Posted on 09/06/2015 6:35:43 PM PDT by blueunicorn6
In honor of Labor Day, tell us a little bit about your first job.
Kitchen help at Captain D’s. Worked there two years until 4 days before leaving for Navy boot camp. Made Assistant Manager at age 17 and had to have an over-18 counter girl working with me at all times because we served beer in those days.
First job with FICA and Taxes taken out: Bagboy in a Supermarket in High School.
Wish I had a dollar for ever time I listened to the song “Brandy” on that 8 track, just sitting in the driveway
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You’re a fine girl
Laying whisky down...
Seven years old, operating 180 degree boom Kranecars, and Forklifts in my father’s steel yard in Lynwood, California on old Alameda St. Worked with him off, and on for years. Newspaper route when I was eight. Carwash when I was thirteen. Lineboy at the Long Beach airport from fourteen to seventeen full, and part time. Full time relief cook at sixteen for Denny’s Restaurant #3 in Long Beach, California until I was eighteen, and then on to Douglas Aircraft final assembly of the then new DC-9’s.
Then the Army 1966-1968 South Korea.
Boxboy in a supermarket. The Retail Clerks Union took my entire first paycheck.
I was a groundsman for an apartment complex. Mow Lawns, pick up trash and clean out apartments of debris when tenants moved out in the middle of the night or were evicted for not paying the rent. Paint, shovel snow, and schmooze the girls who lived there. I was 15. Used to have to race to the bank to cash my paycheck before the manager got there to move the money out of the payroll account into another account for the weekend, and would then roll it back in on Monday morning.
Yeppers, paper boy extraordinaire was my first job also.
Being the youngest and newest carrier, I drew the "hill route"...
Paper route, 5 cents a paper at 12
I had summer jobs while in high school, but my first job after graduating was Private, E-1, USMC.
I have bailed hay but it was not grass hay, it was peanut hay.
Back then after the peanuts were pulled, they would be stacked into haystacks. The hay stacks would be built around poles usually with a cross member to hold them better. This was cleaner and dried them better but was much more labor intensive.
Now they just upturn them with a tractor and leave them to dry in the Sun.
Back then the peanut picker was a combine. It would pick the peanuts and bail the hay at the same time. The picker would go around to the various hay stacks. Later the hay bales which were the same size as those in you picture would be picked up just like those guys are doing.
I was around 9 at the time and would roam the fields after the picking had been done and would collect a large amount of free peanuts. They would have laid out in the Sun long enough to almost be cooked. Just enough to make them delicious.
**Started at age 12,driving a John Deere on the family farm.**
My dad couldn’t keep me off the tractors. So, at the age of 7, he turned me loose, raking oat straw with a JD730 diesel.
Three years later, I was bringing home a brand new 1964 JD4020. About an 11 mile drive. I thought I was king of the planet.
I was 15 at Arthur Murray Dance Studios.
3 gals cold-called residents and gave them a quiz of “where did a certain dance originate”. 3 of the questions had at least 2 answers and the last one “Where did the Waltz originate” had 4 different correct answers. The Grand Prize was a Free Dance Lesson at the studio.
All 3 of us told the people our name was Nancy Green. I lasted a week. The people who played along were fun but the men got kinda frisky and all I could do was giggle. Not a bad memory at all. Bought a little am/fm portable radio for the beach with my little check.
Job 1: Spotting nails for my dad at a drywall job. I was 5-7. I got about $5, comic books, and Mountain Dew (when the bottles had the hayseed on the side).
Job 2: Stocking and labeling at my dad’s grocery. I was 8. I think I did a summer of work - fun part was riding to work with dad and pitching all the old boxes and breaking them down. Hated the tape gun with the price stickers. Think I made $25 for the summer.
Think I spotted and taped after that, but really my next job was:
Job 3: Mowing grandma’s yard - she gave me $5/mow and sweets - cause she’s grandma and mom can’t say no - much to her consternation.
Outside of that I’d say my first real job was a paper route:
Job 4: 8th/9th grade: about $50/month for roughly 75 customers. Ended up having to close out the job because of sports an extracurriculars. Had 2 bad dog houses (on one I ran faster backwards then I ever ran forward in my life, took to carrying a long 1” dowel ‘staff’, other I didn’t collect for 3 months at the end of the job, and one guy who got really mad when I was late on Wednesday’s because of Rifle team- wanted his paper for supper. Couldn’t blame him - which is part of why I decided to leave the job. Two really bad snow storms I delivered in and dad hunted me down on my bike.
Job 5: High School Lifeguard: 2 nights a week for 2 hours and ~$50/night. I was in heaven. 11th & 12th grade.
Course that doesn’t include making sure the streets were safe for my fellow citizens by picking up every single glass bottle I could find throughout the years (even climbing into under street drainages to find em) and returning it to the store for that bright shiny dime deposit. I know the store manager was mad at me for it - but after shaking his head at even the ugliest dirtiest bottle - he always coughed up the dime...and I thanked him properly and ended up spending most of it at the drug store or his buying comics and soda.
yep all those lessons stood me in good stead.
I stacked hay on a hay wagon for my grandpa. He always told me, “Thanks until you’re better paid.” That’s all I got.
I was. I was 15 and hungry and broke and the manager hired me to do hostessing because he couldn’t get me up to speed fast enough to waitress.
Pimp.
Crap - how could I forget bailing hay and detasseling corn in high school... sigh.... all good memories now, but man that stuff itched.
To me, a cows head in a bucket is a dating opportunity.
Pimp
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Still at it, huh?
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