What was your first job?

[scotrace]

I win.

Dog poo. I win World's Worst First Job.

 

[Big Man]

My first "pay check" job was in high school driving a school bus. Yes, 16 year-olds used to drive school buses! It was a great job that taught me responsibility that has benefited me to today.

 

[Mojave Jack]

Dog poo. I win World's Worst First Job.

True, but Paddy wins for the most dangerous.

While I was in my late teens, during the holidays/vacations I worked as an infantry soldier specialising in CRW (Counter Revolutionary Warfare..or counter terrorism!).

Second place for most dangerous goes to imoldfashioned for the bread slicing machine (and possibly Daisy, if you had to run that thing, too!).

I worked in a bakery, too, for a short while, but not voluntarily. Once when I was on mess duty in the Marine Corps, the cook made hot dog buns. He told me to run them through the bun slicer, which had this rotating saw blade inside that was supposed to slice the bun while it pulled it through. These buns were so hard that the machine literally shot them out of the other end. I told him that it wouldn't work, but he just shouted at me to slice the #@!$ing buns, and then stomped out. In the course of slicing the buns, I dicovered that if I propped up the end of the machine, I could shoot them about 40 feet! So as he came back across the mess deck I bombarded him with rock hard hot dog buns! Boy, was he steamed!

Oh, and other than a very brief stint doing grip work in high school, the Marine Corps was my first job.

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

My first "pay check" job was in high school driving a school bus. Yes, 16 year-olds used to drive school buses! It was a great job that taught me responsibility that has benefited me to today.

We had 16-year olds driving public school busses when I was in high school. The guy who drove our bus a short time was pretty crazy, he'd take the "speed governor" (block) out from underneath the accelerator and try to pop wheelies on the speedbumps. Never worked, just compressed everyone's spine, but that didn't stop him from trying till they took him off the job. Similar stories from friends who rode other busses. That was the end of our 16-year-old busdrivers.

Swing High,
- Cousin Hepcat

 

[Rosie]

My first "pay check" job was in high school driving a school bus. Yes, 16 year-olds used to drive school buses! It was a great job that taught me responsibility that has benefited me to today.

Wow! That is so amazing.

I was about 20 when I began teaching. When spring came, I organized my first class trip, an outing to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. There was me, my teacher's assistant and 27 students (5 were not allowed to come because they were very, very, very bad) anyway, I was still living at home at the time and the morning of the trip my dad asks me, "Cornygal, you're going on a trip, by yourself.......with people's CHILDREN!? They're gonna let you do that? They know how old you are?" lol Admittedly at the time, I thought my dad was calling me immature but my mom reassured me, it wasn't that he thought I was not responsible but to him, I was a kid, a baby and in particular HIS baby. He just found it kind of hard to think of me, a kid taking a bunch of other kids anywhere.

 

[Hondo]

what me work?

Some of you had great careers moves to start, I was a Fuller Brush sales man with a buddy of mine for 2 weeks, as we were two fools in search for jobs. We quit after a lady called the cops on us, seems like she didn't approve of our dress, long hair and jeanslol

 

[funneman]

Movie Theatre Usher

When I was fifteen I got a part-time job at the local movie theatre. I ripped everone's ticket in half and dropped them in a little box.

Here's how long ago that was, part of my job was to make sure that people who hadn't paid extra to sit in the "Smoking Loge" didn't sit there. I had to count all the Smoking Loge tickets and then count the people sitting in that section. If I had more sitters than payers, I had to figure out who was the offender, and the go extort more money from them so they could light up while watching the movie. A buddy of mine got fired for collecting the money and keeping it. Haha.

I also had the change the movie titles on the marquee. While taking down the old titles and putting up the new ones, I used to leave obscenities on the sign and go take a coffee break.

I gave that up to paint houses, a really hot job in Florida in the Summer.

Then at sixteen I got a job at the local radio station, spinning Benny Goodman and Harry James records.

That was thirty-four years ago, unlike LizzieMaine, I still haven't wised up!

 

[Lena_Horne]

Wow! That is so amazing.

I was about 20 when I began teaching. When spring came, I organized my first class trip, an outing to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. There was me, my teacher's assistant and 27 students (5 were not allowed to come because they were very, very, very bad) anyway, I was still living at home at the time and the morning of the trip my dad asks me, "Cornygal, you're going on a trip, by yourself.......with people's CHILDREN!? They're gonna let you do that? They know how old you are?" lol Admittedly at the time, I thought my dad was calling me immature but my mom reassured me, it wasn't that he thought I was not responsible but to him, I was a kid, a baby and in particular HIS baby. He just found it kind of hard to think of me, a kid taking a bunch of other kids anywhere.

