What was your first paying job, other than babysitting?

Do you have any anecdotes about it?

I worked in a clothing store in the plaza near my house. The owner was an alcoholic and would go to the buyer's shows, get legless and order the most awful stuff that always ended up on clearance.
He and his wife would have frightful rows both in the store and over the phone. Then he would get drunk and pass out on the couch in the back room. He tried to tell us that he was epileptic, but he reeked of booze.
He was a terrible salesman, one who would tell a woman she looked wonderful in anything just to make the sale. Of course she never came back when she took it home and everyone told her the truth!
After a few months of being yelled at by him and his wife for things I never did (whoever was on shift was blamed, no matter when it happened) I gave notice that I was quitting. He begged me to stay (because my sales were so good) and I said I would stay only until he found a replacement. Of course he didn't look too hard.
One day I went in and the manager gave me a chore, then his wife gave me a chore and then he gave me a chore - all of which needed to be done right away. I asked him to please prioritize the tasks for me and he got really snarly and told me to watch my attitude or there'd be one less body picking up a paycheque. I actually got to look him in the eye and say those hysterical words "You can't fire me because I already quit."
The place went bankrupt a couple of months after I left.

lol my story has some pretty similar points as Skunkees. My first boss didn't mind a drink either and would have the most amazing fights with his wife (long after I left he went to gaol for this). But to me he was a great boss - very laid back and happy go lucky and in hindsight I guess he really didn't give a hoot about the business so long as he was having a good time. When I left, despite being on casual wages, he paid me the full benefits of being permanent.

It was a newsagency and a customer came in one day and spent quite a while in the 'adult' section and nearly an hour later came up to purchase a fair few magazines of all kinds. The boss was in the room behind the counter and kept saying all these things from in there pertaining to the cutomers sexuality and I couldn't help but laugh. Needless to say the man wasn't very happy and grunted as much as he took his mags and left. We laughed afterwards that we didn't think we'd be seeing him again.

The very next weekend I was working in my family's business that also had an adult book section. It was a very quiet Sunday afternoon and I was there by myself - I was at the back of the shop and saw someone go to the porn but wasn't until he came up to the counter that I saw it was the same man as the newsagents the previous week. He saw me, shot daggers at me, dumped the magazines on the counter, said "I don't believe this" and walked out. He must have thought he was being set up or something.

I laughed out loud there Copago, the poor bloke.

For my first job I worked in the showroom of an electrical wholesaler/ manufacturer as junior receptionist. The showroom looked like a shop with all manner of lighting on display, plus things like electric heaters, but it wasn't a shop for the public. It was so the customers of electrical contractors could look at fittings and place orders with their contractor. Also some contractors and electrical shop owners would come to look at stock on display. Normally the manageress attended to most people and I just helped out when she was occupied, otherwise I typed a little (I was learning so it was practice) or made tea, put the Hoover around and dusted. In fact most of the day I just read catalogues, I felt very guilty at not working hard.

If members of the public strayed into the showroom, rather than tell them that we were not retailers we used to 'serve' them, we then used to give the difference between the wholesale and retail price in the form of a credit note to our true customers, the electrical contractors - heaven only knows what mess it made of their accounts to receive credit notes out of the blue, but what the heck!

One day a very smart looking woman came into the showroom with a young boy of about seven or eight, a very intelligent little boy. She was a very charming woman. The woman said that she was looking for a light fitting for the nursery or playroom, I can't remember which as it was more than forty years ago. The little lad said he didn't want something that would diffuse the light! Yes, that is what he said, I said he was very intelligent. Anyway, I gently moved them from the 'expensive' section to the section with more moderately priced items and they selected one of those. Then they came to pay for the item and the woman got out a chequebook, most people would pay cash back then. I smiled sweetly and politely asked her to put her name and address on the back of the cheque, which she did. She then left the showroom and I looked at the cheque for the first time. It wasn't a cheque from one the high street banks, it was Bank de Rothchild, even I had heard of the name Rochchild but at that time I didn't realise they owned a bank, but I digress. The signature on the cheque was Elizabeth de Rothchild, the address was the stately home owned by the Rothchild family! Yep, I steered A Rothchild to the less expensive section! The look on my boss's face when I told him who I had served, priceless. He was somewhat surprised at the modest light fitting she had chosen, he thought she might have gone for something more expensive!

I laughed out loud there Copago, the poor bloke.

