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What did your first job pay?


Randomguy

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When I was 15 years old, I got a job as a dishwasher at a Chinese restaurant.  I got paid less than minimum wage because I was under 16, I think they paid me $2.15 an hour or somesuch.

I was living at home, of course, and I eventually bought a rusty '73 Camaro with the proceeds.

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My sister worked in a local 7/11 store and got me a job at 12-13 YO as a stock boy. I would come in every day after school and restock the cooler.  The owner paid me under the table I think $15 a week and all the slurpee’s I could drink.  I could set my hours and only stayed as long as needed to restock which was usually less than an hour.  What sucked is I had to come in every day. 

My first paying job was the Army and I think an E-1 in the early 1980’s was making a little over $500 a month. I separated as an E-5 Making about $1,300 a month. 

 

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Newspaper delivery as a wee lad was, I think, a loss.  It was a racket - ie the Main Line Times, a Thursday only local paper, would have kids (and maybe adults?) deliver the papers and then collect the bills.  The newspaper got paid upfront for the papers, and then you just kept the money you collect. Except it was tough to get money from old folks! So my parents would pay for the papers, and it would take months to get the people to pay their $5 or whatever pittance they owed for months.

"Real" job was working at the grocery store as a HS kid getting $3.25/hr (min wage) and occasionally tips depending on what I was doing.  Mainly in the produce dept restocking fruits and veggies, but meant I got unlimited access to the loose candy, so that was definitely "extra" pay :happyanim:

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My first job was Saturday cleaning for an elderly woman named Mrs. Matthews. She paid me $5 an hour to clean her house, the unused rooms every other week. It took me two hours, and then she would make us lunch. 
 

My first job requiring tax withholding was Godfathers Pizza. I don’t remember the wages. It was 1986. 

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5 minutes ago, Magic Spoon said:

Is that with room and board?  I have always been unclear on that.

Yeah the Military covers everything a 18 yo private would need.  Housing, food, medical is all just provided.  It get sticky when they are married and have to live off base. Most military families live in poverty, especially if they are in high rent assignments like the DC area.

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3 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

Yeah the Military covers everything a 18 yo private would need.  Housing, food, medical is all just provided.  It get sticky when they are married and have to live off base. Most military families live in poverty, especially if they are in high rent assignments like the DC area.

I was wrong about the tent and the can of beans?  Are you sure?  Maybe it was a can of tuna? :scratchhead:

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6 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

Yeah the Military covers everything a 18 yo private would need.  Housing, food, medical is all just provided.  It get sticky when they are married and have to live off base. Most military families live in poverty, especially if they are in high rent assignments like the DC area.

$20K AND room and board?  Sounds like those 18 year olds are beating the pants off the minimum wage, and should be able to save up a dollar or two!    Married and off-base get stipends of some sort, right?

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2 minutes ago, Magic Spoon said:

$20K AND room and board?  Sounds like those 18 year olds are beating the pants off the minimum wage, and should be able to save up a dollar or two!    Married and off-base get stipends of some sort, right?

Yeah housing & food allowance & medical for dependents. 

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14 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Army is a tent and a can of beans.  Then I think it is hunt and get your own meal?

If you remember when we dropped a bunch of bombs on Lybia killing some of Khaddafi’s family in 85 or 86, we went in full lock down. I manned a M60 at Hatfield Gate Ft Myer with orders to light up any vehicle that blows the gate as they were in the process of fortifying it. 
 

Me and another guy got sent to  Davison Airfield to secure a perimeter access point that was near Telegraph road.  We got dropped off with weapons & ammo, a radio with no spare battery and just the water in our canteens.

Well after a day the radio batteries ran out and the powers that be fucking forgot about us. We manned our post for 3 days and used our rifles to hunt birds, squirrels & woodchucks. We had to ration water but we’re out of Water by day 3.  After 3.5 days they figured out where the two missing soldiers were and got us. 

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11 minutes ago, Magic Spoon said:

All that, plus college paid for?  Wowie!  Sounds like a decent deal, actually.

The system has probably changed over the years but we had to contribute into our college fund and the military matches and kicked in a bunch more.  But it wasn’t necessarily free. 

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38 minutes ago, Magic Spoon said:

All that, plus college paid for?  Wowie!  Sounds like a decent deal, actually.

The life skills gained is probably the biggest take away.  It’s a hard life for certain military MOS and many soldiers die in training, not just combat.  

