Ugh... other then doing other peoples paper routes for a quick buck I worked at a quicky mart kind of place.

stocking shelves, emptying trash, counting bottle returns and best of all...

Refilling propane tanks out of this huge tanker in the back of the place.. super dangerous for a dopey kid (and probably illegal).

Warehouse worker for Volvo Cars, back in 2001, before that i was in the army in 1999.

When I was 13-15 yrs. old I worked during summers at my grandparents metal workshop, but my first real daily job was an after school work as a pinball technician at a local arcade, at the ripe age of 17. The place had about 30 machines - maybe 20 EM's and the rest were Gtb System1/80, Bally -35 and Williams System 6. Lots of great memories from that time! Unboxing Spiderman, Blackout, Alien Poker, Viking, Skateball and many others.

Chicken slinger at KFC

It was a fun job and I ate a ton of fried chicken.

Caddy...12 years old...one bag...$7.50 for 18 holes. Club had a no tipping policy. The following summer I was at a different club toting doubles for $12 a bag plus tip. It was sweet having 30 or 40 bucks in your pocket before noon. Would then grab lunch at Spiro's and play Gorgar til my hands hurt.

Usher at the UA Movie Theatre; best job in the mall.

2 friends of mine worked there, very important job to have in high school. Nothing like a mid shift bucket exchange by the dumpster!

Related to our hobby, the next jobs were fixing Pachinko machines at Fortunoffs, and later
working in restoration, sales, and then managed a store for Pachinko Palace out of Georgia....
this was from 1972-1975.....
Anyone know anything about Pachinko Palace?

After that, it was a character in the Disney Bicentennial parade.....
Seems like yesterday.....

Not a first job, but it’s the shortest time I held a job. I work for 3 days at Taco Bell in the 90s and quit. I couldn’t eat Taco Bell for about 10 years or so after working there for 3 days. The way they cooked the meat back then was repulsive, it was in a plastic bag we’d have to toss the whole bag and it’s contents into hot water for some amount of time. Then take a pair of scissors, open it up and dump it into a metal container for the food line.

Anybody else had a short term job?

I had just turned 15 when I started working at the local Burger King as a cashier. This was back in 1994 and I started at $4.50 an hour. Worked there all through High School and was a manager during my senior year. I usually got stuck working night shift on Friday and Saturday nights. There were many nights that I was the only employee that spoke English. Overall, a lot of work but good fun too. It really improved my skills in dealing with people. I've never had someone more angry than when their whopper was screwed up.

Movie Bros 4 Life!

My first job was also an usher...at General Cinema in the mall. I was only 14...perfect job for a movie nut! All the free movies & posters I wanted!

I worked the hell out of that mall...I quit the movie theater to work at Gamer’s Paradise...and then Funcoland after that. Traded free movies for video game discounts...although my friends at the theater still let me in for free sometimes.

Worked in a Mom and Pop and family Italian restaurant/bar in my teens. Loved it! I seen it all and learned alot. Still love the food and all the gestures and craziness with that family...nothing was held back...and all the extended family that would show up..kinda like "everybody loves Raymond" on steroids.

I should have been born Italian. I still live like I was, because of that time...I guess I was impressionable. and I can cook!

While we are talking about movies.....

My first real job was working at a Drive In theater in the concession stand. Within a month I got promoted to projectionist. This drive in had the old Simplex carbon arc projectors where you had to keep an eye on the rods and adjust them, and then change them every few reels. No platter system and halyde lamps here!

I'd get my friends in, and we would sit right outside the projection booth so I could still hear the "change projectors" bell. My boss was a great guy, and really didn't care what I did, as long as i kept the movie rolling. Afterward, we would stay on the grounds, and crank up the in house stereo. Three hundred speaker surround sound! Most fun job I ever had.

Mine was paperboy also The Indianapolis Star get up at 5:00 am get them delivered and still had to go to school. My route was in an area that didn't want to pay and I barely had enough to pay the bill. I did my 6 months and then was out for a better job.

Worked in a kitchen called “The Captains Den” at Sea World in 1978 earning $2.65 an hour. We would stand and cook the burgers and fries during the show breaks and be on our hands and knees scrubbing between them. “If you got time to lean, you got time to clean”.

Sometimes, when you opened a frozen box of burger patties. The top patty would be green on top and the others would be green around the edge. Instructed by the supervisor to throw the top patty out and cook the others.

Another time, the burgers were coming out not fully cooked. Supervisor told me to shut up, they continue to cook in the box.

When I was fourteen, I de-tasseled corn for a seed company. At the end of that summer, I started washing dishes at the local cafe. Other early jobs were picking tomatoes, moving yards, and lifeguard.

i was a taste tester for Jim Beam after 16....

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Basically mowed grass every summer up until my sophomore year in high school. Then in 1981 I got my first job painting oil tanks and piping for a local oil pumping company. I actually had a lot of fun doing that one summer.

Ice cream shop. Management gave us permission to eat all we wanted, thinking we'd get tired of ice cream. Stoned teens getting tired of ice cream?

