Okay, in honour of LOVEULOTS17LOV who just got her first job, I thought it would be interesting to say what our first jobs were!!!

I'll start....

Other than the obvious babysitting gigs, my first "real" job was at 17 when I got a job at a short lived fast food joint called "Frisco Jacks". It served sourdough with different toppings (not dessert like toppings....but real meal toppings....like chili etc). I was soooo embarrassed when I started working there (it was in an upscale mall to boot!) as I had to wear this BIG ol' BRIGHT RED chef's hat with a matching apron...and sometimes they made me stand out in the mall with a tray of freebies to lure the customers in.....

It taught me a lot though and I met a lot of great people!!! However, it also told me that I would never have a career in the food prep or food service industry!!! LOL

I started good ole' Mc D's at 15. I actually worked at Mc D's until I was 22

while moving state to state with DH...I made my way up to Assistant Store Manager before I realized it was a horrible job.....lol..

My first job was as a landscaper for a private home at the age of 16.

Real job????? Part time as a dental assistant for a family friend. I learned a lot.....yuck. I didn't have to work for quite a while because I did hair and had a nice clientele. he he he he

My first official job was working for Burger King. When I first started, the women had to wear these HIDEOUS dresses for a uniform. They were brown, orange and yellow double knit poly. Went to about the knee, and made it really hard to do the job, when you had to clean out fryers and the like.

My first job (that I received pay for) was working for Schraffts Candy as a Coffee-Boy in the "Grace-Line" Building in Manhattan. I was paid $.90 an hour and had to fill a cart with goodies (rolls, muffins, pastries), fill a 15 gallon coffee earn with coffee, put tea-bags, milk and sugar, and cups, stirrers and napkins, etc on the cart and then take it to 6 floors of the huge office building, stopping at each office complex. Then after cleaning up the cart, I would serve lunch to the building's workers from the cafeteria's steam-table for 2.5 hours and then restock the cart for the next coffee-break run of the same 6 floors. I was 17 and had graduated high-school, and when I told my boss that I was quitting to go to college, he said that I should consider staying, because I was such a good worker. I know he had my best interest at heart.:faint:

My real first job was working (for free) for my step-father. He ran a TV repair business as a second job and needed help carrying the huge sets of the 1950's. TV sets at that time sometimes only had 5 inch or 13 inch screens but weighed more than today's 32 inch sets and were larger. So after dinner during the week and all day on Saturdays and Sundays, I got to go to strangers' homes and after carrying in a tool box or tube box, I stood there while my step-father tried to fix the TV, hoping that he could fix it there, knowing that if he could not and had to take it to our home, I would have to carry it down the stairs and then up the stairs.

It really got to be fun, when he got a contract for a charitable organization that took care of home-bound (often wheel chair bound) people. People would donate TV's to the organization and (because TV's were mostly built on the same chassis) my step-father would try to make one working set from two or three non-working sets. The best part was taking the burned out power transformers and unwinding the copper wire from the transformer core and winding it into a ball for sale at the metal scrap yard. Sometimes, on Saturday, we finished early enough so that I go out and play for an hour before dark and if my hands were not bleeding too much or too sore to catch a ball, I could play with the other 11 or 12 year olds on the block.

I guess the work ethic is contagious, because as an adult, I was always noted as the hardest worker on my job. So when people debate genes vs nurture, I have to vote for nurture.

I was a cashier for a store called Waccamaw Pottery. They were located in Potomac Mills Mall in Woodbridge, VA. It was one of the main anchor stores. People came there by charter bus and everything just to shop the mall. It was crazy but I loved it. The store is gone now which is too bad. I started when I was 16YO and worked there maybe 2 years?

