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.
Crap - how could I forget bailing hay and detasseling corn in high school... sigh.... all good memories now, but man that stuff itched.
A dime! We only got two cents in upstate NY in the early 60s. We roamed every house under construction in the neighborhood to collect every empty we could find. Made some pretty good money that went to Estes rockets. Used to find the occasional dime in the phone booth coin return thingy. That was jackpot city when we scored that dime. Once the guys at the local gas station called the phone as I was retrieving the dime and told me the phone company was onto me and I better put that dime back OR ELSE. Can’t recall if I took it or not, but the guys in the lift bay were laughing their heads off.