First job as a kid, let's hear about it.

[fatnslow]

I had a paper route for 4 years which included having to collect money monthly from customers. You meet some cheap, weird fuckers trying to haggle/weasle out of a $2.75 monthly bill with a 11 year old. Saved money for 3 years to buy a kick ass ten speed , it was stolen within a year when my brother left the garage door open at night.
My first "real" job was as a dishwasher in a restaurant. The biggest responsibility was cigarette runs to the nearest store for the cooks, IF I EVER fucked up the brands I wasn't getting tipped out that night.

[Meathelmet]

Paper boy for 4-5 years, being 12-16. Amount of dodgy fucks in that neighbourhood was quite high so learned the art of stealth and speed.

Before that (yrs 8-12) collected pine cones, from the trees, for couple of springs. Traded the cones at our local village shop for candy with a ratio of 100:1. Learned to climb and almost got diabetes during the process.

[wooley12]

Delivering Fuller Brush catalogs door to door for a penny per door. First legal age job was working the spin paint booth at an Amusement park that is still going after 130 years owned by the same family.

[MarcusBrody]

Worked at a country club sweeping tennis courts, shagging balls during lessons, and doing bookings. It actually was a pretty good job for someone my age. The people were for the most part actually pretty cool. The best part of the job was when the weekly 65-80 year old doubles matches needed an extra person and I would sub in and they'd talk all sorts of trash to me.

[BmillsSkier]

Delivering Fuller Brush catalogs door to door for a penny per door. First legal age job was working the spin paint booth at an Amusement park that is still going after 130 years owned by the same family.

You must have really been something before electricity!






My first job was as a dishwasher at a truly horrible restaurant/reception hall. I learned some pretty sweet Spanish curse words from the line cooks and how to shoot them with the sanitizer dispenser when they got out of line. I also learned how to send my buddy through the conveyer belt dishwasher without scalding him. Good times. I think I quit after 2-3 months for a few summers of the greatest job I've ever had in my life: water park lifeguard with a 4:1 girl-guy ratio among the guards.

Those were the days...

[The Tortoise]

Worked for a contractor. I want to say $5 per hour.

Worst day ever was pushing a wheel barrow full of crushed stone up a gravel hill in 30+ degree C weather. Realized right away I was going to get an education.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Worked on various farms bucking bales. First legal job was roguing spinach male plants for a seed grower, hard labor both. Usually had two jobs in high school, working dairies or construction(summertime) and part time fry cook at night.

[AK47bp]

Mogul disposal technician.

[Pegleg]

Had the typical paper route, then my first real job was at a deli where I made pizzas and calzones and manned the fryer. Not too bad, actually - owners had no problem with us frying up the occasional batch of chicken fingers or fries to munch on, and I learned a lot about pizza and calzone construction. Had one weirdo customer who every week without fail would order a calzone with no cheese and extra anchovies - basically a dough pocket full of tomato sauce and a giant pile of anchovies. (Yes, our calzones had sauce in them - didn't find out that was unusual until years later.) Good times.

[japanada]

Lifeguard, baseball umpire and neighborhood yard work. Umpiring taught me how much adults can suck

[Buster Highmen]

Aside from shoveling sidewalks, mowing lawns and a paper route, my first "real" job was working at a butcher shop at age 14.

It was a small urban grocery store with a few fresh veggies and canned and dry goods on Oakland, just over the city line in Milwaukee, proper. It was an interesting neighborhood, with a classic Jewish owned hardware store cross the street (Emil's Hardware) owned by a best friends grandparents. Next to that was some huge liquor store and a neighborhood of older brownstones and wooden duplexes with mixtures of eastern Europeans as well as Italians and students since the UWM was closeby.

I was smallest in my class, like 4' 11" and weighed 90 lbs, but I was good at making change and stocking. That part was easy. The hard part was wrestling meat quarters and sides into and out of the cold room and doing al the cleaning of the blood and guts from the beef and sheep sides. I can't enumerate how many days I'd literally drag 70 lb sides of beef out of the locker, smearing my face and butcher robe with cow or sheep blood and ooze.

The thing I remember most that sticks with me is every damn closing I had to scrub that butcher block with bleach until the butcher deemed it good. To this day, the smell of bleach makes me wretch. I became a vegetarian for about 5 years after that.

[jibij]

Ages 9-13, mowed the grass for a 40 acre campground in upstate NY that my Dad managed. My Dad "paid" me at the end of each season with a large item (trail bike, horse, snowmobile), until I was 12 and then I decided I needed cash. I negotiated for $5/week. Even for 1971 I was getting screwed, but I thought I was rich.
My first "real" job was at 14 as a stockboy at a grocery store in FL. The Assistant Manager used to sit at his elevated desk by the cashiers getting hammered and reading Playboy while we worked after-hours. I got a lot of "free" cigarettes from that store.

[Gcooker]

Picked fruit, lined soccer fields, painted propane tanks, waxed skis, painted apartments in an old folks home right after they died, reno's. Pretty much sums up ages 10-19 when I left for college.

