Your first few jobs

First time on a payroll, I was a janitor at the NY Aquarium in Coney Island. I as 16, and there was an arcade in the carnival area down the street past the train station. One of the regulars there would destroy me regularly with Jubei. Technically he was still better than I am now. I wonder what that guy is doing.

Hyperduel said:

After college I'm doing collections/repo work for a car finance company making around $30kish. Could be worse out of college but this job is awesome for entry level. For example: You need to call the estate of Jovan Belcher because his Bentley that he just finance with the company is in default (second payment default). Oh wait, he killed himself. It was interesting talking to his mom and stated we are going to repo the Bentley and we are demanding the unit back. Long story short management went legal/replevin on the estate in order to get the unit back. Fun times when looking for peoples cars....

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Repo people have some of the best stories.

jeffkun34 said:

So many bad memories of that office. One of the last times I was in that office, I was being interviewed by a scary FBI agent with a snoopy tie about a hate crime I did not commit. Scary stuff..

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It's okay, we're all friends here... now tell us about your hate crime...

Maury V. said:

10 months at Micheals taught me my city was horrid and there are those that will hold material objects over human beings

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Michaels? As in the arts & crafts chain? Sounds like there's an interesting story here--care to share? Tell me it involved the scrapbookers!

First one was working for the state of Florida in the Welfare department. got to learn first hand how screwed up the state is especially when it comes to money. They would bitch about not having the money to give me a raise or get better computer equipment (I was doing IT work upgrading everything to Windows 98 SE and building new databases in OS/400 as I learned RPG in college). But they would say we don't have money but we would have closets full of new tv's, projectors, laserdisc players, etc. I don't want to get started on the record keeping for all the clients and how bad the system is with giving people money when they were flat out lying about their situation, people claiming their dogs as a dependent to get more money, plenty of hookers claiming their jobs required them to be able to drive so they needed a state gas card, etc. It was really fun trying to think of how I can create menus and libraries for claims that were basically illegal. I was happy when a budget cut came and me and my team were let go.

My first job was basically janitorial duties at a car restoration shop. I was 15, and working after school with a work permit. I had to clean up the shop, put up tools, keep the paint booth clean, etc...

I was able to work around, and "drive" (backing in/out of the garage, etc) some rare classics and exotic cars.

No one has said McDonald's yet?

I worked there starting when I was 15 in Florida, worked various amounts from part time during high school, full time in summers, to full time in between terms of college until I moved to Tennessee year round.

Not too many particularly hilarious stories, but we used to eat a ton of the raw cookie dough.

One of the most lasting impressions was of the probably 80 year old Filipino lady, Felicidad, that came in at 4am to make biscuits and roll the breakfast burritos (she could roll a mean burrito, I suspect it was from lumpia training).

Anyway, after she was done with that, she spent the rest of the morning sweeping the dining area. In any case, you could ask any of the teenage kids to go out there and sweep and they would be done in 10 minutes, you might even look out and say "yeah, that looks pretty clean". Well, Felicidad would go out there and spend probably 2 hours on the roughly 200 sq ft area and by the time she was done she had a mound of dirt.

Not sure why that story sticks with me because the work ethic surely didn't, I hate cleaning.

No jobs, haven't left my house in three years, living on other people's expenses. The kernow way.

#yolo #woah #wow

My first job was working illegally at a Korean restaurant at the age of 14. I was the cook and busboy. Had to memorize a 40 item menu and got paid $4 per hour. After my first paycheck ($48) I went across the street to the pool hall and spent $28 there playing Ninja Combat, World Heroes and Yie Ar Kung Fu and was there the whole night so I missed school. At least I came home with $20, which I gave to my mom. I never went back to that place after that.

My first job was working at my parents fast food restaurant at a mall. I remember sneaking out in between breaks and before closing to play in the arcade. Always got caught by my Dad who would drag me back to work. Lol

1st job on the books, was at Taco Bell in High School.

A whopping $4.25/hr...but the crew was fun.

Water fights on break, using the sour cream & guac guns were epic.

alphagamer said:

I was 14 at the time, ...

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§2 I JArbSchG says that anyone who is younger than 15 is a child and §5 I JArbSchG says that child labour is illegal.

No matter how hard i tried, i couldn't get a "job" (helping out in my dad's company, when they moved to a bigger building) until i was 16. Not even burger king will hire anyone who is younger than 18.

