What was your first job?

[Shadowfax]

worked in a supermarket for a year when i was 14/15....delivered newspapers for 1 yr after that and started working in a kitchen in an elderly home after that. still do that, just to earn a bit of extra money while in college...

geez, been working there for 3.5 yrs now didn't realize it was that long

next year i'm going to work for a tech company as part of college...hopefully a company specialized in plasma research...*keeps fingers crossed*

 

[Aunty Em]

OK

I used to babysit in the evenings for family friends from when I was 11 and yes I got paid. I had plenty of experience 'cos I used to care for my youngest brother from the age of 8 - yeah, all that nappy changing, bathing, feeding and stuff - I thought it was great - the dollies went in the bin!.

When I was 14 I worked in a shop in Gibraltar for the summer.

At 15 - 17 I worked in a shop on Friday evenings after school, all day saturdays and full-time during holidays. That's when I stopped getting an allowance from my parents.

At 17 I worked full-time in the shop until I was old enough to start my nurse training at 18.

4 years State registered training. I worked for one year as a staff nurse.

Then I took a 1 year break, trained and worked as a chef at Essex University. So now I'm 24.

Then I worked a year as an Office Administrator. Followed by a further 6 years as a staff nurse in a hospital for people with learning difficulties. At which point I had a serious accident following which I left nursing.

When I'd recovered enough i worked as a Martial Arts shop Manager for a friend. Then I had Katie and didn't work for 3 years because of her care needs.

When she went to nursery/kindergarten at 3 I went back to college part-time to gain the qualifications to take my degree. When she was 5 and in school I started a full-time 4 year science degree with a view to teaching science in school - half way through my third year I had to change to part-time because my marriage broke up and fucked up my plans. So it became a 5 year degree! I graduated October 2000.

These last two years I've been looking after my disabled daughter, working as a volunteer in IT training, took a programming course in VB6, taught myself html and web design, etc., learnt to build computers and am now finally taking my Teaching Certificate for over 16s which will give me an entry into College Lecturing. Hopefully I will be in a better position to choose the hours that suit me and something will come of it. Phew.... how's that?

I should add I learnt to typing, shorthand, etc at school and to use computers in my job as an office administrator - evening classes.

 

[tommyj27]

summer of '98 and '99 -- Computer Operations bitch at my Dad's company
spring and summer '00 -- clerk at Census 2000
late summer '00 -- Network tech / bitch at Nortel
summer '01 - summer '02 -- Computer Ops at UMN
fall '02 to now -- climbing instructor at YMCA
valentine's day to present -- occasionally i now deliver flowers for a florist when my buddy is sick and on holidays

 

[Jeslek]

Wha you guys have had a lot of jobs...

 

[Vortex]

My first job... um, lemme see, I was 17, and I was working for an advertising company. Mostly webased though. Landed up doing a metric sh*t load of programming and reaserch (ooo, and grphic design ^_^ FUN FUN FUN) Pay was pretty awesome (but being a student, and conidering my social group at the time, Most of it was wasted on booze, and clubbing ) But after a few months, I quit because it was interfering with my varisty work

 

[Aunty Em]

Wha you guys have had a lot of jobs...

That's understandable with the age difference here.

At 20 I wouldn't have expected you to have had many. Sadly I know young people of that age who have never had to work for anything in their lives and it shows in their attitude and lack of work ethic.

 

[greenfreak]

You hit on something there Auntie. I wonder, what's the age where everyone had their first job?

Legally, in NY, you can get working papers at 16 which is what I did. In order to get picture ID for the job, I had to go to the local park and get a 'Leisure Pass' because I was too young for any other kinds of picture ID (driver's license, etc.) Before that, I had enough chores to do in the house after school to keep me busy... Doing laundry for 6 people, cleaning the house, setting the table, washing dishes, etc.

I know people want what's best for their kids but many parents think that that means not making them work at 16/17/18/19 years old. I could understand if their schoolwork was lacking because of their job but my friends and I did it and didn't suffer in school. You just work harder at both--school and work.

