1984 - the summer I turned 14 - stacking boxes of fresh fruit at a local packing plant for $3.15 an hour.
I worked with guys from all over Mexico and Central America, learned a lot of choice phrases in various dialects of Spanish, and discovered that with a little skill, you can cook enough beans, rice, meat, peppers, and tortillas for 10 people in an old plow blade over an open fire during a 30-minute lunch break. It was a hot, dirty, grueling job.
As I recall, it was Circus Circus in Reno, NV when I was about 15. Worked as a busboy. Was saving my money for an Astraltune. Got one at the end of the summer and used it for many, many years. I still have it, kicking around in a desk drawer in my garage. I can’t bear to toss it out.
My first paid job was in a swimming pool supplies store testing customers’ pool water (even Jimmy Swaggert’s back when he was “in the news”) and stocking shelves, etc. It was for minimum wage, $3.35/hr. before taxes.
Burger King at age 16, for $4.25/hour, in 1989. It sucked, and all I learned from the experience was to never eat their mayonnaise. Ever.
I started babysitting when I was about 12, but I dont remember what I made. The wage varied per family.
My first "real " job was waitressing at a private golf club. 7$ an hour (minimum wage was 6.90) and no tips. I was 15-16 that summer. The next two years, at the same place, I made 8 and 9$ respectively. it was a good place to work, but VERY busy, and tiring.
Age 16.
$3.35 and hour.
Arby’s.
Ugh.
Wendy’s
$3.15/hr (1982)
Baggin groceries…3.85$ an hour.
I babysat for a rich family that paid me something like $12 an hour plus a $20 tip each time. Later, I taught brass lessons to middle schoolers for $15 an hour. My first full-time job was working at a music camp for $9 an hour.
Cashier and general assistant at a local pharmacy when I was 15. Started at 3.75/hr (.10 over minimum at the time), and eventually was up to $7. Learned a lot about medications and a lot about people (generally, the more people bitch and scream, the less serious the problem is. Not being able to sell lottery tickets because the 7:30 drawing deadline had passed was grounds for WWIII judging by some customers’ reactions).
As with others, I’m not counting the baby-sitting (I was a pinch hitter for my older sister), lawn mowing (I did better than $2-3/lawn back in the '60s), etc. My first real paycheck-with-deductions job was as a general flunkie at a Roy Rogers Roast Beef Sandwich restaurant when I was 14. Pay was $1.25/hour, and the red and white checkered cowboy shirt was free.
Had to leave the cowboy hat at the store, though.
I worked at McDonalds when I was 16. I think I made $3.35/hr. That job only lasted for about 5 months.
After that I worked at a local pizza place and made $4.50/hr. I loved that job.
Well, the first time I actually did work for money was a few times when I was in elementary school I filled in for my brother when he couldn’t do his paper route. I don’t remember the pay, something like $30 a week.
My first REAL job was as a construction assistant for my uncle. I started working for him when I was 12, I got paid $4.25 an hour, the next summer it was up to $4.50. The summer after that, $6.00, $6.50 next, my junior year I worked at a hardware store, then went back to my uncle for two more years, one at $8.50/hr, the other at $9.50/hr.
I guess if you don’t count working for my uncle, my first real job was for the hardware store at $6.25/hr (minimum wage at the time.) I hated it…in fact, I have hated both “real” jobs I’ve had (the other real one being an asbesos monitor.)
Age 10 or so, I had a newspaper route and made, ummm, so little that even at 10 I didn’t think it was much.
Age 12: babysat for $2 an hour
Age 14: Cleaned stalls for $1/stall; I could get through 20 stalls in a day
Age 15: First proper job as an A&W carhop making $4.25 and hour plus a few bucks a day in tips.
My first job pays more than any of the consecutive jobs.
2000: Kmart Corporation cashier $6.50/hr
2003: Movie theatre slave $5.75/hr
2003: night staff employee for dorms $5.40/hr
How much does that suck? I’d actually like a job that pays more than the last one sometime…
My first job was at age 13. I worked for my dad as a secretary after school. He paid $10 per hour. Probably since I didnt work all day so he could afford it. I think I worked 4 hours a day.
I kept doing that even after I moved on to other jobs for extra income.
Thanks dad 
Senior year, high school, covering the academic competition and JV Football beats for the local paper, I got about $15 per article printed.
Loading pulp digesters in a paper mill when I was 19. Paid $8.23 per hour.
Everything was steam-hot, it stank, the steam hissing into the digesters made a horrible racket, there were caustic chemicals involved, and their was a fair amount of heavy lifting and moving.
I got a wood chip in my eye and had to keep it taped closed for three days while my cornea healed. I can still faintly see the marks on my forearms where I burned myself on the edges of the digester lids.
The worst part? The rest of the crew liked country music… if I EVER again hear that Randy Travis song about the old men sitting on the porch talking about the weather… well, it won’t be pretty!
Waitress at a upscale local restaurant in a tourist town in Montana, the summer I turned 16. Evening shifts (brunch shifts on the weekends), 40 hours a week, $3.50 an hour plus tips. I didn’t mind it; I stayed at our (and by “our” I mean “my parents’”) lake place, slept 'til noon, laid out on the dock on my days off, and drank beer in the woods with the other kids I worked with after our shifts. It beat the heck out of babysitting.
WOW, did you know Jesus? :eek: