One of her first jobs..

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jeannieballerini

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Feb 17, 2006
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Have just hired on my wee neice for the summer. So far so good!
Actually let her handle a knife yesterday and she helped clean all the new stock...no missing digits that I know of ... mind you, there are a couple of lily stems that are ALOT shorter than the rest....:)
Got us all talking about OUR first jobs...the best and the worst!
Isn't it amazing the different roads we travel to get where we are now?????
Some of my first jobs included race-horse hot walker (fab)and super stall mucker-outer(not so fab!)...from there to here I've worn ALOT of hats as I'm sure you all have!
Please let me know I'm not the only (person of a certain age) that has walked down alot of different roads!!:walking:
Hope all your summer help is as cool as ours!!! (meaning I haven't had to give her grief about anything yet) haha!
Play outside!
jeannie
 
Congratulations on giving your niece an opportunity Jeannie! I heard of an interesting study on the way to work yesterday.

Researchers in the States found that 53% of students graduated from highschool. Of that percentage, an overwhelming 70 odd percent were miserable in their chosen field. The solution they are promoting are internships, not just one or two, but several, so the individual can find their path. A person of eighteen, doesn't necessarily know what they want to do for their entire working life... not a bad idea.

For me, other than babysitting, my first real job was at K-Mart... my first foray into the wonderful world of retail. I was thankful it was only part time as I was still in school!

V
 
My first job was to get the water in, at our summer house , no running water, little spring at the bottom of a steep hill, job started at age 8 and stopped when I around 15 , when we got running water , after I dug a new well . First job I got paid for was at 13 selling shoes , not a fun job , lots of fun helping the ladies try on the high heel boots all the rage in the 70's , sad that women don't wear skirts and dresses like they did in the 70's.
 
My first job was in my mom's retail gourmet food and candy store when I was 8 years old. It was in a touristy shopping center that was called Liberty Village - lots of old fashioned stores, with glass blowing and old timey entertainment stuff. She had an antique cash register, that did not compute change. I still remember how surprised customers were that she would leave me alone at the register, even if just for a few minutes to run out and get lunch. And I remember my third grade math lesson in counting back change, which I proudly already knew how to do.

My first paying job was at 10 years old - I worked in a flea market selling marcasite jewelry and collectible memorabilia. That was where I learned how to bargain with customers without giving away the store, and how to read the owner's code to be able to tell what the actual cost of the product was.

This was a fun memory stretch! Hope to read lots of others. I think people who go into business for themselves start out very young, either working for family or a family friend, but they start young. Certainly is a good learning tool. Too bad most of today's kids don't even know what a job is till they are out of high school, or even college.

tracy
 
my first job...

was at 8, putting on switch and plug plates after school and on weekends, for my dad, who STILL IS, to this very day, an operating electrician.(at almost 81)
Over our time, we built THOUSANDS of homes, and put up hundreds of apartment tower complexes.
 
Started here at the stop when I could stand: making boxes, then got promoted to sweeping and carrying.

First design: Under 3 yrs old (for my great-grandmother who lived above the shop and made us lunch after my morning at Montessori school)

First design for retail: 5 yrs old - I was floored that we could charge more than $5 for flowers (that was huge $$ to me!). It sold in about 20 minutes.

I had a paper route from 11-14 yrs old - hired some kids from school to do the work for $2 ea, while I received about $20-$25 / week from the paper :)

In high school I worked for a chimney cleaning company, then for a local computer store. The store had just been sold to an employee because the previous owners decided to leave retail and pursue this new thing called the internet. I was able to do some work for the first privately owned ISP in Canada (later the largest ISP - Internet Direct, now called Look Communications).

Around the end of high school and into college I managed a few local bands, booked shows, etc. Left the management side to play in one of the bands for a few years.

I still have RKFcomputers on the go. That allowed me to do work for TF technology, then progress to MAS. Now, it may be the path that leads to future employment :)

Oh - and I've been full time at our shop since 1996, including my time at college. Before that was part-time, doing everything but design at different stages. The experiments with design were ... not pretty.

