to a woman who looped a string around it on a stick. at the end of the day, the sticks of tobacco were hung up in a barn for curing.

When i got older I broke tobacco, stooping over breaking off several leaves that were ripe enough to cure and going to the next stalk. Cold in the morning from getting wet from the dew and hot as blazes midday and covered in tobacco gum. $7/day. I had to spend the money on school clothes.

My first regular job at 15 yrs old was working at the local grocery store 13 hours on Saturday for $7, 8:00am to 10:00 pm with an hour for lunch and didn't get off for supper and later also 3 1/2 hrs on Friday afternoon after school for an additional $3. This lasted the last 3 years of high school. i suppose there were no child labor laws back then or at least nobody cared.

[billmac]

My first regular paying job I sold the Grit newspaper and made five cents a paper was not old enough to get a regular paper route. in the winter I shoveled snow and the summer mowed laws, what I was paid back then I wouldn't get out of the chair for today. First real job was at a gas station pumping gas, cleaning windshields, checking oil and air in the tires. all for .75 an hour. No cars, sweeping the floors, taking out the garbage stocking shelves and I was loving it and had some money in my pocket. Would splurge once a day and spend a dime for a coke and a nickel for a candy bar. living the life of riley. lol

[uncledj]

First "kinda" job was a "ball chaser"

I grew up across the street from a minor league ball park, and for $1 a nite (money was sometimes slow comin') I'd chase the balls that went backwards up over the bleachers. Usually happened at least a few times a nite. I made enough to put gas in the mini-bike and pay the 10 cents to get into the public swimming pool.

Then a paper route.

Then for my school, helping with room cleanouts and waxing floors

Then at a local amusement park (Idora Park) aligning the boats to go up the ramp on the "Lost River"

Then for the city painting crosswalks.

Then I hit the big time when Dad got me a job in the steel mill.

When the mills started going down the tubes I moved to South Florida and worked for Bechtel in a Nuke Plant (Turkey Point)

When the work was complete there I did a few years of jackhammer work back in Ohio.

Then I began with a local plumbing heating shop in Youngstown, which got me the experience to get a job with a national HVAC company, working in the Columbus, OH area.

Which is where I am today.

Been thinkin' lately about looking into moving back to the FL Keys though. Lotsa work, but I don't think it pays as well.

More than anything else, I think that I may actually be able to retire some day.

 

 

[GAWildKat]

Being a bit younger...I don't have any neat stories abt places I worked. However, I worked on my Dad's "hobby farm" from the time I was 4 until I was 12 when he sold it. I did a bit of everything from fieldhand to logger. I was unpaid slave labor I tell ya! Just kidding. I enjoyed farm life. My first paid job was dishwasher at pizza hut. I think I lasted a bit more than a week before my back informed me that all that heavy lifting wasn't going to do. The job though that lasted the longest was Chick-fil-A. I lasted 5 years there and while I often hated the younger coworkers; I was grateful to the original owners of my store. They went out of their way to make sure I as a disabled person could do my job and treated me well. They were tough on everyone but fair. I was never made to feel I was hired to fill a quota.

[BlueSky]

F

When the mills started going down the tubes I moved to South Florida and worked for Bechtel in a Nuke Plant (Turkey Point)

 

Been thinkin' lately about looking into moving back to the FL Keys though. Lotsa work, but I don't think it pays as well.

More than anything else, I think that I may actually be able to retire some day.

 

 

 

I worked at the Turkey Point Plant from Jan 11, 2010 to August 29, 2013 as a temporary engineering contractor. A billion dollar plus modification was going on to allow the two nukes to make 15% more power. During the last two outages to install all of the new equipment, I worked 14 months of 6-12s, or actually it was two weeks of 6-12s and one week of 5-12s giving us two days off in a row every 3 weeks. I love the warm weather down there and I love the keys. My wife and I did a lot of fishing and doing the tourist things on the weekends before the long hours started. This helped me a bunch in sending me off to retirement.

