My sister and I delivered a weekly paper when I was 10 and she was 12 in 1959. I have no recollection what we made. I think we did it for about 2 years. I did some babysitting from 12 to 16. I think I made 50 cents an hour. After my grandmother’s cataract operations, I server as a chauffeur for her at age 16 or 17 I forget which. I made $2 an hour, but we weren’t terribly careful about tracking the hours. I was probably overpaid.
During college I taught math (2 years) and Chemistry (1 year) summer school. Those were salaried and I don’t recall teh hourly.
I was a pharmacy tech at a local hospital from 1977 to 1980. The base wage was $4.98 an hour, but as a relief worker, I worked every weekend and holiday, so I got time and a half for the Sundays and holidays. Pretty good money for a high school kid back then.
I briefly worked for three weeks at a daycare place the summer after 8th grade and made $10/week. First real job was in 1977 or so, high school, as an admin person at a courier service in midtown Manhattan. I made $2.60/hour which was then minimum wage. I got a merit raise to $2.85/hour within a few months and was on cloud 9.
Metro Vancouver, BC, 1964 at a harness racing track. Before races I distributed the blanket and halter numbers the horses wore; after, I collected and washed them. I was 8-9, and not sure I had a wage as such. I was paid, but not sure it was hourly or a sort of “honorarium.” Age 15-16, distributed flyers for an investment firm, and again, not sure what I was paid. Last 2 year of high school, 1973-1974, I lucked into my favorite job ever, bridge tender, which paid minimum wage of $2.50/hour.
Besides working at the family businesses starting at about 12 years old, I remember my first job as a photographer for my college newspaper in 1988. $7 per published photograph. Besides taking feature photos all week long, I was the on call photographer for Tuesdays. During the season, basketball games were played on Tuesday nights. I had to shoot the games which started at 8 pm. I would shoot the first half, then rush to the darkroom. I remember that we had special developers to push the film to 1600 ASA, despite the lighting, the basketball games were actually pretty dark environment to shoot. Then I would print a proof sheet, hope to hell I had a decent shot, and then print one or possibly two photos for publication. All the time I had a radio on so I would know who won the game, as I was also responsible for writing the cutline for the photo. The layup for the paper had to go out to the printer by 1 am at the latest, so I had to get everything to the pasteboard crew by midnight at the latest, and they would yell at me to get it sooner. The hold up was always the cutlines. The copy editor was a girl who was absolutely the cutest gal on campus, and I would intentionally write shitty cutlines so she would spend a few minutes with me fixing my errors. She probably thought I was the most illiterate moron on campus, but it was worth it.
The owner didn’t withhold taxes from anyone. Except for the guy that ran the repair shop, everyone was paid in cash every Friday. The guy that ran the repair shop collected all the money he made fixing cars and paid the owner part of that each week.
my only legal job was for about 3 months I worked for a guy who ran deliveries and put the paper together when he subcontracted by the la times MY job was one day a week putting the preprinted parts of the paper on Saturdays for 4.25 an hour …the problem was they wanted you to do like thousands in 4 hours I was not fast enough and it was maybe 50 bucks every 2 weeks
and I had a better opportunity helping to sell videogames so I took that and was paid in games and systems for the next 4 years and it ended up being more than a job type of thing
Ha. I love reading these stories. My first ever job was for 2 weeks at Miller & Rhoades Tea Room. I was 19, had never worked in a restaurant before, and was about 40 pounds shy of a good fit for the retro French Maid style uniform. The tea room was the eatery of an old, dinosaur- ish department store on its last legs(this was 1990- ish, think Drew Carey show- Lauder’s Department Store.) All the ancient shop- ladies took their lunch break there. It had an equally ancient man playing an organ, too- very David Lynch, not on purpose. I think I made just south of $15. for my brief time there. I had to quit because of shin splints- no comfy shoes or pantyhose-free legs allowed.
I still have some placemats from Miller & Rhoads that friends of my husband bought us for our wedding, stored in their original box. I kinda miss those old department store restaurants …
I delivered the LA Times in high school (starting at 3:00 am!) and those Sunday Editions were huge. The boss was always trying to recruit us delivery guys to come in and do inserts on Saturdays. He never got any takers.
well some of the college-age kids I worked with did the pre-printed part like classified ads real estate automotive comics etc sections … then came back about 9 o clock to put the rest of it together … and slept in their cars until it was time to start delivery one guy (besides the guy who owned the company)was there off and on from 9 pm Friday to 10 am on Sunday
in fact I still remember the guys name I worked for …he worked in circulation/advertising for various car magazines (his wife was one of the more prominent low rider models and her nickname was Spanish for firecracker) and when they had kids she wanted him to do something substantial but not a full;l time thing so he talked his way into working for the times when they expanded into the antelope valley … he only worked Thursday to Sunday and just suprived his “monkeys” as he called us since we were almost all drama queen teenagers
1971 here, started as a dishwasher at a local restaurant, moved up to prep cook and finally cook in the 6 years I worked there while also attending college. Started at $1.60/hr and thnk I left when I was at $3.65/hr.
When I retire in a couple of weeks it will be the first time I won’t have a job for an extended period of time since I was 12.
When I was 12 my brother handed over his paper route to me. I don’t know officially what I earned. I got whatever was left after I handed in the money for the week.
In high school I worked at Consumer Distributors in the warehouse. If my parents knew what an OSHA nightmare that place was they would have yanked me out of there. I was just thankful to not be working fast food. I learned my work ethic there. I made whatever minimum wage was in the early to mid 80s. Somewhere around $3.25 I think. I did get a few small raises before I moved on.
1992ish (not counting paper delivery route); worked under the table for $20 a day, pouring diesel on lutes for an asphalt company where my dad worked. I stood around with a big jug of diesel fuel, with holes in the cap, and when asphalt started to stick to the lutes the workers would come to me to apply the diesel to clean them off.
Paper route on my street in…I want to say 1986? Pay varied a bit depending how many houses were getting The Ottawa Citizen in a given week, but it was generally in the ballpark of $50 every two weeks.
I held a few other summer jobs simultaneously for a few years, and gave up the route for good sometime around 1989.
I think I made just south of $15. for my brief time there. I had to quit because of shin splints- no comfy shoes or pantyhose-free legs allowed.