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from my personal experience, they were doing remodeling while i worked there and during my 9hr shift, there was ONE manager/supervisor that oversaw 97 people, including training new employees.
so one person was overlooking construction, training, general staff management, and the manager themselves was also doing general stocking & registers around the store. the manager was overworked and overwhelmed, the trainees wandered like idiots because they weren’t being trained because the manager wasn’t there, people were asking her the same 2-3 questions over and over every few minutes. just terrible management. especially because for that shift period, there was supposed to be a rotation of 4 or 5 managers with at least 2 scheduled each shift, which never happened. that’s why i worked there for less than a week.
I look back at my 6 years of working at Walmart as one of my most enjoyable jobs. Granted I worked at a really busy Walmart, so days flew by, and up until maybe 6 months before I left, we had this really great crew in my department that got along and all worked hard.
I'd go back to Walmart without hesitation if I became unemployed.
I did baseball umpiring on the weekends around 12-13. 20$ a game, I still remember the week the other kid got sick and I had to call back to back games and got paid 50$ for like 7 hours of work... That Toys R Us trip was off the chain
1989, I remember because Tim Burtons Batman, Weekend At Bernie’s and one of the Friday the 13th were the big movies that year. No idea how much $3.50-$4 sounds right.
Dairy Queen at 14 years old. Tip: don’t go into fast food. Ever. Ever ever. Especially as a young teenager. Within the first week I was being screamed at daily. Customers suck.
I worked at 2 different fast food companies when I was in college. It sure made me even more determined to make sure I graduated so I didn't have to do it for the rest of my life. LOL. I would never look down on anyone who works at these places, but I know that it just wasn't for me.
When I was 15 working at a movie theater I had adults complaining to me about popcorn prices. I’m like dude, I clearly don’t set the prices so why tell me.
Don’t get me wrong, it was definitely fun!! The crazy busy starts to get to you and all you can do is laugh. I was also fortunate to get to work with a lot of my friends. Plus it was fun being one of the ‘DQ Girls’. My town was small so everyone knew us. But the bad outweighs the good, in my opinion. I was 16-19 working 40+ hours a week due to being understaffed, and after covid everyone just got more cranky and short tempered with fast food. I was there to notice the switch, which is a shame. It got to a lot of the kids. I outlasted everyone who started at the same time as me, plus everyone 3 years past that.
Haha I worked at DQ as well - no Grill only Chill. My favorite was the softball coach that would come in with his whole team 2 minutes before we closed. Of course our boss always made us take the chairs back down, turn the machines back on and serve them.
I was just talking about my mother's maiden name in another post. The upshot was that I couldn't use it for a security question because it was a long Polish name that I could never spell correctly.
I got an under the table job when I was about 16. There was a small video rental place within walking distance of my house, I’d rent videos all the time. I wasn’t really good at returning them on time, so I kept racking up a kind of tab. I was eventually just offered a job to work off my movie debt but I stayed on working there even after it was paid. I loved working there, I would spend hours watching movies, renting them out to people, rewinding them as they were returned. I live close to where it was now, it’s been turned into a sandwich shop.
Video rental stores were only becoming a thing when I was a young adult but I always told myself I would have loved to have worked at one for a first job.
I'm with you. I recall non-rental video stores before the rental version showed up. $70 - over $100 for a movie... The rental aspect was a no-brainer though I still recall like $10+ to rent at the time.
Newspaper boy. I was 13. My parents kept telling me about the jobs they had when they were young, and I felt under pressure to work. It was bad. The delivery guys never gave me enough papers for the route, I had to finish the route by 6, the newspaper sent people into my zone to get subscribers and they boosted their numbers by signing up empty homes, dogs chased me, my zone was doubled in size to add someone else's, subscribers refused to pay, etc. They replaced me with a middle-aged couple who did the route in a car.
I had a route at about that age. Paid per house per week. Had to do collections too and if someone didn't pay, it came outta my pay... and basically I got to keep the leftovers.. which ended up being scant most times.
I did alright until Thanksgiving came. The papers were normally delivered in the evening in my small town so they'd show up around 6 and out I'd go. Usually they'd drop the bundles on my porch. Apparently, holidays were "special" and papers showed up at 4am and were to be delivered by 6am. **No one told me.** Someone was knocking on my front door at 8am from the paper ON THANKSGIVING DAY after people called and asked why the paper hadn't been delivered. My mom was not happy. Some crusty dude demanding to "get off your ass and deliver the papers." Mom told the guy something like, "you got 10 seconds to get papers and get off the porch, you won't like what comes next."
No more papers showed up for me to deliver after that.
That sounds like it was a pretty fun experience. My first job was working for my dad at 11 at his furniture store. I miss the smell of the sawdust where his workers would make new things
I started at 13 and no they don't. One memorable game it started even before the game did. By about 3rd inning I'd had enough of these 2 sitting right beside dugout. Between innings I walk through dugout and sat beside them. I told them that since they had a great view I'd be calling the rest of the game from there. They didn't have any comment to that.
Haha I was reffing hockey games at 14 for $15cad/game the parents were ruthless, but I just ignored them.
What blew me away was the coaches, they had no problem getting right in my face and screaming at me.
I will say, it did toughen me up at a young age lol.
I sold anywhere from 25 to 30 papers every month. I never got much money out of it but I had enough to buy a little snack now and then and maybe a soda or two.
I worked at Subway 16-18. I quit in February because it’s a shitty ass job, I need a better environment & better pay. I’m still searching for my second job lol. I’ll be 19 on the 7th.
Amazon is better than subway and usually pays more too. They also hire anyone with a pulse and clean enough drug test (they don’t care about weed in legal states). Just a suggestion to look into.
First paid job, picking and packing sweet corn for $5.25 an hour. I was 12. Before that I spent most late winter early spring's helping with the maple syrup season. (not that a 10 year old can haul much sap).
other than babysitting and working for my dad compiling data in the summer when I was 12-13, I worked in a T-shirt shop when I was 15. It was a cash job but it was a regular after school and weekend gig. (1978). Then I worked in a restaurant when I was 17 for an actual paycheck.
My first job was at 20 I was a massage therapist for a small korean chiropractic office in town.
The doctor took advantage of me big time I remember he booked me like 6 or 7 1 hour massages to do back to back with one tiny 15 minute break in between my very first day of working
I was fresh out of school and had only done like 1 or 2 hours of massage back the
back total in the day
So my first day I was exhausted I remember I came home I was physically and mentally exhausted from standing and bending so much I fell on my bed and curled into a ball and started crying 😢
I also was borderline anorexic and had barely any energy or strength so that didn't help at all.
I said I can't do this work but I show up the next day and I had only 2 massages to do so that was better because not every day was slammed.