[1080Rider]

Jesus, my first job sucked! I literally watched grass grow. I worked for a turf farm in puyallup, WA. I had to make the rounds between 3-5 fields and alternate turning on/off 4 inch water pipes. On some fields we had wheel sets. You would have to move the wheel set to the next riser (the 4 inch main that provides water) and turn it on. If you didn't (or the dipshit on the shift before you) get the wheel set to move straight, you'd have to go back to where you started and move it again. I had the morning shift, 5 am to 1 pm. The most boring job I've ever had!

[Skidog]

Caddy. 4 loops a weekend, and everyday during the summers. Nice country club in NJ. Lots of hills though. Fat stacks as a 13 yr old thats for sure...easy $250-300 a weekend. Summers were even better.

[Danno]

I worked at a sneaker store, retail hell, making $3.35/hr.

[babybear]

good thread idear fatnslow from a fellow paper router (or information distribution expert)

Paper route for 5 yrs from age 9-14. we collected weekly, but some people would pay monthly etc, which was nice.
My dad helped me set up my paper bag on the front of my scooter so I could pick up a second route a few blocks over too. I always would put the papers in the door/ mailbox vs tossing them on the lawn or porch so I got mad tips

worked with my dad in the summers and was in charge of sweeping/ clean-up at his job sites (he was a single dad and in his early 20's so was not always on top of having babysitters lol)
Then we'd paint houses for side jobs in the evening so he would pay me to do that with him too.

Then I started working at an animal hospital as a kennel kid taking the dogs for walks and cleaning up the kennels
Loved that job even though I would have to hose myself off at the end of the day

[Bluebird]

Caddy. 4 loops a weekend, and everyday during the summers. Nice country club in NJ. Lots of hills though. Fat stacks as a 13 yr old thats for sure...easy $250-300 a weekend. Summers were even better.

outside of shoveling in winter my first job was a Caddy in NJ as well. Really good cash money and taught me that getting up and to work by 6:30 meant more loops=more cash. I remember my first couple loops with two bags. Those were tiring but lucrative days. Added bonus of some needed "social education" hanging out and working with the contingent of caddies coming from the Newark area everyday.

[huckbucket]

I worked one summer in QC for Crosman Air Guns. My job was to load up the guns (pump or CO2) and shoot them into a trap that measured the velocity of the pellet or bb. Was pretty fun actually. Lots of conversations with full time, retarded, fundamentalist hillbillies really opened my mind to the sweet baby Jebus. We also had the occasional war with those soft earplugs that fit nicely into the gun muzzle. They fly!

[Skidog]

outside of shoveling in winter my first job was a Caddy in NJ as well. Really good cash money and taught me that getting up and to work by 6:30 meant more loops=more cash. I remember my first couple loops with two bags. Those were tiring but lucrative days.

ALWAYS 2 bags...and I obviously had my favorite members and would get to the caddy area extra early on the weekends I knew they were playing. Usually got requested so that was nice. I did hate some of the members who insisted on cart bags for me to fucking carry. Some were very close to Dangerfield's in Caddyshack. I learned a lot about golf (caddy days were monday free play), and learned a lot about working hard also a bit about sucking up. Met mostly good people and was outside in the fresh air getting exercise. Couuldve been worse.

[Harry]

Age 10: got a job polishing the lens on a lighthouse on the Great Lakes once per week. Not a real hard job, but very detailed. Also shoveled snow for several houses. As others have said, shoveling snow gets you used to getting up early for work.


Wiki about the lens: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_lens

[Mofro261]

First real job besides the general paper route and mowing lawns was in Sales and Distribution. It was a good gig for a kid willing to hustle, I busted my ass and made some dough. It all fell apart when I was popped for possession, but fortunately not with enough for intent.

[Skistack]

I picked strawberries along side migrant workers when I was around 13. Was paid the amount picked and they picked twice as fast as us stupid white kids, from dawn to dusk, the whole damn family.

Learned 1) What hard work was 2) Mexicans were hard workers 3) Just because you work hard doesn't mean you'll make alot of money.

[BCMtnHound]

Age 14 to 17 did lawn and garden maintenance for old folks around the neighbourhood, minimum $10/hr plus snacks, more work available than hours I could allocate. Great way to justify getting out of the family farm (unpaid) work. At 16 when I got my drivers license, I did some swamping for a forestry road building contractor, then at 17 finally had to submit my SS number, fought wildfire and worked at the local seedling nursery during summer and winter breaks. Living with the folks, disposable cash was overflowing during those teenage years. Then I moved out of the house for college, went steady with a girlfriend, and the lifestyle of the flush & unencumbered ended for most of the next decade.

[fatnslow]

I picked strawberries along side migrant workers when I was around 13. Was paid the amount picked and they picked twice as fast as us stupid white kids, from dawn to dusk, the whole damn family.

Learned 1) What hard work was 2) Mexicans were hard workers 3) Just because you work hard doesn't mean you'll make alot of money.

Did you get docked money for having strawberry fights with your WHITE friends ? Man, I forgot all about those 5:30 AM bus rides as a middle school kid.