First Paid Job

[Koolau]

At age 9 ca 1956 my dad started paying me $.25/hour to do what I had been doing for free since I was 5 at the family business.

 

[Milkman]

Unless I missed it in the thread, I'm surprised no one mentioned "de-tasseling" corn. My wife grew up in Nebraska and most of her family did it at one time or another.

 

[MarieIG]

After the usual babysitting stuff - I worked weekends in high school as a coat check girl at Beef Stake Charlies.

This was followed by some waitressing, and working as an "exercise instructor" at Holiday Spa (turned Jack-La-Lane). When I worked at Holiday Spa, before it was taken over by Jack-La-Lane, our uniforms looked like the uniforms worn on the first Star Treck.

 

[Mansderm]

Pinsetter

My first real job with an actual paycheck was at age 12 as a pinsetter at a bowling alley in Texas. I was a scrawny girl, it was hot as hell and you had to work 2 lanes jumping back and forth. I was paid 8 cents a line...in other words 8cents per person per game. If you had 4 people on each lane you could get up to about 64 cents per hour working and sweating your ass off. I'm the only girl I've ever known to work that. But as a girl in short shorts jumping up and down in the pit, I was the only one back there getting tips rolled down the gutter by men in leagues. Most tips were quarters so it was worth it. I worked till I had enough to buy a bicycle and then quit. It was extremely dangerous. Was knocked out once by a flying pin. Near misses on someone throwing a random ball down the lane. Electric pinsetters changed the bowling world!

 

[Koolau]

Unless I missed it in the thread, I'm surprised no one mentioned "de-tasseling" corn. My wife grew up in Nebraska and most of her family did it at one time or another.

What a miserable job! A short stint of that and I was willing to crawl back to my dad and w*rk for him. Very humbling.

 

[MRG]

Eighth grade, around 1968, sweeping, mopping floors and cleaning. Mirrors at a hair salon. Inherited the job from my brother. 3 times a week for $12 dollars a week.

Oh my I forgot about that. Sixteen years old cleaning a beauty salon in 1973. Today the smell of ammonia still gags me from a far distance.

 

[harley]

Unless I missed it in the thread, I'm surprised no one mentioned "de-tasseling" corn. My wife grew up in Nebraska and most of her family did it at one time or another.

Wasn't anywhere near my first job, but I spent a portion of a fall picking tobacco. That was pretty miserable too.

 

[ktygrl73]

I was 12 years old (1985ish) washing dishes at a greasy spoon. I was getting paid $2.50/hour. All-you-could-eat blueberry cobbler and bacon hot off the grill plus being able to play my tunes while working made it worthwhile!