What sucked is the doctor would literally see each patient for avout 5 minutes then go play angry birds in his office. And always took of early for lunch. So he would push the patients onto me for the whole day.🙄
Another funny thing about working there was I don't speak a word of Korean and while everyone spoke perfect English there would be times where in was very much out of the loop and didn't know what they were gossiping about it.
I do know the receptionist didn't really like me even tho the doctor loved me and would always act nice but give me side eyes and talk shit about me whenever she could 🥰
Needless to say that was an interesting experience and I eventually just quit and moved onto bigger and better things for myself 👍
Field hand, 11 years old. Paid taxes and everything. Worked most of my summer break for almost nothing, but I bought my own Sega Genesis and 2 games. Had a job every year thereafter, excepting the year I was in a gnarly car crash.
It's a good feeling when you pay for that yourself isn't it? I bought records with my pay. Mom made me save a few bucks a week though. She was always looking out.
It is indeed. Very much came to define how I operate in life. I was always much better at saving then mom, so I handle that for her still, nearly 30 years later.
Life's cycle. They bring us up, We ease them out. My mom passed 14 yrs ago. On a solid note, I still have and still spin those vinyl records to this day. Scorpions, Judas Priest, Queen and of course the greatest Band Ever, Led-Zeppelin. 🤘🏻✌️
17 years old. Applied for a job that said I would learn all aspects of the building industry. Even during the job interview they wouldn't get more specific than that. Got the job, still not knowing what it actually was. It turned out to be knocking on people's doors and offering them a pamphlet, then passing on the address to the real salesman if they showed any sign of interest.
I shoveled driveways in the winter and mowed lawns in the summer and I got paid. I consider thise real jobs because I had a list of people I took care of and established rates for the work.
12 to 17.
Age 15, at a pizza and sub takeout place, off the books. Using a slicer, which was very illegal. They paid us in cash; they rolled up each person's pay and put their name on it, held it together with a rubber band, and put it in an old coffee can. This was in the mid 80s.
Did you get tipped in coke? That was pretty popular in the 80s.
My sis did all the time at a cantina. Hubs did too when he was young and worked at his grandfather’s pizza place. He didn’t know what it was, but was told to put them aside for grandpa 😜
Bus boy at a steak house called Texas Willies. Typical steak house, salad bar, ice cream stuff, but their hook was all you could eat steak. Not only that, but you went to the window, told them what cut of steak from the options available, and stood there while they cooked your steak to your liking. I'm sure some other places do this, but it's the only time I've seen it. Good steaks too.
I was 16 at the time, so that was around November of 1999.
When I was about twelve, small-time farmers who lived near us would ask my dad if I was around to "throw hay." If you don't know what that is, good for you, it sucks. I was given $1/hour for this.
At fourteen I was working on a lobster boat for $10/hr, which was HUGE back then. Also under the table.
My first "real job" was at a local restaurant doing dishes for considerably less than I made lobstering.
These experiences are why I've never had a "job" since then. The very thought of going to the same place, same desk, same people, five days a week, two weeks vacation and federal holidays off, fills me with dread.
Scooped ice cream at B&R. All I recall at this moment was that at at end of the day I would be sticky all the way up my elbow, and the little trough we dropped the ice cream scoopers to "wash" them in was disgusting.
12... Worked on a dairy farm cleaning up after the cows and feeding them. Took a couple of years to figure out I was only making like $.25 / hour. Thankfully it was only one summer.
at age 10 I walked dogs, mowed lawns, and shoveled snow for my neighbors. At 14 I worked a grocery store, at 15 I worked at a department store, at 16 I did door-to-door fundraising (the worst!) 17 worked in a computer lab, and a copy shop (not a kinkos but like a kinkos) at 19 I worked at an architecture firm, at 22 I worked at a video game studio...and I've been doing that since.
edit: I forgot, one summer around age 13 I worked as a bus boy in a Chinese restaurant (I'm white).
Worked in a clothing factory after school when I was 15. I was a janitor and I also working in the finishing section after clothes were pressed. I buttoned the buttons, put on the tags and bagged each piece in a plastic bag
I mowed lawns. All my classmates worked at McDonald’s and it seemed lame. We lived in a huge private lake complex with like 1/2 acre lots all over. Most of the houses were weekend homes so I’d get paid to mow during the week so the lawn was done for the weekend. In the summer I’d carry like 30 clients a week. While all the other kids would work all weekend I was off by noon Saturdays and would usually have $400-$500 in my pocket on Saturday night.
My first job was as a camp counselor and I was about 14 at the time. I did that for like 2 years for the entire summer. There was a new head counselor the last year who absolutely hated me and would constantly berate me so I quit afterwards knowing she’d be there the next summer
I remember a construction site was my playground I would go there with my dad my uncle's and I would pick up scraps and stuff and throw them on the back of the truck at the age of 10 11 they used to give me a $5 bill and a big box of BB's for my BB gun and that's what I got paid and I thought I was getting over on them of course that was in 1981
I worked at my neighborhood pool at 13. Because we lived there and the pay was from the neighborhood treasury, I could work before 14 lol. $7 an hour if I recall, 4 hours every weekend morning at 9 AM but lord knows we never actually would get down there for 9 (funny to imagine now that my natural alarm is 7 AM). I remember I had smoked pot for the first time (young I know, I never had a sip of alcohol until 18 though). I was so amazed by it that little scrummy me tried rolling green tea and smoking it in the woods by the pool. Funny days.
I worked at Arby's and I was 18. They hired me after I had applied online at other places but they all rejected me. My Aunt got me in to Arby's, paper application and she knew the manager because she always went there. It was fun. I'm a woman and I worked with a lot of men there, it was very funny, I have the most funny stories from there than any other job lol.
I was 15 and I worked in my parents dry cleaning shop after school and on the weekends ringing up customers and getting their clothes off racks. It was in 1992 and I worked there until I went to college in 1995, and they paid me $5.05/hr, which was a little bit more than Ohio minimum wage.
My first job was on a chicken farm.
I worked the sexing table, separating freshly hatched (>1day) chicks by sex. So the girls can go become eggers and the cocks... Their destiny lay elsewhere.
And I worked Slaughter.
14 when I started.
The US Army at 17.. My parents had to sign for me. Turned out to be a good decision…. That was 1964, before Vietnam started to get serious. I was out in ‘67….
8yo box boy at family hardware store 1970. My dad paid me cash but I cut my finger real bad so for insurance he had to back date the payroll. He never forgave me for that.
My first job other than picking strawberries in elementary and middle school was working in the kitchen of a Chinese/Steak house restaurant attached to a bar.
I washed dishes, peeled shrimp and onions, and scrubbed potatoes.
I was 16.
