Okay, Killzoners, let’s be up front with each other…and have some fun while we’re at it.
Be it paper delivery, fast food shenanigans, kiddo-sitting, or shoveling out your neighbor’s chicken coop . . . what was your first paying billet (or J.O.B.)?
I like to think of my first job as the First Draft of My Life.
Remember these?
I was the advanced age of fourteen when I was hired in my mother’s office. I worked after school three days a week, filing real estate cards—way before the digital age—and answering the black dial phone. Not exciting, but I could start buying my own clothes!
We won’t talk about the other job I had . . . intermittently dog-sitting for our neighbor’s twin St. Bernards . . . actually, I don’t know to this day who was sitting who. (Whom?)
Two of them!
Your turn—what was your first experience with a paycheck (and, dare I say, taxes?)
And, second question: How has that first paying job influenced your writing–such as plot, character development, etc.?
First job was as a pepper picker. Guessing I was around 15-ish, not sure.
I don’t know that anything about that influenced my writing but it is one of the things that causes me to give thanks for all the many things we take for granted–indoor plumbing, hot and cold running water, and yes, the ability to go grab our produce at the grocery store.
Morning, Brenda…
Hmm, Brenda the Pepper Picker? 🙂 Didn’t see that coming!
And, your takeaway is wonderful. I am trying, these days, to live in gratitude. It’s a peaceful place to be.
Have a great weekend!
Worked in my dad’s office in his shipping department. Moved up to secretary (that’s what we were called then) a couple of years later.
Hi Terry!
Thanks for stopping by. My dad used to own a full-service gas station back in the day, and I got a bit of experience sweeping, sweeping, sweeping. Didn’t get paid, though, unless you count my dinner that night. And the smile on his face when he checked my “work”. 🙂
Have a great day!
Junior in high school. Maybe sophomore. Usher at the Varsity Theater, St. Louis. 1979. I learned a lot. The Varsity had started showing an incredibly bad musical, but at midnight on the weekends. Tim Curry had made an appearance that summer. Yes, I worked about 250 showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Checked people at the door and confiscated booze if you tried to bring it in. I stood between the crowd and the screen for parts of the film. That also meant standing a few feet in front of 6′ tall speakers. I have never gotten “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” quite loud enough since.
There were other movies as well. At 17 I carded people going to an X rated movie. I was almost arrested when detectives showed up to check out “Emanuelle”. They left laughing. My little brother got a lot closer. “Caligula” did qualify as obscene.
Going to go pop some popcorn now.
Good morning, Alan.
Your first work experience sounds a whole lot more fun than mine was. Filing stacks of real estate cards was mind-numbing for sure. But the paycheck made it worth it in my mind. Being able to buy my own clothes, at 14 or 15, was freeing. I didn’t have to put up with what other folks (parents) thought would “look good on me…” Ha!
Have a great day!
My first job was as a paper delivery boy for the “Community Press,” when I was eight years old, a “free” newspaper. Collecting option subscription fees was a challenge for young me. My other first job at the time was helping my dad clean a pet store early Saturday mornings. I liked that one better, because I got to see puppies 🙂
Hi Dale!
I think I would’ve chosen the pet store job, too. But wait! Those St. Bernards…
I think my bro delivered papers when he was a teenager, then he got hired on at a local grocery store. He liked that a lot more. He’d come home with the weirdest food and cook his own dinner. That kind of annoyed the parents.
Once, he traipsed in with a package of octopus and fried it up in a skillet. Wanted me to try it. No way…but I digress…
Hey, thanks for stopping by, and hope you have a great weekend!
My first regularly paying job – outside of home – was for an “airline farmer” friend of Dad’s when I was thirteen.
He flew for Eastern Airlines, but had a medium sized farm with four horses, a beef steer, dogs, a catfish pond, and two kids.
First and foremost I mucked out the stables and fed said livestock. Additionally I cut grass, fed the catfish and checked the trap, dug fencepost holes and other general scut labor, and chased his young’ns around as needed, five days a week, eight hours a day for the stately sum of $4.00 a day plus lunch when Ms. Pat fed her kids anyway.
I did this for two summers… no taxes… and no child labor laws…
Of course, there were the home jobs that paid twenty-five cents a pair to shine Dad’s shoes, and fifty cents a week to change out the revisions issued to his flight manuals… things he, too, didn’t want to do…
How did it impact my writing? Well, I learned to “multitask” – pay attention to details and new things while doing something relatively “mindless” – and how to shovel, shall we say, “stuff…” 😁
Hi George!
You were an industrious kiddo, my friend!
“…the stately sum of $4.00 a day…”
THAT takes me back! At my mom’s office, I was paid $1.75 an hour. So, about a buck more per 3 hour shift than you made in a day. Those were the days, right?
Have a good one.
I was a dishwasher at the local bar restaurant, $1.50/hr, cash under the table. I, and the other dishwashers, were all fifteen or sixteen, changing beer kegs under the bar, bussing tables, making pizzas, and washing dishes, It was a place out of a cozy. Bunny and Pat ran the kitchen. Big Val and Fuzzie poured the draft to the old watermen who sat at the bar,s drinking up their social security checks and talking about the days of skipjacks and buy boats.
Mornin’ Bill…
Sounds like the perfect job for a teenage boy. 🙂
I love your description of the place you worked. I can see it in my mind. It kind of reminds me of the movie, The Perfect Storm, and the bar/restaurant on the pier.
Thanks for stopping by this morning, and have a great weekend!
Once I got my driver’s license I could look for a job. My first was as a fry cook at a regional hamburger chain in Fresno, CA. It was every bit as glamorous as it sounds. I got a whopping buck-thirty-five an hour which was the going wage. The biggest thing I learned was that there was a lot I still had to learn outside of school.
And what a great lesson to be learned…
At my age, you’d think I would’ve learnt it all. But…nope!
All 3 of my kiddos started their work lives at one of our local McDonald’s. Taught them more than I ever could! 💁♀️
Have a good one…