In high school, ski and binding technician at Ski Barn in the Antelope Valley. I got paid in store credit. After my skiing injury, store clerk and then store magician at Magic Mountain. After my car wreck, cashier at Kmart. Then I got a data job with a contractor at Edwards AFB.
During high school in the late '60s, worked as a cashier at a drugstore. Made ninety something cents an hour.
Oh – I got $2.50/hour in store credit at Ski Barn. I think I made $3.15/hour at Magic Mountain. Three-something at Kmart, and took a pay cut to minimum wage to get the job at Edwards.
I made minimum wage cutting underbrush and small trees from the roadway in East Tennessee. I was 16 in 1968. I Think the minimum was $1.25/hr then.
This was during the summer and during school I worked 20 hours a week for the same wage as an assistant janitor for the high school. I worked after hours and during lunch and study hall.
I worked in an architect’s office, on the top floor of a NYC skyscraper. I was the office “gopher” and messenger and operator of the blueprint machine. This was back in the 60s, and I got paid something like $1.50/hr. It was enough to pay for a room at the Y.
This was when the PanAm Building had a heliport on the roof, and I was right next to it. It seemed that the blades could hit my building. Cool.
I was a cashier in a grocery store. This was 1992 and I was 17, I can’t remember what I made but I’m betting it was about minimum wage. After about a year of being a cashier I got “promoted” to the bulk foods department where I had to lift 30-50 pound boxes of candy to fill the bins on the store floor. Let me tell you, I had biceps to die for.
Lab assistant in a biology research lab at the Illiinois Institute of Technology. It was a work-study position. Cleaned lots of test tubes and petri dishes filled with substances of dubious origin. Working the autoclaves was kind of cool, though.
Assistant Janitor at an elementary school when I was 15. I made under minimum wage, since the scholl system was allowed to do that for “underage” workers. Mopping floors and lilfting cafeteria garbage cans for 3-4 hours per day got me ripped pretty quick, though.
Delivering newspapers for about $50/week when I was 11.
Summer of 1989- 16 yrs old.
Busboy & janitor at a Chili’s restaurant in SW Houston. $3.50 hr for the janitor part, $2.01 + 1% of the total restaurant tip-out for the busboy part. I think I made about 2x the money on tips than I did in a paycheck that summer- the usual haul was about $20 per day for 3-4 hours of actual busboy work, which followed about 3 hours of janitorial stuff every morning.
If we’re counting things like newspaper delivery…I worked on a dairy farm for two summers when I was 13-14, I traveled with my grandmother working at county fairs for 3 summers, had a rural paper route (technically it was my mother that was employed by them, but we did it together since it involved driving).
Worked for a catering company on weekends starting at about age 13. Served a lot of stuffed chicken breast at a lot of weddings, plus the occasional class reunion or bar mitzvah. Usually came home reeking of beer and cigarettes. This would have been 1986 or so. I made $3.35 an hour.
First as a carpet cleaner assistant, then at a car wash (cue music); $1.75/hr, zero tips.
ETA: Prior to that I had a paper route, but I sucked at money management.
I interviewed business owners over the telephone, and earned minimum wage.
I worked at a garden nursery watering plants, moving stock around and deadheading geraniums.
The pay was $3.45 an hour or so.
That job was seasonal and I only stayed one season. After that I worked at a deli in a convenience store for the same or not very much more pay, but many more hours.
My parents had a grocery in a small town that I helped out at from the time I was in elementary school. By some point, I was running the place solo when my dad would leave to play golf, so I guess that counts as a real job.
Age 14, running the candy counter at a college bookstore. I made minimum wage (looks like it would have been $2.50/hr.). I remember getting in trouble for eating too much candy. I also threw my back out lifting candy jars.
Age 16 (or thereabout), worked after school (and sometimes before school) and summers for a combination egg wholesaler/feed store. I don’t remember the wage.
Clerk in a hobby/crafts shop. It was 1973 to 1974, and I earned one dollar per hour.
I worked as a library page (shelving books, etc.) when I was 14 and got paid 65 cents an hour. When I turned 16 I got a raise to 85 cents an hour and was permitted to work after 6 PM. Why, yes, I am that old.
My first full-time jobs were summer jobs doing general office work. My first full-time permanent job was teaching. I made almost $5000 a year! Wow! And my husband made even more! We were rich!