What was your first job when you were a kid?

[PuroAztlan]

I got hired as a sacker at Grocery World.

Good times!

[memebag]

Hard to say. My grandmother paid me $20 to memorize the beattitudes one afternoon. Later, a carny paid me $5 to blow up balloons in the dart toss game at the Strawberry Festival. Watch out for those darts. The first job I got a paycheck for was soldering a patch bay the Arena Theater, but that was just for one week. My first steady job was hawking Ricoh cameras at Total Camera in a strip center in Almeda Mall's parking lot. We got a bonus for every Ricoh we sold, and a deduction from our paycheck if we ever sold the weekly advertised special.

[crunchtastic]

I got all excited when I read the line "a carny paid me $5 to......"

Not quite the payoff I hoped for, but still. Taking money from a carny. Nice work.

At 15 my first 'real job' was at the Long John Silvers on Mason Rd (recently replaced by a horrid Panda Epxress). With the requisite 19 year old stoner assistant manager. Good times, indeed.

[20thStDad]

Technically it was $10 per lawn when I was about 12, but the first "real" job was washing dishes and bussing tables at La Madeleine. I hate that place, but learned a bit about food service.

[memebag]

I got all excited when I read the line "a carny paid me $5 to......"

Not quite the payoff I hoped for, but still. Taking money from a carny. Nice work.

Thanks. My sister was in the Miss Strawberry beauty pageant, so I had an evening to kill wandering around the midway. I had no money until the dart toss lady hired me.

At 15 my first 'real job' was at the Long John Silvers on Mason Rd (recently replaced by a horrid Panda Epxress). With the requisite 19 year old stoner assistant manager. Good times, indeed.

Cool. One of my best friends in high school was the stoner manager of the LJS on Fuqua. He was a certified Master Fish Cutter.

[rps324]

Busboy at a very politically incorrect establishment by the name of "Sambo's" out at 1960 & Kuykendahl.

[Vertigo58]

1. Briefly at Lenox Barbecue age 15

2. Holiday Inn - Wayside/45 busboy age 16

3. Burger King - on now infamous gritty Telephone Road/Winkler age 16

Kind of interesting to be serving the strippers/hookers just across the street! "services rendered"

[lockmat]

Voter Consumer Research. We did political surveys mostly. We were allowed to make up whatever name we wanted. I'll never forget the time I was "Nomar" when I called Boston and got cussed out like a mother from a heavy accented Bostonian and then the time I was "Kobe" when I called LA and they guy said, "yeah, and I'm shaq." The LA guy was nice to me.

[PuroAztlan]

I got all excited when I read the line "a carny paid me $5 to......

I tripped out too, I got as far as "I paid a carnie $5 to blow.....

[BryanS]

Early years... 11, 12 years old - Lawns. $10/lawn. Front and back.

...14 through 18 (during the school year)... worked on a "ranch" - did ALL KINDS of work, mostly helped with home remodeling (by the time it was all said and done, took an 1100 square foot farm house, turned it into 3000+ square feet of living space, over 4 years.) I'm not afraid to tear into anything now, when it comes to home improvement.

...15 through 16 (during the summers)... worked as a grocery bagger, Bagger #77, in the Los Angeles Air Force Base Commissary, El Segundo, CA. I was the *the only* white bagger, out of probably 30 of us. I was also the youngest. Most everybody else lived in Compton/Watts... we all worked for tips only (no background checks for these people, or child labor laws to worry about; there was no official pay roll). Talk about reverse racism - not from the other baggers, we all got along fine - but the customers! I would be walking back from the parking lot... and I would hear: "Hey WHITIE!" - from another white customer. Alrighty then. There would be 20 of us, standing in line, waiting for the next checkout station... talk about someone who really stood out... I tell you what... you get a good appreciation of what others must have to live with in their lives when it comes to discrimination and not "fitting in" working a job like that.

...17, 18 (during the summers)... worked for an industrial controls company, in Houston. I would go on "driver's runs" ALL OVER Houston... Deliver and pickup all kinds of parts, materials, etc.

Then college. Finally, have a decent job.

EDIT: I couldn't resist. I had to go find a photo of the old place, the LAAFB Commissary.

...and I think that's the guy who called me names!!! STILL THERE! (just kidding)...

DOUBLE EDIT: The tip-only bagging... was quite lucrative: $40 to $60/day, on a weekday. Up to $100 on a Saturday. Most people tipped well... but some would burn you (bagging and pushing SIX full carts of groceries... and nothing. - luckily that didn't happen too often.)

Edited May 3, 2008 by BryanS

[RedScare]

Let's see....

Delivered newspapers at age 12 (that seems so young now). Got paid $20 a week. Hit the big time at 14 when I took over two routes that converged at my house. Made 40 bucks a week then. Still got my tax returns for my $1300 annual income.

At 15, I went to work at Wake Forest University, cleaning educational films. Got paid a whopping $1.60 an hour, even though minimum wage was $2.10. Maybe because of my age.

At 16, I began driving a school bus for the Catholic school. That was the big time! Got paid $4.25 per shift, which took slightly more than an hour to drive. For grins, I would drive to Wake Forest on Sundays and shuttle college kids to the Catholic church. In North Carolina, you could drive a bus at 16. The busses had a governor to hold speeds to 35 mph (of course mine ran up to 55).

[TJones]

I mowed lawns of course, but my first paycheck came from Godfather's Pizza. I was hellagood at making those pies. I was making about $8hr or so, because I made pizzas but I helped deliver also. This was 1986. I got tired of all the driving around so I got a job at a placed called The Chocolate Emporium at San Jac Mall, I was one of those guys who used the big OAR to fold chocolate into those huge fudge logs on the granite table. Pretty tough gig, I hated it immensely !

