When I was 18 I picked blueberries. But I’m not sure I’d count it as a “real” job since it was agricultural work and I was payed in cash under the table instead of receiving a paycheck.
My first “real” job was when I was 19 as a clerk in a grocery store.
For my family, if that counts, at 13. I was helping at 12, but I didn’t get paid at that time. At 13 I was getting paid minimum wage, getting a paycheck and having deductions made.
If working for family doesn’t count, at 16. That was the first it was legal to work for someone else (without a work permit), and my parents basically told me I had to go get a job working for someone else now that I could. They said it’d be good for my work ethic and general understanding of “the real world.”
For just cash, I was 12, mowing lawns and doing limited landscaping work for neighbors. I started working at Roy Rogers for a real paycheck with taxes withheld when I was 14.
12 “Your going to unload and rake hay for your aunt this summer reguardless.” Oh that $5 a day is so great for a stinking 12 hour day, and who the hell needs a summer vaction at age twelve. Was that a bit bitter? Well it sucked.
Age 16. Fast food. I started pouring sodas, worked my way up to cook, then up to cashier, then to shift leader. I started at $3.35 per hour (minimum wage) and worked my way all the way up to $3.75 in a about a year. It goes to show that busting your hump can really pay off.
Age 17 - I worked under the table at my aunt’s bagel shop. It was cool.
15 years old. Grocery store, stocking, cleaning, cashiering, and bagging. I thought it was a sweat deal at $3.25 an hour. I started working 30 hours a week at 16 while going to high school. I could barely see straight most of the time and slept through several classes every day.
Fourteen. Library page at the local public library. Did stuff like shelve books. I made 65 cents an hour. Yes, that’s right. And dinosours ruled the earth. I got a raise to 85 cents/hour when I was sixteen. But the following year, I met this guy, see, and the year after that we got married. So there were some benefits…
As with Enginerd, my first real job was at a Roy Rogers Roast Beef Sandwich shop, also at 14. I made $1.25/hour.
I was babysitting to earn riding lesson money by age 11. When I was twelve I worked at a barn tacking up and feeding horses in exchange for jumping lessons.
Does a volunteer job count?
I got my first “job” for the summer when I was 14. I was a tourguide at the Hampton Mansion, a Georgian house completed by the Ridgely family in 1790 in Towson, Maryland. My grandmother sort of pushed me into it. I was the youngest docent there, but I got to wear a cool late 18th century costume (grandma’s buddy made it). I ended up doing this for two summers. I had a great time actually. I was the one who knew all of the best ghost stories.
The US government runs Hampton now (Dept. of the Interior I think? The Colonial Dames used to run it when I docented there.) The government has spoiled the place in my opinion, but for all I know the place might be in ruins if they hadn’t stepped in and refurbished it. At least people can still see it (except for now because it’s closed I think for renovations.) It just isn’t like it was when people actually lived there… now it’s all Historically Correct and much more boring, in my opinion.
Anyhow, there you are. My first job. Even though it wasn’t paid, we all took it very seriously. I expect to teach me responsibility in keeping Our History Alive and stuff. Now, my first *paying * job was cleaning houses and doing gardening for people in my neighborhood when I was in high school. I did that for about two years until I went to college.
At fourteen I got a job putting advertising flyers on car windshields in parking lots for a camera shop. I got paid 2 cents per flyer.
So I rounded up some neighborhood kids about ten years old, and paid them ONE cent per flyer to do it. Everybody’s happy; the camera shop gets their flyers distributed, the little kids get some money for candy or cigarettes or whatever, and I get one cent per flyer for sitting on my butt.
My career as a contractor didn’t last long, though. Soon afterward I started doing construction cleanup for $5/hour, which was HUGE MONEY back in 1986.
If I count the first regular-hours, non-school volunteer position I had, I spent a summer working in the Township Clerk’s office for free. I also more or less worked at my tae kwon do school as an assistant instructor starting sometime around the age of 14.
First paycheck-earning job was when I was 17 for an impressive $5.25/hr as a fastfood slave. My manager actually said he was being “very generous” by giving me ten cents over minimum wage. :rolleyes:
LOL!
You make it sound as if you were picking used chewing gum from under the table. Why else would you be there?
Sorry, but you put a funny visual in my head.
I was a professional snow shoveler starting around 11. I could shovel with the best of 'em. I charged by the vertical inch. Blizzards were a great Christmas present.
At 16 I was a lifeguard for $7.10 an hour.
I don’t know if many of you remember milk trucks, but I was 12, and my best friends father drove a milk truck. I was asked to be a helper on his early morning route (4 A.M.)
He’d pull up to a customers house, I would run up to the front door with a wire basket, and retrieve the empty milk bottles. There was usually a note asking for one or two fresh bottles to be left in the milk box. On some days, I would leave a bottle of orange juice and a dozen eggs. If the customer didn’t want either, they would be left in the box, where I would retrieve them the next day. ( funny how honesty worked back then ).
I thought it was the coolest job. I have no recollection of any pay. Probebly a few bucks.
9 or 10 I started mowing neighbor’s lawns with my brother. 15 I worked in a Chinese restaurant washing dishes for minimum wage.