What was the first job that you had and how old were you?

When I was a sophomore, I got a job working in the town library as a page. I shelved books. Hence my early love for the Dewey Decimal system was born!

I worked for a short period of time in a laundromat (for businesses).
At fifteen, or sixteen years old.

unofficial
I bundled flowers at my family’s wholesale flower business in Boston. I was 12. They paid me in cookies.

official
I worked at a tobacco shop in a nearby mall where I kept the walk-in humidor stocked and neat. I was 15. I made minimum wage (about $2.50/hr)

At fifteen I taught sailing to children, ages seven through twelve, at a summer community on Fire Island. The pay was a pittance, but I didn’t care. I loved the work and I was good at it.

At age 12 I was the ‘substitute” paperboy delivering the San Francscio Chronicle for the kid across the street. When he ran away from home, the Chrnicle offered me teh route. I did it for a few months but it was tough getting up at 4 every morning.

When I was a senior in high school, I got a job as a valet parking attendant at local restaurants. The parking was free; the guy who had the concession paid us $3 per hour in cash when the minimum wage was $1.65. He paid us out of the pooled tips, and he took whatever was left. It was a pretty sweet job; I got to drive eveything from VWs to Rolls Royces.

My first paying job was when I was 10 & I babysat for a neighbor who had 3 children. She wasn’t a family member & it made me feel like an adult because I finally had my own money to spend on whatever I needed (or maybe just wanted). In the beginning, I stayed in the house with the kids while she hung out her laundry. (we didn’t have dryers yet) She was never very far away but she didn’t want the kids inside without any supervision & she didn’t want them under foot while she finished her laundry. After I proved myself responsible enough to control her 3 little monsters, she started trusting me at night so she & her husband could have a date night. The kids went to bed early & I used the quiet time to do my homework. My parents were only a block away just in case anything went wrong.

Once I made it to high school, my class had a WONDERFUL Guidance Counselor who watched out for each of us just like we were one of her own kids. I overheard her say that she needed an assistant but the school system was too cheap to hire her one. So I offered to volunteer my spare time to do the work of the assistant she was denied. I volunteered my time so I was pretty much an intern. After graduating, this looked really good on my resume & she was always willing to give me a good reference!!!

My first “real” job was for a US Senator in Washington DC. I think the minimum wage was $3.35 at the time & I got a whole $3.75 & a title. Now days a 40 cent an hour is considered an insult. Back then, it was considered very IMPORTANT!!!

When I was 11–14 I was a paperboy for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch. I delivered a morning paper and an evening paper. I had about 50–60 houses. I have no recollection of what my pay was. I was just happy to have my own funny money.

When I was 16 I got a job at a Gas Station that was a few blocks from my High School.

16. Car hop at Sonic. I was paid $1.00 an hour. They expected me to make it up in tips.

I was 17, and I worked for Circuit City’s parts warehouse as a piker, shipper and data entry guy over the summer.

^^ “picker”

At 12–15 I worked at the local fairground concessions for dog shows and other events.
At 16 my first job I could drive myself to, was the local movie theater.

@gorillapaws
‘Cause I’m a picker, I’m a grinner
I’m a lover, and I’m a sinner

11 years old babysitting 25 cents an hour, almost 65 years ago. Good to buy Mad magazine and Hot Rod magazine and sometimes a Saturday matinee.

16, Ice cream man at the Dairy Queen.

You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.

Age 13 Babysat for the neighbors and there friends/realtives as well unti age 17 years of age as then I got a part time job after school 4 pm – 9 pm at a shoopping mall store counter help.
( think hog dogs,icecream,bakery items).

The first time I was paid to do work was when I did tutoring as a teenager (15–17). I tutored kids my age in the SATs as well as Latin and English.

I didn’t get my first paycheck until I was a 20-year-old college student, working at the campus library.

