What was the first job you ever had?

Thank you for calling Dominos pizza, my name is ‘Asmonet’, may I take your order?

My father owned a welding and machine shop when I was little. I used to clean up and occasionally use the drill press if they had to drill hundreds of pieces the same way. I was 8 and 9 at the time. I worked for Legos.

My first real paying job was at a movie theater. It was a hell of a lot better than fast food.

Hey! Welcome to Chili’s! How ya doing today? ... Great! How many are going to be joining us?

Exciting for the first week.

@johnpowell I misread your answer at first. I thought you wrote “wedding and machine shop.”

My first job was at a king crab and shrimp cannery in Kodiak, Alaska. I wore hip waders and stood in freezing water a few feet deep the whole shift—night shift. I made $500 for the whole summer and thought I was rich.

@marina: I did too. :P

First regular job – babysitting

First “taxes and all the real stuff taken out” job – as a teen – “Would you like some fries with your order?” BLAH….McDonalds….drive thru! I HATE McDonalds!! Blah!

I worked at a local Viennese pastry shop in Chicago (Vienna Pastry Shop). It was the most magnificently delicious, wonderful place to work.

I was in 8th grade, working under the table at a small little carry out store. I would work a couple hours after school taking my bike down the street to make about 10 dollars cash.

I would restock all the drinks in the freezing units, restock the beer in the freezer, clean up the stock room. I’d prepare sandwiches from time to time…hot dogs, burgers and things like that too.

The first job I had that involved taxes was Mcdonalds….I was eventually promoted to a crew trainer ( I was a nazi about quality ). I was pretty strict to the timers on the meats and the charts we had to follow for the amount of food we were suppose to cook and so on. I still eat at a Mcdonalds from time to time….but sometimes just watching the things they do drive me a bit crazy.

My first job was carrying groceries to peoples’s cars at the local food store. After going swimming in the summertime. My brother and me and my friends would be famished so we went to the grocery store and asked old ladies if we could carry their bags. We would get a nickel or 25 cents. We kept this up until we had enough to buy a large bag of corn chips and a soda.

@Marina Your first job sounds a bit miserable (cold an all), but it also sounds kick ass!

My first job was at 15, I was a grocery bagger for Publix Supermarket. Not very exciting!

@jonsblond It had its moments. Many of the other people were people I went to school with. In the summer on Kodiak, it stays light until around 2 A.M. so breaks were fun.

My first job was a lifeguard, at 16. I did that until I was 19. That was also when I had my first and only save, I figure I should hang up my suit on a high note. Apparently my save is still talked about at the pool to this day. It is a lesson in watching closely since it was a bunch of little kids in the pool on a rainy cold summer day. One slipped on the deck and fell in. I went in with all my clothes on, but plucked him out before he knew what happened.

@Marina Sounds awesome! :)

Working for my father, who owns a construction and remodeling business. Basically just painting, de-nailing boards, mixing cement, tiling, and putting down hardwood floors. I made some good cash. I still help him out occasionally.

My first “paycheck” job, though, was as a cashier at a local hardware store. I worked there all through high school. I actually loved the job, but I didn’t get paid shit.

My first job was washing dishes at a local pub on Sundays. Fun, fun. I didn’t feel like I was rich. I felt like I was covered in shit and getting next to nothing for it.

Making pizza at my friend’s father’s restaurant. They hired a manager to streamline things and he turned out to be kind of a sadistic gay pedo control freak. Made suggestive moves with the salad tongs and made me come back to the shop after closing, after I got all the way home, to pick up a piece of bell pepper I missed under the sink.

My first job was working for my family’s wholesale flower business. I would help unload the trucks, bundle flowers, sweep floors. I worked there Summers from about 8 to 12 years old. They paid me in cookies and free lunch at the cafeteria.

I loved this job. The smells were amazing and it was a lot of fun.

I did have the opportunity to be an usher at the Sugar Ray Leonard/ Thomas Hearns match at Caesar’s Palace Las Vegas in 1989. That was about the same time as my key punch job.

sounds more fun too!

McDonald’s, starting at age 16. I finally quit 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days later. I’m now 30 years old. To this day, I have nightmares about every couple months, involving working there, something going wrong there, all the machines beeping at once, SOMETHING. Ugh.

I worked as a fetus for a few months before getting discharged.

@AstroChuck Did you have a womb with a view?

I delivered Avon books door to door when I was very young. Technically that would have been my first job, as I did receive a few dollars as well as “Avon dollars” which was the woman’s way of letting us get Avon things for free. I can’t say I ever purchased anything with em though, nothing that I remember today at least.

My first official job with taxes and all was working in my school’s cafeteria. Note, my school was directly attached to the sports centre beside it, so the cafeteria remained open for hockey games and library patrons, etc. My friend’s mum was the manager, so I got in with little trouble. That was where I learned my first life lesson about the working world: as long as you get the job done, it rarely matters what you do with the extra time. I was responsible for closing down, including a bunch of mopping and machine cleaning, counting the cash, etc. I figured out that I could do the mopping before I took my last break, by the time I got back the floors were dry, and only one time out of ten did a customer come in afterward which necessitated a quick spot mopping.

