My first real full time job started 18 years ago when I joined the Air Force.

Chad

I am always amazed at the different types of professions the people on this site had. Lots of hard working people. Steve

Was a busboy at a fancy downtown Baltimore Italian restaurant...made $2.65/hr plus the waitresses had to split tips with us for greeting tables with menus, filling water glasses and taking fresh bread/butter to the table before they got there..and of course..cleaning/resetting tables and hauling big trays of food for large groups...I later got promoted to Maitre' D..started working at 14 and a half...before I had my drivers license my dad rode me to work on his way to GM plant and picked me up on his way home from his own 4-12:30 shift...my taxi fee from him was a fresh cold cut sub or some other sandwich for his next days lunch..he put on 25lbs in the almost 2 yrs he was my ride : ) ..got to do my homework during meal break and in the kitchen during slow times..My bosses were the DeNitti family..they treated all of us like family

Summer between 8th and 9th grade. Hot tar roofing with my dad. Guess who got to carry the tar paper up to the roof?

My first real full-time career type job was as a process engineering research tech @ Sperry Semiconductor in St.Paul MN. My Boss was John Victory. I thought it was a great job but eventually changed careers about 6 yrs later. I didn't like being inside all the time. I sat in a small cubicle most of the time, writing programs for test equipment. It was a great job though.

$7 a day 7 days a week, working on a farm. 13 years old. Morris Franke was his name. Birdtracker

My kids laugh when I tell them that my first pt job I made .87cents per hour. My mom said her first pt job in high school she made .36 cents per hour. She got a half cent raise and made .36 1/2 cents per hour then. Steve

My first job was working in my Dad's construction company for the summer. The boss was dad.

My first full time job was

Co E 4th BN 1st Brigade BCT Ft. Dix NJ-Boss was SFC Donald Wray

Oscar

1962. Audio mixer at Gotham Recording in NYC. $4/hr was a nice salary 50 years ago. Great fun & free lunches.

Eric

Vallet Auto as a grease monkey. Made $3.35/hour and was probably overpaid. It was the only job I was fired from and deserved it. I was young and did not take the job seriously. The worst part was going home and telling my dad I got canned. He was friends with the owner(probably the only way I got the job). That experience actually helped me as I learned employers do not need to nor will they put up with my crap. My work ethic drastically changed from then on.

Steve..some days I picked as much as 10 or 12 bushels. We weren't allowed to pick anything bigger than your thumb, because the little ones paid better. My sister always picked more than me. My first non-farm job was porter at a local bowling alley. They had a lounge with rock music and dancing after 9 p.m.. Learned a LOT of stuff there. Like how to drink and chase women. Bill

My bosses name was McFarland. I don't remember his first name.

I started working when I was maybe 14 and it was at a service station. I pumped gas, checked oil, changed oil and fixed tires before they had a tire machine.

I was paid $0.25 and hour and all the pop I could drink. lol

Hauxfan!

grntitan: Same thing happened to me. My father was furious at the time as he was a friend of the owner. I learned the same lesson as you. Steve

Hauxfan: .25 cents an hour, plus fixing tires before they had tire machines. Now that's hard work. In those days I liked Fanta orange soda in the glass bottles. Steve

Cleaning sewers for the Village of Medina, N.Y. in 1956 when I was 16. Boss was Wayne Ward. Paid $1.65 an hour and all you could eat. My mother was Deputy Village Clerk and my father was a fireman. I didn't dare screw up. Ron

sure do. It was in 1953 on a farm. 3:00 am until 10:00 pm doing chores and tractor work for $10;00 per week

Oct 1960-working as an Apprentice Fire Control Electrician @ the old Brooklyn Navy Yard. Was on the Constellation when she caught on fire & 50+ people died. I got taken off the ship by a shipyard crane. Made so much money after the fire I couldnd't cash my pay checks--14 hrs a day 7 days aweek--for 18 months. The payroll office said cash your checks-I said give me some time off--cashed them bought a new Corvette.

Phil Berkowitz

cubancigar2000: Those hours were unreal. How did you ever survive? Steve

Phil: Very tragic situation, glad you made out alright. Steve

I grew up on a Dairy Farm...where there was nothing but work, from the time I was barely big enough to carry a bucket or a hoe. It paid nothing, but earned the belt if I didn't do what I was told.

I left home at 16 and found a job on an oil field pullin' unit in Jal, New Mexico. Shortly after that I moved up to drilling rigs, as a roughneck, in Midland Texas. Earned a stake and opened a garage..which took a couple of trys but finally took off. Been workin' ever since....till a couple of years ago.

I think I was born with a "real" job.

Best Regards..Stan Mayfield

Summer of 1951. My buddy and I leased a gas station for the summer. The owner had a sprint car and didn't want to bother with the station. We were the bosses. Lots of hours and days, but we made good money.

Remember well, graduated H.S. 6/6/84 on friday started full time 6/8/84 48hrs a week as mechanic. Looking back biggest mistake ever shoulda been like all these deadbeats I'm keeping up on welfare. Worked on farm puttin up tobacco & was workin with a fellow who was supposedly disabled with his back, now we're both side by side workin & after we've finished he jumped down from second tier in barn onto wagon. I Said, gee u get around good for a man on the draw. He looked at me said never had a job, never will. I'm payin him to stay home till this day frost me over still!! Keith

My dad and mom were my first bosses, nine years old, pumping gas for $.37 per gallon!!

