What kinds of jobs did you have growing up?

[pheasantplucker]

My first job was a "bagger" at a grocery store. I earned $1.71/hour which was more than minimum wage at the time. I also worked at a pet store selling fish, and birds, etc. I got a 7.5% commission on all sales there. That was a profitable job. Another job I had was when I worked for a realtor. Lots of times, families would move out and leave all their crap in the house rather than dispose of it, properly (and responsibly). I'd have to load all their junk and haul it to the dump. Then I'd set about patching walls, and painting, etc. I learned a great deal at that job. I also worked at a miniature golf course where they had trampolines built into pits in the ground. When there were no customers there, and I had my work caught up (cleaning and stocking the vending machines) I was permitted to use the tramps. I got pretty good at those. What about you?

[7thswan]

Worked in a store that sold Ties. Then a lumberyard. Liked working in the lumber yard,learned alot.

[deaconjim]

I guess my first job was mowing lawns, and for awhile I had a paper route too. When I was 15 I had my own business installing CB radios for the various electronics retailers in town. The last job I had before I joined the Navy was working in a theater.

[Old John]

I was the oldest of nine, 7 brothers, one sister.
I grew up working for the Family, working in the garden, hoeing tobacco. We had an care and a half of base. I grew up milking cows. We shipped grade B milk to Red 73.
1st job I got "payed for" was doing the neighbors milking when ever they needed help.
A dollar an hour & I was tickled.
Later I made money helping house hay or cutting an housing tobacco, for neighbors.
That was good money for a teenager.

[dk_40207]

My dad was in construction so when I was around 10-12 i would do demo clean-up, cut grass, and professional gopher in the summer. Also during the school year i would help strip tobacco after school in the winter.

[Old Swampgirl]

I baby sat & ironed for people, often both at the same time. Later worked at an answering service(way before cell phones of course), tended bar, delivered phone books, sold toilet bowl cleaners door to door, sold encyclopedias, waited tables, etc.

[TXyankee]

I mowed and cleaned yards for people and hauled hay for .02 per bale. I shoveled corn onto an elevator for a farmer, that paid pretty good. I also worked at a hardware store until I went to college.

[Ana Bluebird]

Started milking cows by hand at the age of 8, parents hired us kids out to put up hay, and we picked up walnuts---finally got to keep the walnut money. Our high school paid us 25 cents an hour to do office work: type, file, answer the phone, etc. My first "real" job was typing at the local newspaper office: 75 cents an hour. Loved that job because they were so very nice to me. Of course, babysitting.

[SFM in KY]

I grew up on a ranch, no siblings, so I ended up being the "hired hand" doing whatever needed doing. I fed and watered chickens, gathered eggs, when I was six ... by 10 I was doing a lot of the riding/cattle work and by 12, doing some work in the fields. By the time I was a teenager I was doing 90% of the riding, everything that one rider could do, helping brand and out in hayfield.

I also helped in the house and garden when I was needed as well ... just a little of everything.

I did a little babysitting during the winter months when we were living in an apartment in town so I could go to high school and mother taught, but not much because we tried to go home on the weekends unless the weather was too bad.

They also had a class in high school you could take if you were taking secretarial courses ... typing, etc. ... and they had you work in the school office at various things, answering the telephone, writing letters, filing paperwork. That was the closest to an "outside job" as I had until I was out of high school.

[agmantoo]

Before I could handle a lawn mower I picked up recyclables and sold them. I delivered papers and sold garden seed. I was a caddy on weekends and worked summers in a garage cleaning car parts then got a break and bagged groceries and finally moved into produce. Did homework for a fee for kids with money.

[tarbe]

Lawn mowing

Picking pickles (worst job I ever had!)

Dish washing and busboy

Janitor after school (sweep floors, empty trash etc - "best" job I ever had!)

Carpet cleaning

Then off to the Marines at the ripe old age of 18....

Turns out several of my previous jobs prepared me well for some of the lower parts of the Marine experience! Who'd a thunk it?

[FoghornLeghorn]

My first "paid" job was picking potato bugs off the hundreds of potato plants that my dad grew. I was paid $.01 per bug which I collected in jar and counted as I picked. I fed them to the chickens after. It taught me how to keep count in the midst of distractions.

My next paid job was babysitting.

When I was 16 my dad hired me to work in the woodworking shop doing clean up, planing, cutting small pieces on the band saw and sanding. I have the scars to prove it.

Then I got a job at Burger King where I was shortly promoted to assistant manager and being able to count in the midst of distractions came in very handy because someone always tried to mess me up. Actually, I discovered I could accurately count the tills and hold 2 conversations at once.

ETA I also had a paper route that I inherited from my older brother. (Thanks for reminding me agmantoo )

Just remembered that I also picked strawberries for a number of years and tomatoes for a year. Made some good money for my age for that.