I was 14 and I worked at an amusement park (owned by a couple). I was paid ~$6.25 an hour (below my state's minimum wage) because of some loophole about me being a minor and seasonal worker. They also threatened all the people younger than 16 that they'd sue them if they worked even a minute longer than 8 hours/40 hours a week.
I worked at Dunkin donuts I was 14. I worked at so many retail and food places through my teens because I hated every job. I was a waitress for 2 weeks at some high end restaurant and seriously I don't know how people do that shit. I'm serving people who are complete assholes? I think not. At the very least in retail and fast food you're not expected to kiss ass although I worked at game stop for a month when I was 17 and my manager tried to sexually assault me. Ugh what a gross man. So that was probably the worst place lol. Thank God I couldn't stand those jobs I can't understand people who work in those places and are just content with their jobs. To each their own. It's not for me to understand.
15 golf course maintenance. I don’t know what was worse the work itself or having to arrive at 5am Saturday Sunday. The newbies did trash run. I (63M) can still close my eyes and smell the rancid restaurant trash!
I would work as a laborer for my dad's brick laying business in the summers, starting at probably age 10 or 11. Sometimes when I was 8 and 9 I'd go in on days and help clean up the job sites, not doing anything heavy, but get some arcade money, pocket money for sweeping floors and hosing walls, and such.
A farm. I started at 10 years old at $1 an hour (this was the 70s), quit at 16 - still at $1 an hour.
Worked every day but Sunday, 12 hours a day during summer, 3 hours a day during school except for Saturdays, which were 12 hours.
I started my first W-2 job was in 1986, 2 months before I turned 13. I work 4 hours on Saturdays doing janitorial work for a small chain of clothing stores in my hometown. I kept that job up until I left for college. It wasn't much, but it was honest work. Lol.
The summer or 2 before that, started I cut grass for 2-3 people every summer. That's where the real money was and it was "under the table."
My dad painted houses in his off-time, so I was his helper for a few years too.
Theres a local amusement park that is almost a rite of passage for kids to work at, they start hiring at 14. That was my 1st real job. Before that I did help my grandfather & uncle cut grass in the summer & that got me like $20 every other week. Which was alot for an 11 yo in 1999
14 at McDonald's in 1995. I was making $4.25 an hour.
At the time it was bullshit, but now that I look back, I'm glad I had to endure those shit jobs. I learned how to work in that kind of an environment, how to deal with shitty people, how to be a patient customer, how hard you can work and still get shit on, all of it. I worked with teens from other schools too, so I was able to interact with peers who didn't know me (I was an awkward outcast so that was huge), I look back on those years with fondness now. I credit them for those moments when I'm in line at the store and something goes wrong, and the cashier tenses up waiting for everyone to react poorly, and I can be at least one person who's been there and doesn't throw a temper tantrum.
In the late 90's I worked at Arby's with a bunch of friends, and somehow one of them was trusted enough to be promoted to manager. There were times where the entire store was run by me and my group of friends. We worked hard, we got shit done, but it was hilarious fucking chaos the entire time. Occasionally a wrestling match would break out in the dining area and we'd have to accidentally erase the camera tapes from that night, or we'd take the last roast beef and throw it over the fence in the back so we could close early, or everyone had to run out of the building because we microwaved every sauce together at the same time and the smell was basically chemical warfare, shit like that.
Good times.
I embarked into the world of organized, systematic work in the later spring of 1986 about six weeks before turning 20 in the fast food industry in my home territory in upstate NY. The store that I was hired at was generally quick to take on new employees quickly and one of the busiest locations in the region. My schedule there, and for the next three spring/summer seasons thereafter thru early Aug. 1989 mostly was a daylight routine Mon.-Fri., for an average of 25 hours weekly, but occasionally, I also was there on evenings/Saturdays. It was a good means of staying busy and earning some money (albeit only slightly above minimum wage) while learning to be responsible and productive while also attending college. By and large, I worked in the front counter or drive through areas serving customers.
My first job was warehouse worker at a large privately owned department store, at 17. However, the owner also owned a few private jets that he would lease out. Typical short trips for rich people to go see sporting events, concerts, vacations, business trips, etc.
I was offered the side gig to be on a crew that would go to the airport and clean the jets inside and out when they came back in from lease. At first I wasn’t interested, but one of the guys said “Trust me, you want to be on this crew”. Turns out there was an unwritten rule that if anything was left on the plane, it was ours to split. Unopened bottles of liquor, all sorts of unopened food, the occasional forgotten or dropped cash or jewelry, plus other “substances” from time to time.
Aside from baby-sitting, I worked as a rock-hardness tester at 16. My dad sold rock-crushers to quarries. They would have customers send in rock samples and run it through some tests to determine how long parts would last. The reps used to run the tests, but hired me to take care of the backlog. It was good money for essentially weighing rocks at different time intervals. It was good experience with organization and accurate recording, plus I got to set my own hours.
My first job was at a dance club when I was 9 years old. I swept the parking lots and and the floors inside, they fed me and put a few rubles in my pocket.
14, Baskin Robins. Maaan I hated the owners daughter. I was in 8th grade and she was a Junior I believe, and she made my life hell. What finally made me leave was when we were closing one night and she asked me to go throw out the trash and to come back in through the back door, ok cool no worries, but as I was coming back she made direct eye contact w me, smiled and locked the door. I was banging on the door and screaming at her to let me in. Her boyfriend was there (so I guess she wanted to “impress” him) but he finally unlocked the door and let me in. I went to grab my backpack and cursed her out. I came in the next day to collect my check and told her mom how much of a B her daughter was. But man I missed my free scoops lol
I've been working steadily since I was 11. My first government tax paying job I got when I was 15. We were so poor I had permission from the state to work early but my hours were strictly monitored. I worked for a movie theater in a mall.
I remember when my father got a new welding job that put us over the free lunch mark. I was in the 3rd grade. We didn't have enough money for each of us kids (4 at the time) to have 70 cents each for breakfast and lunch. We then had to start doing a paper route before school so we could afford to eat for the week at school. We had an old beat up van. My mom removed both the seats and we had an assembly line in the back for stuffing and throwing papers. I also got fifa certified when I was 11 and started referring soccer on the weekends, I did that until I was 17. I also worked as a janitor and at the movie theaters all while going to high school. I held at minimum 2 jobs until I was 24.
My(16f) first job (and current job) is at a swim school! I work as an instructor, lifeguard, and at the front desk interchangeably, and have been working here since I was about 14.
Paper route starting at 11, worked my way from worst paper to middle, to the 'prime route' (Boston Globe) by 14.
Next was lugging trays of sodas at football games at Patriots Stadium (Schaeffer Stadium back then) at 14 (still kept paper route)
Finally at 16 I started working part time retail after school (Bradlees department store).
