First Jobs - How old, and what did you do?

[Monster]

Our Dad applied for us kid's SSN's when we got to 6th grade (12-years old). My first job was at the local McDonald's putting the condiments on the burgers and frying the fish fillet, fries and apple pies. Good training for a young man entering the private sector .. "If you got time to lean, you got time to clean" !

[Barry Donovan]

paper boy in woburn mass.
like SAC command and carburators.. I was the last in a leave it to beaver neighborhood.
It did hang on longer than others... that was 1986.

I was in my 3rd year of military in the 90s, before I made that same amount of money again.

[DanStokes]

My first "regular" job (not lawn mowing for the neighbors or such) was at Thompson's Greenhouse in Michigan. I was 14. It was a large commercial greenhouse owned by a friend of my Dad's and I took the job because I was promised that I would work on Saturdays doing fleet maintenance on their fleet of Ford box trucks. Their son (he was OLD - like 22 or something) was the main guy though they had a career mechanic who came in during the week and did most of the heavy stuff like engine rebuilds and so on.

I also got sucked into various odd jobs around the facility and learned that production work was NOT for me. They had a line where they bagged sterilized soil for house plants and I did enough dirt bagging to know that I COULD NOT work on an assembly line!

One of my claims to fame is that I mowed down 20,000 Christmas trees. Mrs. Thompson saved my job when she came by as Mr. Thompson was chewing my butt and was (I'm sure) about to fire me. Mrs. T sweetly said to her husband "Did you tell him there were trees in that field" (they were about 10" high and the grass was at least 14" or more) and he sort of looked at the ground and said "well, no....." and grumpily let me off the hook.

All in all, a great first job that set me up for most of the jobs I've subsequently held.

Dan

[pdub]

Summer job. Early 70's 14 years old or so. My friend's dad owned a bunch of rental duplexes on the poor side of town. Tear out the insides and paint the outsides. They let me spackle windows. And tear out the walls, I didn't know how to put anything together so they let me tear stuff up. I'd draw targets on the walls and throw hammers at them until they told me to get back to work.

2 bucks I think, big money.

[studemax]

Nowadays, you are issued a Social Security Number at birth. Didn't used to be that way.... You got one when you scored your first job. So let's hear about your first job, OK?

I was 12 years old, and went to work at my mom's printing shop. I used to run an old Addressograph making metal plates for addressing machines (today most folks use them for making dogtags). I worked 48 hours a week during the summer, and worked some nights and Saturday's while school was in session. I started at a buck an hour in the late 60's! Not bad for a kid! Did that until my senior year (1973-1974), when I went to work in the automotive department of a local store similar to Walmart.