Jump to content

What was your very first paycheck?


Allen

Recommended Posts

1 minute ago, jsharr said:

I did yard work and went door to door putting out flyers as a jr. high student.  First real punch a clock, get a paycheck job was for Wolfe Nursery in Richardson, Texas in 1980 as a sophomore in high school. 

My first payroll job was bus boy at the local steakhouse. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First actual job was as a senior in HS through a special program where students could leave school early and work part of the day.  I had a part time job with a local shoe store as a stock boy.  I made 0.95 an hour and my 20 hour take home pay was around $17.  

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

Baling hay at about 12 or 13 yo.  I think I made 50 cents an hour.  We got paid when the milk check came.  Those were long and dusty days.

Glad you didn’t say lawn mowing?

  • Heart 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Started with a paper route.  It's a shame they don't exist anymore, great character builder.  Mowing, odd jobs, gigolo, whatever I could get.  The first regularly scheduled job was working the grill at McD's senior year of High School.  That made me appreciate working harder to get a better job.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, jsharr said:

A Canadian clay pigen shoot could be fun.  
PULL

bang, bang, smash.

Sorry, eh.

Many years ago I used to shoot trap.  On practice nights there were times we would challenge ourselves to hit the bird as close to the house a possible.  One method was to pay attention to the timing of the arm and try to time your "pull" to be front and center and nail the bird as it came up over the top of the house roof.  I'm sure I took some asphalt off shingles from time to time.  We had an unmanned house.

  • Heart 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

At  eleven I was working 32 hours a week delivering papers before and after school for seven days a week and was paid 10 shillings a week. The UK equivalent today would be 50p.....I think that would have been around 60 cents. My mother needed the money but would give me a shilling to spend.

Not that I'm complaining as it made me the man I am today ........which when I think of it......is a pity really. :(

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, onbike1939 said:

At  eleven I was working 32 hours a week delivering papers before and after school for seven days a week and was paid 10 shillings a week. The UK equivalent today would be 50p.....I think that would have been around 60 cents. My mother needed the money but would give me a shilling to spend.

Not that I'm complaining as it made me the man I am today ........which when I think of it......is a pity really. :(

So they had paper currency back then?  Huh?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, onbike1939 said:

At  eleven I was working 32 hours a week delivering papers before and after school for seven days a week and was paid 10 shillings a week. The UK equivalent today would be 50p.....I think that would have been around 60 cents. My mother needed the money but would give me a shilling to spend.

Not that I'm complaining as it made me the man I am today ........which when I think of it......is a pity really. :(

Which one is you?

Image result for 4 yorkshiremen

  • Heart 2
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

58 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

Baling hay at about 12 or 13 yo.  I think I made 50 cents an hour.  We got paid when the milk check came.  Those were long and dusty days.

Baling hay on the neighbors farm 12 years old. I made 65  cents per hour. When I wasn't working on that farm I worked on the other farm up the road. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My brother and I did some random "odd job" work for a guy down the street.  We did some general lackey work like clearing brush and helping him move big rocks out of XC ski trails.  I think we were paid by check but I can't really remember.

My first paycheck for the cashier job at the supermarket was around $120.  I was elated and I probably went and bought some stupid cheap gadget at the auto parts store next door.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Detasseling corn. For those not familiar. Walking through rows of corn in July and early August pulling the tassels from the female rows before pollentation. It's how hybrids are made. In the morning the corn would be wet from the morning dew. We walked in rows with irrigation water (before pivot irrigation became common). By noon, the fields were a sauna and the corn stalks blocked the breeze. We worked until mid afternoon if we were on schedule, then returned to town and would hang out at the swimming pool until dad came to pick us up after work. 

WoW's mom is cousins with one of the couple who we worked for. They tell us new labor rules, pivot irrigation and automated detasseling machines mean the kids don't have any idea what it's like to work like we did. $200-$300 for the season was good for upgrading school clothes, a new camera or something and some in savings. 

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, jsharr said:

Yes, but as I stated earlier, we were evicted.  Is this where you tell me about living in the brown paper bag in the septic tank?

My family envied the people who owned brown paper bags. We all felt it was  something to aspire to.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A friend's father was a carpenter who laid hardwood floor and moonlighted on the weekend. When I was about 13, we'd often lay the flooring someplace out in the country where we would work from 6 am to around noon, then hunt or fish on the property.  I was paid $10 each time.

