Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

I used to work for a local deli when I was 9 (sweeping floors, stocking shelves) but since I only got paid in sodas, I don't really count that as my first job. I did a paper route when I was 13 but I was so shy then, I couldn't stand knocking on the doors to collect money, so my paper route didn't last long. I guess I consider my real first job the one I got working in a fast food restaurant (Rax) the day after my 16th birthday.

In my family, before you were 16, you had to do chores to get an allowance. Your allowance you got to spend completely on yourself (we're are not talking about a lot here, my allowance for doing my chore, which was doing the dishes every night, was only $10 a week). Once you turned 16, you got a job and you no longer had to do chores, however, you didn't get a completely free ride. After 16, I didn't have to pay rent and my parents still bought the groceries for the house, however I had to do my own laundry or pay my mom a set fee every week for her to do it. I also had to buy everything else I needed (clothes, shoes, school supplies, haircuts, school ring, etc.) or wanted (books, albums, outings with friends).

I learned a lot about budgeting my money with my first job, but I did not always stick to a budget... I was a hard worker, a good worker, but I learned that to some people this didn't matter at the same time I learned I can't stand unfairness. I quit my first job because the new manager favored another employee who was lazy, big time lazy, and it got to be unbearable to see her get special treatment time and time again (free meals, extra long smoke breaks, the easiest jobs, the best shifts).

Heidi

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

My first job started Friday.... :yikes:

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

My first job was at Sports Plus, a regional family entertainment center near my house in New York. I worked primarily as a Lasertron operator and spent some time fixing video games as well. About 6 months into the job, after I turned 18, I then began to operate and repair their iWERKS motion simulator. That has since been replaced by a roller coaster.

Some time later, I took a second job working for The Great Train Store selling toy and model trains. That company went out of business nine months after I began working there.

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

I was 10 when i got my first real job. My dad works at At&t doing billing stuff for customers and his 2nd job is stuffing newspapers in a factory for the Chicago Tribune every saturday morning from like 6am-1. So one saturday my dad asked if i wanted to come with him to help him...and of course my job was to stuff papers into paper then into the big chicago tribune section of the paper...so i went every saturday with him cuz i was so awsome at haha then i when i was like 10 and half i finally got my own check with my own name on it haha i stoped working there like a couple years ago but i may still come and help my dad though. yeah fun....so like 7 years ago if u ever got a chicago tribune paper...remember who stuffed it....me! haha :D

-Court-

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

Well, it's kinda hard to decide what my first "real" job was.

The first real, non-school task I had was from 1997-1999, when I was a writer for The State newspaper's Young Writers Staff. No money involved, but hey, when you're in fifth grade and your name is in the paper, who cares about that?

The first could be argued as my program sales at USC home football games as part of AFJROTC, starting when I was 14. $.20 a program (later increased to $.25) adds up when you're kicking everyone else's butt selling upwards of 150 a game.

Then there's football games, which I started filming about a month later for the athletics department at Irmo. Rain or shine, cold or hot, home or away, I was on top of the press box getting the shots. And the pay for a freshman year job was great--$25 a game, plus a reasonable dose of caffeine.

The first time I punched a clock, however, was just before my junior year of high school, when I was 16. I worked at the Irmo Piggly Wiggly as a bagger courtesy clerk, making a lovely $5.50 an hour.

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

My first job started when I was in third grade. Way back then, fruit and vegetable trucks were still operating in the neighborhoods. I started by packing eggs into one dozen containers for Sam D'Amico on Mondays after school. He would buy eggs in 50 dozen crates (pay $0.01/dozen) and I would transfer them and help him get produce sorted for the following week. As I got older and bigger, I would go out with him on Saturdays to deliver orders to some of his customers around the University of Chicago for $3/day. By the time I was in 8th grade, I would work several days a week either shopping at the big market in Chicago (start time 4AM Monday morning) or picking and delivering orders. Each day was a different neighborhood. I supplemented with newspaper delivery starting in 7th grade. It wasn't a lot of money but I was able to finance my outings in boy scouts.

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

My first "real" job was when I was 14, working as a busgirl at a really upscale restaurant, getting paid under the table. I continued at that restaurant and two others until I was 17 when I started waitressing at a pizza joint (in addition to bussing & banquet waitressing). That was amazing money for my age, only downside is that I had to work most holidays and weekends :-/

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

Hmm... first real job? Well, I did to a bunch of unpaid volunteer work at the library and at a medical complex as a school requirement, but that really doesn't count too much.

I guess I started my first real job on August 4th, stocking at a party decorations store near my house. Sadly I don't get any employee discounts as far as I can tell :(

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

Define "real" job.. If you mean first steady job I got paid for, then.. umm..
Well.. September 1994 or 95 was my first job.