[rbig1]

well I was a paper boy in the rough neighborhoods. Then dad said work with me for two years and ill buy you a car. I carried shingles onto roofs, busted up old sidewalks, dug footings for room editions. My first car was wourth 250.00. He said that was my first lesson in life next time get it in writing. Then I worked on a watermelon farm started out walking fields and pulling weeds. To working hauling trailers for potato digger to coup no brakes on truck would just circle building till it stopped. then loaded watermelon's onto trailers then trucks. Then started driving trucks to stores in driving distance and unload them.

[Freebird]

hmmm....first job. I guess I was in the 4th grade so what...9 years old? There was a miniature golf course within walking distance of our house. Back then, they used sawdust instead of the artificial grass that is used now. So my job was to smooth the sawdust a few times throughout the evening. I had a stick with a rope tied to each end and a sheet of carpet nailed to it. I would drag that carpet to smooth the sawdust. I don't remember how much I was paid but I think it was about 25 cents per hour and I got free golf passes for my family.

[cowpuc]

I got free golf passes for my family.

 

Wow,, you and Eileen married fairly young,,, must be the marriage laws in Ohio are somewhat more relaxed than in Michigan Don..

[Marcarl]

My dad had a dairy farm. I was 6 when he bought it. Wasn't allowed to fork hay into the mangers til later sometime. Was told I was more dangerous with a pitch fork than the Russians were with their bombs. From washing teats and sweeping floors I graduated to cleaning gutters when I was tall enough to crank up the litter carrier while standing on a box, later that carrier became a wheel barrow and there was a time or two that I did a face plant in the soft stuff it carried. First real job was delivering feed in 100lb bags. Was 16-17 then and carried 2 bags at a time, couldn't see the use of walking from one end of the barn to the other with only 1 bag. Yep 16 and foolish. Then it was on to butchering and the rest is history. Now I'm out of work but can't seem to catch up with anything,,, even the riding is only here and there,,, only got out twice today.

[Yammer Dan]

I sold shoes!! Back in the day all ladies wore dresses. Then I had that thing with Uncle Sam and letting me play with guns. Got done with that and ran up and down telephone poles for about 20 years. Decided that work stuff was just too much so then I became a State Employee and babysit Maxium Security convicts til I got ran over in 06 went back to work and in 09 got hit head on by a drunk. I'm done.

[Flyinfool]

Ahh the good old days.

 

First job in high school was working a couple evenings a week at the local hobby shop. But with my flying addiction (that I still suffer from) it was pretty much just sign my check and hand it back to the boss.

 

After a while I got a job at a local hall as a buss boy / setup man. Would go in at 3 on a Saturday, the hall was rented out to a church, all the chairs were in rows for the mass service. as soon as mass ended between 3 and 3:30 we had to take down all the chairs from mass and reset the hall for a wedding at 5. I would then buss the wedding, after the wedding meal we had to knock down the catering lines and reset the hall for the rest of the reception, head back to the kitchen to do all the dishes, then head home for a nap. Come back at 1am to clean up the wedding and reset the 500 chairs for morning mass at 6 am.

 

after a few years of that I graduated high school and tried to join the air force. That flying thing again...... but I was unable to pass the physical. So I found my first full time job, paid $1.05 per hour and man I was rollin in dough. I lasted 3 years there doing everything there was to do relating to packaging products. I ran the machine that put that infernal plastic on stuff, the good stuff that is nearly impossible to get off with out destroying the product. I'll bet there are a few on this forum that have cussed me out royally.

 

Then I managed to land a job as a draftsman for a military contractor, I got to help with designing the tool of the trade to make war. That was fun. I was there for 18 years, and had worked my way up to Engineering Manager. A lot of what I worked on was classified all the way up to top secret. You want to see a bunch of BS for that security check.

