What was your first job and what was the wage?

I did the traditional babysitting for $1.00/hour and had a series of short-term jobs working with family members (I remember xeroxing, collating, and stapling a lot of papers at my mom's office, working registration desks for fundraising dinners, and at one point bagging books at the bookstore where my brother was working as a cashier).

My first real job with W-2s and everything was a summer job as a receptionist at a temporary employment agency run by an insane woman for minimum wage when I was 16. In the 2-3 months I was there, she went through 2-3 office managers and at least 2 bookkeepers, so for several weeks I was the only person working in the office. I actually quit 3 weeks before the summer ended and took a temp job typing address labels for a company that sold pesticides by mail.

Absolutely, and several of my friends have come to that same conclusion: having a really awful summer job after high school is a great motivator to do well in college.

 

My dad got my first job for me - helping a fellow church member build his new cesspool. No stated wage. The deal was that he would buy me a bicycle when the cesspool was finished (6 weeks later, I think). First step was to chip mortar off bricks salvaged from the 1934 earthquake damage in the Los Angeles area (several years earlier) while my employer dug the 6' - 8' X 15' deep hole (estimated, since I was probably little over 4' in height). Later I loaded "cleaned" bricks into a bucket, which he raised and lowered from the bottom of the pit with a rope and pulley attached to a tripod at ground level. Those bricks were simply laid flat around the perimeter of the pit, with about an inch or less of space between them, followed by successive courses until about 3' from ground level. Mortar was used, then, to construct a dome capping the whole structure. The weight of bricks worked well holding back the earth surrounding them.

I learned a lot from this. Bricks need to be quite smooth in order to stack properly for their job; even thoroughly cured mortar is caustic and quite rough; bricks break almost as easily as mortar when a hammer strikes them incorrectly; stacked blocks of uniform size can be structurally strong; blisters become pretty tough skin after a week or two; supposedly devout church members differ in character; it is a good idea to have a clear understanding, in clear terms, of a labor contract.

For the whole job, six 8-hour days a week, for six weeks netted me a used bike that cost my employer all of $15. My first bike, though - priceless.

 

Lots of baby-sitting and three paper routes, but my first real job was in a fruit market for $.80 per hour near Seattle in 1958. On my second check I got a raise to a buck. I used the money to buy a POS '52 Plymouth convertible for $85.00. The crank was warped and I had to change the bearing inserts twice a week. That's a lot of oil pan drops and I got very good at it.

 

First "real job" was working in a diecasting factory where we worked with molten metal to make car parts and various other aluminum/zinc alloy goodies. I started out in the paint area and worked my way up to being a diecaster. Started out at a big $2.25/hour and got a lot of nickel/hour raises over the years. I would work summers and winter breaks while in college. My last summer there before I graduated there was an accident in which I lost part of my right thumb. The whole experience was excellent in that I knew why I was going to college and that I didn't want to stop there. Education was the key to getting ahead in the world. My fellow workers were poorly educated but good people with a strong work ethic and some of them were quite bright and creative. What they lacked was education and the opporunities that affords. Thanks to them and that experience, I went on to get a PhD. That plant is now closed...

 

First real job I had was when I was 16 (1982) driving a van and delivering sleeper sofas with another guy. The pay was great, $9.00/hour, but now my back is paying the price for all those awkward lifts.

 

I think it was $3.35 working part-time at a grocery store doing odd jobs. Mainly cleaning the bathrooms, defrosting freezers, etc.

 

I worked in a biological laboratory which made micrscope slides....I made $1/hour.