Horray for paid work studies in school. :rolleyes:
That 50 cents an hour seemed like slave wages, but eh.. what was I gonna spend my money on when I was 14-15?

As for my vote, I voted for 19, cause that's when I started my first real minimum wage or above paying job at K-Mart working 3rd shift stocking stuff.

It was fun.. lol I can tell many stories about the fun we had, and also some stupid stories from my times working there, but I'll leave that for another day.

Worked there for 3 years, and then went to my first FIRST Nationals event in 2001, and because of the work I did on the team helping with CAD, one of the other mentors on the team said he had a job open where he worked and asked me if I was interested during a phone call I recieved from him litterally the day after I got off the plane from FL.

I said yes and that was my first "real job" in my current field of study.
Spent almost exactly 3 years there and the place was in financial difficulty so I was let go.

Went to another place and the same thing happened, but this time it was less than 4 months after I was there... Cost cutting measures, and part of a lean manufacturing practice.

But now though, the market for my degree in CAD is very weak (unless I want to to commute like.. 50 miles plus every day each way) and I may change to something else.. who knows.

Maybe I'll take up a trade as well.

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

i was 15 when i started my first job....it was at a Mr.Lube (oil change place) heh, that was a fun job

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

I worked on a farm for a summer when I was 16. I worked P&G for a summer when I was 18. And I got the job as a developer here on Wall St. when I was 19.

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

So far I’ve only had one job. I started when I was 14, and I was the cashier in a concession stand at a motocross park. It wasn’t the best job in the world, but it paid well, and it was fun.

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

I started my first job Christmas season of 2000, making me 16. My mom worked at Lord & Taylor, and they needed seasonal "fluffer and folders", ie neaten up after customers make a mess. That lasted two days, when one of the receiving guys left. They shifted me over and I did well enough they kept me until I quit at the end of high school. L&T has a policy of not hiring persons under the age of 18, except for fluffer and folders so I got lucky. The only problem was I could not get my employee discount normally. It was done on the back end of the L&T credit card, and I couldn't get one until I was 18. :rolleyes:

After that was Barnes & Noble selling music, then ComputerWare doing deliveries, then VCU Health Systems moving patients around the hospital, and now Loudoun-Fairfax Ambulance moving patients between hospitals and other hospitals/home/the zoo.

Jobs where the people that have been there a few years are jaded and cynical, you don't want to stay at.
If you can, help out doing more then you have too. This factors in a lot when raise time comes. Don't do other peoples jobs for them, but if they get swamped give them a hand. Both the people and management appreciate this.


Wetzel

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

I had a paper route when I was 9. My brother did 1/2 of the route and then I did the other 1/2. When he got too cool for the route, I inherited his half. The pay escapes me... we got a certain % of each subscription. We had to collect, door to door, on a monthly basis. That was no fun.

My first "job" was a worker at Indiana Beach, in the "ecology department" when I was 14. This job consisted of walking around with a hand broom and a bucket on a stick, sweeping up cigarrette butts and popcorn. The job got bad when I had to clean up after someone who spun around too many times on the Twister. The nice thing about this job was that I sometimes found loose change. Also, walking around an amusement park is not a bad gig, especially since I got to know the gals who would run the concession stands and give free samples of their food when they were bored.

I think that my starting wage was $2.20 per hour. This was legally below minimum wage, since it was "seasonal" employment.

The next year, I moved up to Paddle Boat operator. woo!

Andy B.

Re: How old were you when you got your first real job?
 

The week I turned 13, I got a job alphabetizing and filing papers in an insurance office for a few hours on Saturdays. I worked there for over a year, and then moved on to the local newspaper. I would begin work at 9pm at night, stuffing the Sunday paper with the coupons and inserts, and finish when we were done (normally early Sunday morning, around 8am). I was there for a long time, and eventually got a pay raise, and did pretty well for myself in kind of a supervisory role.

Later, they gave the job to temp workers, and kicked the high schoolers out. I got a job a few months later at a local pizza place as an Oven Bunny (yes, that was my title). I watched the cash register, took orders, and took care of the pizzas in the oven. I quit that job to work at the local grocery store chain as a carryout and shelf stocker.

When I came to college, I would go back home in the summers and work at School Stuff, a local school supply store, taking care of stock and merchandise, decorating the store, and numerous other things. I did that for two summers, and finally last spring got a job in the Archives and Special Collections in the Ball State Bracken Library. I get to maintain collections (for instance, we have the world's largest of John Steinbeck), which is really cool.

I left that job after only a month or so to work at Purdue University for their Purdue FIRST Programs and to work on the Boilermaker Regional planning for next year. I returned to the library this semester.

Overall, I've been a little bit of everywhere, and done a little bit of everything.