[Held for Ransom]

Well, not really my first but close. They had tablets you had to check off what they wanted and management wanted you to memorize the prices to be fast enough. Also had to calculate tax by reading little tabs on the register (or do it in your head). Found it in a memento box of sorts. Won't sell it but I wonder if it's a collectible.

[242177P]

Originally Posted by Held for Ransom

Well, not really my first but close. They had tablets you had to check off what they wanted and management wanted you to memorize the prices to be fast enough. Also had to calculate tax by reading little tabs on the register (or do it in your head). Found it in a memento box of sorts. Won't sell it but I wonder if it's a collectible.

It's a stylus for a touchscreen, right?

[bkmont]

My first was to cut the **** off re-tread tires when they came out of the mold. Set them up on a spinner-use a razor thing-a-ma-bob as the tire spun and the **** would be flying!

The tires on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round..aaarrrggghhhhh!

[The Champ]

My first real J O B (was cutting grass, delivering newspapers and shoveling snow for years before that) was a busboy. Starting pay during my probationary period was $1.16 per hour. Once I made it through my probationary period, I had to join the Teamster's Union and my pay worked it's way up to about $3.25 per hour in the 2 years I worked there.

Never could figure out why the Teamster's represented a restaurant/dairy store. Never met a union rep in the 2 years. Can't remember what my dues were. First and only time in my life I've ever been affiliated with a union.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by The Champ

Never could figure out why the Teamster's represented a restaurant/dairy store. Never met a union rep in the 2 years. Can't remember what my dues were. First and only time in my life I've ever been affiliated with a union.

I just read an article where the UAW is starting to represent white collar professionals (in the medical field, lawyers and such). Anything to get their foot in the door and keep their membership up, I imagine.

My first "job" was teaching 5 string bluegrass banjo in a little local music store.

After that I started with GM, which was my only job for 40 years.

K

[66sprint6]

First job: Cleaning out portable toilets and holding tanks from Park Model Trailers. I drove around with the owner's son on the "Honey Wagon", cleaning out the port-o-potties that they rented out, then off to the trailer parks. Those buggers dumped that stuff wherever they could when the truck got full. One time we got caught and took off. In our haste, the owner's son left the unit on "blow" instead of "suck". So when we got to the next trailer and he engaged the PTO to drive the unit (which was hooked up to a direct adapter on the trailer), it blew the toilet and lined the whole inside of the trailer with the aggragate sewage.

[lemansboy70]

When I was 4-5 years old, I would tag along with Dad to the parts store he managed on Saturday mornings. I would clean all the lower shelves and sweep and re-stock. My pay would be a fruit pie and an RC. I thought I was big-time! Worked on-and-off all through grade school. When I got to about 7th grade, they officially put me on the payroll. My first check was for 20-something dollars. I was rich! Parts stores in the '70's were really cool. We had speed equipment and custom car stuff on the shelves. Been a parts man ever since!

[mgarblik]

My first job was opening "Mikes Small Engine Repair", in a storage shed beside my house. Made the business cards in 8th grade printing class. Still have some. I was 12 years old. Seems very weird now, but not at the time. Some of my friends had paper routes, some cut grass and shoveled snow, all around that age. I was rebuilding small engines, sharpening blades, selling short blocks and used mowers. My dad helped me place an ad in the "Tradin Post", a paper version of Craigs list. I made enough the first year to buy a high end mini-bike with a 5HP engine. 50 years later, I still like working on the little engines.

[Lemans64]

First job was doing clean up at a local lumber mill. One day a week, I now hate sawdust, LOL. We moved tons of sawdust every saturday. Cleaning under the huge Band saws.
During summer months I got the pull lumber off the green chain, some of the wood was heavier than me. Hate it, so took Auto mechanics and never went back to the Mill. Now I think I should have stayed at the Mill, way less stress. Dealership life, YUK.

[Chris65LeMans]

My first job was driving a tractor at the local public golf course’s driving range. That golf course was long ago bulldozed for a housing development/shopping center.

