Question about your first job

[Miss Chicken]

I remember that I bought a pair of tennis shoes out of my first pay. I used to play badminton with a friend and I needed new shoes for that.

I wore the shoes to badminton once. A few days later I notice that they were missing. I found out that my younger brother (aged 14) had taken them to school and they were in his locker. I told my brother I better bring my shoes home the next day because I was going to badminton.

However the next day he didn't bring them home. He said he was keeping them because he needed shoes for sports. I complained to my mother but she said if he needed them he could keep them and I would have to buy new shoes and told me I should have bought more girlie shoes that my brother wouldn't wear.

I was so angry I hit my brother over the head with my badminton racket, grabbed my old shoes and stormed out of the house. I was in tears when I got to the badminton court and my friend had to calm me down.

 

[Goliath]

"Not that I'm bitter at all, you understand..."

Anyway, good for you, for standing up for yourself.

 

[Warp Coil]

I had a student job at the university. I was paid $5.15 an hour, the minimum wage at the time.

Same here. Freshman year of college, circa 1998.

 

[Timby]

My very first job was in a mall during 2000, at a NASCAR memorabilia store called Racin' Heaven. I made $7 an hour, and I thought I was filthy rich.

 

[Lindley]

Well, I worked at my high school store for a while (the entire business class did). The only money we made from that was a percentage of the profit. It wasn't much.

I had a few other "jobs" here and there for which I don't recall the pay. My first full-time job out of college started at $60k/year. I'm still at it, although raises have bumped that higher since then.

 

[mimic]

Internship with Centocor in 2005, $12/hour.

 

[Trekker4747]

Dishwasher in a local fried-chicken restaurant (sit-down, family style) that apparently had little to no concept of state child-labor laws. I was 14 and 15 at the time I worked there during my six-month tenure. I made $7.50/hour (minimum wage at the time was around $4.25, IIRC) and worked 24 hours a week. Over the course of three days each week.

In Kansas the latest someone that age can work is 6:59 PM (and at that for no longer than 4-hours at a time, both conditions applied to school-nights) and OSHA says no one under the age of 18 can handle knives or equipment.

I, however:

Worked from 4 PM - 10 PM, sometimes 11 PM.

As a dishwasher I: operated the automatic dishwasher, worked in a sink with a garbage disposal in it, and cleaned knives.

I also operated, and cleaned, the frech-fry cutting device, peeled potatoes, and operated the commercial mixer when making the mashed potatoes. (I used lots of butter. )

After all of the closing was done the staff would sit in the bar-area and watch TV and drink. Even though I was under-age and my mother was coming to pick me up I would've been allowed to drink a beer if I wanted.

So that place was... loose with the local labor laws considering my age, but it was also a fairly fun job to work at even though washing the dishes wasn't too bad it was more fun to make the salads ahead of time (I was fairly liberal with the bacon and cheese), make the mashed potatoes and do other prep work like that. Peeling potatoes involved sitting outside the back door on an over-turned milk crate and peeling the potatoes in to a bin and tossing the potatoes in a barrel full of salted water. I had to quit when Summer came because my parents were worried that they would exploit my additional free-time and make me work more and my parents didn't want that at al (I had already worked like 45 hours on Spring Break week) and even though I had a Learner's Permit that'd allow me to drive to-and-from work my parents wouldn't let me drive to work (or school, for that matter) and thus were my only transportation. So I had to put in my two-weeks and quit and, as was tradition there, I got smacked in the face with a bowl full of mashed potatoes, chicken grease and various other bits when I least expected it on my last moments of work. Fun place.

That bowl I got smacked in the face with? As I think about it must've somehow inspired the KFC chicken/mashed potato/other stuff bowls that are now on their menu.

 

[Kestra]

My first job was as a chemistry tutor. Actually it was more about leading students in a study-group than a one-on-one type thing. I think I made something around $9 an hour? I was happy with it, and I used it to save up and get my parents a nice crystal figurine for their anniversary that year.

 

[propita]

Damn, when I posted what I made, I didn’t think it would be one of the higher pays. $10/hr in 1984 didn’t seem like a lot. I guess it was because most here seem to have been lower.

 

[RoJoHen]

Damn, when I posted what I made, I didn’t think it would be one of the higher pays. $10/hr in 1984 didn’t seem like a lot. I guess it was because most here seem to have been lower.

Hell, $10 is still a decent wage in 2010. Minimum wage in most (all?) states is still significantly lower than that.

 

[Major Chord]

Aside from being a medical demonstration dummy (I'd get made up to be an accident victim, and have doctors qualify on Advanced Trauma Life support techniques using me as a 'patient') for $50 per day, my first real, and so far only paid job has been as a locker room attendant at a local country club.

From april to october, I get minimum wage, $7.25 an hour, to clean loafers and golf shoes, and keep the locker room tidy. Really an easy job...I work with my best friends, so it;s a nice environment. Also, many days I am scheduled, there are few golfers...so I get to tool around on my laptop using the club's wireless. On top of that, I get tips, generally between $2 and $5 per pair of shoes (although some members are frugal and don't tip). Sometimes, someone will slip me a $20. All of these tips are tax free, and on a good weekend I can net $70 or more in tips, plus 10 hours wage.

