Piggly-Wiggly I bagged groceries for $1.65 an hour.
Age 15. Washing dishes at a YMCA camp. $75 a month, plus room and board.
When I was 13, I worked as a trail guide on horseback for the princely sum of 20/ride I took out. I didn’t care, I got *to ride horses! *
When I turned 14, I worked at A&W for a few months. Hated it. Didn’t realize it at the tine, but the supervisor that would send me out to wipe tables “So his friends could look at my ass” probably would have been fired if I had told anyone. Instead, I quit.
Making candles at a candle factory*. I think I was making about 6 bucks an hour. It was a small business so it was me and another guy handling everything from production to QC to shipping, just about the whole shebang except taking orders and such. And that’s including the delightful task of standing out under the Texas sun in summer and untangling and cutting to length coils of rusty old barbed wire we’d pick up from area ranchers. Because that was the gimmick you see, they were southwestern candles so they were all wrapped up in a meter or more of rusted barb wire and horseshoes embedded in the wax. I think I’ve still got a few scars around my shins; no tetanus though thankfully.
*I say factory, but really it was just the boss’ garage. And there was only two of us besides the boss. But right around when I left for other things the business had grown enough that the boss was fixing to move the operation into actual factory space and hire more than two workers.
My first real job was a medical corpsman in the USAF. I don’t remember how much I made, I think I cleared around $400-$500/month.
My first civilian job was as a nurse’s aide. I made $1.84/hour, which was $0.20 over minimum wage in Missouri.
1979, working in the deli-bakery at the nearby Tom Thumb grocery store. I have no idea what I made at the time.
My first job was hoeing soybean fields. I believe I got a dollar a row and the rows were a mile long.
In many ways my first job was also one of the best jobs I ever had. A group of six of us had our own crew and we had a lot of fun together. But I suppose it wouldn’t have been so much fun if I’d had to do it for a career.
When it got too hot to work in the field I’d go home, clean up, change clothing and go down to a local café where I’d waitress and wash dishes, by hand, until the evening dinner crowd was gone. I can’t remember what I was paid. No more than a dollar.
Then I’d go home, clean up, change clothes again and walk down to the drive-in to carhop. That was also fun and provided an opportunity to meet a lot of boys from out of town. Can’t remember what it paid. Not much.
In my free time - hah - I ironed and cleaned house for my mom and she paid me a little something. She was forever going to summer school to improve her teaching credentials and this was her plan to keep me out of mischief while she was out of town. Can’t say it worked really well.
Social Security tells me I earned $37 in 1963 and $116 in 1964 - I think it was 35¢/hr. Checking clothes baskets at a swimming pool.
Four years later I made $932 for the summer as a lifeguard. I was rich - bought a used Mustang with only 22k on it.
Register jockey at a Hardees when I was 14. I think I was making $4.75 an hour in 1989.
About the middle of my sophomore year I got a job as a janitor at my high school. First job that my Dad was not the employer that was a 6 day a week gig.I was making about $40 - 50 a month I think. I do remember that for a 48 hr week during the summer, I got $125 a month. 1958
Once we went to work, we lost our allowance. 
I did odd jobs at the lake for pretty good money, like my brother & I split a
$20 for moving a covered boat doc about 7 miles down the lake. Dad charged us $5 for the use of his little boat & 10 hp Martin engine.1955 or so
Wind got strong early on the trip before we got out of long bay and we were blown up into the flats because we did not have the boat tied in correctly to be able to handle the cross wind… We had not asked for any advice.
So we had to go get Dad and he brought the inboard and pulled us off the mud and back to the center of long bay. Showed us how to rig the little boat and we made it just fine. Oh, he charged us another $10 for the rescue. We were learning how the world worked every time we turned around it seemed. This was before high school so I was not more than 12, maybe less.
Made good money down at the gas docks in the harbor when I got a bit older & stronger betting guys with up to Mec 55 hp boats that I could prevent them leaving the dock with my bare hands. 1957
Actually pretty easy.