I landed my first job a few weeks after turning 18. Worked at a grocery store for 6DM (~3€)/hour. That was back in 1997. Pay wasn't good, but no one in my area made much more than that at the time. I accepted, because i really wanted that 2000DM sony hi-8 handycam.
Got to watch a female customer piss herself right in the middle of the store, while i was cleaning the shelf with the wine bottles.

Actually ended up working at that store twice. When i was hired the second time, i got 8DM/hour, though.

Then i worked at an old folks home for about a year. Changing diapers and stuff.

Third job was cleaning the basement of a large bank institute. Wasn't bad. Only did this for a few months. Pay was good. Female boss was hot.

When i first went to uni, i started doing the nightshift cleaning at a burger king store. After about a year, i had to work in the kitchen and later at the cash register, too. Because of the financial crisis, i decided to stay for 7 frustrating years even though i hated the job. Pay wasn't good and i hated our customers, but the job was secure and i didn't have to worry about my health insurance.

First job was at 18, working in an off licence an it was awesome! Was pretty funny going for the interview as i'd just turned 18 and i'd been buying booze there for 3 years... The manager was pretty pissed at me for buying under age all that time but gave me the job just for having the front to apply for it. Also, he thought i'd probably be pretty good at spotting people who were under age... Went back there in the holidays, when I was at uni and had an absolute blast.. My mate became the manager for a bit and we took the absolute piss.. Getting ridiculously high in the back room, doing the beer scam.. (Basically whenever someone bought a beer that was on a multideal (6 for £5 or whatever), we just added it up without putting it through the till until we had enough to complete the deal, then putting it through with our employee discount, ending up with free beer and cash out the till... All above board according to the books, heh heh...) Of course this was nothing compared to some people we knew... There were a few shops that were notorious for being run by absolute kaners.. We'd go visit sometimes and just find them all in the back room doing lines and smoking bongs, in the middle of the day... At least 4 or 5 bottles of spirits open, just help yourself... Heard of one guy setting the alarm off at 2am one night, because he'd got too fucked and passed out on the toilet.. Everyone thought he'd gone home so they locked up for the night.. My mate saw the cctv footage an it was hillarious, he staggered out of the toilet, still with his trousers around his ankles, fumbled with the door for ages, all the while the alarm's going off, then wondered out into the street... Damn shame the off licence chain shut down, was a great place to work...

All that said though, did have one shitty experience... Got robbed by a guy with a huge knife, he came in and basically threatened to cut my throat, so I gave him all the money... Figured fuckit, not getting killed for someone else's money right? What made it all the worse, was that he came in 15 minutes before the end of my shift, an i'd been there for 12 hours...

supergoose79 said:

§2 I JArbSchG says that anyone who is younger than 15 is a child and §5 I JArbSchG says that child labour is illegal.

No matter how hard i tried, i couldn't get a "job" (helping out in my dad's company, when they moved to a bigger building) until i was 16. Not even burger king will hire anyone who is younger than 18.

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Well, illegal it was, so what :-P

My first job was working for a company that manufactured parts and various things for some of the gaming companies here in town. It was a summer gig my dad got me, so I could save up some money for a few things I wanted to get. Mostly, I worked in the shipping department, but I also helped out in another department, mounting circuit boards to metal doors for bingo machines. I shouldn't have been doing the work at all, since I was 15 at the time. My dad had to lie when I got my work permit and say I was going to do clerical work in the company office.

It wasn't a terrible gig at all. Doing shipping was pretty easy: bag and heat-seal bags of small circuit boards, box them up, and do all the necessary shipping paperwork. One of the last days I had during my run there, I had to run the department myself. Our boss called out to get dental work done, our driver was AWOL somewhere (he had a drinking and gambling problem), and the other regular employee got arrested for jaywalking the previous night. The only bad parts was waking up early all summer and how hot the building got at times. But, the money I made got me a computer and my Dreamcast, so it was worth enduring.

Still, there's a sad bit about that job that I'll never forget that deals with the aforementioned guy that got busted for jaywalking. His name was Steve and was a pretty good guy. Really hard worker and was on time any other day I worked with him. I think he started around the same time I did. He had had a rough life up to that point, but shit was getting together for him and he was about to become a dad. He was murdered by his father-in-law about two weeks after I left that job and went back home at summer's end. I'll never forget my dad calling me and telling me that.