I made enough hover the summer to allow me to treat myself comfortably...and still have enough saved up to allow me to have plenty of funding for the winter months. I do plan on applying for a retail job in the new year though...to tide me over to April, and perhaps give me the opportunity to have 2 part time, low hour jobs during the summer months.

On top of that, the hours are flexible, and I only ever have to worry about working Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday/Sunday. The other days of the week the club is either closed, or my boss takes care of things himself, because those are not popular golfing days.

Like Trekker's first employment...this place didn't wise up to child labor laws until after I turned 18, naturally. My very first shift was an 8 hour shift...on a Sunday, which would put me 4 hours over the 4 hours I was allowed to work on a school night as a minor. Now, my boss seems to have realized these laws exist, and the underage workers are now only allowed 3h45m, and 5h 45m shifts. Now that I'm 18 though, I have the freedom to come in early for a shift, or stay later, if I want some extra hours.

 

[od0_ital]

Damn, when I posted what I made, I didn’t think it would be one of the higher pays. $10/hr in 1984 didn’t seem like a lot. I guess it was because most here seem to have been lower.

Hell, $10 is still a decent wage in 2010. Minimum wage in most (all?) states is still significantly lower than that.

Hell, I interviewed for a job yesterday that pays $10 an hour & I'd be able to live on that!

 

[propita]

Damn, when I posted what I made, I didn’t think it would be one of the higher pays. $10/hr in 1984 didn’t seem like a lot. I guess it was because most here seem to have been lower.

Hell, $10 is still a decent wage in 2010. Minimum wage in most (all?) states is still significantly lower than that.

Hell, I interviewed for a job yesterday that pays $10 an hour & I'd be able to live on that!

I lived in LA, things were/are expensive there.

As it was, because I wasn't a degreed engineer, I made less than almost everyone in the department. Even when I left in 2000, 16 years later and making $25/hr, I made $10K/yr less than comparable degreed engineers in my department. Sad thing? I was as good or better than them in our jobs--as-or-more accurate, faster, and more flexible due to cross-training. Because there were standard charge-times for each item and I multitasked, I was doing 60 hours worth of work in 40 hours.

 

[Lindley]

Damn, when I posted what I made, I didn’t think it would be one of the higher pays. $10/hr in 1984 didn’t seem like a lot. I guess it was because most here seem to have been lower.

Hell, $10 is still a decent wage in 2010. Minimum wage in most (all?) states is still significantly lower than that.

Hell, I interviewed for a job yesterday that pays $10 an hour & I'd be able to live on that!

Probably not in Northern Virginia.

 

[Kestra]

Damn, when I posted what I made, I didn’t think it would be one of the higher pays. $10/hr in 1984 didn’t seem like a lot. I guess it was because most here seem to have been lower.

Comparing doesn't make much sense when people had their first jobs at such varying ages, and varying levels of experience and education. A lot of the lower numbers here probably didn't come from full-time jobs.

 

[Canadave]

I worked as a cashier at a grocery store, starting at $6.45 an hour, which was the student minimum wage in Ontario back in 2003. Now it's up to about $10 an hour, annoyingly enough.

 

[RevDMV]

I started at Best Products in 1979 at $2.95/hr, minimum wage at the time.

 

[RoJoHen]

Damn, when I posted what I made, I didn’t think it would be one of the higher pays. $10/hr in 1984 didn’t seem like a lot. I guess it was because most here seem to have been lower.

Comparing doesn't make much sense when people had their first jobs at such varying ages, and varying levels of experience and education. A lot of the lower numbers here probably didn't come from full-time jobs.

Indeed. My first job was bagging groceries for about 15-20 hours a week while in high school

 

[Miss Chicken]

Damn, when I posted what I made, I didn’t think it would be one of the higher pays. $10/hr in 1984 didn’t seem like a lot. I guess it was because most here seem to have been lower.

Comparing doesn't make much sense when people had their first jobs at such varying ages, and varying levels of experience and education. A lot of the lower numbers here probably didn't come from full-time jobs.

In my OP I stated the year, my age, that it was a full-time job (40 hours a week), the type of job (fruit and veggie packer), excluded babysitting and occasionally working for my mother and also what an LP record cost at that time. I was getting pay that was the equivalent of about 8 LP records (probably 9 before tax). I was hoping that other people might give some similar details so we could compare our wages. Some people have provided enough details for me to compare what I earned to them.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Damn, when I posted what I made, I didn’t think it would be one of the higher pays. $10/hr in 1984 didn’t seem like a lot. I guess it was because most here seem to have been lower.

Comparing doesn't make much sense when people had their first jobs at such varying ages, and varying levels of experience and education. A lot of the lower numbers here probably didn't come from full-time jobs.

Yeah, mine was a part time job. Started as a completely unskilled job. When I got moved into film, it was semi-skilled (it took a week of training to learn how to run the photo machine as well as handle the chemicals used properly). They only gave me a 10 cent raise for it, but that probably has to do with the ease of finding a replacement. High Schoolers are fairly expendable labor.

If you have a real life and a full time job, I would hope it pays a bit more than I got paid.