What was your first job

Before: bussing tables in a bar.

 

I worked as a secretary for a local boss, I didn't know anything until later I heard the news that he went bankrupt a week after I resigned. It was a total of 2 months of work and I then realized he had just wanted to offer poor people free money at the end of his days. He called to meet me in a coffee shop near his company and we had a talk. I cried.

 

Before: maintenance guy for the town park

After my Masters: building houses and rafter dancing installing roofs.....

 

At 14 I was a stock boy at an appliance store, getting minimum wage and being guilted into staying past the 9pm legal limit for my age so i could clean up and restock.

Also, is "guilted" not a word? Since when? It coming up as red in the spell check (is it the sites spellcheck or my browsers...)

 

How about during.

While 14-15, I worked at a bike shop building and repairing bicycles. Left when the family moved across town and I changed schools.

While 15-16, worked at a gardening center on weekends, after school, and during summer. Left for a summer science program at Colorado School of Mines.

While 16-17, worked as a stock person in a grocery store (Kroger). Left when I started university. Used earnings from jobs to pay tuition, books and most of room and board.

At 18, full-time summer job as a plumber's helper and maintenance person, working on plumbing, steam and condensate lines, sewer lines, A/C and air handling systems, pumps, motors, compressors, . . . Worked part-time during university ~20 hrs/wk doing maintenance, and also got a job in the food service, which paid room and board at university.

At 19, full-time summer job at an oil refinery in the compound and packaging department. Filled containers with various oils and transmission fluid. Unloaded trailers and box-cars during the summer. Worked part-time as a night-time janitor.

At 20, changed university, and for four years (20-24), took summer jobs as an iron worker. It was like building a giant erector set. The best part was walking out on a 6 or 8 inch flange of iron to unhook the crane (sometimes in the wind), then carrying the iron purlins out to fasten the rafter. One learns not to worry about the distance to the ground.

Starting in grad school, I had research (part-time) and/or teaching assistantships. Took a full time job (while doing MS program) with the local municipal water department as a station operator responsible for the entire city water system during evening or graveyard shifts. Gave up the job after starting a PhD program - I really needed to have time to sleep.

Left grad school debt-free.

First professional (salaried) job was as a consultant in the nuclear industry. The various jobs as well as my education really prepared me well for a professional career.

 

Dictionary.com uses it as one of their examples in the verb form of "guilt". http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/guilted

But it seems to be wrong/informal. Guilt doesn't even show up as a verb at all. I shall strike it from my lexicon...

 

Also, when I was 23 I worked as a pizza delivery driver for two days. Basically I folded boxes for hours until lunch/night, then made decent money in tips. They made the drivers mop and clean for an hour after the place was closed because the other employees were paid more per hour. I quit the next day. I realized about halfway through scrubbing the floor that I was getting paid at that moment $5 to spend an hour mopping, cleaning carpets, counters, etc. Two weeks prior I had turned down a job offer in distributed computing management at the largest online retailer at the time, that would have paid about $60,000/year + benefits.

I rationalized that really I could be doing better things with my time than making $5/hr for the few months before graduate school started.

 

This is not about me but about the mentally challenged boy who visits me almost every day. Today he came to me and he was sooooo excited because he will be accepted to a special school and he'll become an assistant in the bakery. He was so happy and told me he would eat tons of cookies and cakes every day and he would also bring some for me. He promised he would do it every day because he likes me so much.
It was heart warning to see someone so happy about his first job.

 

before: laborer on a farm. Working 12 hours a day,7 days a week for a summer was a great motivator for succeeding academically.
after: went directly to graduate school, starting a research assistanship the summer in-between undergrad and grad. I'm still working my first job after grad school - 15+ years at this point!

jason

 

My first job was as a vacation student in an IBM programming group, mostly fixing up messes caused by ill-considered changes.

Funnily enough, nearly 44 years later, that's pretty close to what I'm doing now, supporting legacy mainframe software products for IBM, after a career mostly spent developing systems software and middleware (including CICS and MQ) for IBM mainframes.

Apart from that, the only other work for which I've been paid has been the occasional bit of classical music, such as a string quartet gig or piano accompaniment. However, I now play in amateur orchestras and I'm chairman of the orchestral society committee so I do far more work for no pay (it's a non-profit so they can't pay any members of the society).

 

Clearing tables at a diner.

 

I am glad to learn about your (first) jobs.
IBM is already well-known to all of us. IBM divisions include many areas that are IT unrelated.
I like its BPM software. Its ability to model, implement, orchestrate and automate targeted processes and business transactions is wonderful.

 

I was lazy teenager with little work ethic. My first job was at Starbucks when I was sixteen, and I only lasted a month before getting fired.

My first real job was working in a granite yard at 19. That was some hefty work - In six months I went from 150 lbs to 185 lbs. Worked there for three years before returning to school.

 

Soldering wires for a pipe organ restorer at age 15 after dropping out of Jr High.

 

I was working as content manager at internet shop