You want fries with that?

[gary_in_neenah]

In honor of the Labor Day holiday and as an excuse to wake up the forum a bit on these late summer days we pose the question...

What was your first job, and doing what?

In my case I grew up on a farm and we always had chores to do. But the summer after high school my first job was as a stocker and bagger at a mom & pop grocery store. To this day, I always thank the checker and bagger on my way out of the store cause I've been there and done that.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend!

 

[matti]

Great idea for a thread!

My first job was watering plants at a plant/tree nursery near the house I grew up in. If I recall, I was making about $3.50/hr. I don't remember much about the job other than how cold my hands got in the spring, holding a hose for hours on end in early spring.

 

[jakester]

I caddied at a private golf course. From 13 to 18 every summer. It was almost like Caddy Shack. Looking back it was a great summer job. Learned to play the game too. Cinderella story about to become a long time snowmobiler!!

 

[Skylar]

First real part time job was washing dishes at the Paul Bunyan resteraunt in Wi Dells. 1984 I think?

 

[xcr440]

The old man had us cutting firewood - didn't pay very well working for him, actually ZERO. But the 3rd or 4th summer of doing that a huge housing development went in behind our house, they took out about 100 acres of trees. The old man said if we cut it, we could sell what he wasn't going to burn. I think my brother and I piled up about 250 chords that summer, all nice straight Red Oak 16" pieces.

The first real job working for someone was delivering Dominos Pizza - that was pretty fun at the time!

 

[stitcher]

First real part time job was washing dishes at the Paul Bunyan resteraunt in Wi Dells. 1984 I think?

1983 washed dishes just up the hill at Howie's HUGE Breakfast

 

[elf]

Besides working on our farm and for other farmers and mowing my grandma's lawn, my first real job was life guarding at the Shell Lake beach. Good way to meet chicks!

 

[mrbb]

my  first job was working on a  coal mine, as a helper, picking spilled coal and placing it in 5 gallon buckets or piles, started at about the age of 8 yrs old, and  cannot tell you how many coal slivers I had under my fingernails and other body parts<br> came home black as coal and coudl spit dust at will! most likely would have qualified for Black lung claims if I was old enough to legally have been working! <br><br>it sure wasn't the most fun job in the world, but  they let kids do it, and it paid pretty well for a kid,  if a kid was motivated that is!<br>got paid by how much you did!<br>and  sure kept me in shape , and got me access to a lot of places to ride my dirt bikes that were closed to other folks!<br><br>I sure was  not  a lazy kid I know that, worked by butt off !  and I know most kids today, you couldn't pay them to go do that type of work, they just plain refuse too! <br> far too many to soiled these days!<br>don't even know what physical labor really is any more! IMO!<br> even construction sites any more, you seldom see manual labor happening, everything gets done with machines these days! and the prices for work sure show it!<br><br> on a  side note if anyone cares!<br><br> I picked SO much coal as  kid, few would  believe me<br>  but from the age of about 8 to about 15, I stock piled enough coal , that I had a my own coal cracker , shakers and all for different sizes, and cracked and sold enough coal to buy me several MX bikes a truck, and many others things, when I stopped selling it, I left it at my uncles where he heated his house for 30+ yrs till he passed away<br><br> when he passed away I bought his property, and I didn;t wish to burn coal, there so, I tried giving it away, NO one would come get it, so I sold it to a local coal company<br> sold over 250 ton that was LEFT over from all that I had picked as kid and was still on property!<br><br>I picked all that coal using 5 gallon buckets, one at a time, or in lumps and brought back   cracked, sported and piled! all before the age of 16!!<br><br> I would imagine I must have picked over a thousand ton o coal as a kid for this place, NOT counting what I picked while working on the job!, all that at my uncles was picked on days off for extra income and to help my uncle out!<br><br> and NOW I know why my back hurts every day LOL!!

 

[800etec]

picking up milk for an Amish community near us........yes,10 gallon cans,throwing em in a 2 ton truck and taking to the creamery...........it kicked my but, i was 19 and as big as a toothpick,lol so sometimes the cans threw me!

 

[harvest1121]

Passing papers, delivering pizza and anything else that would pay.  

 

[eagle1]

Paper route.....and yes I rode my bike in snow and rain.
Grocery store bagger when I turned 15......bought '86 Iroc Camaro for cash at 18.



.......ohhh and I still prefer to bag my own groceries. Lol

 

[BigSix]

Gary,
First, as was said above, great idea for a thread!
Second, thanks to all of you that worked on a farm. Quality and low cost food is what keeps this country strong! I also mean you guys cutting wood as wood is used for building and heat. Also, mrbb, the coal picking story is incredible! We have huge coal piles in downtown Green Bay that are still used for many industries.

