I was 14 and I worked inside a McDonald's inside Walmart. It was such a fun time in my life. I made friends with the stock workers in the back and would hook em up with free food in exchange for cds, batteries, random gadgets and other free stuff that would fall off the truck lol.
I am now a project manager in govt contracting. It's not glorious, but, it's been good to me and my family.
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30 years ago, the day I turned 18, I started a work study job in college. I wasn’t allowed to work until that point by school rules. I worked in the cafeteria doing a number of different things.
I worked at Jack in the box as a cashier. I made 7.25 an hour and was so stoked to get my $130 biweekly paychecks. Now I’m a server at a fine dining steakhouse. I like the culture of restaurants, and the free food is nice too. Plus, my income stays the course with inflation, so I hardly notice price increases.
Disc jocky at a small town AM radio sation in the early 1970s. I was 16. I had to get an FCC license, which wadn’t hard because it meant passing a test and I already had my HAM license (amature radio).
Back then we really had dual turn tables. You que up your next 45 on one turntable while a record was playing on the other. Ads were recorded on 2 track tape cartridges that looked like 8 track tapes. It was constant business for 4 hours. If you needed a toilet break, you’d que up a longer song (4 minutes or so) but most songs in those days were 3:00 to 3:30 minutes long. Hiring high school kids kept the labor cost low because small town AM stations didn’t exactly rake in the cash.
Fun job.
I worked a seasonal job bussing tables at a restaurant when I was 15 making $8 an hour. I’m now an irrigation technician.
My first job was also at a McDonald’s near the suburbs I lived in. It was surprisingly fun even though the work objectively sucked. Now I’m in data entry, and every so often I wonder if I would rather have the fast food job if I got paid the extra $2/hr more I make now than the pay they put on signs these days. The answer is probably not but when I’m pining for the work from my first McJob over what I’m doing now, that says something about how unhappy and unfulfilled I am these days.
I was 19 at Wendy’s, now I’m 31 working as a govt engineer
Mowing lawns at 10, bagger at a grocery store at 16, Director of IT today.
14 Dairy Queen
39 med dev sales
14. Worked for a little family owned construction equipment hire company.
Mostly just washing equipment when it was off hired, changing oils and what not.
By far the worst task was cleaning portable toilets 🤢🤢
Now 37 and a Boilermaker, carrying out maintenance work on mining equipment.
Pushing a lawnmower, don’t remember exactly how old I was, but barely big enough to push a lawnmower. $5 a yard!
Now I’m in industrial maintenance.
I was 12 and I put the weekend newspapers together at the cornerstore down the block from me. $20 for maybe 6 hours work and this would have been around 1993. Before that it was yardwork for neighbors.I am now an accountant.
I was fifteen and I got a job working as a dishwasher at Goldstone Creamery and a job at The University of Washington as an assistant coach for a youth basketball camp I had attended a few years prior within a week of each other.
15, worked in a fast food taco place (a regional version of Taco Bell based in Oklahoma).
Worked in my family’s pawn shop from 18ish until 24ish. Went to votech for electrical, didn’t pursue it. Dropped in and out of community college a few times. Finally just jumped into electrical around 24.
I’m almost 31 and I’m still an electrician. It’s been the best way out of basically a life of poverty for myself. Aunt and uncle owned that pawn shop but they rented the building and were still broke pretty often. Wasn’t exactly what you’d imagine lol.
Paper boy in 6th grade or something. Made $100/mo or so and did it till 10th grade. Now I’m a controls engineer.
14, host at a Big Boy restaurant. Did 10 years in the navy, now I’m working toward commercial pilot/Flight Safety masters.
Gas station attendant at a campground, 16 (about 1976)
Now, retired for about 7 years
14. Dominos. Answering phones and slinging pies
15. My neighbor owned a bicycle shop and I started working in it assembling and repairing them. I worked there all through high school. $1.50 an hour to start in 1966.
14 at Pier 1 Imports. Boy was I out of place there
14.6 yrs got apprenticeship in painting and decorating, did it till 38yrs now operating diggers for drainage best thing I did getting out of the trade, cheap shit pricks everywhere and painter fixes it all for no extra! Shit trade to do now days
I was a spare parts interrupter for Holden, not sure why they hired me I wasn’t even studying it 😂
I work in sales.