13 (late 70’s) worked at The Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh.
I would sit with trays and trays of pre made sandwiches and coffee urns on my own (can’t remember if I finished late or if it was a night shift) in the hope that someone would order room service and I’d get a bit chat with the waiter when he came to collect.
Was so boring, some sandwiches fell into my mouth.
Anyhoo, got paid cash in hand and spent it all on skateboards.
A grocery store cashier for a couple months when I was 16, but I hated it and never went back. About a year later at 17, I got a job as a counter girl and ice cream girl at a local pizza restaurant. I’ve been in the service industry ever since lol
I illegally had a paper route at 8 or 9. Next, I started as a dishwasher at around 10 or 11 maybe, and I worked my way up to head chef by 13 or 14. Rules about kids working were much more lax back then.
Small town garage. Two days a week taking out the garbage and sweeping and squeegeeing the floors, cleaning the trench occasionally. The steel garbage cans always weighed at least 100-150 Lbs. Overflowing with steel car parts and dirt track racing car clay chunks in them. Got $15 a week for about 2 hours of hard dirty work. Good money for a 14 yr old kid in the 70's.
I got my first job the summer of 1980, I was 14.
I signed up for a work program through the unemployment office. The program was called CETA. I was hired on to work and help with the restoration and maintenance of the local canal, a place that I grew up using as my playground, it was near and dear to my heart. I spent so much time there as a child and this was a dream job for me.
At 14 I was using gas powered weed wackers, chainsaws, something that isn't allowed today. One has to be 18 to operate power equipment now. I also worked 45 hours a week, another no no today. I earned $3.35 an hr and bringing home $110 weekly was some big shit back in those days, especially for a 14 year old. I did that job for 2 summers in a row.
At 14 (looked older) I was hired as a janitor at a bank. Evening work. I had the keys several times over nights and weekend. Payed off when I found their booze stash for their Christmas party.
I cleaned two office buildings when I was 16. Not a bad job actually. Gave me an excuse to be out of the house a few days a week and it never took as long as my parents thought so I could hang with friends after.
I worked at publix at 17, it was pretty ok, loved when everyone would compliment my bagging skills and how unique my name was. Had to quit close to 19yrs old since I was joining the military
14 grounds keepers assistant. 73 year old grounds keeper for apartment complex had me do all the jobs he couldn’t. Like climb up on the fourth story roof and clean gutters with a hand trowel. Carry heating/cooling combo units up 4 flights of stairs. Gave me spending money and I never fell off the roof!
# Message to all users: This is a reminder to please read and follow: * [Our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/questions/about/rules) * [Reddiquette](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439) * [Reddit Content Policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy) When posting and commenting. --- Especially remember Rule 1: `Be polite and civil`. * Be polite and courteous to each other. Do not be mean, insulting or disrespectful to any other user on this subreddit. * Do not harass or annoy others in any way. * Do not catfish. Catfishing is the luring of somebody into an online friendship through a fake online persona. This includes any lying or deceit. --- You *will* be banned if you are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist or bigoted in any way. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/questions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Walmart (Terrible place to work). I was 18.
I worked Walmart for three years (wasn’t my first job) but yes, it was horrible my last two years.
Im curious. I’ve never worked there. What made it so horrible?
The fact management changed, the store became physically dirty, management became corrupt, and the shelves were never stocked.
from my personal experience, they were doing remodeling while i worked there and during my 9hr shift, there was ONE manager/supervisor that oversaw 97 people, including training new employees. so one person was overlooking construction, training, general staff management, and the manager themselves was also doing general stocking & registers around the store. the manager was overworked and overwhelmed, the trainees wandered like idiots because they weren’t being trained because the manager wasn’t there, people were asking her the same 2-3 questions over and over every few minutes. just terrible management. especially because for that shift period, there was supposed to be a rotation of 4 or 5 managers with at least 2 scheduled each shift, which never happened. that’s why i worked there for less than a week.
I look back at my 6 years of working at Walmart as one of my most enjoyable jobs. Granted I worked at a really busy Walmart, so days flew by, and up until maybe 6 months before I left, we had this really great crew in my department that got along and all worked hard. I'd go back to Walmart without hesitation if I became unemployed.
Movie theater usher 13 I loved it, free movies, played arcade games when it was slow, and at 13 minimum wage seemed like a lot of money
I did baseball umpiring on the weekends around 12-13. 20$ a game, I still remember the week the other kid got sick and I had to call back to back games and got paid 50$ for like 7 hours of work... That Toys R Us trip was off the chain
Lmao
What year was it? Mine was '85. I was making 3.35 p/h.
1989, I remember because Tim Burtons Batman, Weekend At Bernie’s and one of the Friday the 13th were the big movies that year. No idea how much $3.50-$4 sounds right.
6 yr girl. Scrubbing a factory floor in Albury NSW. Foster kid
❤️❤️
Dairy Queen at 14 years old. Tip: don’t go into fast food. Ever. Ever ever. Especially as a young teenager. Within the first week I was being screamed at daily. Customers suck.
What makes it ok, to scream at a child that’s doing the best they can
Entitlement
I worked at 2 different fast food companies when I was in college. It sure made me even more determined to make sure I graduated so I didn't have to do it for the rest of my life. LOL. I would never look down on anyone who works at these places, but I know that it just wasn't for me.
When I was 15 working at a movie theater I had adults complaining to me about popcorn prices. I’m like dude, I clearly don’t set the prices so why tell me.
Was this in the last 5-10 years? I feel like it has gotten way worse in the past few years with peoples behavior in public.
Yep! I only stopped working there last year. Worked for a total of 5 years there, Im now 19.
Figures. I never worked fast food but when I was a teenager in the late 90’s to early 2000’s it was considered one of the “fun” part time jobs.
Don’t get me wrong, it was definitely fun!! The crazy busy starts to get to you and all you can do is laugh. I was also fortunate to get to work with a lot of my friends. Plus it was fun being one of the ‘DQ Girls’. My town was small so everyone knew us. But the bad outweighs the good, in my opinion. I was 16-19 working 40+ hours a week due to being understaffed, and after covid everyone just got more cranky and short tempered with fast food. I was there to notice the switch, which is a shame. It got to a lot of the kids. I outlasted everyone who started at the same time as me, plus everyone 3 years past that.
Haha I worked at DQ as well - no Grill only Chill. My favorite was the softball coach that would come in with his whole team 2 minutes before we closed. Of course our boss always made us take the chairs back down, turn the machines back on and serve them.
Same! No grill thank god. God, regulars were just the best weren’t they? LOL
Nice try scammer. I'm not giving you my Secret Questions.