Was on my way to the bowing ally to play pinball, saw the help wanted sign. Wanted a job so I could afford to get a pachinko machine, which had just gotten very popular. Mid 1970s.

Same job I have today at 50 years old, sort of. My dad started his own auto body shop when I was 2 years old. I have been working there ever since. Dad tells me mom had something to do one day and he had me at work with so he gave me a screwdriver and said take that part off, I guess i did. Really started working after school in 6th grade,work release program half days in high school and full time ever since.
I finally own the shop now after getting dad to retire a few years ago, but work alone doing the same shit I have all my life only a lot more of the boring stuff now.

My first real job was busting out of the place I was in, anything to be alive and free.

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Paper boy in the afternoon after school. Next job was working the grill at Del Taco, back when the food was way better than it is today. Way better as in it tasted way better but it was made with bad stuff like lard, msg and other things that were very unhealthy.

Another paperboy here. 137 customers, walked 6 miles/day. The worst part was having to collect the monthly fee. It was interesting how people couldn’t come up with $5.95. Grown men doing yard work would run inside when they saw me coming with my black book...lol. Nevertheless, I paid for my own braces.

A cook at Elby's Big Boy Erie PA. 1970

At around 3 years old Dad paid me around 2.00 a hour to move and stack firewood that he heated the house with.

Not sure why he even did that, he was self employed, and I guess instead of training me like a family chore he taught me way early to think outside the box.

Up until I was 22 I always worked for Dad, operating the same construction equipment that is on that TV show Gold Rush.

I was operating machines that cost 200k years before I was legal to even drive a car.

Except for working for Dad, or being self employed like I have been all of my life, I only had 2 other places I worked, and both was in school so I could actually get out of school early to work for Dad or myself.

School work program would not let me out early to do work they thought was dangerous, (that I have already done for years), so part time for a while just to get out of school early I worked at a warehouse that shipped toys all over the world, name of it was Browning South or something.

I complained that they had me cutting their grass, and I was released by the school.

So next thing high school sets me up at Dunaway Drugs. Well, they told me to go scrub the toilet and I walked out.

Luckily the school agreed with me that all this bullshit was a waste of my time, and we agreed to fake the paperwork to make it look like my Dad owned a grocery store and that was where I was working.

So anyway, I was supposed to be working at a grocery store while I was in high school, but instead I was operating excavators for the most part.

And off topic but I hated English classes, but I did very well. I was offered scholarships to colleges with these papers I have wrote and whatever.

I said HELL NO!

And it is just so funny that I hate to write or type a damn thing, but I get on here, and I write a book.

(and yeah, I was always looking for ways to make a buck, I did AWESOME all through my school years as the candy man).

(10th grade was the best, minimum wage was 3.65 a hour, and I was making 80.00 a day profit selling candy while in school). (and then after school go climb on a machine and make 10.00 a hour).

I semi retired at 40.

If only I would have chilled out and not had to go to beach bars 20 times a year and have too much to drink and get labeled a VIP I could be fully retired now.

And my only regret is that I wish I had of just went to the beach a tad less, because it was so often I do not even remember 25% of the trips, they just all ran together like I was there full time.

Anyway, all my jobs are real, but as far as this topic the way I think it means, just 2, while I was in school and forced to work some stupid bs briefly. (sorry, had a couple of nattys).

Anyway I have no clue if working for Dad at age 3 was my first real job, or working for that warehouse at 16 as a excuse to get out of school early to mess with that crap before either going back to work on machine for Dad, or other things I also had going on was the first.

Sorry. I wish (not really), I could say something like: Oh, my first job was with Delta and after 50 years I am retired now.

I am self employed, and I will never retire, because I like what I do, 90% of the time I can sleep as long as I want to, and stay up here hopefully entertaining you guys while I have a Natty. Or 2.

I was a fluffer in college.

Worked for my Dad in the family business (large dry cleaning/laundry plant) from
6 - 15 yo part time but don't consider that to be my first real job. This is where I learned how
to pull wrenches and maintain industrial type equipment. Salary, 25 cents/day
plus lunch. And I made the best of the lunch part!

First real job was as a stock boy at the local Winn Dixie grocery store in 1970 (15 yo).
Not an easy job that paid at most $1.25/hr. The worst was unloading semi
trucks by hand AND pricing items as they came off the truck at 4 AM. This
place was next to a beach in west central Florida and young ladies in tiny
bathing suits often came in during tourist season. Great fun! Earned enough
to buy my first car. It was also next to an arcade.
Steve

At 13 worked at the nursery across the street for a couple bucks an hour during the summer doing whatever. First "real" job was Burger King at 16, 10th grade, 1980, $3.35 an hour.

Like most here, first job was a paper route for a newspaper that only came out on Mondays. Got paid $3 to deliver after school. I must have been around 10-12. Later mowed lawns up to and through high school. The best job I had though was working for the local pharmacy, stocking shelves, delivering drugs to the local nursing homes (yes, they trusted a 16 year old with that) and whatever else needed to be done. I remember white knuckle driving 2 hours each way during a huge ice storm for them to get kerosene heaters to sell as the power was out for a long time in town. That was a great job, I passed it on down to my brother and he kept it for several years.