My next job was at McDonald’s for a few years. Quickly became a manager, and then quit a year later because I was spending too much time dealing with their stupid bullshit (you wouldn’t believe the level of drama that went on… it was like being in an episode of Saved By The Bell, cept no hope and no laugh track). This was where I learned my second and third life lessons: most people are incompetent, and you never ever want to get stuck working at McDonald’s all your life.

I guess I was lucky – I was a bored 14 year-old nerd one summer and just called the first store in the Yellow Pages with an Apple logo in the phone book. The owner was nice enough to mentor me and for me it was a thrilling job to work at a computer store that sold and serviced Apple equipment. Working at a small company with people and work I enjoyed I think was one of the best things for me growing up…

Also, it was funny looking at all the porn that people would bring in with their Macs for repair. Just ‘cause you put it in a folder doesn’t mean it’s hidden yo.

You mean that wasn’t babysitting for the mother down the block? Becuase I did that at 12. I also tried being a paper girl for a week, but getting up at 4:30am was a no go. I consider my first real job to be when I was a scooper at Haagen-Dazs at the Grand Avenue Mall. This was in downtown Milwaukee for a summer at age 15, so of course the food court was called the Spiesgarten. The mall shut it down to the public for a couple hours when New Edition was in town for Summerfest. I had to serve Bobby Brown ice cream, as the other girls in the shop were acting like total eedjits and I didn’t really know who they were at the time, so the manager put me up front. All I remember about that was that he wanted whatever ice cream it was in a waffle cone.

And I could take home one pint every shift. I usually got cookies and cream.

I was a flagger for a cropduster.. and to this day it is still the greatest job I ever had.

I had done a little babysitting, but my first taxable job was doing shit for a dairy farm. I mean that literally. Yes, it is as bad as you can imagine. When the calf man went on vacation, I got to be calf boy. I carried a newborn calf in to the barn once, and taught it to drink fake milk from a bucket. Later I had a major fuckup. I went in the next day, expecting to be fired, but I wasn’t. Go figure.

I remember my first salary negotiation as I was being interviewed at 14. I was all ‘coy’ being:
“Well the minimum wage is this much so…”
“I’ll give you a dollar over that.”
(In my head): I AM GOING TO BUY A PONY!!1!

Besides the early babysitting, my first real job was as a dishwasher and about a month later a “counter girl” at the only local pizza place in town. I did phones, register, prepping, busing, hostessing during the busy ski season.

I liked the family, and I got to learn a lot of different jobs at the place. Most of the people working there were in their 20s, and I was 17. So, there were cooks and waitresses that treated me like a little sister. Since it was the only pizza place in town, I saw pretty much everyone from school during my working hours. We got free pizza and subs during our shift. There was a game room downstairs, and we were allowed to use it after hours for parties sometimes. It was a pretty fun job.

Oh those summer paychecks! I thought they were so grandiose! I used a whole summer’s pay and bought my powerbook myself! Memories…

My first real “paycheck” job was working at a a video store when I was 14.This was a mom and pop store in the days before Blockbuster. Back in the days when they still had betamax tapes. It was a great job and I worked there with two of my friends. We basically got paid to watch movies and goof off. (For those of you that have seen Clerks think Randall.) I remember that there was this one guys and he would always rent pornos. He would rent 3 of them at a time every day. He would return them the next day and he would never rewind them and they would only be “watched” half way. It was so gross! We would just leave his movies off to the side check them in on the system and leave them for the store manager to put away. We nicknamed him “Porno Pete”. LOL!

Baskin Robbins!

My first job was at Hershey Park vending cotton candy, lemonade, and popcorn. It was great because I got paid commission and we all know cotton candy is expensive at amusement parks.

My first paycheck job was in the mall at a clothing store. I learned to hate the mall, still do for the most part and I learned to hate people who would try on clothes and leave them all in the dressing room all over the floor. I did become good at folding jeans!

Record store. Yes, I am that awesome.

Though I used to pick up minimal money selling things door to door (there had been a few opportunities through school and cub scouts to earn prizes and such by selling things like fruit and popcorn), I got this catalog that basically encouraged kids to sell greeting cards door to door, and you got a dollar or two from every sale, which in the 80s wasn’t bad for a kid.

