What was your first ever salaried job?

Do you get to dance with it? Have fun!

My first ever ‘actual paycheck’ job was as a clerk at a Hallmark Cards & Gifts store named Party Tyme in our local mall. I was 14, but had lied and said I was 16. It sucked at Christmastime. People were so rude! I started in late summer, worked there for the entire school year, and quit when school got out the next summer so I could enjoy my time off. I never understood why everyone else did it the opposite way. It was years before I could walk into a card store and not straighten and organize the cards!

Other than baby-sitting, my first paid job was as an assistant in a summer class on marine science for elementary students. I made an incredible $65 a week, which absolutely floored me because it involved mostly going to the beach and telling kids what different critters were and reminding them to put the rocks back when they were done looking under them. I considered that fun, not work.

I didn’t even apply for the job. My high school marine science teacher offered it to me out of the blue.

Fred Garvin…. male prostitute

doing demolition for a construction company.

I had a sledge hammer and I was a teenager. Boss said “knock down that wall”. I said “sweet!”

I worked at a movie theater for 4.25 per hour. I would either clean theaters or stand and tear tickets. Tearing tickets is called working the “door”. I was often scheduled for doubles at door. 12 hours of standing in the same place. Fucking painful.

Then they made me a projectionist. Which mostly involved finding new ways to sleep. We had to keep old ticket stubs. They would put them in bags. Get enough and you have a comfortable place to nap.

My first job was at McDonalds, I worked the drive-thru. $3.35 an hour and we were lucky to get a nickel raise. I worked there for about a year and left to work as a babysitter. I made better money and traveled with them, during the summer. My final year of high school, I did work at Wal-Mart, as well as continuing to babysit. I needed all the money I could make for college. Wal-Mart sucked worse than McDonalds!

@johnpowell – 4.25 an hour, I remember when it changed to 4.25…I was thrilled, now I pay my babysitters $6 or $7 an hour…wow, have times changed!

@cak :: Oregon started attaching it to inflation (CPI-P) in Portland. It gets bumped up every year. It is 8.40$ now.

I think it was $5.15/hr when I started working, and went up to $5.85… I thought that was a great raise!

When I started working, minimum wage was $1.30 an hour.

I guess I must be older than dirt.

If you’re making $9/hour that’s not really ‘salaried’.
If I get the job I applied for today, I’ll be salaried.

My first job was Dominos Insider. $6.25/hour.

“Thank you for calling Dominos this is Asmonet, may I take your order?”

My manager used to give me shit, and I used to give it right back. “Can I take your order?” is not polite. It’s “May I” bitch.

My very first job was during my high school years and it was working as a busboy in a Marie Callender’s restaurant and I think it was $4.75 an hour.

My first salaried job was the United States military and it has been that for the last 20+ years. And it’s the only salaried job I’ve ever had.

My first salaried position was as a Human Resources Specialist. I remember how strange and liberating it was at first, to think that I could count on that paycheck all the time.

My first salaried position was as an Office Manager. I think I made $18,000.00/year.

@augustlan – my first true salaried job was just above yours – $19,500. I thought I was it, because I was an office manager. Woo! I thought I was making some serious money. Then I paid rent, bills and groceries. I got a night job bartending.

@Darwin – no way. My mother is 66. Not willingly, but she is. When my sister was teasing her about being old, she declared 99 was old in her mind. She also explained that turning 66 annoyed her, because it moved her into another age bracket on a website she’s started to take an interest in.

@asmonet
Retain water much?

Scooper at Haagen Dazs in the mall food court. Grand Avenue was new-ish and sparkling then. Banana Republic sold actual safari wear. $4.00 an hour. I was 15.

Salaried? Receptionist for a multimedia corporation after college. Let’s just say I wasn’t allowed to mention the movie Citizen Kane if certain owners were in the building. I don’t know how I kept myself housed, clothed and fed on such a crap salary, but I did.

I was a busser at a shitty Greek restaurant summer after freshman year in high school. Luckily I had a few friends who also worked there. Back then I made minimum wage, which I think was like $6.75 in CA.

I’ve pretty much stayed in the restaurant industry, risen in the ranks a bit, and the pay.

Cashier for a bookie. Great fun, what with the managments decision to get rid of the security screens, gangs of youths steaming the place, endless con artists who thought they were smarter than us and getting shot at by incompetent robbers. Now that was an education.

First paying job was at a small gift shop that sold crap to tourists, $5.00 per hour.

First salaried job was as a lifeguard. I was actually a shift supervisor so I was required to work X amount of shifts a week and got a fixed paycheck. That was a sweet job at such a young age. There were so many cute boys at the pool!

My first salaried job was doing video editing/compilation for an advertising research firm in Manhattan. I think I got $8/hour to start, luckily they bumped me up to about $14/hour within the first year.

First job, though, was busing table for $2.50/hour plus tips and free steak dinner. I was also cleaning movie theaters for $5/hour plus free movies that summer.

My first paying job was a paper route when I was about 11 years old. I made about $30 a month and felt like I was sitting in butter. My first salaried job was working in dental office three and half days a week for $900 a month.

I was the guy who made your duplicate keys in Sears.

@SuperMouse
Bbbbbuuuttttterrrr

Other than babysitting and paper routes, it was a summer job in a king crab processing plant in Alaska.

Busgirl. $2.25 per hour plus tips. 1976.