I think I may have asked this before at some point but I can’t recall the responses.
My son got his first job this summer. I am so proud of him! His boss has also reported to me that he is very respectful and has demonstrated good work ethic. He is just about to come up on his first paycheck and even if he’ll have his own spending money, I would like to do something to celebrate this milestone. Any ideas?
Besides that, I want to know what your first job was. Are there any moments that stand out clearly in your mind? Was it a good experience for you?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
16 responses to “What was your first job?”
Up to this point
1 Paper route
2 Army (3 mo 19 days)
3 Steak n Shake
4 Sidex
5 Jewel Osco
6 TTHG2
6.1 (temporary, seasonal job) H&R Block
7 For Sale Local
8 Bella Construction
9 Puppy in the window
This excludes various writing assignments, freelance work, and physical labor such as cutting grass, shoveling snow, etc.
I bet you were a cute puppy in the window.
ROFLMAO – I listed the store’s name, not the name of the job. I’m a “pet counselor” ;-P
Awwwe, that is so sweet. Did you councel people on what pet to buy? Or did you counsel the pets themselves, who were probably traumatize by being caged and sold? Either way, that would be a neat job.
I help to socialize them. They’re in the cages much of the day. But I take them out and clean their cages, play with them, give them medications, give them to customers to play with, make sure the inside/ outside of the store is cleaned, etc.
I ran away from home when I was 11 years old. I packed a handkerchief on the end of a stick and headed out for the railroad tracks. I was going to be a hobo. HOWEVER, I was spotted by our local Roller Rink owner and he invited me to come sit in the shade with him. He gave me a hot dog and a Coke. I told him why I was running away from home. (Mom beat me and I had the marks to prove it.) The owner was Bob Block and he knew my Mom. Mom had told him that I was her sister’s kid that she was raising, and I was a pain in the ass. So, Bob Block knew my home situation. He called my Mom to tell her he had me and I was safe.
He offered me a job at the roller rink to do anything an 11 year old was capable of doing. That meant washing walls, cleaning bathrooms, scrubbing the Snack Shack, sweeping floors, cleaning mirrors and glass windows, refilling the candy counter, cleaning the beverage machine, wiping down the seating, getting into small places and cleaning everywhere, and skate repair. I was very good at skate repair. When I accepted the job, Bob called my Mom and told her that I was now working for him and I was to report to the roller rink 5 times a week. He paid me adult wages and paid into my Social Security.
The point was, to keep me out of trouble after school. It was to keep me away from my home and away from a very abusive Mom. It kept me always busy and Bob Block helped me do my homework and took me shopping to buy clothing. Being that I was earning what an adult would earn, I was able to afford to eat in the school cafeteria everyday and buy a burger at the malt shop on my way to the roller rink. This lifted the financial burden off of my Mom and I was able to buy myself all the luxuries a kid could want. I even had a savings account (which I used to leave home at 18 and get married.)
In my teens, I not only worked at the roller rink and ran the Snack Shack and did skate repair and floor guarding, I also had a little job at the beachfront hot dog stand. I worked at Juicy James Hamburger stand during the rush hours during the Summer. This allowed me to go surfing in the mornings before Juicy James Hamburgers opened at 9:00 am.. I got to the beach at 6:00 am and surfed for 3 hours. Juicy James did not pay much, but it was a job that made me popular with the beach goers and surf bands that went to Stub’s Pub to play.
I worked and supported myself (except for the rent of my bedroom, which Mom supplied for free) from the age of 11 until I was 18 and pregnant, newly married and left home for good.
Oooops! Add to all of the above, I baby sat for my brother’s kids from 10:00 pm when my brother picked me up from the roller rink, until 2:00 or 3:00 am when the bars closed. But, I did not charge my brother for watching kids that were already asleep and in bed.
Men’s wear store in a mall. Grade 11.
Hired to vacumn, clean mirrors, bathrooms and any clean up required in any area.
After a few months I was allowed to sell jeans, which eventually led to suits…and I’ve been sellin’ ever since.
way to go Joys Son! sounds Good! i like the idea of celebrating this success. maybe a special dinner together? or something that shows him how proud and how much you respect his efforts? something a bit Grown Up? art or music related?
my first job was basically child caring of my siblings and half the neighbourhood :D eventually sometimes i even got paid! happy day!
my first pay check came when i had a stint as a dishwasher at a kids camp. free room and board and food and money through out the summer. pretty good deal in some ways. but that only lasts so many months here in canada. then its snow season and time to get a job in a restaurant or something. i did that a couple of times when need arose, working in kitchens at camps. it can be a good setting, get away from it all. place to stay plus hard work and pay offs (and too many smuggled bottles of smithwicks heehee)
its interesting the paths we end up on. my first volunteer experience was helping out with a special olympics baseball team. i ended up as their head coach for a couple of summers, which lead me into that field of care and service. worked in group home and day program settings for a long time. then moved into home care, staff coordination and program coordination. at some point i got more in to elderly care and now here i am, running dining room in retirement centers, doing dishes again :D awe geez!