For my first job I worked in the showroom of an electrical wholesaler/ manufacturer as junior receptionist. The showroom looked like a shop with all manner of lighting on display, plus things like electric heaters, but it wasn't a shop for the public. It was so the customers of electrical contractors could look at fittings and place orders with their contractor. Also some contractors and electrical shop owners would come to look at stock on display. Normally the manageress attended to most people and I just helped out when she was occupied, otherwise I typed a little (I was learning so it was practice) or made tea, put the Hoover around and dusted. In fact most of the day I just read catalogues, I felt very guilty at not working hard.

If members of the public strayed into the showroom, rather than tell them that we were not retailers we used to 'serve' them, we then used to give the difference between the wholesale and retail price in the form of a credit note to our true customers, the electrical contractors - heaven only knows what mess it made of their accounts to receive credit notes out of the blue, but what the heck!

One day a very smart looking woman came into the showroom with a young boy of about seven or eight, a very intelligent little boy. She was a very charming woman. The woman said that she was looking for a light fitting for the nursery or playroom, I can't remember which as it was more than forty years ago. The little lad said he didn't want something that would diffuse the light! Yes, that is what he said, I said he was very intelligent. Anyway, I gently moved them from the 'expensive' section to the section with more moderately priced items and they selected one of those. Then they came to pay for the item and the woman got out a chequebook, most people would pay cash back then. I smiled sweetly and politely asked her to put her name and address on the back of the cheque, which she did. She then left the showroom and I looked at the cheque for the first time. It wasn't a cheque from one the high street banks, it was Bank de Rothchild, even I had heard of the name Rothchild but at that time I didn't realise they owned a bank, but I digress. The signature on the cheque was Elizabeth Rothchild, the address was the stately home owned by the Rothchild family! Yep, I steered a Rothchild to the less expensive section! The look on my boss's face when I told him who I had served, priceless. He was somewhat surprised at the modest light fitting she had chosen, he thought she might have gone for something more expensive!

Looking at their family tree, I would guess that the boy must have been Lionel Rothchild, he was born in 1955 so that would be about right.

I'm still at my first job. I work at Subway. It's lovely.

My first job was a paper round, I had to deliver 267 papers on a Wednesday evening, not the most fun as you can imagine, and as a result I now get some lovely back pains whenever I have to carry something heavy, or wear a backpack for any length of time. The things we did for a bit of pocket money!

My first job was working in a comic store called The Hobbit Hole, it was great, if the store hadn't closed down I reckon I'd still be there.

There is a pub in Manila called The Hobbit House. They only employ little people. I think that's a fantastic thing.

My first job was for my dad. Maybe it doesn't count then.. but it was a real job, that's for sure. I was 15, and my dad had just started up an aviation business. He was the pilot, and since I had just started my summer vacation about three weeks after he started the place up, he hired me as receptionist. He did all the flying or fueling, or anything else that involved touching the airplane, I did everything else. I developed an inventory program for pilot supplies, I KEPT inventory, I did ordering, sales, answered phones, did scheduling, made coffee, cleaned the place, transcribed a bunch of manuals to text files, and even designed the company logo. I also couldn't drive yet, and this was a budding new business, so my dad worked VERY long hours, and hence, I usually did too, unless I could talk a friend into coming out to get me. My typical hours were from about 6:00am to 10:00pm. Even after I had to go back to school a few months later, I worked there for three more years as weekend receptionist.

My first job was as a waitress. I had just turned 16 and needed a job to buy a car to go see my boyfriend. I should have known that things weren't going to be very good there because the day I walked in for the application, I was hired on the spot and started that night--I had the graveyard shift from 10pm to 6am. When I got there, the girl that was supposed to train me had quit and the cook didn't care what went on, so I had to do the best I could with no training or knowledge about the restaurant. When the waitress that came on in the morning got there, I had none of the sidework done because no one had told me what I was responsible for. I ended up staying til after 7 that morning.

Of course, that wasn't the only bad thing about that job, but I will say I was the highest paid waitress that hadn't been there since it opened since I was the only one who knew how to do everything, but I quit after school started back a month and a half after I started.

Tiffany

Phooey, I have yet to have a first job. Makes me sound a bit jouvenile doesn't it? Everyone says to me, "oh don't worry, it's always hard to get a first job". And I'm thinking about making that my new motto. I applied for three jobs yesterday: two retail stores and one movie rental place. Hopefully I'll get a call from one of them soon. And I'll be back here posting my first job!