[Cabin Fever]

Bartender......


.....at an A&W Root Beer stand (8th grade, age 14)

[soulsurvivor]

I grew up on a 121 acre farm. We grew tobacco, corn and soybeans. We had 50+ Holstein and Jersey dairy, and raised pigs for butchering and sale. We had an orchard and large garden. Dad had a big shop where he did welding and farm machinery repair on the farm. Some years, he'd work during the week in Louisville at the Ford plant and live there except for weekends. In 1962 mom hired on at the sewing factory in Lebanon which was 40 miles one way from the farm. She drove it daily and never missed a day of work. There was me, the oldest, and my younger brother and sister to help keep the farm going. We worked before and after school and during school breaks in all areas of the farm until we graduated from high school. We each went to college on government loans and work study programs. We each became teachers in improverished areas to pay back our loans.

My senior year of high school, I got a weekend job at Kings Department Store in Lebanon selling and altering men's clothing. I used the money for college. In the summer I graduated I got a job at the sewing factory and rode to work with mom everyday. I did all the odd jobs from warehousing and packing to serging and setting sleeves. I used this money for college and worked every summer during college at the sewing factory. During my college work study program, I was an office tech each of the four years with the Physical Education Department. Back then that involved running copies, doing typing, answering phones and taking messages.

In the summer after graduating college I hired on at Standard Products in Lexington as a clip machine operator. I did this until I found a teaching job here in my home county and moved back to Lebanon. I taught primary grades until 1981 and then I got a job with Head Start as a combination primary teacher/Head Start teacher and did that until 1992. Then I became a Head Start Resource and Training Specialist and did adult training and worked at the State level with collaboration projects that involved Head Start. During some of my years teaching, I'd still work at a local sewing factory during summer breaks to earn extra money. I also worked a summer at the local Kroger store as a relief person for employees taking summer vacations. I mostly worked in the meat department, but also trained and worked as a cashier.

[Cornhusker]

I lived in the boonies, so about the only work available was agricultural based.
Summers, we went to the hayfields, (we called it hay camp), in the sandhills.
I spent a few years as a scatter raker, but the last couple, I got to run a sweep which was dirty work but a lot more fun. (If you don't know what a scatter raker or sweep is, then you missed out. )
I also took a few turns at straight raking and mowing but running the stacker was for the grown ups.
We worked 12 hour days, 6 days a week putting up thousands of acres of hay.
The most I ever made doing that was $300 a month and found.
My brother and I also raised potatoes, usually about an acre.
That acre of potatoes would generally buy our clothes and school supplies for the following school year and some left over for fun stuff.
Of course we always helped with brandings if we weren't at hay camp, and we scooped feed bunks in the winter and joined local hay crews when we were finished in the hills.
One year in high school I worked in a factory packing big cables in crates.

I picked a whole lot of cotton. When we moved, I pulled a whole lot of tobacco. When I turned 16, I went to work in the cotton mill. It was a piece of cake compared to working in the tobacco, or cotton field. I finished high school working second shift in the cotton mill.

[suitcase_sally]

Originally Posted by tarbe

Picking pickles (worst job I ever had!)

Are you telling me they grow on trees? I have to make my pickles!

[deaconjim]

Originally Posted by tarbe

Lawn mowing

Picking pickles (worst job I ever had!)

Dish washing and busboy

Janitor after school (sweep floors, empty trash etc - "best" job I ever had!)

Carpet cleaning

Then off to the Marines at the ripe old age of 18....

Turns out several of my previous jobs prepared me well for some of the lower parts of the Marine experience! Who'd a thunk it?

What do pickles grow on?

[SueMc]

Walked beans for my grandpa (great money). Got my worker's permit at 14 and was a waitress at Steak n Shake. Waitressed at an old fashioned diner too (that beauty was actually torn down). There was a guy who always tipped $1. We would fight over who got to wait on him. Been a nurse since 1974 and a nurse anesthetist since '96.

I'm pretty intolerant of lazy. I have a 19 y/o nephew who told me once that he'd "never flip burgers". I can't stand it and if I were his mom, I'd never give him a cent!

[whiterock]

Dad farmed over 1500 acres of land in total, cotton, grain sorghum, wheat, hay, about half of that land was in pasture, so working beef cattle was a big part of the job as well. I started putting in full days the summer I was 10, and did that after school, on weekends and summers until I started teaching. Still came up on weekends and vacations to help him as needed. I enjoyed working the stock the most, hated hoeing the cotton the most. Well, maybe i hated hauling baled grain sorghum during poor hay years more than hoeing. Those bales continued to dry after baling and had a tendancy to fall apart just as you got them over your head and would shower you with chaff that drove you half crazy with itching.
Ed