Maybe it's because it's what I was used to, but I think instilling a work ethic in your children from an early age is a good thing. Teaching them the satisfaction and value of earning your own money to get what you want or need instead of having it handed to you... I don't see that as much now as I did then.

 

[Aunty Em]

Officially I had my first job where was I paid on the cards when I was 14 (1970) - 9am to 7pm Mondays to Fridays with a 2 hour siesta from 1 - 3pm and finishing at 1pm on Saturdays. I earned £4 15 shillings a week (£4.75).

But before that I used to babysit for family friends from the age of 11. The going rate was 10 shillings for the evening, unless I stayed after midnight in which case it was £1. It cost 1 shilling and sixpence (7 1/2 pence) to go to the cinema and 2 shillings (10p) for a hard back book at that time and as I only got 2 shillings and sixpence weekly allowance(now £0.125) I was very eager to do it and I got plenty of work. I remember that I bought myself a guitar for £14 from some of the proceeds.

Just goes to show how inflation has affected our money over the last 30 years. Come 2030 we'll all be earning £1000s a week.

I also used to do household chores with my sister as my mum started working full-time when my youngest brother started school when I was nearly 13. Somehow the eldest of my younger brothers managed to get out of it and Andy my youngest brother (8 year gap) never did any either.

Although I did well in school and was at the top of my set, being a girl, my parents didn't think it was worth letting me go to college when I left school (sadly common thinking at the time) - I wanted to be a doctor. However I got my degree in the end and in retrospect I may not have stuck it out then, so it all turned out OK in the end I guess. Anyway, I got away from them by going to another town to train as a nurse because I knew they'd never let me leave any other way. Good thinking Batman!

 

[alex]

14 - paper route - rode my bike about two miles everyday just to get to my route(two trips Sunday morning), after three months I had enough for a down payment on a Suzuki 185TS.

16-17 - dental lab @$2.50/hr mounting teeth mouldings with plaster.....some of those moulds came in with blood, bits of teeth and smelled really bad.

17-18 - roofing company - hauling bundles of shingles and slopping hot tar....nasty job

19-20 - various restaurant jobs, bussing tables then cooking. Pizza Inn, Shoneys, Red Lobster

20-21 - first job in drafting, worked very close to some PCB designers and learned how to do PCBdesign.

21-present - PCB designer, lead PCB designer, Sr. PCB designer, contract designer.

This is a screenshot of what I stare at all day at work.

 

[Gonz]

First real job-I worked in an Ice Factory...making & distributing crushed, cubed, block & dry ice around Northern AZ.

about 2 months in a grocery store.

late 70's-early-mid 80's musician

mid 80's - late 80's several audio/video retail stores

late 80's- early 90's I was a warehouse mgr in an art collectors storage, installation, shipping, photographing place. Cool job.

90's-assirted driving jobs, 95-now:same job, water filtration manufacturer relocation & logistics specialist

 

[Mirlyn]

You hit on something there Auntie. I wonder, what's the age where everyone had their first job?

14 here. I worked only summers when I was in HS. Since I've graduated though, I've worked one or two jobs at a time (starting at 18).

 

[Inkara1]

Summer 1998 - three weeks on maintenance crew at county fair... first week setting up, next two weeks maintenance during fair

Summer 1999 - two weeks as crossing guard during fair.

Summer 2000 - June through August as a "utility clerk" at Food 4 Less... basically cleaning up the store, moving carts around the parking lot, baling boxes and doing all the jobs no one else wanted to do. Left to go back to school.

Summer 2001 - Atascadero News, as a general assignment reporter/photographer. June-August, left to return to school.

September 2002-present - New England Pizza... only working there to support myself and my wife as best as I can.

 

[Justintime]

First job - repairing boat engines with a repairman in the Caribbean when my dad used to work over there as an english teacher, tough stuff, and very smelly as most of the boats were fishing trawlers. Not really technical with the engines, mostly handing tools and greasing stuff

Electrical technicans assistant, Caribbean, less smelly more backbreaking.