My parents were pretty adamant that I not work until I was done with school, including college. The first four years, anyway! It was always their belief that school should be the kid's "job", and as long as the child was doing good at "work" they would provide me with my "income" -- so to speak. They bought me a car for my 16th, paid insurance, gave me their gas card, paid tuition, gave me spending money every week, etc. Heck, when I wanted to move out they even offered to pay my rent as long as I stayed in school & made good grades, and after I moved out the continued to buy my groceries (or, since I was only about 10 mins from their house, they'd have me over every night for dinner). I got a credit card in my name, and the bill went to them, (their idea) so that I could start to establish credit. As far back as I can remember, they took care of everything. So I never really wanted for anything & never really needed a job. Until the whole independence thing kicked in... and then we had to start negotiations.

My uncle manages a campus B&N, and I always helped him during the semester start & end rush.

Actual payroll job... I was probably 17ish. I worked as a telemarketer. Easy, easy job but totally boring.

First job that lasted more than a month or two... a local music store that sold new/used, t-shirts, posters, "tobacco" accessories, and had a little adult novelty store. It was kind of like a Spencer's, only with music. I loved watching all the embarassed older folks trying to explain why they were buying an inflatable sheep, or how the vibrator was just "for a joke". Uh huh...

My first job was pushing carts and bagging groceries for a grocery store called Meijers. I worked there for a year and lost 80 pounds during that time from being out on the lot pushing rows of carts into the store for hours and hours. I kind of miss it. Those were the easy days.

My first job (age 15) was in a tiny, one-person snow cone stand. The snow cone season in Texas lasts about 5 months, so I was out of a job about the time school started and I didn't get another job until I was 17 or 18. I was a clerk in a drug store and I was terrible. My till always balanced, but I kept forgetting to give the doctor's wives their discount and it irritated the crap out of them. They would make me do a void and re-ring the whole transaction, just so they didn't have to pay an extra 20 cents. I hated the store manager. His wife would bring their 4 kids in and stay for hours while the kids trashed the store. Then us peons had to clean it all up. Having this job was the wake up call that I needed to go to college after all (I had taken a couple of years off after high school). There were 40 year old women working there who thought this was a "good job". I didn't want to be one of them someday.

My first payroll job was at Fothergill's Fish 'n' Chips where I learned to make real bear battered fish 'n' chips, not crappy breaded stuff. Next one was at Sears, where I was at the Coffee shop until I could move out to the garage, where I was a tire buster. Yup, changing tires. I enjoyed the physical work, but the constant and daily "go back to the kitchen where girls belong" coupled with the open hostility from the other Sears employees made that short lived. Today I could sue their butts off, but in the 80's there was no such thing as "sexual harrassment."

My first job was working in a pizza sub shop in Fredericksburg VA for a crazy guy names Les - He was maniacal always screaming and yelling cuz my girlfriend and i would just talk away and always burn the pizzas. on sundays he would lock himself in the backroom cooking his family dinner and come out with some strange hungarian recipes. once he gave my brother a large container of pepper soup and my brother ate it on the way home and almost wrecked his car. One day Les came in with a big paper shopping bag huddled to his chest - he called us girls over and pulled out a huge handgun and put it under the counter - he said we were to shoot anyone who tried to rob the store. i quit shortly thereafter.

my first job was when I was just 1 week out of high school and it was cleaning the toilets of the gold mine that I am now the open pit maintenance coordinator at. I did that pleasureable job for two years.

my first payroll job was at Opryland theme park. luckily for me i worked in the sit down cafateria for the old folks. it was air-conditioned and at a theme park thats a good thing! i had the DORKY uniform U-G-L-Y! thank god it was only 1 summer!

I was 12 years old, cleaned a beauty parlor for $5.00 a week (on saturdays)

My first job was at a local Sonic, yep a carhop...Right after the days of having to wear skates to deliver the food, thank goodness or no one would have gotten anything that wasnt splashed or splattered...I was 16 and in a work program at school (anything to get out of school a couple hours early)...Not to mention that the tips were great...Worked there for about 2 1/2 years...After all its no work=no money work=freedom...lol