 

Since then I have worked as an engineer designing HVAC equipment, Train locomotive parts,heavy structural ironwork, and now commercial carpet cleaning equipment.

 

I should be able to retire in another 50 or 60 years......

[DragonRider]

My first job was when I was 15, paid cash daily, and no taxes taken out. We lived next to a gentleman that owned the construction company that was building homes in the subdivision we lived in. He approached me one day and asked me if I want a part time job after school, all I had to do was ride my bike around the subdivision where he was building the homes and close all the windows and doors since his employees failed to do so most of the time, it took me all of about 2 hours to do it and I made $25.00 a week, working Mon. thru Fri. Did that for about 6 months, then I got a job with him cleaning up the construction office after it was closed, got bumped up to 60.00 a week for that.

Now my first real job came as a senior in high school, working at the Burger King, cant remember the hourly pay, but I think it was less than $2.00 an hour. Now Uncle Sam did get his cut of this pay..............

[ragtop69gs]

My first paying job was as a paperboy delivering the morning paper by 6:30am. I started the route with 140 customers, 4 months later it was down to the mid 80's,,, guess sales wasn't my thing

 

Next was a job at a typewriter repair shop sweeping floors at first, then working my way up to cleaning Typewriters and adding machines for a year and a half. then these new fangled machines called electronic calculators came along, the company sent me to school to learn to repair them, did that for 2 years before moving to sales again, this time selling Postalia postage equipment and check writers. I enjoyed that job because I got to visit businesses and talk with the pretty secretaries all day long. Then reality slapped me in the face I took a job working for Chrysler for the next 32 years. Hard work at first but great pay.

[eagleeye]

My first job was also a paper boy, probably around 11 yrs old, then moved on to picking thistles in a pea field for the canning factory. Later in high school drove a pea combine.

Then at 17 joined the navy.

[Max]

First full time job fresh out of college in 71' and into the Navy Reserve at HMCS York for 6 months training. After training, decision time, commit by contract for 5 years off to Halifax, or stay with my sweetheart..... made the right decision, we got married 2 years later and we're (yeah,same girl) still passionate about riding around the continent where ever the ol' 87 takes us.

[SilvrT]

My first job was at a fly in fishing camp in northern Ontario called Barney's Ball Lake Lodge. I was 15 and I got the job coz my mom worked there. This was a 1st class fishing / hunting lodge that catered mostly to rich Americans.

 

We flew in on either an Otter or Beaver pontoon plane. Had a love of flying ever since.

 

My job involved preparing the lunch boxes for the fishing guides. These were filled with all the necessary utensils, pot, pans, and cooking necessities for the guides to prepare a "shore lunch" for the guests from the fish caught during the morning.

 

Other parts of my job involved hauling all the garbage from the cabins and lodge to the dump in an old army jeep. Louis, the frenchman who owned the jeep was quite fussy about it and I had to make sure I kept it clean and didn't wreck it. One day I got it stuck at the dump as I was unloading the kitchen scraps, etc and as usual, the bears knew it was dinner time. Normally that wouldn't be a problem coz I normally didn't get stuck. In my attempts go get out of there before the bears ate me, I got mud and muck all over the jeep from spinning the wheels. Old Louis taught me every French swear word there is that day!

 

We also went out on the lake and netted minnows for bait, brought them back to camp and kept them in a "live pool". The guests would bring their afternoon catch back to our "fish house" where several of us would clean, wrap, and flash-freeze the fish for them to take home. I became quite proficient at filleting fish in those days. All forgotten now though.

 

Being quite "green" and shortly after I'd started work there, my immediate supervisor (guy I mostly worked with) sent me down to the warehouse to get something he needed to include in the lunch box for one of the guides. I was told to tell the guy in the warehouse that Joe sent me to get a long weight. Well, I waited ... and I waited .... and waited ....

 

I could fill pages and pages of my summer experiences working there ... had to be one of the very best times of my life.