Last job there, roughly when i was 14, Dipcon road enginerring, really really tough job pouring tar and breaking road slab seperations, the labour was fairly easy but the sun reached 40C alot.


Back here, electrical technicans foreman, basically oversaw work done for my uncles company.

20-23 - worked on my own as a pc builder and contract network designer/anaylst.

23-24 up to Janurary this year worked for uncle again as an accountant cause his walked off. Did'nt last long, VERY boring and i made alot of mistakes cause of it, finally decided it was'nt for me and left.

Presently looking for a job, any one want a computer repairman/network tech/slave for hire?

 

[Jeslek]

You hit on something there Auntie. I wonder, what's the age where everyone had their first job?

17 here. I was not permitted to work for most part before that.

 

[Gato_Solo]

Hmmm...

1980-1981 Computer Operator Assistant (Vax 11-780, VAX 11-750, Xerox Sigma 9, and a Gandalf unit to rule them all...) at Oberlin College while a student (18 yrs old...)
1981-1983 Computer Operator (see above)
1983-1988 Odd jobs at various department stores and factories and the Air Force Reserves
1989-present Active Duty Air Force...

 

[Dave]

this seems like an interesting thread to resurrect...

first jobs were resturant jobs. busyboy/dishwasher/cook.
graduated to retail from there for a few years.
worked in a warehouse for a couple of years, picking orders and unloading containers. good pay, miserable job.
from there worked for a few private security companies. consistantly managed to get a couple rungs up, then would become a threat to the next higher position and get busted back down for any little excuse.
got tired of that so i went to work security for a couple of large department store chains. realized i really didnt care how many Tommy Hilfiger sweaters the local addicts stole. not to mention being called a racist motherfucker everytime we caught a black person stealing stuff so i finally went back to school.
been an RN since.

 

[SouthernN'Proud]

Did farm work growing up, because that's what you do on a farm.

By age 10, I was working for other farmers as well as on ours. Worked in tobacco, hay,and gardens. I also started tutoring other kids, shoveling snow...anything I could find to make a buck. By the time I was eleven, I bought my first car.

At 15, I started as an announcer at the local radio station.

I sold Rainbow vacuum cleaners for about three months before deciding that I am nobody's salesman.

At 20, I moved to Gatlinburg and worked at Pizza Hut, the first of f Huts I did time in.

Next came Long John Silver's. Hellhole.

Then came the first of three Subway restaurants.

I worked for three days as a line clearer for the phone company. On day three, we killed 14 copperheads and three rattlesnakes...before lunch. Exit Mike.

That's when I got serious about college. I had been going to a community college along, but that night I sent my application to MTSU.

After I got to MTSU, I worked a few temp jobs in factories, including a hot dog bun bakery. Worked one summer as a temp in the same factory my dad worked in. Then more Subways and Pizza Huts until I graduated.

Got a job supervising a sheltered workshop at a residential facility for the mentally retarded. Hated it.

Then I got on at Dede Wallace Center inNashville as a day treatment therapist. Three other staff members and I designed and implemented a crisis stabilization program, so I worked there for about three years.

Next was Mental Health Cooperative as a case manager. Did that for five years. That was a great job. I loved the work, but hated Nashville.

Then I got a State job as a probation officer. I'm now in my third office doing this work. Seven and a half years.

With a shred of luck, I will be called for my next job by June of next year. Hiring freeze right now.

 

[greenfreak]

What's your next job (hopefully) SnP?

I'm still with the same company but doing network administration.

 

[Dave]

oh..i almost forgot...worked as an EMT for a couple of years before doing the security thing.

 

[ekahs retsam]

14 Working on a family farm
16 Cashier a Dillions/Kroger
17 Worked in the Mall as a manager at a custom vinyl graphics place
18 Networking assistant (temp)
19 Network admin.
20 Theatre manager (temp)
20 Home Depot
21 Lab Manager
23 PC Support Corrdinator (temp)

Nearly a new job every year. I have a wide variety of experience. I've never really been fired most of the time I quit for a better pay somewhere else.