My first paying job (from parents) was selling vegetables from our home garden (almost a quarter acre) to area grocery stores. Didn't pay much but was a good experience. Next was mowing lawns for one of my teachers and and old folks home in 1974. My first real payroll job was pumping gas and washing windshields at Newtol's Gas For Less on University Ave in Green Bay in 1975 when I was 15. $1 an hour for the probationary period and then $1.50 after that. I thought I had the world by the *** with that kind of money! I saved up and bought a brand new 1975 Honda CB 360 with the money I earned.

 

[skiroule]

Working at a full service gas station - pump the gas, wash the windshield, check the oil, smiling all the while - $1.10/hour. Was a cool job though because in a small town the gas station was THE place for all my motorhead friends to hang out.

 

[xsledder]

Bicycle mechanic at a local bike shop. 

 

[Grant Hoar]

Powder monkey at a whey processing plant. Bagging 50 and 100 lb bags, so I was getting paid to work out.

Best part was manually loading 20 tons on old beat up semis that that they couldn't drive forklifts into. $20 bucks cash off the clock work for 1.5 hours work when I was making $2.75 an hour when clocked in. That experience convinced me to go to college.

 

[indy_500]

Started off with my own lawn mowing business as a teenager, before getting my first “real job” in the building department at fleet farm. That was 10 years ago, been making metal chips ever since! Wow time flies. 

 

[euphoric1]

worked for my uncles landscape business at a young age, my first paycheck job wasn't by choice, when I was old enough to get a work permit I wasn't asked if I was going to work, my dad took me to urban league to get work permit and got me a job doing dishes at a local bakery as I grew most of my younger years I worked 2 jobs because I wanted things, now I own my own business and work 3 times as hard and make half as much it seems, but no regrets, and I'm glad my parents pushed me the way they did, really instilled work ethic and when you want things you earn it. Now a days you cant do or expect that because you might hurt juniors feelings, crazy how things have changed.

mrbb... that is truly a really cool story!!!

 

[Admin]

I second the others Gary. Great idea for a thread!<br><br>My folks would not let me have a job while I was still in High School. No handouts either, so I was about a broke you can get! I was allowed to cut two neighbors grasses, which put a little spending jingle in my pocket.<br><br>First on the clock job was working at a marina after my freshman year in college. Glorious at times and nasty at others. Quite a few babes in bikinis would be in the boats that came by to fuel up, lots of humor watching folks launch their boats! Second and third years there I was a driver for the ski boats. Took 2 members of Motley Crew and their body men out skiing and did not even know it was them (was not a fan of theirs at the time). Took the president of Mc Donald's and his family out skiing. The best was a crew of drunk female graduates from the Northwestern University Dental School. Most of them thought it would be better to go topless. I did not try and stop them. <br><br>On the low side, we would clean the bottoms of the boats with toilet bowl scrubbers dipped in hyper concentrated muriatic acid. In shorts and deck shoes, no protective wear at all. Made sure to have the water hose in the other hand so that the burns did not go too deep. Slogging seaweed around and setting dock/shore stations in freezing water and sometimes freezing/rainy weather were the low points. <br><br>Next job was bartending at a hugely popular bar with folks my age. Many, many shift drinks per shift. Great guys to work with, got paid to hang out with my friends and get drunk and for some silly reason, all the chicks thought the bartenders were the hottest thing going. Say no more!      It has been all downhill since!

 

[bonnevier]

First job was maintaining the babe ruth baseball fields near me.  Ride the bike, get out the tractor to cut grass, drag the dirt, fix the mound & plate, clean dugouts and put the lines/batter box chalk down.  Was fun cause I also had a key to the snack shop!  Got a few extra bucks for each ground squirrel we killed...those buggers would dig holes n the outfield.<br><br>First real job was stocking the shelves at Sports Authority.  Be there at 6 am and leave around noon.  <br>Had to be at the baseball field at 3:00 pm for a 7:00 pm almost every day.  Get up and do it again.<br>

 

[bearrassler]

First paying job was hoeing sugar beets when I was 14. They would load us up in the back of a grain truck and haul us out to the beet field. The rows were a half mile long and we got paid 1.65 per row for the first pass which was thinning the beets and taking out the weeds. The second pass was just weeding and the pay was.75 per row. Most of the fields were pretty weedy so some days I only made a couple of bucks, but there were a couple of days that I made over ten bucks. Did it for two years and maybe made 250.00 to 300.00 total