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What was your first job?

BD Cool

BD Cool

VIP Member
Dec 1, 2011
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Swept up the trash and cleaned the tables at a bingo when I was 12. Made $40.00 per week – I had more money than I knew what to do with. :)
 
Lizard King

Lizard King

Administrator
Staff Member
Sep 9, 2010
14,533
7,974
14 or 15 unloading trucks for a plumbing supply. Assholes used to say the Hi-Lo was broke and made me unloading radiators with a hand truck. Got strong as all fck.
 
fasttwitch

fasttwitch

VIP Member
Mar 17, 2011
461
567
For me it was picking melons at 13. There were a few fields down the road I lived on and I walked down and asked for a job. I told the guy I was 16 and he paid us 5.00 an hour under the table. My dad told me what ever I saved for a car he'd double it. I saved up 5000 and of course he didn't lol.
My first real job was working at McDonald's at 16 and they literally started you at the bottom. I had to clean the black lot parking areas the lobby and the bathrooms. It took me a year to get on the grill and never got to work the cash registers because I was male.
Oh the irony of sexual discrimination! I didn't care as the only reason I wanted to work out front was because it was across the street from a college and pretty girls back then loved burgers and fries instead of bird food.

Great life lessons, brother.

I was 10 years old and spending summer with my grandfather. One day I asked him for cash. He said "jump in the car." Grandfather was a man who grew up in a fatherless home with a disabled mom and 3 younger sisters. He built a business before he was 20 and lost it in the depression only to build it again after the depression.

We drove across town to a lawn mower shop and he loaned me the money to buy a little old Toro push mower, a gas can and shears. He said I could make money now without asking him and that I could pay him back 5 dollars a day until I was paid up.

That was 1981. That summer and into fall (it's Florida after all) I mowed lawns. I'd use the shears to crawl around the perimeter of the yards and chop away since I didn't have a line trimmer or edger. I ended up falling in love with money that summer. It was an elderly retirement community so the old people loved the chance to pay some kid $10 to mower the lawn, it's was in the 90's out. Ended up making $200 some weeks.

The elderly people started to rely on me to run and get groceries, clean their gutters, there was no odd job I wouldn't take. And they'd always feed me too.

I can't remember a time since then that I didn't work my ass off. My wife calls me internally driven. It's actually my grandfather in my head keeping me in line.
 
HardManifest

HardManifest

MuscleHead
Nov 21, 2022
286
266
mailroom clerk fresh after high school $10/hr. I think minimum wage was somewhere around $5/hr. late 90's
 
TheChosen1

TheChosen1

Senior Member
Mar 19, 2012
149
18
As far as a payroll job, at 16, I worked at a McDonald's in New Orleans East.
But technically as far as 1st job, I began working at my dad's auto mechanic shop at the age of 12. Well, I hung out there at 12, by 13 I began doing simple auto repairs.
 
TheChosen1

TheChosen1

Senior Member
Mar 19, 2012
149
18
Great life lessons, brother.

I was 10 years old and spending summer with my grandfather. One day I asked him for cash. He said "jump in the car." Grandfather was a man who grew up in a fatherless home with a disabled mom and 3 younger sisters. He built a business before he was 20 and lost it in the depression only to build it again after the depression.

We drove across town to a lawn mower shop and he loaned me the money to buy a little old Toro push mower, a gas can and shears. He said I could make money now without asking him and that I could pay him back 5 dollars a day until I was paid up.

That was 1981. That summer and into fall (it's Florida after all) I mowed lawns. I'd use the shears to crawl around the perimeter of the yards and chop away since I didn't have a line trimmer or edger. I ended up falling in love with money that summer. It was an elderly retirement community so the old people loved the chance to pay some kid $10 to mower the lawn, it's was in the 90's out. Ended up making $200 some weeks.

The elderly people started to rely on me to run and get groceries, clean their gutters, there was no odd job I wouldn't take. And they'd always feed me too.

I can't remember a time since then that I didn't work my ass off. My wife calls me internally driven. It's actually my grandfather in my head keeping me in line.
Great life lesson, as well, bro.
Your grandfather sounds alot like my dad. He taught us all that nothing is worth having if you can't earn it. My older brother and I was the constant hard workers as our oldest brother became the wanna be get rich quick dude. You know, like the Amway believers. LOL
 
DieYoungStrong

DieYoungStrong

VIP Member
May 27, 2013
1,388
942
10-13 I had 2 paper routes. Delivered the morning paper before school and the afternoon paper after school before whatever practice for whatever sports season it was. Funny story about the paper route - Sunday morning papers were to big to do by foot or bike. I used to have to assemble them at the paper drop. I had 75 papers and could only fit 2 at a time in my paper bag. So my father would have to drive me on Sundays. But he never let me in the car. He'd creep up the street in the car, and I'd run house to house like George Costanza playing frogger with him handing me papers out the window. If I stopped running - he'd just drive home.

Soon as I turned 14 I got a job at a local breakfast diner washing dishes and bussing tables on Sat and Sunday mornings - $4.25 an hour. After a few months the cook took me aside and told me the old hag waitresses were screwing me the whole time because they should have been tipping me for clearing their tables. So I quit.

Got a job that summer of 8th grade going into 9th with my neighbor who was roofer. I'd help strip the roof with his guys, be the shingle bitch humping all the bundles up the ladder, and then would clean the site and get all the shit into the dumpster while the guys were putting the new roof on. Got strong as hell and learned how to work like a man that summer. Guy would give me $100 cash per day and buy me a sub at lunch. I thought I was living like a king haha.

In high school I got a job during the school year at a great local restaurant busing tables. I'd make 250-300 cash a week during the school year working a couple shifts a week around my sports schedule. And I figured out how to steal beers from the walk-in. I always worked construction in the summers.

The work ethic paid off. I was in high school in the mid 90s and driving a 65 Mustang Convertible. Car was mint. I totaled it in the saddest car story ever.
 
CFM

CFM

National Breast Implant Awareness Month Squeezer
Mar 18, 2012
1,974
1,678
Pulling weeds and grading using a spade shovel and rake. I was 11. I bought my first drum set (brand new) with the money. At 1.75/hr, while the other kids were riding bikes and building forts I was working 40+hrs/ week all summer. Now 59 years old I'll may not be able to outwork anyone and everyone like I used to, but I'll create a system and outproduce them.

If it wasn't for learning to get up, make a lunch, work all day and then lift. I would not be in a the comfortable financial position I am in for the rest of my life.
 
tommyguns2

tommyguns2

Senior Moderators
Staff Member
Dec 25, 2010
6,313
4,997
Pumping gas at Getty gas station. $3 an hour cash. 1979
Did you clean the windshield and check the oil as well? Some places, the kids even wore uniforms. I suspect that went away in the early 60s, just not sure.
 
Mike_RN

Mike_RN

Senior Moderators
Staff Member
Aug 13, 2013
2,644
2,919
I cleaned schools for the city of Philadelphia during the summers. It was me my big brother and all the old black janitors. They were some of my best buddies and kids broke my balls when I would talk to them at school during the school year.
Emptying lockers, scraping gum off desks and running the buffer like a champ. Smoking and joking with a bunch of soul brothers for $3 and change.
 
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