. . . job.
Shirley Ujest’s recent thread (What was the first paying job?) got me to thinking (probably because I misunderstood the name of the thread).
So, what was your first paying job?
Mine was a dishwashing job at an Italian restaurant. That was loads of fun. $3.35/hour. I was 13 or so.
How about the rest of the teeming millions? Where did your paths to greatness begin (professionally speaking)?
I waited tables at a retirement home for my first job. In the invalid unit. I was 15. It was depressing as hell, and has probably colored my entire work experience from then on.
I mowed lawns.
I gather rain…
I worked with my uncle installing carpets and linoleum floors in new housing developments. Although most things about it kind of sucked (getting up at 5 am, hauling huge, heavy rolls of carpet up stairs, working in hot, unfinished homes), some things about it were really cool, like the sense of accomplishment knowing that some family is really going to enjoy their new house, and I had something to do with it, or the fact that my uncle paid me with a pile of cash every week, and he bought me lunch every day. I kind of miss the physical labor part of it too, but not much.
Not counting odd jobs I did for friends and family growing up, I’d have to say my first “real” job was working lobby and drive through at McDonalds.
You say “cheesy” like that’s a BAD thing.
roofing at 14…thats why I’m the big fucking alcoholic I am today
B.E.D.B.O.Y.: Biomechanical Entity Designed for Battle and Online Yardwork (guess this makes me moderator material)
I guess babysitting doesn’t count . . . In high school, I worked as costume designer for a Children’s Theater company. I had to make a dozen actors look like Sneetches! It was accomplished (more or less) with yellow tights and leotards, pillows padding the tummy, and pointy plastic cups rubber-banded to their noses. The stars were put on with pins (which is why the pillows were somewhat essential).
McDonalds, I was 16. We played hockey with the frozen hamburger patties. Not anything I’m proud of, despite leading the store in goals.
…send lawyers, guns, and money…
Warren ZevonDoes camp counselor count? I got paid.
If not, I worked in a building materials warehouse summers in HS and College.
Consession stand at a movie theatre over Christmas break. Blech. I came home smelling like rancid butter every night. And had the additional bonus of NEVER wanting to eat at the movies again. Factoid: They reuse the popcorn left over from the night before. PLUS, the butter we used was really canola oil. Yummy. 
Winner, SDMB’s Biggest FEMALE Chat Addict (Happy, Jophiel?)
“Only two things that’ll soothe my soul - cold beer and remote control.”
Shadowfox
“The dead have risen, and they’re voting Republican!” - Bart Simpson
Ages 14-15: Reading to a retired English Lit professor who had gone blind. Worked wonders for my pronunciation of various big words I’d been reading, understood, but had never heard anyone say aloud.
Bluepony said: “McDonalds, I was 16. We played hockey with the frozen hamburger patties. Not anything I’m proud of, despite leading the store in goals”.
Um…what did you do with the patties after the game? On second thought I don’t think I want to know!
Worked for the Youth Conservation Corps during the summer of 1980. Made nature trails, built playgrounds, and even helped build an earthen dam. Gave me my first exposure to working for pay, not to mention my first exposure to ticks and chiggers.
Eeeuuuhhh…
“It’s only common sense,
There are no accidents 'round here.”
<sigh> Once a geek, always a geek.
My first “real” job was at a local computer store when I was 14. The keyboard chip on my Franklin 1000 had fried, and the people at the store told me I could work off the price (about $25). At the end of the week, they told me to come back next week and they’d pay me. I work there through my first year of college, and they taught me a ton of stuff. And here I am, still a computer jockey.
BagBoy in an A&P grocery store: $0.50 per hour starting pay. I was fourteen.
Crystalguy
I was a dietary aide in a nursing home. I started out at $4.25/hr and when I finally quit 5 1/2 years later I was making a whopping $5.55/hr! I lived on $5.00/hr for the first 3 years I was on my own. I don’t know how I made ends meet back then!
That John Denver’s full of shit man!
Well, I guess it was a paying job 
In about 1988, I worked for my dad at his Exxon station. Y’know, pumping gas, washing windshields, checking oil (do they still do that stuff??), and so on. I worked from 5:00 AM to 8:00 PM on the weekends year 'round, and from noon to 8:00 PM weekdays in the summer. I did it for a about a year and a half, until the Texaco down the road drove us out of business (although I think the Exxon Valdez incident actually drove the final nail into the coffin). Anyway, I made $20 a week or whatever my dad could afford to pay. It still boggles my mind that I was able to work those long hours doing that kind of physical labor, but that’s another story.
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
I was a grunt at a salvage warehouse. Damn hard work schlepping broken crap all day. I swore I’d never do any more “honest work” for the rest of my life.
No matter where you go, there you are.
My first paying job was at a local farm market ‘Farmer Al’s’. I was 13 years old. I did various things, picked strawberries, green beans, swept up the floors, husked corn, lots of different things. I think I got paid about $4.00 an hour. I couldn’t eat strawberries for about a year after that. I had eaten so many.
Any similarity between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.