[cowpuc]

I was told to tell the guy in the warehouse that Joe sent me to get a long weight. Well, I waited ... and I waited .... and waited ....

 

I could fill pages and pages of my summer experiences working there ... had to be one of the very best times of my life:thumbsup:.

 

These stories are outstanding ya'll!! Silv - THAT is soooo cool!! Tell ya one thing, your first job sounds like a DREAM COME TRUE for any youngster whipper snapper (IMHO) - how cool was that!!!!

Your last comment reminded me of the time I had just started working for the Boilermakers and was on my first Power House job site.. Hadnt been on the job for 2 weeks - the fellow boilermaker in the tool shed stood their staring at me with a great big when a clean shaven young Puc with brand new Carharts and boots stood before him and announced that the Push (boss) had sent him there for a Sky Hook and 40 foot of Shore Line...

 

Gotta be endless stories like these out there folks:happy65:

[Sailor]

My first job was clearing brush for an elderly lady down the street. I don't remember how old I was but I spent more time drinking lemonade and eating cookies than clearing brush. Next it was the usual paper route. It was a rural route with 50 lbs of paper on the front of the bike and another 50 on the back. The route was 13 miles long. It was wicked when it snowed. Lots of hills. First real job was when I worked weekends in the plywood mill while going to high school. I was on the cleanup crew and we would go in and crawl inside the machinery and blow out all the cinders and splinters. The worst were the dryers. Crawling along on your belly inside the machines in 90 degree heat. The absolute worst was the power house. They used sawdust from the mill to generate a lot of their own power. There were four furnaces, each about 12 ft square. They would shut down two on Friday night and then we would smash open the door of bricks to make an opening about 2 1/2 ft square Saturday morning and crawl in. There would be about 8 inches of talcum like powder on every surface and we had to shovel it out. It was over 100 degrees and we had to be completely covered because if the powder came into contact with moisture it turned to acid and could burn you. You had to provide your own clothes. The whole crew was Chinese, I was the only white guy. I also worked feeding sawdust. There was a huge warehouse that held the sawdust. It was about 30 feet high and about 50 ft by 40 ft with a conveyor belt along the bottom. You had a long pike pole and you had to go along and poke the sawdust which would get packed up and create an avalanche into the conveyor. You were alone in there. The guy on the other shift disappeared one day. all they found was the hard hat and pike pole. They figure he went into the furnace. I finally got on full time and was working alongside guys with university degrees. At $4.75/hr it was the highest paying job they could get. I was finally sent to the specialty room which was good. Just two of us and we made up the special orders. We got a list left for us in the morning, set our own pace and quit when it was done. Never saw any bosses. I finally escaped the mill and went to work for the airlines in Vancouver.

[gez]

As a young teenager my first employment was at my Dad's luncheonette. I played soda jerk and short order cook many years, had to quit the track team senior year to work. Got married at 20 and joined the local police department starting on my 21st birthday. Put in my 20 years with all sorts of part time jobs during. Retired at 41 and relocated to Florida opening a moving and storage company. Sold that about 6 years ago, been enjoying life since.

[cecdoo]

Wanted this beautiful "Red" bicycle in Pep Boys window when I was about 10yrs old, Dad said he would match everything I earned toward buying it. So my first job was emptying my aunts wash tubs that set next to the ringer washer. 25cents each, then collected newspapers and rags and took them to the rag shop, got my bike by the end of summer. At about 14 got a morning paper route, set up bowling pins 3 nites a week and worked at Kerns Sunoco on weekends, guess that explains why I never made it to college?? Been working ever since, from construction, to a rolling mill operator in a Beryllium plant, to a Clean room worker at At&T, mens and ladies clothing cutter, worked a draw block at a copper tube plant, you name it I did it.

Craig

[Brake Pad]

Newspaper route for 3 years, (the Suburban News) from 12-15, 17 got my first real job working in a health food warehouse @5.00 an hour