Labor Day

[westie2]

Since today is Labor Day we were talking about our first jobs true jobs in the working world.

For me at 17 and just married in 1966 mine was working as a brick stacker at the local brick plant for $2.75 an hour. Worked there on 3:00 pm to 11:30 pm shift through college graduation in 1971. My wife worked at Gibsons Discount Center for $2.00 an hour.

 

[rp2813]

I was 18 and was operating a mobile admissions office at various satellite locations of the local junior college. I was a student there as well and never had to worry about standing in line to register for any classes (for those here who remember that dreadful process). Out of that job I paid for my tuition plus room and board at Cal Poly a couple of years later.

 

[travis]

I was 19 and worked at the 66 Park In Theatre. I always was fascinated by the movies and wanted to work at a drive in before they were gone. Despite the place being run down I had a blast. I got to watch "Wayne's World" for six weeks. I barely knew I was gay then. I did know that I liked the security guard watching over me during intermission! Every night they closed the concession stand down at the start of the second show and I would go visit the projection booth. They still had a dual projector booth and I couldn't stay away. Minimum wage was $4.25

That drive in ran for one year after that. I saw "Jurassic Park".

 

[polkanut]

My first full-time job was working for the Pepsi bottler here in Wausau in 1991. I worked 6am-2pm on the bottling line sorting 10 & 16oz. glass bottles, feeding the bottle washer, inspecting bottles as they came out of the washer, inspecting cases and 8-pack cartons, and stacking full cases as they came out of the case packer. Did that for 1yr. when suddenly the guy who operated the bottle filler, capper, and the water and syrup proportioner was killed in a car accident, and I got promoted. Did that until Sept. 1993 when they stopped bottling locally, now it is a regional warehouse for Pepsi. I was making $6.50 when I left. It was hard work, but fun.

P.S. We also bottled plastic 20oz. and 2 liter sizes.

 

[washendry]

My first job was right here at Wilson Cheese Shoppe, I was 15 and had to get work permit, I started at 5am and made sour creme donuts for a 1.00/hr, Mrs Wilson was all business and you did whatever job was asked of you, Wow!! now I own the place with my brother Keith and we both get to do all the dirty jobs just like in 1969
Kim

 

[gizmo]

Cheese Shoppe

Hi Washendry

A story from my teenage years - I grew up in a house on a corner lot. There was a small strip of shops opposite us on one side. The end shop was little deli, it promoted itself as having Frankston's widest range of cheeses. It was not a great location, in a suburban street well out of town.

Across the other street from our home was a girl a couple of years younger than me. She was a lovely girl, very sweet but not over endowed with brains. She got her first job at the deli.
Her last day at the shop came fairly soon. The boss was watching her from behind. A customer came in and asked the young girl, "tell me about your range of cheeses."
The girl replied, "sorry, we don't sell cheese."

Chris.

 

[gizmo]

my first job - from about age 12 or 13 I worked after school for the local pharmacist. I had to burn the rubbish in an incinerator in the back yard of the shop, water his tomato plants (in season), then go inside and count prescription medications from bulk jars into small prescription size jars. I would tip the tablets into a plastic tray with a formed gutter at the end. Using a spatula, count the tablets into 25s or 50s into the gutter, flip a lid over the gutter and then tip the tray up to pour the tablets into the small jars. The biggest seller was Mogadon - sleeping tablets. Also Erythromycin (antibiotic) was a big mover too. I kept the shelf full of the script-size bottles, the qualified pharmacist only typed up the labels and stuck them on, and handled the less common prescriptions that I didn't pre-pack. In hindsight it amazes me I was allowed to handle prescription drugs at such a young age. After topping up pill bottles, I would wrap up tampon packets and condom packets into discreet brown paper packages, then get on my bike to home-deliver prescriptions.
I did this every day after school plus saturday morning, a total of 10.5 hours per week for $7 per week. When I asked for a payrise to $1 per hour, he refused so I left and got another after school job at a hardware store.

Chris.

 

[sudsmaster]

I made my first buck when I think I was about 7 years old - which would be around 1959. The family was short on money and we were making "potholders" out of those old nylon yarn loops on a metal frames. My brothers and sisters chose all the sedate colors, all that was left was shocking pink and turquoise. So I made my potholders out of that. For some reason I set off trying to sell them door to door, and a local diner bought one and gave me a dollar for it. I had no idea what that meant, but as soon as I got home I was relieved of that dollar with a pat on the head and instructions to made more and go back to the diner. Needless to say the waitress didn't buy another one but I suppose the dollar helped buy some food for that week at home. Later on I figured that the color combination sold the pot holder, although to tell the truth the things didn't insulate against heat all that well, and of course they melted if they got too close to a flame, lol.