Ryan
 
Paper or Plastic? :) Ralph's Supermarket at around 16. Went downhill from there for a while :)
 
My very first job was weeding the flower beds and the vegetable garden. And geez, I'm still doing that! My first real paying job was an usherette at the Junior A hockey games in St. Catharines. I had to make sure no one was smoking or get this swearing. You tell a 6'5" hockey fan he can't swear at the opposing team!!! I earned every penny in that job. Then on to journalism..... How did I get myself here? Gudrun
 
Stocking Shelves In My Grandpa's Grocery Store

in St Petersburg, Fl. Hewitt's Magic Markets. He and "Doc Webb" of Webb's The worlds Most Unusual Drug Store just down the street were fierce competitors. Got paid a quarter for an afternoon of work. I was so proud I changed that quarter into 5 nickles, then to 25 pennies so I would have "MORE"! Remember scaling fresh fish bought right off the dock, and emptying rat traps on a Sunday afternoon! Then to delivering Telegrams by bicycle, then to delivering newspapers for my dad in Gloucester, NJ. We delivered on foot, and at one time I knew every morning route and every afternoon route. It was great competition to see who could carry the most papers before Christmas when the Inquirer would get up to 5 lbs ea! Great sport breaking milk bottles on porches and steps, but became expensive when I broke a plate glass window in a hardware store from the middle of the street! 20 years in the army, 5 years for the Boy Scouts, then support troop for Akiko. Partners with #5 son peddeling green plants off a truck in an area bounded by Syracuse, and Jamestown, NY and Du Bois, State College, and Hazelton PA. (He is now the principal of our High School, and his son has been working for us since the day he got his driver's liscense! Lots of memories when you stop to think!
 
Wendy's at 16...flipped burgers with my beach bum friends and had a pretty good time. Turned out the manager was a coke head and he got in trouble with a couple of the girls there, so everyone was fired and new management was put in...

Quite an auspicious start...
 
Pennies for pinecones

My first paying job was age 4 when my parents needed pinecones cleaned up from the yard. They paid a penny a pine cone but only if I kept count!! How's that for smart parents? I will have to remember this in 2 years with my Katherine!
Then my mother's trophy and engraving business beckoned at age 6 when I could engrave, put trophies together and write an order second only to my mom. The trophy shop is celebrating our 30th anniversary this year, BTW.
The flower shop came along when I was in high school and working customer service in a bank. Mornings I was a banker, afternoons I answered phones at the shop.
College, museum tour guide, then on to a thirteen years working retail management at JCPenney while maintaining an active role in the shop and returning back here as manager and now owner. It has been a ride!
Donna
 
Grew up in this business... so .....

my first jobs were the same as Infinite .... making cut flower boxes, sweeping (which I still hate to do), filling waterpicks by the thousands (wet job) and got paid one cent for every bug I got off the field flowers. Wouldn't trade the experience for anything .... and that's why my nieces and nephews got to do the same thing.
 
Ah! Nostalgia!

This thread is so sweet and nostalgic! Treasure those memories! My first job was at age 16 in a Ice Cream/Sandwich shop called Buxton's. I don't think the chain still exists! What a cool, fun job! I used to come home covered in ice cream! I still don't eat ice cream very often to this day!
Hey...Clark! I worked for Western Union, too! I was a telegraph operator for 10 years! I sang birthday telegrams over the phone, but mostly typed telegrams from callers. That job was crazy and never boring! Some of my most memorable telegrams came from Ted Koppel and Elton John. Elton John even sent me a candygram! (Wow! You have to be old to remember those!) The craziest time at Western Union was when Nixon resigned. The switchboard was lit up 24/7 and everyone wanted to curse when they sent Nixon a telegram. Of course, it was against the FCC to curse, but people were so enraged! We also had our share of stalker calls-from nuts who discovered it was a great way to speak to hundreds of ladies while calling a toll free number. I sure learned how to spell at Western Union and I type 120 words per minute! Those were the days!
 
