What was your first job?
 

Newspaper boy (10)

Delivery driver for various pizza joints. (16)

Brushcutter when I was 14. That would be my summer job every year until I was 18 and graduated to treeplanting.

Movie theater usher. I was 15 and technically too young to work legally, but it was the summer of Jaws 2 and the theater was't too picky about where it got all the bodies it was going to need for crowd control. Great job, kept it throughout high school.

Motel Bellman...toting bags for bus tours...then graduated to front desk. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/smile.gif.

Gemini Drive-In Theater. I started in popcorn at 14, then cook, then asst, mgr, at 16.

I didn't count newspapers, or mowing, or janitorial (small scale).

JM

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I didn't count newspapers, or mowing, or janitorial (small scale).

JM Yeah...I didn't count throwing hay bales, or lawn mowing, or fence building, or any of the numerous odd jobs I had before turning 16.

Delivery boy for some company. I used a bike to transport their small packages around the city. Never before or since did I inhale so much car exhaust fumes.

Mine was probably doing data entry

My first job was counting vehicles and passengers, or stopping vehicles, asking the drivers where they come from and where they go to, etc. It was for an agency that helped planning infrastructure, of course.
Some jobs were really scary, like staying at night on the side of a highway bridge, which was rather narrow (i.e., no service lane). And my boss failed to inform the police - guess who came across checking whether I was suicidal). But we got well paid!

Cleaning and selling caravans (14->18)
Mental Health Care Worker (19->now)

Originally posted by onodera
Hm, the first job I had (and this means an activity I was paid for) was probably the job I currently have, a software specialist in a bank.
What's up with you Americans having jobs that should be left to illegal immigrants and/or people from trailer parks? Not everyone who posted in this thread is an American. Is it uncommon for students in Russia to try to earn some money?

BTW, we're colleagues (kind of) since I also work with software at a bank. I'm a generalist though, not a specialist.

Originally posted by VetLegion


Not everyone who posted in this thread is an American. Is it uncommon for students in Russia to try to earn some money?

BTW, we're colleagues (kind of) since I also work with software at a bank. I'm a generalist though, not a specialist. Most are.

No, it is common, but they usually try to pick a job that is at least a bit related to the degree they're pursuing, so McD is usually staffed with future philologists and art historians, i.e. people with useless degrees. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/cute.gif

First real job was keeping the Soviets out of western europe. Nothing so grand after that and since the people of western europe couldn't be arsed to even attempt to do it for themselves it was something of a waste of my valuable time. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/cute.gif ...which was unfortunately not considered so valueable by others.

Well, for me I'm dropping chemistry the moment I get the degree, so there is little point in me getting a "summer job" in that field, whereas care work pays really well and I enjoy it enough to consider doing it for half a year if I take a gap year.

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I didn't count newspapers, or mowing, or janitorial (small scale).

JM Newspapers definitely counts. Mowing lawns could count if you did it consistently. I delivered newspapers 7 days a week for 6 years, rain or shine. And had to go collect money from everyone too. That definitely counts.

Originally posted by OzzyKP
I delivered newspapers 7 days a week for 6 years, rain or shine. And had to go collect money from everyone too. That definitely counts. Only about 3 years IIRC with the newspapers. Then in high school, I worked the back room in a retail store (stockboy, basically).

Originally posted by Dauphin
"Runner" at the International Petroleum Exchange. Collecting trading slips and typing them into the system. I thought it was Poundstretcher on Orpington High Street http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/wink.gif

I worked in my parents bakery from the age of 13 until I started at the paper mill and then the refrigerator factory after school.

Not that I know of. I'm part norwegian on my mothers side, but I don't think that has any bearing on the baking...