Among Friends

[LdyBugz]

@SeaMaiden  What a great story!  Sounds like you had a blast!  

[LdyBugz]

@haddon9  Oh I had those babysitting jobs, too!  50 cents an hour.  I remember one couple always paid me in pennies!

[Meowingkitty]

1973 I worked a trayline at a hospital serving patients their food. After we loaded up the carts for the floor we delivered the carts to the floor. Then we picked up the carts about an hour later and had to unload the carts, put the trays on a conveyer belt were each person did they’re job. One threw away paper, one picked up silverware, another washed cereal bowls, and one did coffee cups. All this with no a/c in the summer in Phoenix all for $1.94 an hour. Came home everyday stinky from all the food that got sprayed on me.  Best thing about it is I met my husband. 

[haddon9]

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@LdyBugz wrote:

@haddon9  Oh I had those babysitting jobs, too!  50 cents an hour.  I remember one couple always paid me in pennies!

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@LdyBugz Ugh! pennies!  I babysat for one couple regularly.  The kids were easy but still if I or another young girl didn't they wouldn't get to go on their dates every Saturday night.

It was a rare special occasion when they stayed out extra late and I got an extra dollar or two!  LOL!

When my daughter babysat 20 years ago she was getting $10.00 an hour ....more than minimum wage just to watch TV with the girls two doors down from us.  I think the minimum back when I babysat was $1.65.

[Evie2004]

I graduated from nursing school (RN) in 1968, 49 years ago. We were 21 year olds, charge nurses running a floor in a hospital. I started out @$2.50 an hour including evening & night shift differential, and then when I passed boards, my director called me & told me I was going to get a 25 CENT per hour raise..I thought I was rich! I retired 5 years ago & was very happy with my hourly wage! 

Curious about other nurses! 

[SeaMaiden]

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@LdyBugz wrote:

@SeaMaiden  What a great story!  Sounds like you had a blast!  

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@LdyBugz  yes... when young and free, you can just pick up and start over anywhere... I went there with about $200 and just a duffle bag. Did not know anyone in Idaho. I doubt I could or would be able to do it now... too much stuff and baggage! LOL!

[tobes]

At 18 I had a summer job at the Public Park in town.  The first year I did the small payroll for the Park Director; kept current and ordered supplies and in the afternoon taught arts and crafts.  One day the Park Director ordered me to collect my books to report to the Town Hall in the afternoon because the auditors (federal) were doing an audit on the Town.  We used some federal funds to run the park.  I was terrified.  I went home for lunch and told my mother that I was not going back.  Oh yes you are, she said.  I went and the audit turned out to be successful.  The Feds completing the audit were young men who at the end of the audit asked me to go out to dinner with them. My 18 year old intuitiion told me to turn down the invite.  The second year I worked at the park, I got my Red Cross saftey instructor's certificate and I taught swimming lessons to the kids.  No more feds for me.   

[hckynut]

@LdyBugz

Yes I remember my job. Working for Western Electric/in a plant always 100+°/working around machines with 500+° extruders to melt plastic(cancer causing agent)for copper telephone wires/lifting 50-75lb. reels of wire. 

Working either Graveyard Shift or 4pm-Midnight shift(not by choice)and it was year 15 with the company. Hard floors/machines were 50 yards long so lots of walking along with lifting. Pay was $2.40 per hour plus 10% night bonus. Worked that and other same type jobs for 30 of my 33 years with the company, was AT&T when I retired in 1991.

Still have the physical damage caused by those jobs. 2 back surgeries and arthritis on 2 fingers of both hands from only way to lift reels of wire, 4 fingers in hole in center of reel. For that time it was a decent paying job, but not a physically easy one. Bosses also rode scooters, but machines could only spit out reels of wire at a set speed, and no, they did not run all the time, then came the real hard/hot/dirty work of.getting them up and running again.

I "got outta there after 30 years" and moved to different jobs.  Those were the days!

hckynut

[MoJoV]

@LdyBugz you worked in a sweat shop for 2$ an hour...now those same shops are operating over seas and paying way less than 2$.  I wonder what the sweaters cost in those days as compared to today. 

My first job was as a waitress in a little donut shop after school when I was in high school.1$ an hour and tips. Oh and I got to take the donuts that didn't sell home!  My little brother loved that perk.

[golding76]

I worked for the American Automobile Association's (AAA) Worldwide Travel office (1972 - 1974).  I had started with them at their then-headquarters in Washington, D.C.   After a few months, I was invited to help open up a Regional Operations Office for them in Miami, Fla.  Was I ever pleased when the office did not do well and was closed about 1 1/2 years after its opening.  They paid to move back those of us who wished to return to D.C., and I returned on the Auto Train.

I recall that I made under $7,000.00 a year at that post, but it was great fun designing and writing itineraries for their clientele.  When in D.C., I worked in one of those configurations where four metal desks (the style then) were formed into a two-facing-each-other arrangement.  One of the four deskmates was the son of Donald Regan, who would, of course, become one of Ronald Reagan's Chiefs of Staff; and at another seat was the (ahem) lover/girlfriend of  designer Ted Lapidus, who had a shop in Georgetown at that time.  (I learned a bit about him that I wish I had never heard, to tell the truth.)  As for the Regans, I loved to hear about their fancy life.  My deskmate's father was, at that time, chairman of Merrill Lynch Fenner & Pierce (sp?) , and I was told of the family's visits to the Boston Pops.  For some reason, I enjoyed peeking into the wealthy lifestyle they led.

Don't want to forget to mention that Nick Buoniconti, the celebrated Miami Dolphin of that era, was the spokesperson and designated tour leader for our Miami Regional Office, and so I had an opportunity to meet him.  The Dolphins were at the top of their game at that time.

p.s.  For all his great celebrity at that time, I want to state that Mr. Buoniconti was a consummate gentleman and kind man. I think it is important to note when celebrities are good people.   Really, he could have been a self-centered fool, but he was really down-to-earth and "real," as we used to say.