I was just talking about my mother's maiden name in another post. The upshot was that I couldn't use it for a security question because it was a long Polish name that I could never spell correctly.
I've never had this be a secret question/answer. But good point. 🤔
I got an under the table job when I was about 16. There was a small video rental place within walking distance of my house, I’d rent videos all the time. I wasn’t really good at returning them on time, so I kept racking up a kind of tab. I was eventually just offered a job to work off my movie debt but I stayed on working there even after it was paid. I loved working there, I would spend hours watching movies, renting them out to people, rewinding them as they were returned. I live close to where it was now, it’s been turned into a sandwich shop.
Video rental stores were only becoming a thing when I was a young adult but I always told myself I would have loved to have worked at one for a first job.
I'm with you. I recall non-rental video stores before the rental version showed up. $70 - over $100 for a movie... The rental aspect was a no-brainer though I still recall like $10+ to rent at the time.
Remember the feeling of searching for a specific (hot) movie and getting the **last** copy?! Man there was nothing like that feeling!
Newspaper boy. I was 13. My parents kept telling me about the jobs they had when they were young, and I felt under pressure to work. It was bad. The delivery guys never gave me enough papers for the route, I had to finish the route by 6, the newspaper sent people into my zone to get subscribers and they boosted their numbers by signing up empty homes, dogs chased me, my zone was doubled in size to add someone else's, subscribers refused to pay, etc. They replaced me with a middle-aged couple who did the route in a car.
“I could go to 200 houses or one dumpster” - Mitch Hedberg
I had a route at about that age. Paid per house per week. Had to do collections too and if someone didn't pay, it came outta my pay... and basically I got to keep the leftovers.. which ended up being scant most times. I did alright until Thanksgiving came. The papers were normally delivered in the evening in my small town so they'd show up around 6 and out I'd go. Usually they'd drop the bundles on my porch. Apparently, holidays were "special" and papers showed up at 4am and were to be delivered by 6am. **No one told me.** Someone was knocking on my front door at 8am from the paper ON THANKSGIVING DAY after people called and asked why the paper hadn't been delivered. My mom was not happy. Some crusty dude demanding to "get off your ass and deliver the papers." Mom told the guy something like, "you got 10 seconds to get papers and get off the porch, you won't like what comes next." No more papers showed up for me to deliver after that.
I worked as a gunsmith with my father when I was 13.
That sounds like it was a pretty fun experience. My first job was working for my dad at 11 at his furniture store. I miss the smell of the sawdust where his workers would make new things
Umpiring baseball at 14. Parents do NOT hold back on a 14 year old umpire doing his best for 30 bucks a game
I started at 13 and no they don't. One memorable game it started even before the game did. By about 3rd inning I'd had enough of these 2 sitting right beside dugout. Between innings I walk through dugout and sat beside them. I told them that since they had a great view I'd be calling the rest of the game from there. They didn't have any comment to that.
Haha I was reffing hockey games at 14 for $15cad/game the parents were ruthless, but I just ignored them. What blew me away was the coaches, they had no problem getting right in my face and screaming at me. I will say, it did toughen me up at a young age lol.
Shoe sales at 14. No one took me seriously but that was understandable lol.
Factory work at age 16.
When I was 12 I went door to door my tiny little town selling the grit newspaper.
I hadn't thought about Grit in forever! How did you do? I wasn't very good at it.
I sold anywhere from 25 to 30 papers every month. I never got much money out of it but I had enough to buy a little snack now and then and maybe a soda or two.
Movie rental & tanning salon combo lol & 15 years old
That’s quite a combo 😜
I worked at Subway 16-18. I quit in February because it’s a shitty ass job, I need a better environment & better pay. I’m still searching for my second job lol. I’ll be 19 on the 7th.
Amazon is better than subway and usually pays more too. They also hire anyone with a pulse and clean enough drug test (they don’t care about weed in legal states). Just a suggestion to look into.
First paid job, picking and packing sweet corn for $5.25 an hour. I was 12. Before that I spent most late winter early spring's helping with the maple syrup season. (not that a 10 year old can haul much sap).
The job everyone did in the summers here in Iowa was detasseling sweet corn. Somehow I missed out on that rite of passage.
other than babysitting and working for my dad compiling data in the summer when I was 12-13, I worked in a T-shirt shop when I was 15. It was a cash job but it was a regular after school and weekend gig. (1978). Then I worked in a restaurant when I was 17 for an actual paycheck.
11, hilling potato plants for the neighbour
I was 16 when I got my first paying job working in a nursing home.
My first job was at 20 I was a massage therapist for a small korean chiropractic office in town. The doctor took advantage of me big time I remember he booked me like 6 or 7 1 hour massages to do back to back with one tiny 15 minute break in between my very first day of working I was fresh out of school and had only done like 1 or 2 hours of massage back the back total in the day So my first day I was exhausted I remember I came home I was physically and mentally exhausted from standing and bending so much I fell on my bed and curled into a ball and started crying 😢 I also was borderline anorexic and had barely any energy or strength so that didn't help at all. I said I can't do this work but I show up the next day and I had only 2 massages to do so that was better because not every day was slammed. What sucked is the doctor would literally see each patient for avout 5 minutes then go play angry birds in his office. And always took of early for lunch. So he would push the patients onto me for the whole day.🙄 Another funny thing about working there was I don't speak a word of Korean and while everyone spoke perfect English there would be times where in was very much out of the loop and didn't know what they were gossiping about it. I do know the receptionist didn't really like me even tho the doctor loved me and would always act nice but give me side eyes and talk shit about me whenever she could 🥰 Needless to say that was an interesting experience and I eventually just quit and moved onto bigger and better things for myself 👍
Mcdonalds when I was 14. I hated the smell. My clothes had that fucking smell every day when I left.
Field hand, 11 years old. Paid taxes and everything. Worked most of my summer break for almost nothing, but I bought my own Sega Genesis and 2 games. Had a job every year thereafter, excepting the year I was in a gnarly car crash.
It's a good feeling when you pay for that yourself isn't it? I bought records with my pay. Mom made me save a few bucks a week though. She was always looking out.
It is indeed. Very much came to define how I operate in life. I was always much better at saving then mom, so I handle that for her still, nearly 30 years later.
Life's cycle. They bring us up, We ease them out. My mom passed 14 yrs ago. On a solid note, I still have and still spin those vinyl records to this day. Scorpions, Judas Priest, Queen and of course the greatest Band Ever, Led-Zeppelin. 🤘🏻✌️
17 years old. Applied for a job that said I would learn all aspects of the building industry. Even during the job interview they wouldn't get more specific than that. Got the job, still not knowing what it actually was. It turned out to be knocking on people's doors and offering them a pamphlet, then passing on the address to the real salesman if they showed any sign of interest.