It’s a hard life but can be rewarding. Maybe it’s a decent deal but that’s debatable.

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My first job, working at Gino's fast-food restaurant - similar to McD's plus it had the Maryland franchise for Kentucky Fried Chicken - paid $1.25/hr.

You could take an "area test" once a month for grill, french fries, chicken, cashier, cleanup, and one more I can't remember for a 5 cent/hr raise.  So, after 6 months I made $1.55/hr.  After that, it was at the manager's discretion and I left after a couple years, making $2.10/hr, to take an on-campus job in the chemistry department - for $2/hr but I could set my own hours between classes, etc. during the school year and worked full-time in the summers and kept that job until I left for grad school at IIT, where I had a full scholarship plus a $325/month tax-free ($2000/month in 2021 $) teaching assistantship where $110/month went for dormitory room and board and I thought I was rich!

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I don't remember what the part time job paid but my first full year in the service came with a $1,500 W2 and my last year was in the mid $6,000.  On a per hour basis that was pretty small because the work days were often well over 8 hours long.  Free food and medical though.  :(  Plus travel to exotic places.  :o  The most valuable part was an education and the GI bill that eventually put me through college........sort of.

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Did all the lawn mowing paper routes odd jobs thing.  Part time at McD's, don't even remember the wage.  My first full time job in a sheet metal shop was $3.15/hr.  About a year in they voted to go on strike.  I told the boss and shop steward I  was quitting instead of being out of work for 3 months to get a nickel raise.  4 months later the shop steward called to say he strike was settled and I could come back even though I didn't walk.  I asked what they got - "A Nickel".  Asked if he remembered the reason I said I was quitting.    Sorry, I'm getting $4 plus OT to work an air conditioned desk job.

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The first work for pay I remember is washing floors, kitchen floors, I think I got 50 cents to scrub a floor on my hands and knees. I was about 9 years old.

I worked up into window washing and lawn mowing

The first tax paying job was in a college cafeteria for 1.60 an hour, some time in the early 70's

My yearly income chart from social security starts in the early 70's and has several years of earnings of a few hundred dollar.

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I was 16 yrs. Minimum wage, whatever that was at a donut shop serving coffee and donuts. I got fired after a wk.,....because I was too slow and didn't catch on what double-double meant. I'm serious about this.  Coffee jargon is cultural and at that time, no one in my family was a coffee drinker.  I didn't become a coffee drinker until I was 21 yrs.

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My first "job" was actually a summer volunteer program sponsored by the  alumni clubs  for my college in various cities.   I worked at a jobs for youth program sponsored by the govt and a local community center in Hartford..  They ran a program that gave  summer jobs to kids in inner city areas doing community projects. I supervised a crew of kids doing painting projects at a nursing home  The kids got paid and in exchange for my volunteer work for the summer, I got a $2,000 scholarship.  I also got to sleep on the couch of some people who worked at the group who ran the project.  Over the course of the summer, the house was broken into multiple times.  Luckily I was staying with the people who lived on the third floor of the triplex house, so they only broke into our part of the house once.

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Bus boy. I got tipped out by the wait staff. No idea what that came to by the hour—not a lot. I could have anything off of the menu that wasn’t steak or lobster though. Last restaurant I ever worked in that was that generous with their food. 
 

My other childhood jobs were working the greenhouses at my mother’s nursery, and middle of the night dental assistant when my father got emergency calls. Those paid in shelter and education. 

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Just minimum wage, whatever it was in late 60’s and early 70’s. First job was as bagboy/stocker at grocery store. Remember in college, had a part time job in a department store similar to KMart. One day store manager complimented me on my work and wanted to give me a raise. Surprised by the look of horror on my face as had to turn it down. Understood when explained receiving Social Security Survivor Benefits and had calculated to the penny how much I could earn before they cut the benefit. He understood, gave me the raise and cut my hours.

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$25/night. This was a easy job, but seasonal - and a great excuse to skip school. During nights when temps ex,pelted below freezing, grove owners woul hire a bunch of high schoolers to fire the groves. Sitting around all night freezing our azzz off, paid even if didn’t freeze. When appropriate, supervisor sent us out to light smudge pots, set fire to pile as of tires, etc.  Had to skip school next day, besides exhausted from up all night, we stunk. This is before the EPA banned the practice.

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