I should really say the age when I started full time employment (40hrs/week plus two evenings/week at night school). I was 17 years and 1mth at the time which was actually quite old because my birthday fell early in the academic year. And my mother started at 15.
Anyhow it got me thinking because the UK Government is considering increasing the school leaving age to 18 years.
That was all, I’m not trying to make a point of whether it’s good or bad to start paid employment young or relatively young, I was just musing, and sometimes needs must when the devil drives…
I was in highschool when I got a job at a self serve gas station. I lied about being a graduate to get hired the summer after my junior year. I somehow managed a full time schedule (5 pm to 1 am) during my senior year.
Now I’m 53, and I’ve never been unemployed. Somehow I’ve managed to overlap jobs along the way.
I’m not sure. The first job I had was when I was maybe 10 or 11, weeding a family friend’s garden for a quarter per day. I quit after the first day.
When I was a senior in high school, I gigged and taught guitar lessons for about $70 per week.
During college, I worked full time in a factory during the summers.
The first time I actually supported myself with a full time job was at a deli, for $3.75/hour, slightly above minimum wage. That started in very late December of 1983. It was a scary time in my life.
First job other than babysitting or farm work was at 14 as a waitress. I lasted the summer and it’s scarred me to this day. My husband constantly complains about my overtipping.
I started working full time at 16 at a gas station where I had previously worked part time. I worked from 11pm to 7am, went to school from 9am to 3pm and lived with my cousin in an apartment over a bar. It was an amazing 6 months but I think I slept about 20 hours total each week. I finished high school a semester early and it got much easier for the next 6 months until I left for basic training.
I got a paper route at 14, and juggled that, working at a grocery store, and working at our city newspaper all the way through high school. In college, it was the grocery story and an assistant’s job in one of the university’s offices. By the time I graduated and got my first “real” job, I was glad to be able to get down to just one.
I was 14 years old when I got a job as a dishwasher at a YMCA camp in California, though I turned 15 shortly after. I made $75 a month in addition to room and board.
I worked in my father’s store when I was in the single digits, though that was more playing storekeeper than actually working (and I didn’t get a salary). Once I was old enough to get working papers (14, I think), I started working for pay in the summers. That continued until after my sophomore year at college, when I worked in a doctor’s office.
My first real job to support myself was when I was 22; it was at the local OTB cable TV station.
Worked continuously since I was 16. Longest unemployment was less than three months. First job to support myself was office temp grunt work in Milwaukee. Worst was being a waiter. I sweat more than most people and I was just dripping over my customers. After a little while they let me be the host. Didn’t last long.
My brother and I got printed cards when I was 12…“lawn work, Odd Jobs, dog/babysitting and anything else” been working ever since until June 14th this year. I have been unemployed until today. What a nice time off…I’m 52 so I think the 2 months off were well deserved.
15 years old - about 3 weeks until my 16th birthday. Didn’t even want the job - just tagged along with a friend who wanted to apply at a new restaurant.
He stuck for two weeks as a waiter. I got stuck on a register with a line around the building. 30 hours+ a week. In high school. Super sucked until I bought my rx7 and quit.
Not counting mowing lawns and one-night stands at hawking soft drinks at football games, stuff like that, my first regular job, with a paycheck and paying taxes and everything, was as a busboy in a restaurant at age 16, while in high school. I was shamed into getting a job, as all my peers were working and earning money from age 15, and I was considered some sort of oddball. It was a fun job, as we had a good crew. Worked there a year. I was also a dishwasher and even graduated to “cook,” although everything was so assembly line that there wasn’t much actual cooking to be done.
Walking down the street and some shady guy rolls by slowly in his beat up station wagon. “Hey kid, you live around here? You wanna make some money?”
He offered me a paper route for my neighborhood.
Started at 16 years old (late 80’s)…local movie theater. I thought it was the best job anyone could have at that age, being able to watch new movies for FREE!
My first job beyond babysitting and menial labor was working for a catering service. I was 12. It obviously wasn’t full time, but I’d work weekends. The next company I remember working for was the Holiday Motel in Portage MI. Let’s just say it wasn’t where families stayed. MotelHoliday Motel
I saw things no 14 year old should know existed. Things that would have sent my mother over into the abyss. Luckily I had my morbid curiosity and wasn’t easily freaked out even then.
I worked under the table for my friend’s dad when I was 14-15. He owned a garbage collection company, and my friend and I would spend weekends at the garage, painting/cleaning/repairing dumpsters, roll-offs, and the garbage trucks themselves. We also got to do envelope-stuffing for the billing department.
Got my first legal job at 15, working full-time in a candy store. Been working full-time ever since, and I’ve been at my current job for 18 years (19 in October).
I did have a bit of a downer moment about that recently. Talking to a new coworker, flirting heavily, etc. We went on a first date a few days ago, and were getting to know each other more. She asked when my anniversary date was at work, then let me know that when I started, she was two days old. :smack:
Me too! My dad had a second job as theater manager and I was a cashier/popcorn seller at various theaters in the area. I’m giving away my age here, but I was out in a ticket booth outside the theater selling tickets for M.A.S.H. up at the university and I was to push a buzzer twice if I needed more money to make change. I pushed it three times and shortly found out that three buzzes meant ‘start the movie’! :eek: And there were people still lined up all the way down the block! But I did love to see all those movies.
Before that I got my working papers and shelved books for peanuts in the old, elegant, but un-air-conditioned library.
I was 15 and lied about my age (minimum was 16) to work sacking groceries at an Albertson’s. The job sucked, although looking back it could have been a lot worse. Still hated it, though. By the end of the summer, my shoes were so worn, they felt like ballet slippers; I ceremonially threw them away after my last shift and walked out barefoot.
I was a depression baby, and I picked pickles( for my parents) for the pickle factory, my hand was just the right size for sweet pickles. At 10 the WW2 started, and I was left to care for my younger siblings and do the house work, My brother 2 years older did the farm work, the rest were either in the service or not living at home. I worked my way through high school, starting at the age of 13, and supported my self after that, except for from June to August( after graduation) when I was at home, then I worked in a store made $12.00 a week, and in 4 months later I took a job as a maid, I fully supported my self until I married.