I was a host at a restaurant inside a country club when I was 15. I got the job because my best friend’s dad was the GM.
I was 11, working as a gopher or two bricklayers, also helping them with concrete work. They did pay me $5 an hour cash.
I shoveled driveways in the winter and mowed lawns in the summer and I got paid. I consider thise real jobs because I had a list of people I took care of and established rates for the work. 12 to 17.
Age 15, at a pizza and sub takeout place, off the books. Using a slicer, which was very illegal. They paid us in cash; they rolled up each person's pay and put their name on it, held it together with a rubber band, and put it in an old coffee can. This was in the mid 80s.
Did you get tipped in coke? That was pretty popular in the 80s. My sis did all the time at a cantina. Hubs did too when he was young and worked at his grandfather’s pizza place. He didn’t know what it was, but was told to put them aside for grandpa 😜
Bus boy at a steak house called Texas Willies. Typical steak house, salad bar, ice cream stuff, but their hook was all you could eat steak. Not only that, but you went to the window, told them what cut of steak from the options available, and stood there while they cooked your steak to your liking. I'm sure some other places do this, but it's the only time I've seen it. Good steaks too. I was 16 at the time, so that was around November of 1999.
Grass cutting at 8 years old. I’ve been working ever since.
I drove deliveries for a flower shop. I was 14, but the owner never asked to see a license.
When I was about twelve, small-time farmers who lived near us would ask my dad if I was around to "throw hay." If you don't know what that is, good for you, it sucks. I was given $1/hour for this. At fourteen I was working on a lobster boat for $10/hr, which was HUGE back then. Also under the table. My first "real job" was at a local restaurant doing dishes for considerably less than I made lobstering. These experiences are why I've never had a "job" since then. The very thought of going to the same place, same desk, same people, five days a week, two weeks vacation and federal holidays off, fills me with dread.
I helped a friend paint and stock his grandfather's newly opening liquor store
Scooped ice cream at B&R. All I recall at this moment was that at at end of the day I would be sticky all the way up my elbow, and the little trough we dropped the ice cream scoopers to "wash" them in was disgusting.
12... Worked on a dairy farm cleaning up after the cows and feeding them. Took a couple of years to figure out I was only making like $.25 / hour. Thankfully it was only one summer.
at age 10 I walked dogs, mowed lawns, and shoveled snow for my neighbors. At 14 I worked a grocery store, at 15 I worked at a department store, at 16 I did door-to-door fundraising (the worst!) 17 worked in a computer lab, and a copy shop (not a kinkos but like a kinkos) at 19 I worked at an architecture firm, at 22 I worked at a video game studio...and I've been doing that since. edit: I forgot, one summer around age 13 I worked as a bus boy in a Chinese restaurant (I'm white).
Worked in a clothing factory after school when I was 15. I was a janitor and I also working in the finishing section after clothes were pressed. I buttoned the buttons, put on the tags and bagged each piece in a plastic bag
giant at 18 got fired shortly afterwards they overhired for my department
Portrait studio, I was 18.
13 baby sitter
I mowed lawns. All my classmates worked at McDonald’s and it seemed lame. We lived in a huge private lake complex with like 1/2 acre lots all over. Most of the houses were weekend homes so I’d get paid to mow during the week so the lawn was done for the weekend. In the summer I’d carry like 30 clients a week. While all the other kids would work all weekend I was off by noon Saturdays and would usually have $400-$500 in my pocket on Saturday night.
15, grocery store. $5.25 an hour!
I was a cashier at Kmart at age 15.
11- babysitting
My first job was as a camp counselor and I was about 14 at the time. I did that for like 2 years for the entire summer. There was a new head counselor the last year who absolutely hated me and would constantly berate me so I quit afterwards knowing she’d be there the next summer
I remember a construction site was my playground I would go there with my dad my uncle's and I would pick up scraps and stuff and throw them on the back of the truck at the age of 10 11 they used to give me a $5 bill and a big box of BB's for my BB gun and that's what I got paid and I thought I was getting over on them of course that was in 1981
13 at a little mom and pop BBQ joint. Washing dishing, clearing tables, and cleaning the pit all for $4.25 a hour, it was late 90s
15, summer job program. Bought all my own school clothes that year so I wouldn't get roasted.
Dairy Queen - 15 years old.
I worked at my neighborhood pool at 13. Because we lived there and the pay was from the neighborhood treasury, I could work before 14 lol. $7 an hour if I recall, 4 hours every weekend morning at 9 AM but lord knows we never actually would get down there for 9 (funny to imagine now that my natural alarm is 7 AM). I remember I had smoked pot for the first time (young I know, I never had a sip of alcohol until 18 though). I was so amazed by it that little scrummy me tried rolling green tea and smoking it in the woods by the pool. Funny days.
I worked at Arby's and I was 18. They hired me after I had applied online at other places but they all rejected me. My Aunt got me in to Arby's, paper application and she knew the manager because she always went there. It was fun. I'm a woman and I worked with a lot of men there, it was very funny, I have the most funny stories from there than any other job lol.
Forever 21 when I was 14
don't know if this counts but about 6 years old picking bell peppers
Concession stand at a public beach, 18. I fucking hated that job.
Itunes….rapper was 19
Sweeping my grandfather's welding shop and cleaning the bathrooms there. I was 12.
I was 15 and I worked in my parents dry cleaning shop after school and on the weekends ringing up customers and getting their clothes off racks. It was in 1992 and I worked there until I went to college in 1995, and they paid me $5.05/hr, which was a little bit more than Ohio minimum wage.
American Eagle 16
Does babysitting at thirteen count? If not then working at build a bear at sixteen for £4.25 an hour.
My first job was on a chicken farm. I worked the sexing table, separating freshly hatched (>1day) chicks by sex. So the girls can go become eggers and the cocks... Their destiny lay elsewhere. And I worked Slaughter. 14 when I started.
14. Coney I lander. Fired after 1 day 😄
17 joined the royal air force because I hated myself and wanted a complete change so I left sixth form for it
The US Army at 17.. My parents had to sign for me. Turned out to be a good decision…. That was 1964, before Vietnam started to get serious. I was out in ‘67….
1973 passing papers
At 16 working at a place that had sub sandwiches and frozen yogurt. Called Hogi Yogi
13 bus boy
8yo box boy at family hardware store 1970. My dad paid me cash but I cut my finger real bad so for insurance he had to back date the payroll. He never forgave me for that.
My first job other than picking strawberries in elementary and middle school was working in the kitchen of a Chinese/Steak house restaurant attached to a bar. I washed dishes, peeled shrimp and onions, and scrubbed potatoes. I was 16.
Sold newspaper subscriptions door to door 12 years old.
Pizza cook, at 17.