My first FICA-deductions real paycheck came when I was 17 and working at Gino's, a McDonald's-like fast food chain that also had the exclusive Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise for Maryland. That was a hard, always-on-task job, but fun for a high school teenager.  I started at the minimum wage of $1.25, but back then that was a trial wage. Within 9 months I was making $1.55 and a year later $2 and Gino's paid my way through the first 2 years of college.

At first I worked 1-2 nights a week and punched out after 4.5 hours each night because they had to pay you for a half hour "lunch break" if you worked for at least 5 hours. I soon realized that I'd be kept an extra half hour - and then be paid another half hour for lunch - if the parking lot was dirty and needed to be swept.  So I'd tell everyone I knew who came in to carry their trash outside and throw it on the parking lot before they left!  That way, I got paid for 5.5 hours instead of 4.5 hours.

We could eat all we wanted for free.  For my family or my girlfriend's family, they'd buy $5 worth of stuff and occasionally I'd ring up $0.15.  The manager was ok when we did that on rare occasions.

After a while, I worked to closing, 8 hrs each night for 3-6 nights/week while struggling to keep the grades to graduate from high school: I needed the money to go commute to UMBC the next year.

We closers divvied up and took home stuff cooked but not sold: KFC chicken, Gino Giants (copied as the Big Mac), cheeseburgers, etc. and my kid brother and sister loved it.  A trick among us closers was to make an extra pot, 18 pieces, of Kentucky Fried Chicken above what was expected to be sold when the manager wasn't looking.  After we closed, we'd take to the local Dunkin' Donuts and trade it to the waitresses for free coffee and donuts.

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first informal work was cutting lawns, but it didn’t suit me due to severe allergies, and an inability to make things all pretty.  I carried newspapers for 2 years. Had to do my own collections, too. 

First formal paycheck was from doing dishes at a restaurant for 2 years. $3.35 was minimum wage. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I picked spinach as it passed on the line. Minimum wage didn’t apply as it was seasonal at work or some crap like that.   Worst job ever and a great reason to stay in school. Prior to that I sometimes baby sat for a dollar an hour. I also occasionally got paid or a stipend to play the fiddle when a group was short. That was fun being treated like a member of the band grown up. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Scrubbing floors around the neighborhood for 50 cents to a dollar per floor, I was less than 10. Then added lawns & odd jobs. Worked fairly steady at a race horse stable for a couple years when I was about 12. Had a paper route somewhere in there.

First tax paying job was working in a college cafeteria at 14, I think min wage was about 60 cents an hour. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

first one was newspaper delivery. But there was a catch. Mom would make us quit the delivery route to go out & pick berries. Strawberries, then blackberries, then boysenberries. Then Fall, Winter, Spring for newspapers. Or as we call it in Oregon...the rainy season

Then caught on moving irrigation pipe for row crops. I thought i was in heaven. Took about an hour to move each line. Then F off for a couple hours and do it again. I think that was $1.00/hr. But boss' wife made me crew chief so i got $1.10/hr. Long days because boss would get as many sets a day as he could. By August the corn was 8' tall. Like @groupw says it was sauna like conditions. Because you just watered half the rows you are moving the pipe over that is a foot or 2 over your outstretched arms

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Square Wheels said:

I delivered 100 local newspapers a week.  I made $16 a month.  I was 12 or so, I thought I was rich.

 

8 hours ago, Road Runner said:

At 11 years old, I became a paper boy.  I made about $8 a week delivering 70 or so papers.  I had a small route.  

8 bucks was big money when you could buy a small fountain soda for 5 cents.

 

8 hours ago, 12string said:

Started with a paper route.  It's a shame they don't exist anymore, great character builder.

 

7 hours ago, onbike1939 said:

At  eleven I was working 32 hours a week delivering papers before and after school for seven days a week and was paid 10 shillings a week.

 

3 hours ago, Scrapr said:

first one was newspaper delivery. But there was a catch. Mom would make us quit the delivery route to go out & pick berries. Strawberries, then blackberries, then boysenberries. Then Fall, Winter, Spring for newspapers. Or as we call it in Oregon...the rainy season

 

 

 

Leave It To Beaver - S01 E17 - The Paper Route

  • Awesome 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

...I think maybe my first paycheck came from my job as a lifeguard over at the Naval Research Lab pool.  But I also had a job weekdays after high school for a couple of hours working as a gofer/courier for a law office over on K Street, (Sellers, Conner, and Cuneo.)  That was how I found out I didn't want to be an attorney.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was too long ago to remember. Funny some of you talk about paper routes being a thing of the past, as we still have them here, with some walking, some biking, and some traveling via car.  We're on a rural route delivered by folks driving a car.  However, I usually have read the paper, via the net, before the paper copy arrives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...