Community Chat

[amyb]

12..Our family's printing shop...just one week a summer...the week before the shop shut down for week of 4th of July, their one vacation every year. We all came in to help with hand collating, stapling machine, (all automated now) wrapping packages.

After that, first steady paying job...a live, open-air, summer theater...usherette, box office, sometimes wardrobe when needed. Funnest job ever...many great summer memories there, from about age 16-21.

[godi]

I was 16 and worked at a department store called Kaufmanns which is now Macy's here. 

[tampalady]

My first real job with pay check was at 18 telephone operator for Bell Telephone Co.  in Miami, Fl.  I started babysitting for children in neighborhood when I was 12.

[Harpa]

At 13, I waitressed in my uncle's restaurant. Since then, I hardly remember a time when I did not earn my own $$.

[SoCal Bred]

At age 16, I started working during the summer at a Plumbing company next door to where we lived doing invoice filing (clerical).  The owner had asked me to stay on and work an hour or so after school, had to obtain a work permit, continued to work there after I graduated for 13 years doing A/R, quit once, was gone for 7 years, the owner pursuaded me to come back which I did, worked an additional 11 years, then left for good for a bigger and better more prosperous position elsewhere.  

[Boehm Collector]

Got my first paying job at 16.  I worked in our local hospital's gift shop.  

[violann]

My first "real" job cost me a year of college.

I'd just graduated from HS, and a dear relative was a manager in a local business office (national coverage) and thought I'd like a job for "good money" and something "to keep me busy".

Nightmare. The office was a nasty, dirty place, unpleasant people, hard work, and compulsory overtime. 

On the last day I was there, they told me I hadn't been "pleasant", and I'm quite sure that was true. The actual tasks of the job were easy to accomplish and I was able to work faster than some of the old timers, and I assume there was jealousy.

The only reason I'd taken the assignment was to please MY relative, and I wound up feeling like such a failure that I felt as though I'd NEVER be able to do college level work, and after attending 2 days of classes, Idropped out.

As it turned out, THAT proved to be an excellent life lesson, but from then on, I applied on my own for jobs that I CHOSE for myself. 

[gidgetgh]

Switchboard operator at an answering service, back in 1973.  Think Lily Tomlin with the big board and all the cords.  That was me!

I loved that job.  I was 17 and we had teens working and older women and we all got along great.  It taught me great phone etiquette and how to quickly and efficiently take messages.  Great skills.  I worked there my senior year of high school and then for 2 summers during college.

We answered for doctors, real estate companies and agents, insurance companies, other offices, private homes, etc.

[ninjawife]

I started babysitting and delivering newspapers at age 12.  At 14 I started teaching dance lessons in exchange for my dance lesson tutition.  The first job I had where I got a paycheck was at 16.  I worked as a dietary aide in a nursing home. 

[SeaMaiden]

In 11th grade about 15 years old, I took a job as a maid in a small motel.. I took the bus to and from.  Did not last too long. HARD WORK! Always have had a soft place  in my heart for maids.... underpaid for truly grueling work.