Got my first job at 16 working as a cashier at a pharmacy/grocery store. 22 now and still working retail customer service jobs simply because I have no idea what I’m doing wit my life.
I do regret not being more mindful of my money when I was 16, If i didn’t blow my paycheque everytime on doordash and dumb shit and instead saved it I would have so much money right now.
Mechanic apprentice to electrical engineer.
Working on cars was a blast, but that pay structure is terrible and the toll on your body is heavy. It’s kinda like playing pro football; After 40 you are basically playing injured all the time.
13, commercial painting under the table. Now I work for a state agency department of transportation not using my awesome political science degree.
My first job was as a clerk at the gas station just up the block from my childhood home. I turned 16 in a Saturday, and applied there on the following Monday. I went right after school, and the owner hired me in the spot. I had to go pick my sister up before I could start though.
They were generous enough to give me more than minimum wage. Minimum was $5.15 an hour, and they paid me $5.25. Right off the bat I was racking up 40+ hour weeks working after school and in Saturdays. After a month, I got a quarter an hour raise.
I only worked there for a couple of months. I left to work at a phone survey place that paid $7 an hour. That also only lasted a couple of months before I went to a manufacturing place paying the same wage, but was much closer to home.
I picked rocks out of gardens in my neighborhood starting at 8 for 2$ a bucket. I mowed lawns in my neighborhood starting at 13 for like 15$ an hour. My first w2 job was at 15, I did maintenance at an old folks home during the summer. I retired at 33 after selling a business that did excavation and installation of natural gas production equipment.
Babysitter. Keflavik, Iceland. 1976, 10-years old. Changing diapers!
Set me up to be a better dad, I think. And now, I’m the head of AI strategy for an F500 company. And SO ready to retire…
18 busser at a country club
32 sever/banquet server at a country club
Along the way I was a food runner for a little bit and and mainly an expo for 10 years with some banquet serving and catering gigs on the side. I never figured out what I want to do with my life but this pays the bills so I’m ok with it.
I was 17 and worked at Burger King for about a year. It was okay; within the first week I was assigned permanently to the register or drive thru because I could speak clearly and could do the math to make change (it was 1998, so almost all transactions were cash). I made all of $5.50 an hour. Worked with some fellow high school friends so that was good.
My career now is IT/management in Silicon Valley.
I still remember how to make a Whopper.
Was a ten year old paperboy and now at 42 an estimator for a piping company
15 years old. I worked at a swap meet. My brothers friend was the manager. So he gave me a job. It was Sundays only. He would pick me up at 4am. We would drive to the main swap meet for supplies (ice, water, office paper work). Then we would drive to Los Angeles. As soon as we arrived, I would take out street signs and hang banners. Then I would help with the vendors getting let in to the lot. After that, I would set out trash bins. Once open, I would sweep, clean the portable bathrooms or help with collecting weekly fees. Around 3pm, we would get together and play football on the uppermost level of the parking structure. It closed at 5pm.
When I left school, my father gave me the choice to go to 6th form (extra 2 years at school for the Americans), college, or get a job and be working by the time term would have started up again.
So I got a job at a heating spares merchant. I was 16, so the pay was terrible. I worked in that industry on and off for most of my life.
3 years ago, I changed my career and now I’m an e-scooter mechanic for a rental company. Much happier now.
I’m 40 now for reference.
My first job I was 14 and worked Saturday mornings at my friend’s Dad’s dealership workshop. Sweeping floors, cleaning up oil spills, tidying… Now I manage a PMO.
My first job was cutting grass. I may have been 12-13 years old. I’m 48. Now. I was getting $25-50 a yard. I had 5 or 6 of them. I thought I was rich at that age. This was early 90’s
First job was working a movie theater, lasted 2 weeks and I was 18. Few months after that I got a job working at a surf shop and that lasted almost 4 years. 14 years later I’m a real estate appraiser.
Delivered a weekly news paper 14…right now recovering from a heart transplant
9 – paperboy
First job was a dishwasher/busboy in a little beach bar at 13. $5/hr, and the waitress and bartender tipped me out. It was considered a privilege and extra-curricular, so my parents and school had to sign off. Couldn’t work past 8 on school nights or past 10 any night. If my gpa went below 3.0, I’d lose my permit to work.
Now, I’m semi-retired at 48, running some side hustles.