17 i got a job at a wholesale grocery store, worked there for about a year or so. at first i would put food back on shelves and help people out to their cars or use a forklift-type thing to put pallets into peoples trucks, get cigarette cartons from the cage, clean, shit like that. wasn't that bad. then got transferred to grocery, which was ass. grocery took up over 70 percent of the store, and there'd pretty much only have 1 guy working at a time. moved a LOT of huge bags of rice, flats of pop, 20 gallon buckets by hand. at least i got a workout. was in a union though, which definitely had it's benefits.

then i started working at a used game store my friend opened. worked there for about 4 and a half years, for most of it it was just me and my friend. worked something like 64 hour weeks, only got a couple days off a month. but it was fucking awesome, though of course we had some bad times too. got fired 5 or 6 times, but i eventually ran the second location we opened, till i moved to vancouver.

supergoose79 said:

§2 I JArbSchG

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The what now?

aria said:

Michaels? As in the arts & crafts chain? Sounds like there's an interesting story here--care to share? Tell me it involved the scrapbookers!

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I second this. Aside from the very real appreciation and depth to your narrative, this was the only thing that really raised my brow.

alphagamer said:

Well, illegal it was, so what :-P

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i'm not against it, if it was your own wish. in fact, i too wanted to work about 2 to 5 hours a week when i was that age. a paper route would have been nice, but i couldn't get one in my area.

lithy said:

The what now?

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JArbSchG = JugendArbeitsSchutzGesetz = (german) youth employment protection act

Ancient Flounder said:

the other regular employee got arrested for jaywalking the previous night.

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Wait..what?

Was it him?

First job was making photomultiplier tubes and breathing in all the solder fumes.

Fox1 said:

Wait..what?

Was it him?

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lol Nah.

Yeah, he got caught jaywalking by an cop passing by and was hauled in for it. I was surprised, since I figured folks just get citations for shit like that. If I had to take a guess, he probably mouthed off to the cop. Still, it was his own fault getting stopped, since he was close enough to the crosswalk to just walk the extra 50 feet and use it.

Let's see... First job? Worked with my friend when I was 14 for his family's construction business. He was friends with my older brothers, he's 10 years older than me, so he was 24 at the time. I got paid a shitload for being 14 and driving around listening to punk rock. A few days were actual labor, but all in all, it was pretty good. I remember my first check being like $400 and just being floored by that amount. I clearly remember buying a new skateboard, a Black Label watch, a purple Gameboy Color and Pokemon Red as soon as I got the money.

Next, I worked at Kmart when I was 15 until right after I turned 19. My brother in law was a manager at another Kmart, so he got me hired, illegally, I believe (pretty sure you have to be 16 to work in Utah). It was retail... I remember cursing a lady out not so under my breath one day and she heard everything. She raised her eyebrows at me and I was fairly mortified. Eventually, I got moved to the accounting section, in the office. A manager stole $500 and, naturally, being 18 working in the accounting section, it got pinned on me. They gave me some ridiculous ultimatum, like if the totals for the store were off more than $.03 or something from then on, I was fired. So, I quit.

Next, I worked at a lumber yard. It was the most depressing environment I ever worked in. This was just after high school. I worked there from 19 to 21. I was the youngest guy there, into punk rock and psychobilly, among a bunch of macho rednecks... I'll let you figure out how that went for me. A lot of those dudes started drinking in the parking lot right after work. Just a shit environment all around.

I took a huge pay cut, making basically minimum wage, to work at a screen printing shop after that. From 21 to 22. That job was awesome. I made pennies, but it was such an awesome environment, that I didn't even care. Awesome coworkers and a super small company. Great times.

Due to making something like $7 an hour, I took another job at an arcade at the same time. Actually, when I started at the arcade, it was in trade for a Big Red MVS cabinet. I worked that off in like two weeks. Then, I just stayed on and took all the MVS art out of all the Neo Geo machines in the place. I clearly remember closing the place down and playing DDR with my friends well into the night. Great times.

This was probably the height of my satisfied working life. Didn't make any money at all, but it was pretty agreeable. Except, the arcade got robbed while I was the only person there one night. A meth head held me at knife point until I gave him all the money in the place. That was pretty wack... A blemish on an otherwise decent experience. Working at an arcade isn't all it's cracked up to be though.

Around this time, as you can probably understand, I got a little sick of working slacker jobs, so I went to university.