[cottonmather0]

The summer before I was in the second grade my dad took me to the farm and paid me a nickel per weed hoed in the cotton patch. I think I made like $5 in a week and thought I was rich!

First real job was slinging hamburgers at a local fast food joint in the 10th grade. Three months later that was also the first job I ever quit. Even today I think back to how miserable that was, coming home smelling like grease and coated in goo. Not to mention the horrible management.

Edited May 3, 2008 by cottonmather0

[PuroAztlan]

I mowed lawns of course, but my first paycheck came from Godfather's Pizza. I was hellagood at making those pies. I was making about $8hr or so, because I made pizzas but I helped deliver also. This was 1986. I got tired of all the driving around so I got a job at a placed called The Chocolate Emporium at San Jac Mall, I was one of those guys who used the big OAR to fold chocolate into those huge fudge logs on the granite table. Pretty tough gig, I hated it immensely !

which godfathers location?

The summer before I was in the second grade my dad took me to the farm and paid me a nickel per weed hoed in the cotton patch. I think I made like $5 in a week and thought I was rich!

First real job was slinging hamburgers at a local fast food joint in the 10th grade. Three months later that was also the first job I ever quit. Even today I think back to how miserable that was, coming home smelling like grease and coated in goo. Not to mention the horrible management.

local where, here in h-town?

[markc]

Ming Yen Chinese Resturant on 1960 by Greenwood Forest. Believe it was around 1975

[cottonmather0]

local where, here in h-town?

Nah, I grew up in San Angelo. It was actually an Austin based chain called "Short Stop" but it was locally owned and operated. I think they're still in Austin, but the San Angelo location disappeared a few years ago and there is now a Starbucks on the site.

[crunchtastic]

Nah, I grew up in San Angelo. It was actually an Austin based chain called "Short Stop" but it was locally owned and operated. I think they're still in Austin, but the San Angelo location disappeared a few years ago and there is now a Starbucks on the site.

Short Stop! My friends used to live right near South First and Congress in Austin, and we often thanked the baby jeebus that there was a Short Stop in the parking lot right at the end of their street.

[Original Timmy Chan's]

I made pizza for Buster Douglas at Donato's Pizza in Columbus, OH. Yes, this Buster Douglas...(he lived in our delivery area, and ordered quite regularly):

Except this was right after his KO of Mike Tyson. So he looked more like this:

[TJones]

Puro, it was the Godfather's Pizza in Baytown,Tx. It is where I learned to master my all-time favorite video game, "Sinistar" !

[PuroAztlan]

Puro, it was the Godfather's Pizza in Baytown,Tx. It is where I learned to master my all-time favorite video game, "Sinistar" !

your from baytown?

[plumber2]

Baskin Robbins, Westheimer @ Chimney Rock, $1.00 per hour! (1970)

[HtownWxBoy]

I was a playground monitor in the summer when I was 14 or 15... then at 16 it was off to Burger King. :-)

[TJones]

your from baytown?

SSSSShhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........Don't tell anybody !!!

Don't be confused, I don't live in Baytown anymore, but that is where I grew up.

Edited May 3, 2008 by TJones

[editor]

I worked in the dairy department of an A&P. One day I cut myself horribly with a box cutter and sprayed blood all over the cheese section. When I got back from the hospital many hours later, just in time for closing, everything was just as I had left it. Nobody bothered to clean it up, and nobody bought any cheese that day.

I still have the scar.

[jb4647]

Delivered the "Leader" newspaper once a week between '85 & 89. Made a whopping $20-30/month! Of course that bought a lot of comic books back then!

[20thStDad]

A&P rocked!! Except for the blood and what not. Cheap, not so clean, and never crowded. Did they have those in Houston or did you grow up somewhere else? We definitely had them in Baton Rouge.

Someone mentioned 31 flavors, that is where my friends worked in high school. Awesome. I spent almost as much time there as they did. When we weren't eating things, we played such games as scoop baseball (ziploc bag, wooden bat, play until messy), whipped cream baseball (yeah, cans busted), and topping wars. You would think topping wars sounds tame, but a cold M&M is not soft. I was glad I wasn't the one paid to clean up on those nights. Customers would walk in like "WTF"?? But they were rarely ever scared away from ordering their 3 scoops. People were addicted to that junk. And now my friends have abnormal cake-icing skills that have impressed the ladies on more than one occasion.

[houstonmacbro]

I got hired as a sacker at Grocery World.

Good times!

I was a stacker at a small, independent drug store on West Orem. Stacking supplies, sweeping.

[PuroAztlan]

I worked in the dairy department of an A&P. One day I cut myself horribly with a box cutter and sprayed blood all over the cheese section. When I got back from the hospital many hours later, just in time for closing, everything was just as I had left it. Nobody bothered to clean it up, and nobody bought any cheese that day.

I still have the scar.

cut AWAY from yourself, not TOWARDS yourself, Editor

[editor]

cut AWAY from yourself, not TOWARDS yourself, Editor

Actually, the problem was "across" horizontally.

I got a similar injury a year later on the same hand while carving a pumpkin. My hand went down, the knife stayed up, and now I can no longer bend my pinky. I can bend it if I push it with the other hand, but I cut right through all the muscles and tendons and things down to the bone so now I can't move it with my mind. I guess if I'd told my mother she would have taken me to the hospital to have them sewn back on, but I was 17 and listened to enough Depeche Mode that I didn't really feel pain back then.

[CDeb]

First paycheck was in 1994-95 from Lloyd's Photography on FM 1960, working Saturdays from 6 am until we were done shooting kids soccer and baseball individual and team pictures. It was actually a lot of fun. Six bucks an hour, too.