What was your first job and what was the wage?

I had a similar job doing landscaping for a family friend. I got paid about $5 an hour to lay down mulch, weed, etc. It wasn't a terrible job but I was young, lazy, and stupid so I didn't do it well. They were too nice to fire me, so they just sort of stopped calling

 

Gulp! This is really gonna show my age.

My first real paying job was at age 14 also, in 1955. I got 50 cents an hour and all the carbon black I could breathe in machine shop cleaning the machines, floor and especially the carbon black plant parts before the machinists would touch them.

I bought a White Mountain Triple Motion hand crank ice cream maker with my first paycheck and used it for the next 30 years.

I also bought my first car -- a used 51 Mercury which I dearly loved. Wonder what the MPG on that baby was? The price of a gallon of gas in Texas as that time was about 1/2 hour of work.

Not the good old days, more I think about it.

 

well besides the lawn and snow thing, my first "job" was when i was 13 working with my neighbor who was a contractor. both my dad and i helped him as his speciality was laying bricks. we were doing 8" cinder blocks and this guy was amazing. besides us two, he also had his brother, cousin, brother in law and a full time paid helper.

we about killed ourselves trying to keep up with him. worked with him for 5 weekends and got $20 a week for 2 10 hour days a week

 

35 cents an hour, Stockboy in a local market, 1970 at age 15. Mom had to drive me to work...

I make more now.

BTW, 35 cents wasn't the minimum wage, they were taking advantage of me because I was a child.

 

1989 - Worked as a bag boy at the Piggly Wiggly on the island. I made $3.80/hr plus tips (usually about $1 or so a day). The funniest tip I ever got was when I hauled two shopping carts of groceries out for an older lady. After loading all of the bags into her car she said "and this is for you". Then she handed me a dime.

 

First job was when I was 14. It was picking strawberries. Started at 6 am and picked until 5 pm. Got paid per the flat picked and paid off at the end of the day. They reduced my pay for the bus ride from town to the fields -- about a dollar round trip.

It was a good lesson in cause and effect. The harder I worked the more I made, but I had better work enough to at least pay for the bus. My mom also had to pack me a sack lunch.

I worked like hell all day to make from $3.00 to a high of $12.00 a day. My mom made me put half in the bank.

When was this primative thing? 1947.

My 2nd "job" and the first salaried one was for a magazine distributor. Like the first job better as it was outside at least.

The 3rd job was working on a commercial fishing boat in the summer when I was in college. That paid a "share" of the catch. I worked only a month and took home about $2,000. Not bad for 1954. But, that was a hard, nasty, and sort of dangerous job.

To finish off, my next job was the U.S.Navy.

 

The first time I was ever employed, was when I was 14 years old, back in 1979. If you don't count being a paper boy for the Washington Star, and mowing lawns...

The job: Working as a cook/cashier for Gino's (it was a burger/chicken joint in the Washington D.C. area; they served Kentucky Fried Chicken, and their big burger was the Hero)
The rate: I forget.
Hours I worked: 40 a week.
First paycheck ever: Again, I forget.
The task: Cooking the food, then sometimes being the cashier...and when I turned 15, I was made night manager...

 

Yea, on a later job at a gas station, after washing all the windows and checking the oil and tires (hey, it was FULL SERVICE back then!), one lady would always be sure to tip me a quarter. This was 1973, I think, my senior year in High School. Even at that time I thought that was not really worth accepting, but she was the only one who tipped, so she was a big spender!

And your dime tip was 16 years later! :lol:

 

This was back in, oh, 1970 or so. Door to door selling for Patio Builders Association. Like maybe 6-8 hours on Saturday at $3.75 per hour.

 

hmm. first job... that would be summers at the farm. didn't get any real money for it, just spoiled by the grandparents.

first real job, age 15, which would be the year 1997. yes i will admit i started out at mcdonalds for a whopping 3 months. i made 5.15 an hour and worked 10 hours a week. i was in driver's ed and they never failed to ignore my time-off requests for driving experience time with the instructor.

it took me twice as long as usual to complete the 30 hours of driving required to pass driver's ed and i quit that job soon after i finished driving school.

 

[ Tying to picture galaxee in her farm girl "Daisy Dukes"... ]

 

Summer, 1958, age 16, before senior year in high school (turned 17 during job).

New York State Highway Department out of Utica. Part of a crew of 10 who painted the lines in the middle of state highways. When we weren't 35 miles out of town and picking mushrooms in the woods, that is.

What a tough, profane, lascivious bunch of Italians and Polish guys that was---but good-hearted. THIS is the World of Work? Made me want to stay in school forever. :blink:

Buck an hour.

 

First real job was with Woolworths.. Stock boy/cleaning started in 1972 at 90 cents an hour. Got some nice lesons.. Be nice to the girls & women behind the luncheon counter and you got your meal for free!
Another lesson, people really, let's say 'fooled around' at work!
Got real life sex ed by having to clean out the women's bathrooms.. if you catch my drift. My firend and used to rotate it because neither one wanted that job on a regular basis. It was pretty nasty for a 16 year old.

I think I was up tp $1.35 by the time I left. Then again, gas was about 31 cents a gallon.

 

If you don't count babysitting and mowing lawns, my first REAL job was working as a maid for the Sun Valley Resorts, cleaning toilets. Worked for minimum wage whatever that was back in the mid 1970's, probably $5 or $6 per hours. It wasn't all gross, had lots of fun partying and meeting lots of movie stars! This was a summer gig I repeated for 3 more years.

 

try about $2.10

 

i actually preferred long jeans... being covered in cow pie is no fun! :lol:

 

My first real job was in a machine shop in 1968. I swept the floors for the first two weeks and then became a drill press operator. I was 13 the and made $1.70 per hour, a whole nickel more than minimum wage.

 

That was my very first job also. Man, I can still remember getting up while it was still dark and hauling a wagon down the block loaded with papers in the freezing cold! Bleech! There was one guy on my route who got his paper around 6:30am but, apparently, didn't think that was quite early enough. EVERY Sunday he would open the door and greet me with a, "Good Afternoon".......at 6:30 in the morning.

Next job was washing dishes at a country club one summer. The club had two 18-hole courses, an east and a west and the job had one nice fringe; we could play as much golf as we wanted every day (except on Wednesdays and Weekends we could only play after 3:00pm). So we did.....every day, at least 36 holes. If I factor the free golf into the equation, with as much as we played, that was a fairly high paying job. :lol: