At the firm behest of the Better Half (“this is an unparalleled opportunity to sock college clothing expense money away, because next summer you’ll be working and saving for things like tuition”), The Cat Who Walks Alone has been grudgingly going around town all summer handing in applications at the Usual Teen Suspects. So Mickey D’s finally did the honors by hiring her. She has “ORIENTATION!” on Monday. She came home and her cheeks were just so pink. It’s a wonderful feeling to be hired. You’re “wanted”. Somebody “wants” you.
My first job was during my senior year in high school, waitressing in the mornings before school and for 8 hours on Saturdays. I made 90 cents an hour.
Of course, this throws our plans for a big family vacation to Niagara Falls in August, because we (I) can’t in good conscience go off for 3 weeks and leave a not-quite-17-year-old Home Alone, with the family car and a new job. So it’s the Better Half’s task to find someone from church who will let her bunk in with them for 3 weeks.
But I’m so tickled for her!! [insert emoticon for big silly grin] There’s a girl in her church peer group who’s a year younger who has been working all summer, and I know that’s gotta hurt. “Oh, Heather can’t come, she’s working at La Panera…”
And hopefully this will take her mind off the Boyfriend (hot hot hot) just a tiny bit and turn it on to more cosmic matters, such as the joys of earning money. Serious money, not babysitting money. Real adult world money, with income tax withholding and everything.
i worked in a grocery store for three years. god you for your girl. Of course I was a rebel and the management wanted to fired me but that is another story all togeather.
As much as McD’s gets killed here (sorry pammipoo), a lot of people I know started there. The joys of income tax. I’m sure she will be in for a shock on her first check.
I got my first job when I was 14. I kept score at my towns rec. basketball league, and got to ref if one of the other one’s didn’t show up.
I remember getting my first paycheck for like $40, and feeling on top of the world. I went to the mall and got a poster of some model, and a heavy metal T-shirt.
Kinda a hijack, I love hearing from you dopers with older kids. My daughter is 6, and I enjoy hearing your stories of kids as they grow older. I just with mine wouldn’t.
Don’t knock Micky D’s… I worked there through HS and when I came home from college break. It was actually a good stepping stone. I was management material, if I hadn’t left. (Heck in my senior year of HS, I was practically running the shifts I was working anyway…) Tell her to stick with it. Mickey D’s is a good job to have through HS and college (until she gets to college and start her internship, that is) And at least she’s making a paycheck… Spending money is always good…
Oh, and don’t forget to tell her to appreciate these paydays. As a teen, they’re great. As an adult, well, in my case, payday is payday for everybody except me. Sigh.
The Cat Who Walks Alone may not realize that a couple of hundred Dopers follow her life, as related by Ducky dear.
Anyway, it is a great moment. My first job was working fast food (Roy Roger’s Roast Beef Sandwich) when I was 14. Are you (I’m not ready to believe this) older than me, DDG? They paid me the whopping sum of $1.25/hour.
To get away from the sidetrack, it is truly a great thing. My first job taught me both that I could generate income and that I had to deal with a world that didn’t care about the peculiarities of my life but expected me to be on time (because if I wasn’t, some other wage slave had to fill in).
Sounds like Cat’s growin’ up. Good luck to all of you.
Not counting doing odd jobs for family and family friends, I got my first job when I was 17. It was a temporary job, for the first week of class at my college. Because of the crowded conditions of this week, the campus bookstore hired people to check packbacks in a tent outside. So I got to stand out in 100 degree weather, cheerfully tagging the backpacks of haggard students, all for minimum wage. At least it only lasted a week.
Actually, that’s my only official paying job so far. I do a lot of volunteer work, but I’ve had trouble getting a job. Most of the problem is that I don’t drive, and it takes almost two hours to get anywhere using the city busses here, so I can mostly only apply at places within a couple miles of my house or school. Next year, though, I think I qualify for work-study, so I should be able to get an on-campus job fairly easily.
My first job was a summer job at another branch of the bank I STILL work at during the summer. (I’m only 18, and heading to college in the fall…and I WILL NOT work during my semesters. My parents won’t let me.)
My first job was the coolest job. You know the napkins you get at weddings that have the bride and groom’s name on them? I printed those napkins! It was completely manual, too - I did the typesetting and positioned a guide, then stuck each napkin in and pulled a handle to press the type onto the foil which transferred the color to the napkin.