I wonder how many here own a Paperboy arcade game?

I had a morning paper route. That didn't last long.

My first real job was at 14 working over the summer as a carpenter's helper/laborer, framing houses. There was a lot of carrying lumber (you'd get yelled at if you carried fewer than 6 studs or two sheets of 1/2" ply.) There was also a lot of nailing off plywood, building jacks, tees, and headers. After the first day, I could barely work the fingers on my hammer hand (horrible blisters, too, and the sunburn!)

It was tough work, but it paid better than the fast food jobs a lot of my friends had. I started at $4.50 an hour when the minimum was $3.35. I was making $5.25 by the end of the summer.

at the age of 15, I was picking Tomatoes in the green house at 6 am and every weekend

6 guilders an hr, very good pay indeed !!

Washing dishes in a Bennigans style restaurant for 3.50 an hour. That sucked.

At12 started delivering a weekly paper. At 13 I got my first washington post route By 16 I added a few more routes from money saved to buy a car so I could do more volume per hour. Think it peaked at 4 or500 per day. At 17 was making 10k a year from the paper routes. My old man made me file a fn tax return.
What an ass hole. Lol I had bills preprinted on a mail in envelope so I didnt have to knock on doors to collect. Then i got smart and billed them 3 months in advance. Made some money in a savings account from the increased cash flow. After college I couldn’t stand working as an inside sales engineer... started my own business 2years out of college and still at it. 38 years later I started buying pins. There ya have it!

Even though the first work I did and was paid for was helping my dad clean and setup a church on Saturday mornings, my first real job was working on a grounds crew at a golf course. I worked at that course every summer while home from college and even returned to help out after moving back to the Twin Cities. Ironically, it was a golf course my uncle actually built and eventually sold to the city. My most notable job, well outside of my career as an airline pilot, was the 6 months I drove Zamboni and worked in a hockey arena when there were no flying jobs in the 90s.

My uncle pretty much said you have to get a job when I was 14, so that's what I did. Started working at McDonalds. Yeah it sucked ass, but it helped me a lot with my social skills which were probably below average at the time, as well as handling stress. Worked there for a year before becoming a bag boy at a grocery store. I've been employed one place or another continously ever since.

Dad and myself opened up a whore house. the beginning was tough, The gals are expensive so the first year we had to run by hand.

I worked at a grocery store the summer of 1982. Winn Dixie. I made 3.35 an hour. Had a cool manager that hired me, and of course he moved to another store and they brought in an old hard ass manager. Lunch breaks went from an hour to 30 mins. I mopped the whole store by myself on more than one occasion. Had to wear a tie, so I had a clip on with dogs and fire hydrants on it. The store had ashtrays on the end of every isle. Once worked from 12 noon til 3 in the morning. Needless to say, I left that place when school started back in the fall. Learned about hard work and what I didn't want to do for a living. Put in 40 hrs and maybe took home 100 bucks. Hey, we all had to start somewhere.............

Worked at a bakery for like $3.75-$4 per hour. I tell you what, I don’t think a ate a doughnut for 15 years after smelling them day in day out!

Merchants Tire and Auto. $7 an hour. This was like 1999-2000. Changed tires, did oil changes, batteries, etc. had a lot of fun and got hooked up with work on my truck with the mechanics. Wouldn’t want to do it for a living but can’t say I hated going to work either.

UA Movie theatre usher 1991.

Best dress code in the mall!

Chuck E Cheese in 1991. My dad was a technical manager for a bunch of Show Biz stores and got me a job working the game floor, unjam coins and tickets. Unlimited tokens was a bonus. Double bonus is that the GM at that store was a bit of a perv and only hired the smoking hot girls to work the dining area.

1974 at a swim club in Upper Merion PA my neighbor owned. $1.50 an hour to put umbrellas, skim dead squirrels out of the pools and clean the snack bar. It had 6 pinball machines and I could play free on break. That got me into pinball.

Worked for my dad as an electricians apprentice the whole summer when I was 12 to pay off my shiny new Yamaha Trimoto 175.

My first real job was delivering Delaware State newspapers in Camden/Dover Delaware in 1969. The next job a year later was a bus boy at a Steak House in Hyattsville, Maryland. Now I work part time for a couple months at the Maryland Rennaisance Faire selling custom Dichroic Vortex glass marbles.

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I collect marbles. The showpiece in the middle is wonderful. Raven's work?

Theater projectionist. I recognized Vid's avatar in seconds because I saw Phantasm 437 times.

Popeye's fried chicken.............................& I still like to get take out from them....even after working in that kitchen

Dishwasher as well!

Must admit that I am sometime nostalgic and miss those years, beside the fact that I was younger and had my whole life ahead of me, I miss the quietness and the zenitude of not having to worry about the job and other shit/drama when the shift was over and I was heading home at night!

Cheers,

Chris

Yes Raven's work. I work at his booth from August to October. I am lucky to own several beautiful pieces. I get to see them made every weekend of Faire and then decide which one I like the best. Raven changes style often and very creative. Here is an action shot that is on the Maryland Renn Fest website.

https://rennfest.com/artisans/

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