But if all else fails, McDonald's here I come!

Picking mushrooms. I don't know if you are all aware, but they grow mushrooms commercially in these dark, humid sheds, that have stacks of mushroom beds about five high. The sheds I worked in had five rows per shed, all about a metre apart. To pick the mushrooms you had to reach across the beds, which were about 1.5 metres wide. The lowest bed was about 60 cms off the ground, the next about 60 cms above that and so on. As the stacks got higher we had to climb them, without the aid of ladders, and pick the mushrooms while standing on the ledge or straddling the two stacks. Between Christmas and New Year one year, I was the only person they could get to work (I was about fourteen at the time). On January third when all the adults came back to work there was much comment about the amount of mushrooms growing down the centre of the higher beds. It took everyone a while to work out that a girl who measures 1.45 metres has no hope in...well anything, to reach the middle of the mushroom beds. Apparently the cost in mushrooms that couldn't be sold because of my short reach was more then they had paid me for the weeks work. Serves them right for exploiting youth I say.

Back in high school, picking strawberries in the hot summer sun. Ate more than I picked until one day I put a dandy long leg spider in my mouth - bleh. Did that for one summer then started doing landscape work for the city to help put myself through school. Otherwise I'd still be paying off student loans, duh!

In high school, crunching data for an observatory in my city. I got a paper out of it and learned a lot, but it was pretty boring once I got the hang of it ... the kind of job scientists love hiring high school students for!

hi all
my first unpaid job was as an assistant for brown schoenheit, former first flautist for the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra--i helped with his program on classical music presented in the Los Angeles Public Library.
My 2nd job was to become a quartermaster in the USN, aboard the USS Bennington CVA-20 during the Korean War (got to pick my ship after graduating from qm school).
My 3rd job was as Graduate Assistant for Prof. Carl Rich (Educ. Dept.) at San Jose State in San Jose, CA. After i was ABD, hired as an Assist. Prof. there.

I worked in a laundry, where we washed the dirty sheets from other people...

I worked at my local library. Lousy pay but it made for a great first job.

We've had a thread on this topic before, so I've copied and pasted what I wrote last time.

My first job was as a sales assistant in a clothing store while I was still at high school. I only worked Saturday mornings because in those days there was no such thing as night-time or weekend trading. Shops were usually only open 9-5 weekdays and 9-12 on Saturdays, so most casual jobs were for Saturday morning.

I got fired from that job because of "staff cutbacks". I found out later that one of the old bats who worked there kept complaining to the boss about me and that was why they let me go. It was years later when I got some life experience that I suddenly realised why. I had accidentally witnessed her stealing from the shop but in my innocence I hadn't realized the significance of what I had seen. I was still at that stage when all adults were authority figures and I didn't question anything they said or did. It would never have occurred to me that anybody would steal from their employer. I was a threat to her so she made sure to get rid of me.

Still, I subsequently got a better job so perhaps she did me a favour!

Looking back on it now, I can't believe how naive I was. Now the injustice of it rankles a little.

My first job huh? Ancient history here, but I recall it VERY well . . . I typed cheques in a typing pool for an inner Sydney city Insurance company (who, may I add, still exist), this was pre-PC's! We used typewriters (shock , horror , gasp !) with carbon paper and NO errors were allowed (no liquid paper in those days either!)
My Boss was a girl who attended the same school as I, but who was a few years older and she knew, as I did, that I would only stay for 12 months (as I was sooooooooooo bored). As soon as I had enough holidays saved up I handed in my notice and it was on to bigger and better things!

My very first job was as an intern at a commercial art studio, down in Austin,Texas. I answered the phone, cleaned the camera developer trays, took lunch orders and delivered negs to other departments at the huge printing company where we were located. Natch, this was back before the days of cell phones and computers and faxes - so many things like negs and rough sketches had to be hand carried from floor to floor. I took home over one hundred dollars a week and thought I'd gone to heaven.