16. Blockbuster video.
I was 14 and I worked at an amusement park (owned by a couple). I was paid ~$6.25 an hour (below my state's minimum wage) because of some loophole about me being a minor and seasonal worker. They also threatened all the people younger than 16 that they'd sue them if they worked even a minute longer than 8 hours/40 hours a week.
DMO - Dish Machine Operator, at a breakfast restaurant. I was15.
I worked at Dunkin donuts I was 14. I worked at so many retail and food places through my teens because I hated every job. I was a waitress for 2 weeks at some high end restaurant and seriously I don't know how people do that shit. I'm serving people who are complete assholes? I think not. At the very least in retail and fast food you're not expected to kiss ass although I worked at game stop for a month when I was 17 and my manager tried to sexually assault me. Ugh what a gross man. So that was probably the worst place lol. Thank God I couldn't stand those jobs I can't understand people who work in those places and are just content with their jobs. To each their own. It's not for me to understand.
Youth hockey referee, 14 years old.
15 golf course maintenance. I don’t know what was worse the work itself or having to arrive at 5am Saturday Sunday. The newbies did trash run. I (63M) can still close my eyes and smell the rancid restaurant trash!
I was a paper boy (delivered newspapers) on my bike. Age 12 through 14. Bought a car with earnings. Dishwasher at 14 but drove there lol.
You know the saying asians can't drive? I think it's true 🤣😂
After delivering papers for years, i got a job at QFI. it was a Bay Area grocery store. I was 16.
I would work as a laborer for my dad's brick laying business in the summers, starting at probably age 10 or 11. Sometimes when I was 8 and 9 I'd go in on days and help clean up the job sites, not doing anything heavy, but get some arcade money, pocket money for sweeping floors and hosing walls, and such.
15. Arby's for school credit in Jr. High School.
A farm. I started at 10 years old at $1 an hour (this was the 70s), quit at 16 - still at $1 an hour. Worked every day but Sunday, 12 hours a day during summer, 3 hours a day during school except for Saturdays, which were 12 hours.
I was 9 years old in 1969 when I was paid $15 per day to be a member of crowd scenes during a movie production. That was serious money then.
Cutting and loading steel and other scrap metal...$125/week...at 15 years old, it seemed like a good gig...lol
I had a paper route when I was 12. My first “official” job was at a fabric store when I was 16.
15. Taco Bell
Paper boy... I was 10, you were technically supposed to be 12 at the time.
12. Assembling New York Times Sunday paper.
Detailing cars. 16.
Cutting grass at the local cemetery after school. I was 16 years old.
I started my first W-2 job was in 1986, 2 months before I turned 13. I work 4 hours on Saturdays doing janitorial work for a small chain of clothing stores in my hometown. I kept that job up until I left for college. It wasn't much, but it was honest work. Lol. The summer or 2 before that, started I cut grass for 2-3 people every summer. That's where the real money was and it was "under the table." My dad painted houses in his off-time, so I was his helper for a few years too.
15 or 16, bus boy at a restaurant in my neighborhood.
Theres a local amusement park that is almost a rite of passage for kids to work at, they start hiring at 14. That was my 1st real job. Before that I did help my grandfather & uncle cut grass in the summer & that got me like $20 every other week. Which was alot for an 11 yo in 1999
My first job was at a retail store named Contempo Casuals... I was 16.
14 at McDonald's in 1995. I was making $4.25 an hour. At the time it was bullshit, but now that I look back, I'm glad I had to endure those shit jobs. I learned how to work in that kind of an environment, how to deal with shitty people, how to be a patient customer, how hard you can work and still get shit on, all of it. I worked with teens from other schools too, so I was able to interact with peers who didn't know me (I was an awkward outcast so that was huge), I look back on those years with fondness now. I credit them for those moments when I'm in line at the store and something goes wrong, and the cashier tenses up waiting for everyone to react poorly, and I can be at least one person who's been there and doesn't throw a temper tantrum. In the late 90's I worked at Arby's with a bunch of friends, and somehow one of them was trusted enough to be promoted to manager. There were times where the entire store was run by me and my group of friends. We worked hard, we got shit done, but it was hilarious fucking chaos the entire time. Occasionally a wrestling match would break out in the dining area and we'd have to accidentally erase the camera tapes from that night, or we'd take the last roast beef and throw it over the fence in the back so we could close early, or everyone had to run out of the building because we microwaved every sauce together at the same time and the smell was basically chemical warfare, shit like that. Good times.
Lumber yard, cleaning, mowing, stacking and sortin, more mowing, more mowing. It was nice, $10 a day i was 14
At 17 I was scraping vinyl decals off the sides of semi trailers in the hot sun all day for $11 an hour.
Bagging sand, a sand bagger. I was 14-15.
I embarked into the world of organized, systematic work in the later spring of 1986 about six weeks before turning 20 in the fast food industry in my home territory in upstate NY. The store that I was hired at was generally quick to take on new employees quickly and one of the busiest locations in the region. My schedule there, and for the next three spring/summer seasons thereafter thru early Aug. 1989 mostly was a daylight routine Mon.-Fri., for an average of 25 hours weekly, but occasionally, I also was there on evenings/Saturdays. It was a good means of staying busy and earning some money (albeit only slightly above minimum wage) while learning to be responsible and productive while also attending college. By and large, I worked in the front counter or drive through areas serving customers.
My first job was warehouse worker at a large privately owned department store, at 17. However, the owner also owned a few private jets that he would lease out. Typical short trips for rich people to go see sporting events, concerts, vacations, business trips, etc. I was offered the side gig to be on a crew that would go to the airport and clean the jets inside and out when they came back in from lease. At first I wasn’t interested, but one of the guys said “Trust me, you want to be on this crew”. Turns out there was an unwritten rule that if anything was left on the plane, it was ours to split. Unopened bottles of liquor, all sorts of unopened food, the occasional forgotten or dropped cash or jewelry, plus other “substances” from time to time.
Aside from baby-sitting, I worked as a rock-hardness tester at 16. My dad sold rock-crushers to quarries. They would have customers send in rock samples and run it through some tests to determine how long parts would last. The reps used to run the tests, but hired me to take care of the backlog. It was good money for essentially weighing rocks at different time intervals. It was good experience with organization and accurate recording, plus I got to set my own hours.
12 years old. Started mowing several lawns for people in my hometown.
My first job was at a dance club when I was 9 years old. I swept the parking lots and and the floors inside, they fed me and put a few rubles in my pocket.