Also, I started at the job before the one I have right now. I worked at a hospital laboratory, preparing specimens for testing. I worked there from the time I was 22 until I was 26. It was a great job. Decent work, decent wage, most coworkers were students or had other aspirations, anyway. It was a solid job. I had a great time there. Didn't really have any particularly bad experiences. Pulled a lot of stupid stuff while I was there. Had awesome coworkers, a lot of whom I'm still friends with.

Then, I graduated from university and took a job teaching English in Japan, which is the job I have now. And that's literally every job I've had. I've had more experiences that I wonder how I made it through with this job than any other I've had. It's maybe best to not post about that stuff yet though...

At 15 I started working at an Italian Ice store in FL. Then worked for walmart for a week at 16. I told them I only wanted to work stock and the warehouse and not a register. First day They had me training on the register. Quit after a week. Then worked for sonny's bbq as a cook for a few days. Quit that. They built a target in our town and worked there for a year and a half. Quit that for more money to work with my buddy in the warehouse at circuit city. Stayed at CC for about 6 months then went to work at an internet company as an admin assistant for 10 months then the tech bubble happened and got layed off. Worked for an insurance company in the mailroom for 3 years and then went to xray school. Been working in xray ever since.

aria said:

Michaels? As in the arts & crafts chain? Sounds like there's an interesting story here--care to share? Tell me it involved the scrapbookers!

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DOOD! You have no idea how crazy those scrapbookers were! Simply put, they would get up and arms if we didn't have a certain piece of paper. Paper! These harlots were menstruating because they didn't have the right paper to finish their collage they worked "Sooo hard" on. My first manager at the store was cool cause she couldn't stand the scrapbookers herself (ironically, she partook in the hobby but wasn't crazy). If she ever encountered anything like that, she'd use her best customer service skills and scare the scrapbookers into not messing with her. I don't know how she did it but it was amazing.

It was more than the scrapbookers though. One day I was manning the front all by myself while my co-supervisor had EVERYONE else that was supposed to run cashier clean the store. On this particular day, we had a LOT of people show up and I couldn't get any help so I was moving on the double. While checking out a customer, I felt something hit my back. Some crazy woman was throwing merchandise at me and screaming at the top of her lungs saying "I don't have time for this shit! Get some people up here! Let's go [little jimmy]!" and just stormed out. I was at the point where I was done with retail and just fed up with customers shit so after that day, I just didn't care.

Maury V. said:

DOOD! You have no idea how crazy those scrapbookers were! Simply put, they would get up and arms if we didn't have a certain piece of paper. Paper! These harlots were menstruating because they didn't have the right paper to finish their collage they worked "Sooo hard" on. My first manager at the store was cool cause she couldn't stand the scrapbookers herself (ironically, she partook in the hobby but wasn't crazy). If she ever encountered anything like that, she'd use her best customer service skills and scare the scrapbookers into not messing with her. I don't know how she did it but it was amazing.

It was more than the scrapbookers though. One day I was manning the front all by myself while my co-supervisor had EVERYONE else that was supposed to run cashier clean the store. On this particular day, we had a LOT of people show up and I couldn't get any help so I was moving on the double. While checking out a customer, I felt something hit my back. Some crazy woman was throwing merchandise at me and screaming at the top of her lungs saying "I don't have time for this shit! Get some people up here! Let's go [little jimmy]!" and just stormed out. I was at the point where I was done with retail and just fed up with customers shit so after that day, I just didn't care.

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No doubt about it, retail sucks. I worked predominately in warehouses for my retail career while being asked to work/stock the floor every now and again and it sucked; especially around holidays. The general public can be especially mean around xmas. What baffles me is that people in their 30's and 40's whom were management took all that shit way too seriously. Its fucking retail give me a break. You contribute absolutely nothing to society but perpetuate consumerism on a massive scale. I understand that's their job, but come on give me a break. When the bulk of your work force is in high school and college and you bust their balls every day about sales forecast's etc while not attempting to give your associates any semblance of profit sharing etc to at least give them a better reason to do an A++ job other than an extremely meager paycheck, what do you expect? If they economy were in better shape (no thanks to our lord and Savior Barack Hussein Obama) they would be forced to actually pay those individuals a decent wage that would make them want to keep that job instead of it being a stop gap until something else better comes along. I am extremely fortunate; I chose health care as a profession which ensures me relatively good employment as people will always be sick and in need of health care. But I feel for those people working retail. Its a dead end job that allows you to barely scrape by every paycheck with little to no self satisfaction contributing to society as a whole.