Early Jobs - Starting out in the workforce

[RandyT]

My first paying job was when I was 13 and when I wasn't in school due to holidays or snow days, I would work the local chicken houses when they removed the old laying hens and replaced them with new pullets. We would remove the chickens from their cages and then put them into rolling cages that was loaded onto tractor trailers and then went to Campbell's Soup. So I was a 13 year old kid making $8-10 cash an hour from 1981-86. If you wanted to impress the boss and guarantee an call back for the next job, willingly without being asked to retrieve the loose birds from the black soup manure pits from under the cages. When you would pull them out they would throw that stuff all over you with their beating wings. I could grab one of those out of a pit and I would then put them into somebodies cage. Most people would make it a point to stay out of my way.

Joined the military at 18. served 4 years, and then went to college. graduated and then worked in my field of study for 4 years until I was laid off. Took that opportunity to start my own business working on lawn equipment 22 years ago.

 

[turnkey4099]

Farm hand working summerfallow mostly dawn to dusk, 6 days a week. $7 a day plus found (bed and board). Was driving 2 ton trucks during harvest at age 15.

 

[RalphVa]

I worked as a busboy/server for a sorority once. Later worked as busboy and in kitchen for James Garner's aunt who raised him (he's an OU grad); her and his names were Bumgarner.

One summer I ran a go kart track on Lake Texoma. I lived in a tent right at the track and bathed in the lake at night. Maintained the go karts as well as conducted the rides, usually hiring an assistant kid. Got to drive a racing go kart once one night (eventually full bore with the rear wheels hanging straight out, spinning away and steering wheel full lock the opposite direction to point the thing out of the curves).

Another summer, I worked as a roustabout in the oil fields. All kinds of work, including drilling and pulling of drill pipe, etc.

Finally worked as a chemical process engineer for my 31 year career in the lube oil industry (Group I solvent refined oils).

Ralph

 

[MossRoad]

If we're talking about firsts "any" jobs, my first paying job was at age 14 picking garbage at an RV show in the University of Notre Dame's parking lot in the hot summer for 2 weeks. We'd go in at 6:00am and pick up trash and empty the garbage cans. Had to be out by 10. I was so small back then that I didn't have the height to lift trash barrels over the edge of the dumpster train. So these big farm boys would grab me and lift me up over the edge so I could dump them. :laughing:

What I remember most about that was this:

RV salespeople seem to love Kentucky Fried chicken.... and so do maggots! I'd never seen that many maggots in that many trash cans for so many days!

 

[bunyip]

Before leaving school I had a paper round then was a choirboy (that brings a few laughs now) then got a job with a local licensed thief washing cars ready for the sales lot, didn't last long there then worked in a TV repair shop fixing TV's on the road with one of the techs.
I then got an apprenticeship at 15 with a manufacturing industrial electronics company that built spec equipment for anyone, at the time we were making sewearge testing machines that sampled what was going through at specific intervals, one of my early tasks was installing the action end of these because a. I was a skinny little sod who fit in a manhole easily and b. no one else wanted to do it.
I left the UK at 16 and finished off my apprenticeship in the RAAF working on radar and weapons guidance systems as well as experimental GPS in around 1968, spent some time in Vietnam and Antarctica, bit of a contrast, got a Commission and went to supply and became a friend with a Dr (same rank as me) who got me interested in Psychology.
Got out in 1970 and went and got a Psych degree then spent almost 20 years in prisons in forensic psych.

 

[/pine]

I did a lot of catching (some people call it fishing )...by the time I was 9 or 10 I could make more money selling fish and other seafood to the local market than I could mowing lawns for neighbors...

Every day before school my mom would give me lunch money and bait money (used to buy candy and caught my own bait)...She would also supply me with written missed school excuse notes with a blank space for me to fill in the date...She knew we would skip school every now and then and she did not want us to lose credit...

 

[Doofy]

1969 (a very good year too) fresh out of High School, started pumping gas and repairing truck tires @ $2.50 per hour. We were "Full Service" and boy, did I enjoy washing those windshields of those Hippy Chicks passing thru.

 

[windy acers]

Aug 21 after high school started a 40 year union printing career in the bindery. Made 2 million TV GUIDE BOOKS per week plus many other jobs tiffany p+g, many annual reports, catholic digest, the KISS BOOK, HARLEY, SHOP SMITH, car showroom books just to name a few.Made collage graduate money right out of high school! retired at 57 years old.

 

[MossRoad]

Aug 21 after high school started a 40 year union printing career in the bindery. Made 2 million TV GUIDE BOOKS per week plus many other jobs tiffany p+g, many annual reports, catholic digest, the KISS BOOK, HARLEY, SHOP SMITH, car showroom books just to name a few.Made collage graduate money right out of high school! retired at 57 years old.

Which printing company? I worked at a newspaper for 30 years. We'd get ads from all over the country trucked in. Always found it amazing what other printed items were on the trucks besides our ads. Magazines, catalogs, etc...

 

[hawkeye08]

Grew up on irrigated farm, ~600 acres. Lots of changing irrigation pipes (handlines), later some wheel lines. Mainly grew wheat and alfalfa, but when young, we had sugar beets, we had to thin and weed them, never did do as good a job as the hired man and his family.

When attending college in Arizona, First job outside of farming was at Sears manning the gas station (6 islands, full service, one attendant most of the time, pumped gas, cleaned windshields, checked oil, even air pressure if asked). Also worked as busboy at restaurant (ate main meal at work free)..

It seemed like being on vacation (going to school full time, working two jobs) compared to farming. I didn't have to get up until 6am and was usually done by 10pm.