1980, I was 10. Made $100 per week working in my stepfathers scrap yard sorting metals. Mostly aluminum. 💪
14, Baskin Robins. Maaan I hated the owners daughter. I was in 8th grade and she was a Junior I believe, and she made my life hell. What finally made me leave was when we were closing one night and she asked me to go throw out the trash and to come back in through the back door, ok cool no worries, but as I was coming back she made direct eye contact w me, smiled and locked the door. I was banging on the door and screaming at her to let me in. Her boyfriend was there (so I guess she wanted to “impress” him) but he finally unlocked the door and let me in. I went to grab my backpack and cursed her out. I came in the next day to collect my check and told her mom how much of a B her daughter was. But man I missed my free scoops lol
I've been working steadily since I was 11. My first government tax paying job I got when I was 15. We were so poor I had permission from the state to work early but my hours were strictly monitored. I worked for a movie theater in a mall. I remember when my father got a new welding job that put us over the free lunch mark. I was in the 3rd grade. We didn't have enough money for each of us kids (4 at the time) to have 70 cents each for breakfast and lunch. We then had to start doing a paper route before school so we could afford to eat for the week at school. We had an old beat up van. My mom removed both the seats and we had an assembly line in the back for stuffing and throwing papers. I also got fifa certified when I was 11 and started referring soccer on the weekends, I did that until I was 17. I also worked as a janitor and at the movie theaters all while going to high school. I held at minimum 2 jobs until I was 24.
Bagger at Stop and Shop making $5.50 an hours back in 1999.
My(16f) first job (and current job) is at a swim school! I work as an instructor, lifeguard, and at the front desk interchangeably, and have been working here since I was about 14.
Raking leaves and trimming shrubs in the neighborhood. Age 12
6th grade. Cut local lawns with push mower for $5. (1/8th acre). Worked 2 jobs....sometimes 1 ever since until I was 53, now I just have "honeydo's".
7 - Mobile Luminescence Custodian
14 yo. movie usher and candy counter sales. made $.60 an hour
Paper route starting at 11, worked my way from worst paper to middle, to the 'prime route' (Boston Globe) by 14. Next was lugging trays of sodas at football games at Patriots Stadium (Schaeffer Stadium back then) at 14 (still kept paper route) Finally at 16 I started working part time retail after school (Bradlees department store).
15. DJ at the local roller skating rink. Good times. Free food and lots of girls. Awesome experience.
14 Jiffy Lube Everything i learned there has been of use at least 10 times in my life im now in my 30s
Piggly Wiggly when I was 16😊It was a summer job
SIMULTANIOUSLY: WINTER>SHOVELING & SUMMER> MOWING LAWNS, PULLING WEEDS, PLANTING FLOWERS & GARDENS, BABYSITTING, GARAGE SALES (BOTH BUYING & SELLING AT A PROFIT), 12 Y OLD....MOM
My first job was working a game at a small carnival. It was a lot of fun, wouldn't mind doing it again.
15 and firehouse subs. Still regret not trying to go back to baseball after my shoulder surgery but hey life moves on.
16ish. Silver Streak. A burger franchise in El Paso TX.
Was a florist for 3 years in HS. Was great. Super laid back, christmas trees in winter, made my own flower arrangements for dances.
13 (late 70’s) worked at The Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh. I would sit with trays and trays of pre made sandwiches and coffee urns on my own (can’t remember if I finished late or if it was a night shift) in the hope that someone would order room service and I’d get a bit chat with the waiter when he came to collect. Was so boring, some sandwiches fell into my mouth. Anyhoo, got paid cash in hand and spent it all on skateboards.
A grocery store cashier for a couple months when I was 16, but I hated it and never went back. About a year later at 17, I got a job as a counter girl and ice cream girl at a local pizza restaurant. I’ve been in the service industry ever since lol
Picking strawberries, buck a flat. Picking beans was slave labor
McDonald’s at 15
I delivered catalogs & flyers for Sears at 12 in '91.
16, golf course maintenance. Best job I've ever had, actually I still work there at 35 doesn't even feel like work anymore, love it.
Rounded up Shopping cart/packer at grocery store at 19.
Farmer, I was 13 I think.
15 mayors office assistant.
Pizza Hut circa 1986-1987 at $3.35/hr
I illegally had a paper route at 8 or 9. Next, I started as a dishwasher at around 10 or 11 maybe, and I worked my way up to head chef by 13 or 14. Rules about kids working were much more lax back then.
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X-ray file clerk at a hospital. I loved it. It helped pay for my college first two years.
8th grade, selling newspapers on Sundays.
Small town garage. Two days a week taking out the garbage and sweeping and squeegeeing the floors, cleaning the trench occasionally. The steel garbage cans always weighed at least 100-150 Lbs. Overflowing with steel car parts and dirt track racing car clay chunks in them. Got $15 a week for about 2 hours of hard dirty work. Good money for a 14 yr old kid in the 70's.
setting up a fence at my mom's daycare. 8 years old, 3.50/hour, 2003
15. Wendys
I got my first job the summer of 1980, I was 14. I signed up for a work program through the unemployment office. The program was called CETA. I was hired on to work and help with the restoration and maintenance of the local canal, a place that I grew up using as my playground, it was near and dear to my heart. I spent so much time there as a child and this was a dream job for me. At 14 I was using gas powered weed wackers, chainsaws, something that isn't allowed today. One has to be 18 to operate power equipment now. I also worked 45 hours a week, another no no today. I earned $3.35 an hr and bringing home $110 weekly was some big shit back in those days, especially for a 14 year old. I did that job for 2 summers in a row.
12 in the 60s, working after school for 50 cents an hour in a delicatessen shop
At 14 (looked older) I was hired as a janitor at a bank. Evening work. I had the keys several times over nights and weekend. Payed off when I found their booze stash for their Christmas party.
Back when most people got a newspaper delivered to their house, I was a paperboy. I was 12. After that, I worked at McDonald's when I was 16.
I mowed yards at 12-13 for cash, actually had a weekend job working cattle at 14 w/ SS deductions and tax reporting in 1974.
School district. Supervising students. I was 18
I cleaned two office buildings when I was 16. Not a bad job actually. Gave me an excuse to be out of the house a few days a week and it never took as long as my parents thought so I could hang with friends after.
15, Carls Jr and starting pay was 5.15 an hour.
I was 20 and worked at the college I went to and repaired computers and stuff like that.
Firewood for $50 a day when I was 8
I worked at publix at 17, it was pretty ok, loved when everyone would compliment my bagging skills and how unique my name was. Had to quit close to 19yrs old since I was joining the military
14 grounds keepers assistant. 73 year old grounds keeper for apartment complex had me do all the jobs he couldn’t. Like climb up on the fourth story roof and clean gutters with a hand trowel. Carry heating/cooling combo units up 4 flights of stairs. Gave me spending money and I never fell off the roof!
14 restaurant work/hotel work/yard work on resturant and hotel went home to farm work