My First Job...

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I putzed around a bit mowing lawns, and had a paper route where I did not make any money for some reason. I also had a job busing tables at a restaurant for about a month, but didn't do to good at that either. Same with a Dairy Queen. I tried to slice my finger off about day 4 there. The first one where I actually stayed and made enough money to buy a car was at a truck stop on I-20 just a bit east of Dallas. I worked there for a couple of years, got a hernia from lifting the big truck tires, then figured that wasn't the life for me. I joined the AF after that. But that's for a different thread.
 
Oldgator73 said:
For some the military is their first job and it sure shows.
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I actually consider the AF my first true job. At the truck stop, I was getting a regular paycheck, but I found out later that the owner was not reporting stuff to the IRS, so when I went for unemployment, they had no record of me. And even now, my pay records on Social Security show that I started paying into SS in 1980, when I joined the Air Force. But I made good with it, made a career out of it, and am enjoying the benefits because of it now. Being able to retire early (at 62) was quite a blessing. I am thoroughly enjoying not having to join that 8 am Zoom call every morning. Not missing it a bit!
 
Throwing the Tulsa Tribune afternoons and the Tulsa World on Sunday mornings. I lasted about 3 months because my brother and I spent all of my earnings at the nearby waterslide instead of paying the bill for the papers like we were supposed to. Mom had to pay it and put an end to our business endeavors.
 
I grew up on a cattle ranch so there is that, but my first real job was the summer after I graduated high school working for the family food distribution business, we primarily sold institutional food (schools, jails, nursing homes) and some restaurants within about a 100 mile radius. I worked on the loading crew, and delivery assistant riding the the driver on longer routes / heavier loads. I would drive 30 miles to the warehouse, and we would start loading trucks at between midnight and 2 am depending on the day of the week, going in and out of freezers that were at -5F and around a warehouse that was 85-90F that time of night, sometimes spending up to half an hour at a time in the freezer. Then at around 3-5 am I would leave on delivery truck for an 10-12 hour delivery route, then repeat things the next day 4 days per week Tuesday-Friday, being home for only about 6-8 hours between shifts. My least favorite deliveries were to the schools, as many of them were in older buildings without easy truck access to the cafeterias so we had fairly long walks, often up and down steps with dollies loaded down with boxes of food. My favorite were the jails, as we did not have to do any real work, we would pull through the gate into the yard and we just had to get the boxes to the rear of the truck and the guards would have the prisoners doing the unloading work.
 
After throwing newspapers for a couple of years, in my senior year of high school, after getting my license I had 2 jobs. One, on the weekends was working at a Rural Supply store (called a Co-Op today). After school during the week, I delivered prescriptions for a small pharmacy and cleaned and stocked shelves in between.
The summer after graduation I worked for a Chicken Delight as a driver and then McDonalds for a while, until I went into the Air Force.
 
edjunior said:
And even now, my pay records on Social Security show that I started paying into SS in 1980, when I joined the Air Force.
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There is a minimum wage below which the employer doesn't withhold from pay. I don't know what that amount is today or in 1980, but back in 1960 when I joined the Navy and before that number was $600 and I never made that much from any 1 employer and most years less for the entire year. I suspect that the farmers that I worked for did claim my wages as an expense on their tax returns, but really have no way of knowing for sure.
 
My first job was babysitting. Pretty simple huh? However one night someone came to the door brandishing a gun. I was probably 14 at the time. I don't know where I got the wisdom to shut the door and call my parents who called the police. Another time I was babysitting six kids and the neighbor came in the back door screaming in pain with her three kids in tow. She has three degree burns from spilling a pan of grease on her arms. Somehow I had enough sense to call 911 and managed to follow their advice while taking care of nine kids. I was probably 15 years old at that time.

Next job was picking raspberries.

The following job was working the early, early, shift at a bakery. Everyday I went to high school smelling like deep fried donuts.
 
MN Blue Skies said:
The following job was working the early, early, shift at a bakery. Everyday I went to high school smelling like deep fried donuts.
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And the chubby boys cried, "Max is in da house and she is smellin' fine!"

I've always felt that babysitting is like piloting a jet. Hours of boredom followed by moments of sheer terror!

My brother and his GF and wife of almost 50 years backpacked across Europe in the 70's picking all manner of things from olives in Greece and Italy to apples in England.
 
edjunior said:
I actually consider the AF my first true job. At the truck stop, I was getting a regular paycheck, but I found out later that the owner was not reporting stuff to the IRS, so when I went for unemployment, they had no record of me. And even now, my pay records on Social Security show that I started paying into SS in 1980, when I joined the Air Force. But I made good with it, made a career out of it, and am enjoying the benefits because of it now. Being able to retire early (at 62) was quite a blessing. I am thoroughly enjoying not having to join that 8 am Zoom call every morning. Not missing it a bit!
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One of granddaughters just joined the Air Force. She has two years of college under her belt so she joined the AF at a higher rank and she might have received a $20,000 signing bonus but I'm not sure of the details. She is stationed in Hawaii. Of course she will be eligible for lots of benefits.
 
MN Blue Skies said:
One of granddaughters just joined the Air Force. She has two years of college under her belt so she joined the AF at a higher rank and she might have received a $20,000 signing bonus but I'm not sure of the details. She is stationed in Hawaii. Of course she will be eligible for lots of benefits.
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Great for your granddaughter. There are indeed some great benefits in the military. I hope she takes advantage of all they offer. The retirement, if she stays in that long, is a bit different then when I retired, but it is still great to have that. It allowed me to permanently retire early. Oh, and I spent 4 years in Hawaii. I loved it there. You will have to go see her while she is there. It would be a great trip.
 
I like many others delivered papers but first summer job in 1971 was at Open Road RVs in Redondo Beach, CA. I worked in the cabinets and walls department. Next summer I worked in a machine shop manufacturing high pressure fittings for hydraulic hoses. The last summer job in high school was at Robinhood RVs in Torrance, CA. I worked at making walls, these were steel frames so I learned to wire weld.
After that, I went to college where I was a campus gardener under work/study financial aid, All math tutor and part time nursery school TA.
 
edjunior said:
Great for your granddaughter. There are indeed some great benefits in the military. I hope she takes advantage of all they offer. The retirement, if she stays in that long, is a bit different then when I retired, but it is still great to have that. It allowed me to permanently retire early. Oh, and I spent 4 years in Hawaii. I loved it there. You will have to go see her while she is there. It would be a great trip.
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Hoping we are fortunate to visit her in Hawaii!
 
I'm a farm kid, so I started young. My first job was to take outhouses out to the strawberries fields using the tractor, dig the pit, and install the outhouses. This was back when kids picked the berries - our farm had 2 old school buses to round up the child labor.

I was supposed to dig the trenches about 2 feet deep. I was only 11 years old, and the hard dirt roads around the berry fields was hard to dig through. I wasn't able to get the pits very deep. It wasn't discovered until the season was over and it was time to fill the pit back up.

$1.50 an hour. I was rich.
 
In 1954 I was 13 and working in a roadside "diner" of the day as a kitchen helper,, moved "up" to a busboy in a 5 dining room cafeteria in Kalamazoo, Mi... One dining room had an organ player each day,, I knew when my mother walked in the front door as the organ would immediately start playing "Danny Boy"..>>>Dan
 
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