WOW!!!
What an amazing eclectic gang-o-flower people !!!!!!!!!
Sure makes you smile when you look back over your shoulder yes?
GREAT replies!!
made my morning coffee even sweeter!
play outside!!
jeannie
 
Raised on the family farm which had a restaurant for all the city folks on it. My Dad paid me .10 a DAY(can you tell i'm older) to work there doing everything from clearing tables/ washing dishes/and lots of farm work. In the summers I set up a vegtable stand on weekends to sell fresh veggies to the city folk. When I got to be 16 I started my own catering business and summers worked as an A&W girl. After college worked in credit and collections and eventually became a credit manager for a very large shipping company in New York.
 
First real jobs (after all the freebie babysitting of my four brothers and sisters) were:

At 15, started working in a flower shop after school and on weekends. I volunteered to work for no pay until the owner thought I was good enough to hire 'cuz I didn't want to flip burgers (like most of my friends were.)

On Saturdays, also played organ for 5:00 p.m. Mass ($5), Sunday mornings had a gig played piano for the Methodist church youth choir ($10) and weekend nights sometimes played sax in the pit orchestra for the local musical theater. After turning 18 ('legal drinking age' back then), I also played piano and sang during Happy Hour at a hotel bar. :drunk:

Spent almost every penny earned on music, records or lessons. :musical:

Thanks to everyone for sharing their great stories. :)
 
Typical babysitting jobs up to 14 when one of the little darlings took a pair of scissors to me...decided that was enough. Got a job working for a pediatrician on summers and weekends...three buses and a long walk but wow was I in good shape...hmmm there is a lesson there. After Nursing school, worked 22 years as an RN in ICU/CCU/TM and then recruitid by an insurance company and bought the shop for my daughter during that time. She ended up having babies...so I came to be full time since then. Man o man..knew squat..what was payroll taxes...huh? P&L's...oh really...thought it was a designer label...WS..join them all...yep, I did...took us many years to realize what we were doing, very hard school of knocks, went thru money like it was h20 and finally came to our elustrious life style we currently maintain...... would not change a thing except the money stuff...and wishing FC had been around sooner...
Sher
 
I never thought of it as a job, and I'm certain that the pay was only room and board, but the first "job" I remember was handing tobacco to my aunt at my grandfather's farm. I was about 5 years old, and she was such a slow tier (of tobacco) that we were a good team. Handing was the term used to describe the picking up of three tobacco leaves at a time, making certain that the broken ends were straight and even, and handing the bundle to the tier so that she could loop (tie) it into a running piece of tobacco twine and thereby fasten it to a stick (pole) so that it could be hung in a barn to cure. None of that process is done by hand now. Tobacco barns are relics now.
 
First Job"
My dad had a small grocery store and eggs came in the big crates and had to be put in dozen cartons. I was about 5 or 6. remember thanking there must be a million eggs in this box. Worked in the family store until I went to college. Worked for a painter for a summer, swept parking lots, went to work for the phone company, here I am.

Hey Connie, Jo also grew up on a tobacco farm she still talks about handing tobacco sticks up in the barn and tying the tobacco. Her mom still lives on the farm but rents out the tobacco alotment and acreage.
 
My first well-paid job was to push dead bodies down to the aldehyde pool in a university hospital. I was a college freshman. At that time in our country (Japan), donated bodies for a medical school were kept in the aldehyde pool until used. The problem was that they kept floating up in the pool, especially during a dark rainy night, making part of the body dried up, which is unsuitable for dissection practice. So my job was to roll it and push it down using a bamboo stick.

Someone told me that the pay is very good (it was), so I took it. I needed money. But I felt like I was drowning someone; you know, some body has his/her eyes wide open. It also smelled so bad even though I was wearing a gas mask. It wasn't worth the money.:dunno:
 
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