When I was 11 my grandmother bought a new power mower for her large lawn. My folks assigned me the job of regularly mowing her lawn. One day, her neighbor offered to pay me to mow his lawn as well. Long story short, by the end of the Summer, I had a considerable roster of customers, a gas can, some trimming and edging tools and a schedule. I couldn’t believe the money I was making pushing that lawnmower around the neighborhood and the “business” extended to lots and yards 10–12 blocks from my grandmother’s garage, my base of operations. My parents knew I was mowing lawns for money, but had no idea of the extent of the operation. Things died down of course with Autumn and the end of Summer vacation, but I had accumulated and piled up better than $300 in cash that I just threw in the trunk with my comic books. Now this was in 1956, and $300 was for me an unfathomable amount of money. And I of course went nuts with the spending. Nothing was out of reach, and my siblings as well were showered with the rain procured with lawnmower dividends. I was also inexplicably popular and interesting to kids previously indifferent to my existence; and our parents were asking questions about all the stuff they were tripping over—stuff that they hadn’t remembered buying us, and decidedly beyond the scope of our (to my then present mind laughable) allowance. When questioned, the path stopped at me, and my explanation was simply the truth “lawnmower money”. And when I think about it now, it’s almost unbelievable that this explanation sufficed until the Christmas season when the over the top extravagance finally solicited the reply to “lawnmower” money. It was “how much?” And of course, they didn’t believe the ”$300”. So it was “show us”. I just opened the trunk and pulled out the remaining $23.

Once when I was about 16 I was babysitting. Everything went fine until I woke up on the living room couch and saw the father sitting in a chair reading the newspaper. I was sooo embarrassed! Some watchdog, huh?!

First real job was as a chambermaid in a motel; I was in my early 20’s.

Busing tables in an Austin restaurant, long since closed and torn down. Seventeen, don’t recall the wages. Many moons ago.

@Demosthenes GA, smartypants. I’m jealous of your Latin.

I started babysitting at age 11 for $1.00 an hour, but my mom was right down the street. When I was 12 I babysat children that didn’t have my mom so easily available, and I continued to babysit for another year or so, and was paid a little more over time, and some people would add a tip.

At age 14 I started working at Merry-Go-Round, a popular denim store when Jordache and Sergio Valente were a big deal. It was considered to be a really cool job, and we were all teenagers working in that little store in the shopping mall. I made $3.35 draw, the minimum wage. I always beat the draw, but not by much, so I average around $3.80 an hour. I loved working there.

We were all teenagers at work, even the manager was just 19 years old, and he and also another coworker and I became very friendly. We three didn’t drink or smoke or toke, and that was a relief and gave me friends I didn’t have to worry about any peer pressure. We would go out after work sometimes to the movies or an arcade and my mom gave me a 1:00am curfew, which was later than my friends in school. My school friends made it back home by midnight pretty easily, because their drunken house parties (a la Justice Kavanaugh—I am serious) were usually broken up by the cops by midnight.

Age 12, babysitting for next door and across the street neighbors. I made about $1 an hour. This was in the mid to late 70’s.

Our town had a service where people could hire someone 12 or older for a specific chore. I helped my fourth grade math teacher clean her attic, and picked up a couple of babysitting jobs.

My senior year I worked Friday fish fry night at the local Moose Lodge. This was the first time I got a paycheck instead of cash. The woman in charge of the kitchen ran a tight ship, but she was also very kind. More than once I saw her give the kids who did dishes some cash. They were hard workers, and their families didn’t have much.

I had a paper route when I was 10.

I delivered the Los Angeles Times every Sunday via my bicycle.

Janitor, about 15, under the table. First job I had taxes taken out I was 20.

At age 11, I delivered a weekly newsletter to the neighborhood noticeboards. I think it must have taken about three hours. A couple of times the weather was terrible, so my dad drove me. But mostly, I did the work reliably. I believe I made 60.000₩ per week (this was in South Korea), and I saved up $500 – which I could hardly believe. Then, I got richer still by starting babysitting. I had five or six regular customers and the jobs were easy – watch TV with young kids until the parents get home.

My son had a paper route when he was 11 or so. I ran his route for a week when I shipped him to Washinton State to see his dad.
He saved all his money for a bike.
Then he and a friend shot out a guy’s back car window with a hunting grade sling shot. He had to wipe out his savings to pay for his half of the guy’s deductible. I felt bad for him but there was nothing for it. I didn’t have the money. If I had it, I would have loaned it to him and had him pay be back half of his paper route money every time he got paid.