Your first job...what job and pay.

[tree-farmer]

In 1969 at age 15 I got  a job with Gus pick up, our local garbage man. Paid a 1 dollar a hour and  all you could eat.... :D
Hated the pick up at local taxadermy place, maggot city. 

[luvmexfood]

Course grew up working on the farm. Dad was extremely tight with money. Many times we would get new plow points for the plows and he would not buy new bolts. Had to wrestle the old ones off and reuse.

First paying job taught me an important lesson. Find out what you are getting paid before taking the job. Around 1973 a buddy and I took a job grubbing brush and mowing a yard that hadn't been mowed in probably a year. Real old woman with a decent amount of money. We were expecting at least a dollar an hour. At the end when we got paid it was about 20 cents an hour that we got paid.

Saw a posting on the state employment commission website the other day. Some company was wanting chainsaw operators to clear a gas pipeline. Pay rate was $8.50 and hour with no benefits. With the slowdown in the coal business around here companies are really taking advantage of workers. Fast food jobs still only pay minimum wage. I think it's $7,25 an hour.

[thecfarm]

Can't remember what age and sure can't remember how much I made an hour.
Started spring clean up at a boys summer camp. Rake and I do mean rake. I hate raking now.  ;D  Had to paint too. They thought I did a great job.  :  I would just slob it on. But all the cravings of names,initials would be gone. Someone else might only use a gallon per camp,I would use 2. But the boss was happy. Did that for 3 springs. Than my last year of high school I started to work at a grocery store. I would sort bottles through the week,work bagging grocery,Thursday,Friday and Saturday. Those was the busy days. That was when you had to know how to bag. All paper,kinda of an act to fill each bag,nice and even. Than a bottle redemption place opened up and the store wanted me to work over there,the grocery store did not want the bottles in the store. I started there and put in about 40 hours a week, I thought I was rich. I only had one class in school,I was suppose to have 2,but lied about the other one. I had my credits,just need one more year of English to graduate. Than out of high school I started to work at a shoe shop.

[sawguy21]

$8.50/hr for a saw operator ??? I hope they are not expected to provide the saw. Nobody that knows how to run one would get out of bed for that here.

[brysonfarmer]

40 bucks a week when I was 13 - 1973 - 6 days a week and 10 hours a day. Working for a local farmer. Funny how life goes full circle. I bought his farm 4 years ago

[plowboyswr]

working for my dad for room and board 

X2. First off the farm job was working on trash trucks topping of the fluids and changing u-joints and tires. Wasn't too bad until the one that had shelled out the main drive on the front of the rear end got towed in still fully loaded. I think it had picked up Tree-farmers favorite place, and all that goo dripping all over.

[Brucer]

1966, 16 years old, worked spring break and summer pulling lumber on the greenchain at a sawmill. Roof? What's that?

It was a union shop and I got $2.13 per hour. Got the same rate the next summer (except when we were drafted to fight a forest fire -- pay was $1.25 per hour but we were working 16 hour days). Third summer pay went up to $2.18 per hour. By that time I decided I was never going to work in a sawmill again :D :.

[gspren]

While still in school, mowing, snow shoveling, and pumping gas at the local 66 station. First "real" job at 17 years old was as a machinist. From then on it was always metal work of some sort even during a stint in the Navy. After a few different civilian shops in 1985 I got in with the Army at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in the Ballistic Research Lab which later became Army Research Lab always doing experimental machining. When I retired in 2011 I was the boss but still in the same building for 26 years, add 4 from the Navy and gave the 30 needed. During much of that time I also raised goats, pigs, and sold some firewood. No wonder I'm tired.

[barbender]

Hmmm. Started out cutting balsam boughs in the fall for Christmas wreaths, at around 12 years old. I can't remember what I made at it, $40 a day I suppose. Mowed some lawns in the summer. When I was 14 I started working for my dad in the summer, paving driveways at $5/hr. I would also work at local wild rice processing plants in late summer, for $5/hr as well. You could get a lot of hours in though. That was a hot, sweaty, itchy job. In the fall, back out cutting boughs. I preferred that over the rest- I was out in the woods and made the best money out there.

[sawguy21]

Brucer, I worked on a green chain for a few months until the union threatened to go on strike over a frivolous issue. The pay was good but I figured I could make better use of my time :D

[timberlinetree]

These are some neat stories,and a true part of history!

[sandsawmill14]

started out hauling hay for neighbors for $10 bucks a day i was 10 and my brother was 8 he got to drive the truck and i stacked on the flat bed we hauled hay everyday it wasnt raining from may until school started back then on most saturdays until oct :D firt job i was ever really proud of i was 13 and one of the guys we hauled hay for hired me to build 3/4 mile of net fence with 2 strand barb wire price was 2.25 an hour and i thought i was getting rich :D the thing made me so proud was when i finished in less than 2 weeks the guy told me how good of a job i had done and paid me 3.50 an hour  and said " if you work like a man you get paid like a man on this place"  ;D not many people left who feel that way now  :( most want something for nothing : 

[dgdrls]

Cutting a few lawns for the neighbors ($5) and did a little interior painting.  turned 16 and found out I had a malformed kidney so my High school soccer days were done.  Afternoons after school i started washing dishes and busing tables at the local York steak house, for $2.90 then 3.10/hr.  Did more lawns
and finished my HS days at a local garage pumping gas, mounting and balancing tires and minor repairs. 