Get it waste
Hold the frame of the boat dock with one hand
The other hand on the back handle of the engine
Have them put it in gear
Let my arms stretch fully
Tell them to, “Hit it.”
As long as you don’t let them have an inch, the prop can’t get enough bite that is not mostly cavitation and you can hold them. At least that is my theory. Back then, a $20 - 50 bet was great money for a kid in the summer.
Word got around pretty quick so it made $$$ for only a little while. Bawahahaha
I worked as a cleaning lady in a hotel at 18 and that lasted a week. Then an ice cream stand. Both jobs paid minimum wage 2005/2006.
- Sixteen years old. Worked at a small bakery doing cleanup. Scrubbed aluminum baking sheets, bread pans, swept and mopped floors, etc. $3.35/hour.
At 13 I worked in a skate shop for 3 bucks an hour. I was paid with both money and gear. It was, of course, all under the table.
The first real job I had was being a janitor when I was 15 for a small business that contracted to Lockheed Martin. I do not remember how much I made; it wasn’t much, though it was more than minimum wage. This job was really hard. We had to clean one floor of an office building in 3 hours in teams of two. I would bust my ass and always struggle (read as fail) to be finished in the 3 hour window. At the end of the night I was always exhausted! I lasted 6-8 weeks. I had hoped to work the entire summer and save up enough money to buy a car. I almost succeeded.
The next summer at 16 (with my $800 15 year old VW bug) I got a job cooking pizzas for a little chain in Denver. I worked on and off for them (Windy City Pizza) for ~3 years as a cook and delivery driver.
Also at 16 I apprenticed as a mechanic at a small garage. My POS bug died 3 months after buying it, and having no money, I went to a VW shop and told them I would work for them for free if they showed me how to fix it. I worked ~10-20 hours a week sweeping the floor and parting out old cars for them (I swear, every single abandoned bug had been pissed in by a cat!). Six months later they hired me and paid me 10 bucks an hour. I worked for them through my sophomore year at college (when I was 22 - I started late) and by that time I was making almost $40k/year.
I then worked for some friends delivering furniture until I graduated and made $12/hour plus tips. Not a bad gig, we had a lot of fun. I worked for them sometimes when I was in grad school too. It was a good way to make a hundred bucks.
Since then I have had a bunch of engineering jobs (20 years as an engineer), including working with Lockheed Martin. Never in the same building I cleaned, but I am always amused by the connection.
Turned 16 y/o had a job within weeks at Wendy’s. That turned into a full time gig real quick. Within months I picked up another job, part time at Dunkin Donuts. The pay was $3.35 / hr.
I was a pharmacy technician at a small hospital. Started when I was 15, made $5 an hour back when minimum wage was $2.65. I did that all through high school and for a couple summers during college.
Parking attendant at an expensive high-rise. Summer after my senior HS year, I learned to park cars with every transmission. Bentleys, Jags, everything German, most things Italian, and everything American. I worked hard, but we lost our contract 2 weeks before college. Hence that Famous Line:
“Hey! Yous! You park dis cah so it Don’t get moved Again! Capish?”
Looks left. Looks right.
“…Ever…?”
Stacking shelves at night at the local supermarket while I was at uni. I can’t remember what I got paid - it was over 30 years ago. Whatever it was, it plus what I was making as a maths tutor allowed me to meet all of my current expenses so that I could save all of the scholarship I was getting.
1974, working in a cheese factory. 3.25 an hour, big money compared to what my friends were making. I think minimum wage was around 1.60.
I got my lifeguard certification at summer camp when I was (I think) 15 and immediately applied for a job at the local public pool for a couple hours a week after school. I think I made about $7 an hour to scrape kids off the bottom of the deep end.
I got my first job as a bus boy in a neighborhood Italian restaurant. I was 14. A couple of months later I was moved into the kitchen at the salad stations to the pizza oven and then to the line.