My father worked for IBM so I won one of their scholarships and at that time, that meant a summer job was available. I was a telephone operator for the plant.
“IBM Ourtown, may I help you?”
“Is this IBM?”
“Yes.”
“Is this Ourtown?”
“Yes…”
Pretty funny since now I have a severe phobia about the phone. It didn’t come from that job though.
Receptionist at the garment factory that was famous for making Elvis’s Hawaiian shirts in Blue Hawaii.
Hey man, that was my second job! Delivered the Courant in the morning and the New London Day in the afternoon.
Cool! By 6:30 AM on Mon-Sat, and by 8:30 AM on Sundays. I didn’t mind snow or ice or rain. But wind - I hated the wind days!
You were more industrious than I was. I could have delivered the old Hartford Times in the afternoons, but, naah. I made that $7 stretch through the whole week.
Oh, and I will always remember the largest headlines I ever saw. My eyes went wide when on August 8, 1974 I saw this (yes I am old enough):
Nixon Resigns
Working at the local cinema at age 16. I had gotten my license and my mother’s old Honda Accord. Parents said I had to pay my own gas and insurance.
Peeling tulip bulbs. Age 12
Girl Friday.
Telemarketer. Getting cussed out wasn’t worth the commissions.
Stuffing envelopes for newsletters and statements at the credit union my mom worked for at age fourteen. The pay was $25.00 per quarter.
Ticket taker at the town pool
Not counting mowing lawns for scratch money…
Wendy’s. I did it because they were the only ones who would hire at 14, and I wanted a job.
The store was only about a mile away from where I lived (and half of that was my neighborhood) so I was able to ride my bike to work. Also, my parents eventually got me an electric scooter, so I would ride that work too and just park it where the dumpsters were.
Don’t remember my pay or anything, but I do remember always having WAY more money than my friends.
Are we talking first, official legal paycheck-earning gig, or are we talking about the first regular thing that anyone paid me for?
In the first case, it was when I was a busboy/janitor at a Chili’s in the summer of 1989 at 16, almost 17 years old.
In the second, it was probably a few years earlier- I had a regular gig mowing lawns for a couple of people from the summer before high school up through when I graduated and went to college, but it was one of those unofficial pay the teenager cash things.
Ski and binding technician when I was in high school.
Little League umpire, which will surprise no one who’s been on this board a long time.