At 15 I joined the workforce as a "cook" (loose term there) at a local hamburger joint called, creatively, 'Burgerland'. I learned very little there, getting greasy and yelled at occasionally aside [both things were unavoidable], but I did gain one bit of knowledge. Notably that, whether you're being paid or not, there are certain things you just don't have to put up with. The case in point was the assistant night manager who was just a few years older than me. As the grill cook the people taking orders would write them down (this was pre-computer days, of course) and bring them back and hang them on a 'line' in front of me. Said assistant manager would reach up to hang his orders and, in the midst of an environment that smelled pretty unsavory to begin with, would air out the foulest smelling arm pit odor I had ever whiffed before or since. It was truly toxic, I'm sure of it. The girls on staff were in a constant uproar about "Mr. Stinky" and I was really fed up with it, too, so I finally just told him: "Mike! Man, you smell like a pretty godawful sweat sock. Need to borrow some deodorant?" The result was that he smelled better thereafter, I didn't get fired, problem solved. Ergo, I learned that sometimes it really is OK to be honest on the job (as long as it isn't just borne of attitude or peevishness). I don't think I ever had to tell someone they had BO after that, though . But, darn it, I knew I could if I had to.

Oh Gats you have definitely hit upon one of my biggest pet peeves. I have had several jobs over the years where dealing with other people's unwanted odors figured prominently.
If you ever want to get a really good whiff of BO, try teaching 13 and 14 year olds the class right after Phys Ed, when their gym clothes haven't been home to be washed in months! That may not have been my first job, but it's one I try hard to forget the details of!
Seriously, it's frightening what some kids come to school smelling like - quite a few distinctly smell like cat pee. One child I taught needed some definite instruction in the fine art of cleaning himself after his 'sit down'. It didn't seem to matter how many times he or his parents were spoken to, over the three years that I had to deal with this kid in some capacity or another, you could count on his smelling like that at some point every day. Believe me, there were some who you really didn't want to go help when they put up their hands during a test.
Another one that amazes me is how many people never wash their coats. Working retail in the winter often subjects you to people who wear their coats while shopping and sweat in them in the over-heated malls. After a few months of this, they get pretty ripe and do need to be cleaned.
It always amazes me how people can't smell themselves...and don't get me started about people who bathe in perfume or cologne. My throat constricts and I feel like I'm choking when I'm anywhere near them. I actually had one colleague rushed to hospital because of such a customer, as she was allergic and stopped breathing.

I was a carryout in a grocery-that was 20 years ago and I'm still in retail. Think I need my head examined.

My first job. I can still recall applying for the sales position at Gowings in Sydney. It was an old fashioned type menswear shop in the centre of of the city, still owned and run by the same family that had owned it for 100 years or so. The elderly gentleman that interviewed me had worked in the shop for many years and while I can`t quite recall his name I can still see his face. At the interview I answered somewhat awkwardly as I was 16 and this was my first job interview. The old guy didn`t waste any time and at the end of the interview he told me I was hired and would start on the coming Monday. I remember how excited I felt and on the train ride home I was telling all that would listen that I was now a member of the work force.

To get to work I took a twenty minute busride to the nearest railway station then a twenty minute train ride to "Townhall", one of the main Sydney city stations, from there it was only a short walk to work. Wearing an old black duffel coat I strolled along with the pedestrian traffic flow smoking and watching others hurry to get inside out of the cold winter air.

Arriving at work a few minutes early I was met by my new boss,Thomas Newby, a slight man with a thin moustache and a decidedly gay ( I mention that simply to give you an idea of what it was like for me at that age, trying to be a typical “ocker”) air about him. He advised me that I would be working in mens underwear! The area I was working in was next to a large open doorway and didn`t the wind howl through it. The Gowings display windows were well known for their “fullness” in fact there`s an old Australian saying that goes something like “as tidy as a Gowings shop window”, meaning of course something not tidy.

My first weeks pay was mostly all spent on a new Casio digital watch, they were just starting to be sold in Australia and it was admired by the other sales people, I still have that watch. Fairly soon after I started working there I was kicked out of home, I slept here and there for a few days before a couple of the girls I were working with asked me to move in with them. There I was working,living at Bondi, 2 minutes from the beach, with two top sorts going out every night in the city and generally having the time of my life. My share of the rent was $33.00 and the rest, about $70.00,was plenty to live the lifestyle I wanted.

All good things must come to an end and a few months after I started a few people working at Gowings including myself were retrenched. I was no longer "gone to Gowings", another well known Australian advertising jingle/saying, and had to move back home. GONE TO GOWINGS The advertising slogan of one of Sydney's oldest general clothing retailers. It is used colloquially as in he's gone but we're not telling where.

Here`s a photo of the shop.