Question of the Day: Sunday, February 17

This has probably been asked before but I think its interesting:

What was your first paying job?

Mine was working as a receptionist at our church.  I started when I was 14 and I was paid under the table at $1.25/hr. Hey, for sitting there, answering the phone and door, doing mailings and my homework with a TV and a stocked fridge full of soda it was a pretty sweet deal! I worked there after school and on weekends all through high school.

My first "real" job in the eyes of the IRS was the summer I was 16 and I worked at a local hair salon as a shampoo girl. I got paid minimum wage (which I think was around $3 at the time) plus tips. That's when I learned just how much Uncle Sam actually took. But I learned some very valuable tips and got my hair cut for free lol.

So, how about you? 

When I was 18 and it was as a barmaid I loved it 

When I was still in high school I worked at the telephone company.  I was an information operator, people would call for a phone number and I would look thru telephone books and give them the number.  That's way before computers were available. 
 

The only job I ever had was babysitting.  When I got married at 16 my husband did the work for our family.

And now in our 50's we both are on SSI due to back problems & Bipolar for me and bones problems for him.

dejolane

My first job was in the kitchen of our hospital. I was a kitchen slave, meaning I got to take the carts of food up to the various floors at dinner time. After dinner, I'd bring the carts back down to the main kitchen and run all the dish ware through the dishwasher. After school, 4-7 pm, and pretty much all weekends. (Whenever somebody would ask me to babysit, I always refused; I didn't....and still don't....like small children.)

I was working off the back of a dry cleaning truck on a military base.

Two days in a donut shop.

I was 12 when I started working at our local Dairy Queen. I got the job because a friend's mom was manager and she was nice to me - it was a small town and jobs for kids were scarce. I worked for minimum wage taking orders, cooking, mopping, bussing tables, cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning the kitchen, emptying the grease, etc. Man did my face break out working there! 

My motivation was to buy clothes since my mother refused to buy me any - I was at the age where clothes had a big impact on one's social life. I worked after school (after band practice), and in the summers, not so much on weekends because that's when I had to clean our house top to bottom, and mow the one-acre yard.

I also taught myself to sew during this time since it was lots cheaper than buying ready-made clothes.

At the ice cream parlor in our town.

I worked as a short-order cook at our local swim club at 14 and also straightened out my mom's boss's files once every couple of weeks. Before that I'd done some babysitting.

I was a baby-sitting slave!   The family I sat for had 3 kids, all one year apart.  Shortly after I began sitting for them, they decided to turn their home into an assisted living facility for men.   At one point, I was in charge of 3 children and 9 grown men ( I was probably 14 at the time).  The couple would literally leave for the day on weekends, and I'd be at their home for 10-12 hours.  Obviously, that meant cooking for 12 people--twice.  I'd also make the sack lunches that the men would take to their "jobs" the next day.  I adored those kids, and liked most of the men but honestly, that was a whole ton of work.  And I'd get paid, usually by check, a whopping 50 cents an hour. 

Babysat as a teenager. In High School I worked at a program Montgomery Ward had for high school commercial course students. We worked in the office after school, but it was with the understanding that we'd work full time after graduation. But I got a different job as a secretary when I graduated - worked for a film distribution company in Manhattan.