Then when I turned 16 there was this restaurant in town, it used to be an A&W, but it was just an independent little root beer stand…they sold ice cream and such, but mostly it was burgers, broasted chicken & cole slaw, things of that nature, and homemade root beer. Every day from the time we got into 7th grade, a group of 3 friends and I would walk there from school (that was the first year we were allowed to go off school premesis), and the owners would give us each “a kiddie burger” (which was really a full sized burger, but they just charged us the kiddie price, and a root beer…they comped the root beer and just charged us 85 cents w/ tax for the burger, so it became our hangout. When I turned 16 I applied to work there, and they hired me in the kitchen. I pressed the hamburger into patties, washed and processed the chicken, cut the cabbage into cole slaw, sliced the green peppers, broated the chicken, grilled the burgers, cleaned the dishes, took out the trash, etc. I got paid $3.85 an hour and all the free root beer I could drink (and an occassional free burger if I worked over dinner time).

It was hot, greasy work, but I had a great time, the people I worked for were really nice, it wasn’t “corporate” and it just kind of felt like our own little “family”.

records are pancake shaped… hmmm…

@saranwrapper So do we have you to blame for inventing emo?

@dalepetrie I really enjoyed that aspect of working in a small company, where everyone’s sort of a family and you make lifelong friends. Sometimes it didn’t even feel like work going in…

@artificialard – I totally agree, I only seek out smaller companies. I’ve worked for 3 Fortune 500 companies in my “real” career, and they’re all politics. In a small company it’s about rolling up your sleeves and pitching in to get the work done. In a big corporate environment it’s all about perceptions, meetings, chains of command, protocol. Not for me.

I can’t remember which came first, but I was cleaning movie theaters in the morning for little more than free tickets and then bussing tables in the afternoon.evening for little more than free steak dinners.
Buy hey, free steak dinners and movie tickets were nothing to complain about.

my first job was me being a cleaner. I ocassionally sleep during worktime. Cant really blame myself for doing that tho since i have to wake up at 5.30 and take a 30mins walk in teh winter to the work place. It only last for 2 months. On my last day, i walked half way and decided , “lets go home” and i went back to bed again.

Now my first proper job in an eingeering firm. My work life can be sumamrised as such: walk to walk , reach the office by 9am, make a coffee, browse the net, lunch, more intenet, back home. CRAP . i cant stand it anymroe.. i need a proper job.

My first paying job was at a small factory that made centinela candles and accessories. My job was to put the wicks inside of the candles.
I kid you not. I only worked there for 3 months, but to this day the smell of centinela candles makes me want to barf.

I had a co-worker who’s first job was at McDonald’s before. He became a vegetarian after that, no jokes.

I babysat and helped out at my mom’s office for cash for several years before I got my first real job at 14 (I lied and said I was 15 or 16). It was at a Hallmark card & gift store called Party Tyme (ugh) in a big mall. Working there over Christmas was the worst experience. People were so rude! I worked there for the school year, then quit to enjoy my summer. It took me several years to overcome the need to straighten out the cards in other stores.

My next job was as a receiptionist in a dentist’s home based office. It rocked! I could wear my Jams board shorts to work, and learned how to develop x-rays :) I loved that experience so much, it set me on my administrative career path – primarily working for small companies, which I much prefer.

Other than babysitting, my real first job was as a lifeguard yelling…....NO RUNNING & KEEP YOUR TUBE BEHIND THE YELLOW LINE.
MEMORIES!

Bag and stock boy at a small grocery store back before the big ones came to be. Landen’s. Mr. Landen ran it. Mrs. Landen was in charge of chashiers. And his pathetic bully of a son was in charge of stock. He wore long sleeve dress shirts and rolled them up to his shoulders. Had a shitty mustache. and wore his high school letter jacket well into his twenties.

I started going to work in the summers with my dad and grandpa when I was 8. They build and remodel houses. I cleaned up job sites and was a gopher. You go get tools and bring them to them. Gopher this gopher that. I bought my first skateboard that summer with the money I made. I goes kinda upset because I didn’t really have a choice if I went to work with dad. I had a pass to the rec. center pool that I didn’t get to use much.

the McCrory’s, also known as Greens” which was like a smaller version of walmart. i was cashier and straightened up the shelves, and it was boring boring boring. made $3.50 an hour, worked all day for $18. was this job advantageous in any way? no, except for the discount.

Shelfstacker at my local grocery store when I was 16

@tinyfaery and @artificialard – I didn’t eat popcorn for years after being a theater cleaner, ugh.

@artificialard MY HAIR IS IN MY EYES!

I started work at 15 yrs of age, in a railway wagon repair shop on the West Coast of Scotland.
Had to throw white hot rivets about to riveters who would stick them in a hole, then a guy with an air hammer would team up with one on the other side and ram the rivets home.
Hot hard work but a great learning experience.
My brother started work on a farm at 14 yrs old ploughing with a team of Clydesdale horses, we can laugh about it now, but that was the way it was in those days.
As the saying goes, hard work never killed anyone? well it certainly toughened up a scrawny Scottish kid…

I worked with the YCC(youth conservation corps) when I was in highschool cant remember what year, mid 1970’s. Lots of clearing brush and digging drainage ditches out in the middle of nowhere. I could do this because I was made in New Hampshire 50 years ago. Kids nowadays are too whiny and soft to even last a day doing work like that any more.