First paycheck was for digging graves by hand, NO you are not 6 foot under!

In all my work experiences through out my life time, one thing has stuck out in a big way. Most "college educated" workers I've been around, failed big time when it came to "production" on the job! They couldn't or refused to take "directions" to complete some of the "simplest" task! It was like "common sense" had never been instilled or it had been removed!

I have to Thank my dad and mom for teaching me that "Producing" something was better then any high paying "paper pusher". Paper never clothed anyone, didn't provide food for anyone nor provided affordable shelter for anyone.

Those are some tough jobs you all mention. I have a relative with a PHD, and one day he asked me if I could help him change a tire. A guy with a PHD did not know how to change a tire, sad. He is brilliant when it comes to book work, but he is not to sharp on every day life. He must of thought the same way about me when I ask him questions about school work when I was attending school college. Steve

Yup. It was at a manufacturing plant building farm machinery. It was quite a place. Run by 2 guys who had gotten a government job creation grant. So they opened this plant, ran it for about 3 months and skipped with the cash. I lasted 3 days. I heard the average was about a week.

ljutic73: Right after I came home from the Army I was able to get a job at the local savings and loan. They wanted me to start about 1 month later and I needed car repair money so I answered a classified ad to paint at an apartment building.

The pay was good at that time, and I told them I was starting another job in 1 month. They said no problem as all they needed me for was to help paint this apartment building.

We finished 2 weeks from the day we started and the guy in charge said to come in bright and early the next morning for some touch up work and he will pay me for the two weeks of work.

I came in bright and early along with another young guy and they were gone. Long story short, the police said they were like gypsies traveled from state to state and changing their name of the company, having people work for them and not paying them.

I worked 7 days a week for 2 weeks 10 to 12 hour days. That really hurt financially at that time, as I never got paid. Steve

Let's see I will be 67 next week so it had to be maybe 1956 or 1957.So i was maybe 11 or 12. A local farmer named Strayer in Whitehouse Ohio outside Toledo had a strawberry patch. He would come around with his pickup truck early in the morning and us kids would pile in the back, some of us riding on the tailgate for the three mile ride to his place on Stiles Road in Whitehouse. I suppose he would be in jail for that now a days! I just cannot remember what he paid for picking a quart of berries but I do know we ate a lot of them also! Bailed straw for a dollar an hour later on, hot damned work for sure. First job out of high school was at Jones Garage in Watervile Ohio, again a suburb of Toledo. Later on it became Jones Wheel Horse. Arle Jones. He tought me mechanics work and it has served me well over the years. The man would drive around with one of those early Wheel Horse mowers on a trailer looking for someone mowing their yard and pull in and drop it off and say try this out on me an see how you like it! Got a lot of sales that way. He was of course a WW11 vet and taught me a lot about life. Was laying uunder an old Buick pulling a Dynaflow trans on Nov 23 1963 when his wife came into the garage from their house next door screaming that Kennedy had been shot!!!! First Jeep I ever drove was at his place and it was a WW11 FORD Jeep to boot!!!! Yep Ford made more Jeeps in WW11 than Willys ever thought of but the rubber is I retired from Jeep in Toledo after 25 years in Jan 2007!! First real factory job was at Commercial Stamping and Forging in the Clearing Industrial District in Chicago in late 1964 an until I went into the service in Oct 1965. Up set presses and forges and other fabrication. Hot damned and dangerous work for sure. No two hand anti tie down buttonortraps for your hands. Just be damned careful and don't reach in after you hit the foot pedal!!!!!!Several people worked there with missing hands or digits!!! After I wa in Vienam my supervisor there died a fellow named Riha i believe. There was a large beam coming out of a forming press it was being formed into an arc and it slipped and was wedged up against a building suppor pillar and he went up a ladder or a crane access ladder to try and pry it loose well it all came down with him and he was DRT. Good guy and after all these years i now and then think about him. that was the way it was in 1967 before OSHA!!!

Yes I do. It was 1967. His name was Charlie Spoorman. I was a just out of college engineer. He was the Project Engineer. He had a bookcase full of text books but he didn't know anything about engineering. He was fired about a month after I started there. Made me nervous!

Jim Skeel

Bill: You have had an interesting life time of work. Steve

Jim: I know something about being fired myself. I worked at a place that had 165 employees. Each day two to three people would be let go. I can still feel the tightest in my neck and back as the supervisor walked behind me down the isle as he would tap the person on the shoulder and say meet him in the conference room.

Than another supervisor would go to that person's cubicle and take down all his pictures and personal items and place them in a plastic crate by the elevator as they walked the employee out.

In 3 months time we were down to 33 employees, as I was #31 left to get axed. The head guy was hiring people from his church to replace us for workers at minimum wage. This guy also knew nothing about the business, as all he had was inheritance to start the business. It didn't take long before they went out of business completely. Steve

Sure do. Started at Beth. Steel on September 6,1966. Worked janitor in the laboratory for 9.5 months at the amazing salary of $2.38.1/2c/Hr. First boss was Bob Rice-a real pussy. Weaseled my way into a QC position in the machine shops-didn't hurt to have a new boss as former co-worker of my father cutting meat in the A&P.

Retired after 31 1/2 years with multiple plant jobs, layoffs and don't miss it at all. I kept my sanity by being the plant gun vendor with a huge audience of employees!!