D

[WV Sawmiller]

    At my plywood plant job I doubled over one morning to help on the green end. That was the hardest work I ever did. You guys who worked these jobs have my utmost respect and admiration!

[Paul_H]

In 1978 I left school to go to work full time at 16.years old.
I made $2.50 per hour at my after school and weekend job that I had since I was 13,and that was sweeping parking lots,picking up garbage as well as lawn maintenance around the store and condos.

Later the same year I earned $3.00/hr at the saw shop full time work and then $7.45/hr as a chokerman on a highlead side

[Brucer]

When I first started on the green chain, I met Archie. He was 55 years old and had spent 40 years working the green chain in one sawmill or another. Three summers was too much for me -- I decided I was going to get into something that would earn me a little more money and wasn't quite so mind-numbing.

When I went back to school after that first summer, no one recognized me. Lean, muscled, brown, and that was the year I started to lose my hair.

[Papa1stuff]

My first job  (Wow that was a long time ago) about 1950 ,I worked on a market garden in Bristol NH ,for $1.00 per day and room and meals.
We worked from daylight to dark with several breaks and 3 great meals a day.
Most days ,in the afternoon we went swimming for an hour or so.
This by the way was a summer job as I was in High School at that time!
I better quit as I could write a book about those years !!

[pigman]

Worked  for my father on the farm for room and board. A few times worked for other farmers when my father told me to. I don't remember what  I got paid since my father got the money. The first real job was working for our Uncle Sam starting at $ 80 a month plus room and board. That only lasted for 19 months before I was gladly laid off. I have never had a job since. ;D

[LittleJohn]

Besides the summer lawn mowing job.

My first actually "paycheck" job, was when I was 16yo (1997), operating a Grapple Skidder; think I made $7/hr, but i am pretty sure I would have paid for that job (what 16yo would not want to drive basically a MONSTER TRUCK).   The logger I was working for was one of my mom's daycare parents and I had know for a long time.  I got to forward skids from the woods to the slasher, I was also responsible for knocking off the limbs and keeping the yard clean.  Hating working in August thou, cause you had to leave the cab heater on all year long to help keep Hydro's cool, but winter break was the best, -20f out and the cab door open!!!

[brianb88]

My first paying job was cutting grass when I was 13 or 14 years old. Me and a friend (who was 15 with a DL and access to a truck) went into business together cutting lawns and the Dixie Youth baseball fields in the summer of '85. If I remember correctly we had 4 yards and the 2 baseball fields per week. We also had to chalk the batters box and foul ball lines on Tuesdays and Thursdays before the games. I think we made $50/week on the lawns and $60/week on the ball fields. So $55 each per week was big $$ for a 14 year old.

Before we started that summer my grandpa offered to buy my push mower with conditions. He wrote up an agreement that I had to sign before he purchased the lawn mower. Basically the deal was I had to keep a log book of all the $$ I made for each job and show how much I spent and on what. I also had to pay him a certain amount each week to repay the full cost of the mower. At the end of the summer if I had not paid back the $ for the cost of the mower and kept an accurate log book of finances with proof of $ in hand I had to give him back the lawnmower plus a penalty. 

I'm not sure where that log book is now and my grandpa has been gone for many years but I learned some valuable lessons that year about managing $, physical labor and the value of a job well done.

[clearcut]

Caddy at 14. $1.50 per 9 holes plus tips! Still hate golf to this day.

First paycheck job same year, sorting cooler apples at the end of summer, getting ready for the new crop (rots, sauce, juice) - $1.25 per hour. 

[auctoinc]

My first job was delivering newspapers in Ottawa. Had this weird guy come by my house and ask my parents if they wanted me to work. I don’t quite remember how old I was at the time, but I do strangely remember that I was eating chicken at the time he walked in our house. Funny the things you remember as a kid.

I don’t even remember what I made, but it was sure below minimum wage. Plus, I think my parents got the money. My first introduction to our tax system.The job wasn’t too bad. They would drop off a bunch of different piles of paper on Sunday. I had to assemble them, then deliver them to houses around the block. I didn’t want to do it, but I had my friends help me. Got chased by some dogs a couple times, too. Accidentally missed a house once, and had a lady call the paper company. I never knew that people were so passionate about the classifieds. Then I moved cities and worked at a grocery store. Not the greatest job, as I worked in the fish department. Went home smelling like fish every day, for $7.50 an hour.

It's definitely interesting to read all the stories here.

[Engineer]

Working as a custodian and general labor/gofer at the construction company my Dad worked at.  Sometimes he'd take me out in the field (he was a land surveyor) and have me help with the field work, flagging or painting lines, or just carrying stuff.  Minimum wage in 1985, whatever that was, age 15. The following three years I was a construction laborer for the same company, still at minimum wage. 

[VictorH]

Welcome to the forum Auctoinc!!

[Al_Smith]

I was bailing hay at 12 years old,1960 for 60 cents an hour .At 14 I went to work for a sheep shearer .During the summer he ran a portable sheep dipper in 4 or 5 states .I remember many a week earning over 200 dollars .Later I learned to shear and by the time I was 18 I could do about 70 lambs a day at 70 cents per . The other shearers could do about 100 .