I was 11 or 12 when I began working. My sole job for more years than I care to remember was picking up stones and hauling them by wheelbarrow to build road. Raking rocks, digging rocks, and breaking rocks. I have moved enough stone in my early life to pave an area the size of 10 football fields.
My only escape from that miserable occupation was enlisting in the military service.
Little did I realize at the time that my military service would bring me to this miserable rock in space that you people call Earth. That was more than 258000 years ago, and in all the years I’ve been here, I still don’t know for sure if I was marooned here on purpose or by accident.
I survived. I have been a soldier, a mercenary, a shop keeper, a carpenter, a wood-wright, a wheel-wright, a blacksmith, a brewer, a miller, a cooper, and a luthier. I have lived in small hamlets, small villages, large villages, cities, walled cities, fortresses, and castles. I have been employed by Nobles, knights, Dukes, Kings, Queens, monarchs of every stripe and color. I have known and killed tyrants on three continents and two islands. I have lived in an ice cave with my only companion being a Yeti, (she treated me well), and I have survived a Great Flood, the Mongol Hoards, the Black Plague, the Spanish Inquisition, numerous wars caused by multiple would-be dictators and the Crusades to the Holy Lands. I have witnessed human barbarity and natural calamity on a scale you cannot even begin to imagine. Having been a soldier more often than not through out my life has served me well.
Now, skip ahead a few thousand years to the more recent past. I was a sailor, a pirate, a patriot, a revolutionary, a spy, a member of a resistance underground fighting against Hitler, and a few years later against the Communists in South-East Asia. I have worked in a state correctional facility as a correctional officer and a correctional sergeant.
Now, I’m retired, making stringed musical instruments at my leisure. One day, if I’m fortunate, a star ship will return to this planet and I will be rescued from this lump of dirt and rock you people call Earth.
My first job was a partnership in a low volume beverage distribution racket.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/af/3f/49/af3f4953162ee01a1487ef45fe1b5577–business-school-the-farm.jpg
Paper route, courtesy clerk in a grocery store, cabinet maker/carpenter, CAD / mech engineer, programmer, framing carpenter, estimator, network engineer, systems analyst, solution architect, senior engineer.
In that order.
Hardees.
I was 15 and not actually eligible to work due to state law.
But my brother worked there and they loved him, so they handed me the job on a plastic tray.
Later, they found out my actual age and told me to keep quiet about it.
I was only allowed to keep $15 of my paycheck because my parents owned my bank account (they didn’t keep the money for themselves, they just didn’t let me access it). So even if I worked 34 hours, I got $15. If I worked 15 hours, I got $15.
It really sucked and I do no thank them for it. But that is a different airing of grievances.
I was not a smart person before the age of 25. Not that I am a knockout today, but I never payed much attention to things happening around me, my mind drifted, I struggled a lot more to interact with people, I never fit in well with the people I worked with because for many of them this was their livelihood and they had kids and stuff, or they have rough family backgrounds, etc.
No good experiences. I had odd jobs around the neighborhood before that, so I understood responsibility and work ethic, but fast food didn’t prepare me for anything. I don’t think I learned anything other than I hate those kinds of jobs. But I am the creative type, I suppose. Not sure how some other people might feel. I’m sure many people have been inspired by the work.
Taco Bell, the summer of 1977. I remember the exact year because I found out Elvis died while I was at work. So, just now I googled: When did Elvis die?
It was the 70s, so everybody was partying. If you worked in the day, the day manager would get everybody high. If you worked at night, the night manager bought everybody beer. I discovered I was a much better worker on beer than pot. I got fired from that job before the summer was over because I went to a Fleetwood Mac concert and the friend that said would cover for me forgot. This all sounds like something right out of Dazed and Confused. That movie nailed my high school years perfectly.
I had a paper route and delivered catalogs (like Sears) door-to-door.
But my first real “engage the society”/enterprise job was cutting lawns for a real estate company when I was about 14. Demand for the service out-stripped “the supply” of just me dragging the folk’s lawnmower around the neighborhood. It quickly grew to where I was hiring friends and family, renting equipment, paying someone to drive us around outside the immediate area.
But the well-known local real estate company decided to stiff a kid and refused to pay up on completion of a series of jobs. I was left in the red with money paid out for equipment with no return; and a work-force I couldn’t pay. Family sort of forgave the debt. Not all my friends did and one friendship ended over this.
So at the time, it was not an overly good work experience! But time has a way of tempering you and teaching you from such experiences . . . if you will let it happen.
And this is not really a “celebration” thing . . . but take him into the bank and open a couple accounts: one for routine banking purposes and one specifically for savings. Teach him early, the benefit of having a bit stashed away that you add a bit to every check and don’t touch. Teach him how to budget to have even just a few dollars off the top of every paycheck to go into that account. If you’re able, start him out with a little nest-egg, or a “donation-to-your-future”-matching agreement . . . on the provision that this money is not to be touched unless something really important comes along.