After we moved out west I had some not very successful paper routes,and then an after school job at the variety store at Cole and Carl in SF. I remember being fascinated by all the various sundries stored in the basement. I think that job paid 10 cents an hour, not really sure of that. The old eastern european couple that owned the place shut it down in the mid-60's and that was that for a while. In my last year in high school I got a more steady job doing janitorial work for the Post Office. Weird place; I used to feel so sorry for the mail sorters, it looked like such deadly boring work. I imagine they felt sorry for me pushing a broom. I grew to hate the smell of the old cheap coffee left in cups in the trash cans, combined with the ever present grit that every post office seemed to generate. I got to keep the money from that job, and it helped get me through the first year in college. The work study jobs in college were a lot more interesting - ranging from testing grapes in the viticulture department (where I got a taste for fresh zinfandel grapes) to measuring the transmittance of various materials to "soft x-rays" for a group that was studying the first black hole discovered (Cygnus X-1), to trying to grow banana trees from tiny slices of their cores. In a sense I don't count my first "real" job until I graduated from college and got a full time job working in a university lab doing medical research. But compared to the others it was kind of boring, lol.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Summer job

I was 13 or 14 years of age and was playing coat-check person "dusting off" customers as they came and went in a Manhattan barber shop. The shop was my parents' next-door neighbor. I was on the subways by myself. IIRC in exchange for the privilege of working there I was mowing the neighbor's lawn as well.

Then I worked in a ritzy country club (at around 16 year of age) as a busboy, barback (no "E" in that!) and card room steward. The hours were nearly 60 hours per week. I was making around $400 per week, which at the time was great money, especially for my age.

 

[iheartmaytag]

I started working at age 11

I was a dishwasher at a greasy spoon my sister was a waitress there. I also would clean houses for the nighbors. I would dust vacuum, and mop for $5.00 per week. I also house sat when the neighbors were away. I was the poor neighbor who's parents never took a vacation so I was always available. Two years later when I was the poor kid who's father had just died my house cleaning business boomed. I had five houses I did weekly. I also branched out into babysitting that year.

 

[hydralique]

Westie 2 . . .

Since your wife worked at Gibson's, do you recall the song used in Gibson's TV ads? "It's the discount center with the golden touch, if if isn't from Gibson's, you paid too much!"

 

[ptcruiser51]

First Job For $1.65/hr.

Was at JC Penney's selling shirts in 1968. Incredibly boring.
My first full-time job was typing the deals for a Buick dealer, doing the finance papers, licensing. $100/week. Fun job but I came home smelling like a new car every night. Really.

 

[westie2]

Gibson's

Yes remember that and also

Gibson's Gibson's I love to shop at Gibson's! Gibson's your Discount Center.

 

[rp2813]

I had some pre-real jobs, the first being a paper boy. I hated that one, as you never got a day off, and I hated waking up at 4AM on a Sunday to start folding papers. It was at that point that I stopped going to church on a regular basis. I got home and went back to sleep and my parents didn't make me go to church with them.

Then right out of high school I had a summer job catching cans off the labeling line at Bernard Foods (Mr. Bernard was a family friend, unfortunately) where they made every type of dehydrated food you can imagine. It had a weird and distinct smell in there and was really dusty. We'd have glue all over our fingers from catching the cans (my cousin and I worked side by side) and placing them into shipping boxes. Wow, did the schools in Texas ever use a lot of meat extender!

My sister was lucky. When she did her stint at Bernards a few years before I did, she got to work in the print shop designing the labels, far from the floor of the processing plant. She ended up going into graphic design in later years.

 

[westie2]

Ralph talking about real pre jobs I grew up on a farm/ranch so did field work early in life. Chopped cotton, worked in wheat fields ect. My first real had to work job was at the brick plant.

 

[westie2]

Mangum Brick Company se link below. This is the new plant the old one was south of town and had the beehive type kilns I stacked brick for these from the drying shed.

http://www.timemaster.nl/mangumbrick/

 

[toploader55]

First Job

My Dad owned a bar and Restaurant so I started to wash dishes when I was 11 years old. 50 cents an hour. When I turned 12 he gave me a Whole $1.00 per hour.When my friends heard that, they all wanted to wash dishes. By the time I turned 14, I was cooking for $6.00 per hour. When I turned 17, I took a break from cooking for a while and pumped Fuel at the local Sunoco Station. The old Gent that owned the station gave you instructions as to who the customers were and pay attention to the Widows. "That's Mrs. Eigner, her husband passed away last year, so when she comes in always check everything under the hood and the tire pressure as well". I never missed cleaning one windshield.
Then off to the Culinary Institute of America.I've been a Chef all my life , taking breaks every so often to do Landscaping and Managed a Wholesale Produce Warehouse. Great Money, but no life. Go to work between 2-3 AM and finish at 4 PM, go home and go to sleep.
Now I manage a Breakfast and Lunch Restaurant here on Cape Cod. I like it because the kitchen is open to the public. You get to interact with the customers which breaks up the boredom of being behind closed doors.

 

[rp2813]

Charles, my partner's dad worked in various brick yards in northern and southern California. So my partner had a job in one of them. When that yard closed, there was a huge hole that was partially filled with the rubble from knocking down the beautiful old county courthouse building, and the remainder of that hole ultimately became the "bowl" for the high school football field that it is today. My partner can still spot brick from that operation in buildings around town. I never realized that there was that much difference in brick produced by various yards until he started pointing it out.

 

[westie2]

Different Brick

Yes almost all are different due to the clay and area. Our brick was mostly the red brick as that is what was in the area clay. We did get different colors by blending in different clays that were railroaded in. My two favorites were the hosuing bricks we made. Took the red plain bricks and when wet from the extruder put on the pellet fertilizer and let it dry then fired it. When done the fertilizer have melted and left various colors on the exterior of the brick. Another favorite of mine was they would take the red brick and spray it while still wet with a light coationg of grey, pick and white slurry clay and let dry then fire. Was the antique brick popular back in the 60's and 70's. Where the plant was when I worked there is now across town. The clay pits have taken over where the old plant was.