Ah. It's nice to see that I'm not the only young'n with a real job. I've only had two jobs my entire life, mostly because my mother would not let me work in high school, which kind of put me in a lousy position when I did finally have to find one.

Either way, I worked at Cold Stone Creamery for two months last summer. Bah.

Now, I work at Blue Cross Blue Shield as a Data Entry Clerk, which means I sit at my desk all day and check to make sure that what's on the computer screen is the same as what's on the insurance claim. I don't mind the monotony as it's a really nice job, I have great co-workers and the company likes to keep us little guys happy.

L_H

 

[Haversack]

My first paycheck and 1099 job was while I was a senior in High School. I was a library page at one of the county libraries. My primary task was the reshelving of books but I also did the various dogsbody jobs such as putting the flag up in the morning, bringing in the books from the book return, taking the flag down in the evening. All in all, a pretty good arm and shoulder workout. Needless to say, it was also a dream job for someone with a reading habit.

While in college I worked in my dorm's dining commons during the school year, (minimum wage, but that went a lot further then - mid-1970s), and during the summers I worked in a couple of the many tomato canneries which abound in the Sacramento area. Old Del Monte #11 was classic brick factory with a sawtooth roof. When it was built in the 1920s, it was the largest food processing facility in the world. During the season, it ran three 8-hour shifts (6am-2pm-10pm-6am), seven days a week. The pay was good too. Combined with a ROTC stipend, it enabled me to avoid student loans.

Haversack.

 

[Braxton36]

I started working for a bank part-time when I was 18 in the afternoons after classes when I started college. I thought it would be good work experience. I think I made $2.30 an hour.

Now, a few degrees later and more years than I would like to think, I, er... work for a bank! Making a bit more than $2.30 an hour but they took away my free checking

 

[mysterygal]

first job

I got my first job when I was 16. I started working at Sizzler being in charge of their salad bar. The work wasn't all that interesting, but everyone who worked there was really great and we all had a blast hanging out at work together, which probably made it all bearable plus, it was a job where you've always got something to do, so there wasn't a whole lot of just 'hanging around' time..which I hate since it seems to make the day drag on and on

 

[Brad Bowers]

My first job was a paper route when I was 12. The paper had an annual contest for the top sellers, and I was one of the winners that year, thanks to the kid before me doing a lousy job. They took the group of us winners to Disneyland, which was fun.

My second job, when I was 16, was as a banquet houseman at our new Sheraton hotel. The funniest story from that job: one night, there was a big party or reception, and I found a young woman in the second floor lobby, almost drunk enough to introduce herself to the floor, standing in an empty planter, waving her arms about and spouting "Look at me, I'm a tree!" She then saw me and wanted to take me home with her. Instead, I found management to help her out.lol

Brad

 

[fortworthgal]

I went broke, got sick of living on rejected sausages, and came back to Maine --- where I got my first "real grown up job" doing just about everything one could do at a little 250 watt radio station -- which led to nearly fifteen years in radio before I finally wised up....

Ah, radio. I had my first job when I turned 18. I was an advertising salesperson and fill-in voice (meaning I cut a few commercials when they could not find anyone else, or wanted someone with a different sound) at a country radio station. I also did "color" (second voice commentary) on some sporting event broadcasts and remote broadcasts. I enjoyed it, but radio is quite honestly not the most stable environment. I had some very interesting experiences there. The perks were lots of free concert and event tickets, and I got to meet several celebrities - mostly sports figures that I could have cared less about, though. I ended up quitting the day that the former station manager - fired the day before - came in with a baseball bat. The sports guy and I hid in one of the sound booths until he left. I really wanted to work in publishing anyway!

I worked in a bakery, too, for a short while, but not voluntarily. Once when I was on mess duty in the Marine Corps, the cook made hot dog buns. He told me to run them through the bun slicer, which had this rotating saw blade inside that was supposed to slice the bun while it pulled it through. These buns were so hard that the machine literally shot them out of the other end. I told him that it wouldn't work, but he just shouted at me to slice the #@!$ing buns, and then stomped out. In the course of slicing the buns, I dicovered that if I propped up the end of the machine, I could shoot them about 40 feet! So as he came back across the mess deck I bombarded him with rock hard hot dog buns! Boy, was he steamed!

lol lol I love this story! It actually made me laugh out loud at my desk.

 

[Michaelson]

My first job? A funeral home, I was 19, and was involved in just about every part of the operation.

Let's not dwell on that, though....

Regards !Michaelson

 

[Baron Kurtz]

I worked in a butcher shop.

bk

 

[Twitch]

I was a busboy primarily and did work as needed in dishwashing, cook's helper.