Made $2.25 an hour, which was less than minimum wage - something about the size of the store, or maybe my boss was just lying to me. I didn’t care, it was a cool thing to do, and extra spending money.
I made a stupid mistake one time - my order was to read “Mary Margaret and Martin”. I decided that had to be some sort of group; you know, like Peter, Paul and Mary. So I printed them like that. “Mary, Margaret and Martin” After that, I had to take a sample to the salesperson before I started printing. I still can’t believe that someone would have “Mary Margaret and Martin” printed on their wedding napkins - people would be snickering through the whole reception.
Good for her DDG! 'Nother McD veteran checking in here. The arches were actually my 3rd job. Started a paper route when I was 11, delivering ~80 papers a day 363 days a year (I can see getting New Year’s day off, but Labor Day? How’s about Xmas??). Quit that when I turned 16, worked at a liquor store for a few months, then moved onto the land of milk and honey and Big Macs. At the time, I started at $3.75 and hour, which was a 50¢ raise!
McD’s was (and still is) a great first job, despite all the abuse they take.
Course now I hear all the high school kids get computer-related part-time jobs that pay 50 g’s a year. :rolleyes:
My first job: grocery checker at the only supermarket in my hometown. The other clerks hated me (I was the only teenaged checker), I got hit on in at least three languages every day, and the manager told me to my face that if I lost a little weight, I’d be more beautiful than Farrah Fawcett (this was 1979). As soon as I got 500 dollars socked away, I quit.
My first real job was during the summer of my junior and senior HS year. I was taking an extra class, and after it was finished I took care of the physics lab. I had taken physics as a junior and I knew the teacher. (I was also scheduled for AP physics the next year with the same teacher). At that time, there was an introductory physics class given to younger students. I got to set up and take down experiments and sweep the floors. After I was done I got to play with some of the physics equipment. Cool job.
However, my first informal jobs were when I was in grade school and my family went to a couple of wedding receptions. One or two other kids and I would run the coat check and split the tips. I still remember how incredibly cool it was to have my own money!
My first real job was working at a movie theater, in concessions. I started on Christmas day about a month after I turned 16. I remember that it felt pretty darned cool to have money of my own that I earned.
My first job was when I was 15, which I got shortly after I moved out of my parent’s house. I made $5.15/hr working in the fashions department of Pamida (named for the first two letters of each of the founder’s son’s names: Pat, Mike, and David).
I guess technically my first job was babysitting-I started that when I was 11. After I grew tired of chasing kids around all day, I moved on to Mickey D’s at the age of 16. Three stores, and three years later, I’m still at the Golden Arches. It’s not the hottest job in the world, but I work hard, and I know that means something to me if to no one else. At least she’s psyched about the job…I’ve learned from experience that the ones who don’t last are the ones who didn’t want to be there in the first place. So many parents these days force thier children into employment. After a couple of weeks, they just can’t handle anymore, and self combust. Never a pretty picture-it’s more gruesome than the nuggets!
A word of advice though, something I wish someone had told me when I was first starting out. You don’t have to say yes-do what’s best for you. Managers will ask you to work long days, outrageous hours, sacrificing social lives and/or schoolwork. Sure we’ll guilt trip you into do what’s best for us, but be strong-stick to what you can handle.
Just out of curiousity, what color is the uniform at her new store? Nothing could be worse than the bright purple I started out with…well, or so I thought until I saw the neon pink at my last one. Yup…those things can be pretty darn ugly…
My first jobs were babysitting, caddying at a bridge tournament, and helping do inventory at my friend’s grandma’s gift shop.
But my first real regular job was helping at a vet’s office. I got to go a lot of dirty work, of course (I particularly remember having to mop out an exam room where dog had been running around, after being attacked by a coyote. That was an amzing amount of blood & bloody pawprints). But it was interesting, and helped me to realize that my childhood goal of becoming a vet probably wasn’t for me.
Between my jr and sr years of high school I had my first job - besides the lawn mowing/snow shoveling stuff - as a summer custodian at my old elementary school. I had to work with the janitor we made fun of. And he did remember me. “You kids! You used to call me frankenstein.” He was actually the nicest guy there. Another guy was just plain nasty: “Hitler shoulda made more lampshades outta you” (not to me). And he said to the guy who worked with me who was, I guess, developmentally disabled, “You’re like a girl. You have to squat to pee”. Another guy was an alcoholic who’d show up when he felt like it. And two teachers who spent most of time painting and “taking constitutionals”.
