Convenience store that had a deli/sandwich counter. And then several summers at an amusement park, which is pretty much retail.
Line cook in college. And then, do you remember the movie Clerks? Yeah, that may as well have been my biography for about two or three years of my life. Early twenties, southern Maine, ocean side, it was actually pretty fucking great.
A few other side food/retail type jobs on the side here and there.
Pre career? Restaurant. I got a job as a busboy at a Chili’s Bar and Grill where a friend’s stepdad was an assistant manager. Worked there the entire summer of 1989. Only restaurant/food service job I’ve ever been willing to take.
Post-career, I worked a summer at a Sports Authority during graduate school, but I’d actually had real, paying jobs for about 6-7 years, and 2 years of grad school by that point.
This. I worked a cash register at McDonald’s for several years as a teenager and got experience dealing with every kind of customer under all sorts of conditions. Back then (late '80s), speed was a concern; we regularly had promotions during which we had to get a customer’s order put together within 60 seconds of pressing ‘TOTAL’ on the register, or the customer received a free drink. So I learned to MOVE. These days I try to be patient and polite with fast-food cashiers who are dealing with a kitchen that’s fallen behind demand, but when the cashier himself isn’t moving with alacrity, keeping quiet is somewhat challenging.
After some meals, I’ve gone to the survey website on the receipt to describe dining experiences during which the cashier was exceptionally good - courteous, fast, clear-spoken, cheerful, and so on. Those types are rare and they deserve positive feedback.
My only pre-career jobs were in custodial work.
My first two summar jobs probably don’t count because they were given automatically to IBM scholarship winners. My first jobs I got for myself were refreshments at college events, and supermarker cashier. I guess those are variants of food service and retail, but not exactly what you mean.
In the summer of '85 (between 8th and 9th grades) I worked at a non-profit snowball stand, but that was a far cry from actual food service. So I didn’t count it when responding to the survey.
(If you’re not from around here, a snowball is crushed ice with flavored syrup and sometimes toppings [like marshmallow], served in a paper cup or cone. Some places call them sno-cones. Some people use the term “shaved ice” interchangeably, but I believe that’s actually a different thing.)
I was lucky enough to not have to work during high school; I didn’t get a job until the start of my sophomore year of college (which was also when I got a car). In college, during the school year I worked in the King of Prussia mall: first at Hallmark, then at Lechter’s (a now-defunct chain that sold kitchen gadgets). Summers back home near Baltimore were a mixed bag: some telemarketing, some door-to-door canvassing for an environmental group, some temping at various companies, some interning at a radio station, etc.
I worked first at the public library (age 16-17), then at the university library (ages 17-21), then I got my “real” job out of college, which is neither retail nor restaurant (and which I still have).
I really only had a summer job, once, in a restaurant – it was a sub shop where I worked the grill for the breakfast buffet. Oh, I almost forgot, there was another summer when I managed a local video rental store – does that count as retail?
I recently spent 7 years in retail, but since I was in HR at the corporate office I don’t think it counts for this poll.
Agreed. I worked fast food while I was in college, nearly full time. It’s amazing how some people seem to make it a life goal to beat the crap out of some random front-line worker. I also encountered people who would play games with the money/change to try to confuse you into giving them more money, and also the people who wanted very specific denominations of change and would tell you what to give them impatiently before you could count it up and treated me like a moron because I didn’t instantly say “yessir” and hand them anything they asked for… not realizing they appeared exactly like the scammers.
I think everybody should be required to spend at least 6 months in a front-line, entry level wage job just to learn some compassion.
I’ve never worked retail or food service, I did some babysitting, worked at a day care, then various internships before I graduated college. But I’m a reasonable person with empathy, so I’m patient with clerks when they’re dealing with things out of their control, and I don’t take my frustrations with a company out on them, and I try to be a decent customer, just like I try to be a decent person.
I’d think if someone is an asshole, they wouldn’t learn any compassion by having experience as a clerk or food server, they’d just see their customers as jerks in contrast to their own reasonable demands that they have of waiters and clerks. Some decent but clueless people would learn their lesson, but a lot of people wouldn’t.
I worked in a hospital kitchen for five years during college. It’s sort of food service, but not a restaurant, although I did work in the cafeteria at times as well.
Does this count as food service or healthcare industry?
I worked in the office for a chain of hardware stores, but never served customers. I worked in a hospital directly with patients.
My first job was a part-time job at the university where I was an undergraduate.
My second was a sort of internship (though it wasn’t called that back then) with an Australian government agency where I was considering a career, during the university vacation. (I didn’t finish up working with them, as I chose a major subject that was inconsistent with their specialty.)
My third was a cleaner in a steel mill – an unskilled job that I took after dropping out of a master’s degree in English. After all, what can you do with an English major?
I’ve never worked in retail or food service.
In a story I tell often, MY MOTHER informed me, at the age of 14, that she was sending me to secretarial school over the summer so that I would have office skills, because I “didn’t have the personality to work with customers.” :dubious:
However, it did pay off because in high school and college, I was always able to find part-time jobs doing general office work, like answering the phone, typing and filing. This was right before word processors were becoming common in offices, so I learned on a Selectric and was quite a good typist … then in my jobs it was a bonus when I got to use WordPerfect or MacWrite.
I’m not sure whether it counts as retail, but my first job was in a call centre. It was so soul-suckingly awful and demeaning both to myself and to customers that I’ve since resolved that I would rather starve than work a such job again.
I worked for a few weeks as a supermarket cashier when I was in high school. That’s about it. (I was paid minimum wage, which at the time was about $1.35.)
I hope I answered the poll correctly. I have worked food service, but it wasn’t my first job. My first job was as an electrician’s assistant. My second job was as an amusement park ride operator. It wasn’t until my university work study job, my third, that I first did food service.
When I was in the Navy, I felt like anyone who wanted to be an officer should be required to spend 2 years as a junior enlisted person - what a wonderful perspective! 
Somehow, tho, I think assholes will be assholes no matter what side of the counter they occupy. I’ve never had a customer service job, but I tend to be a courteous and patient customer myself, unless confronted with total incompetence and bad attitude.
My first official job was at a gas station after school, but I had a succession of short term jobs (and a few longer term ones) between the ages of 16-23. Retail was among the longer term jobs, restaurant was confined to three weeks at a Burger King until I couldn’t stand it anymore.