I was 14 years old, and they asked if I could drive a stick. I said “sure!” I showed up to work on my first day and figured it out.

That’s the funniest way I ever got fired, too. Boss said “hey, Chris - go take a look at the new schedule.”
Me -“I don’t see my name on here.”
Boss - “ Yep. “

No matter- a buddy of mine got me a job as a janitor at a department store - at a 75 cent an hour raise. I was on easy street!

['ol Pinion head]

First w a paycheck: cleanup & much more on new home construction sites beginning age 11.
Began mowing yards, trimming hedges around same time, but cash. Return of repossessed but relatively new GM cars @ 17. Same age, 17-19 @ Safeway, only job ever had to pay union dues.

[69hardtop]

First income job.......garbage picking bicycles, repairing and selling to my local school friends, usually for between $5 and $10

First real job - caddy at private country club. Learned real quick how some people (usually well off financially) could treat 13 yr old kids making around $5 to lug clubs for four hours. On the bright side, there actually were a few very nice folks who treated us like humans.
I did this for quite a few years (you could work when you wanted, just show up and wait) and I can truthfully say that the movie “Caddyshack” is pretty accurate

[Simple Man]

First job was helping my Dad at his appliance repair business. First paycheck job was in jr. year in high school, at Reds Used cars. It was a car lot/pawn shop. Keith "Red" Kaser was the boss. I still remember the muscle cars that went through there, this was 1977.

[tigergto]

First job ( not counting my paper route) was working at a car wash when I was 15. Had to be 16 to get working papers, but I changed my birth certificate to make me a year older. The guys with a drivers license got to drive the cars about 20 ft to the outside. Man,I was so jealous of those guys.

[West Coast GTO]

First real job was summer work for my cousin milking his 40 cow dairy herd. Up at 6:00 , breakfast, then milk the entire herd, lunch from noon to 12:30, drive tractor discing/plowing fields, then dinner and milk the herd again until 11:30.
Get up the next day and repeat. $1.15 per hour.

[fyrffytr1]

I also mowed yards in the summer and shoveled snow in the winter plus I delivered newspapers morning and evening. I used a reel type mower until I saved up enough to buy my first gas powered one. I guess my first real job was the U.S.Navy. I was 18 in 1968 and my draft number was 9 so I enlisted before I was drafted. I spent 4 years 1 month and 28 days in The Navy. After I got out in 1973 I became a roofer for my father-in-law until !975 when I joined the fire department. Spent 30 years there.

[400 4spd.]

I did the grass cutting routine myself. I was making just enough to keep me in AMT model cars and Testors paint. When I was about 14 (around '71), my neighbor across the street asked if I would help him get trucks prepped for painting. He was a shipyard worker who played with stock cars that he raced at Langley Raceway. He had a wife and two kids, and the family car was a 1966 GTO. He had already transplanted a 421 into it by then and he would flat tow his 60 Bel Air race car the 7 or 8 miles with it. He had let me help with painting the Chevy, so I guess that's why he let me help again.
It was hot summertime, and the trucks were sprayed in a dirt floor stall outside of the construction company shop. All of them were Fords from the 50's and 60's, and every one was Ford Candy Apple red enamel when we finished, bugs and all. I usually made 15 or 20 bucks per truck. One highlight of that summer was being able to drive his GTO. He needed to get a truck to his house for sanding and I got to follow him in the GTO. So here I was, 14 years old and driving a GTO across town all by myself! Two years later he was helping me with my own GTO.
Eventually there would be 6 GTOs on my block, three of them at my house.

[tooski]

Grocery store. Stock boy and checkout till. 15 years old. Lied to get the job (16 req'd for real job).Had to get bonded as I handled cash. Fri nites n all day Sat. Can't remember the pay.

[64speed]

Walmart. Lasted less than two weeks

[T.Weber]

My first real job was working at the local A&W drive in - complete with car hops. I discovered the car hop window trays made great tool holders while working on my car.