I earned that money washing dishes and pots and pans at the Country Club in Paris, Illinois. They fixed me a free meal, whatever I wanted, on nights that I worked, and I was able to do homework during slack periods. It was a grand introduction to the world of work!
Describe your early jobs in the comboxes.
Paper route for The Detroit News. Worked as a busboy and dish washer at a mom and pop restaurant. Worked at a car wash, the employee cafeteria at the Westin Hotel at the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit. Minimum wage was 3.35 an hour.
In the summer of 1980 I worked at an ice cream stand owned by my former kindergarten teacher and her husband. Made about $300 at $3.35 an hour. Next year I worked a couple of days a week at a bill collector’s office for the same wage.
Pumped gas at the Texaco near my house that I would bike to in the morning. Started at 6 am and finished at 2 in the afternoon. I think I started at $2.50 an hour. All I remember is being pleased as punch when I was making $3 an hour.
Worked my regular shift, July 4th 1976. Got off in plenty of time for the extended family picnic.
My first was delivering newspapers, and at the time we still had to go door to door collecting the money, which was always interesting. I got robbed at knifepoint while doing that, which admittedly sounds more dramatic than it was.
I bussed a lot of tables at a mexican restaurant, I don’t recall what the wage was, but not much. I was homeschooled through all of junior and senior high, and my parents didn’t *exactly* say that I had to have a job, but it was definitely heavily implied. And I’m glad, as I never had any trouble buying a car, paying for gas and insurance, etc.
I think it was $7,25/hr as a hotel housekeeper in Yellowstone NP, Lake Hotel to start.
Couldn’t get a job in the Union of Seattle Socialist Republics because the minimum wage was too high and no one would take a risk on an unexperienced worker during the great recession for what should be entry level work…
My wife doesn’t understand my seething rage whenever we go back to the coast to visit family. You shouldn’t have to buy a one way plane ticket to a state you’ve never been to just for a first entry level job. One of a thousand reasons to stay out of the cesspool once known as western Washington…
Those summers in Yellowstone were some of the bestin my life though. More like college than college was honestly in a lot of ways. Managed to bring around 1k home in savings each month.
Got me out of that dark place and learned how to be independent and make my own way.
I had my own landscaping business from 13-16 (lawns/leaf removal/snow removal) until the neighborhood got younger and more full of immigrants who weren’t willing to pay someone else to do the work.
My first job ($4.75 a hour) for someone else was a night janitor for an elementary school. Cleaning classrooms and bathrooms used by little boys taught me never to take anything for granted, but to this day, my wife cleans the toilets in our house.
Seem to be a lot of parallels here. My 1st job was as a paper boy for the Ann Arbor news. My route was kind of weird because it was downtown and a lot of the businesses were closed on the weekends. I used to ride my bike to do the route.1st formal job was as a dishwasher at a restaurant called the blue parrot. I was 16 but I could drive and I closed the place at night. My Mother told me years later that she used to drive past the place to watch me clean it up to make sure I was okay. Minimum wage was 115 an hour. Always had a job. My parents didn’t tell me I had to get 1 but they said you need to buy your own clothes and that was clear enough. I didn’t blame them. There was a period when my father, my mother, my sister and I were all in college at the same time.
Same as you Don, $1.15. I worked as a bagger, stockboy and sometimes checker at a local, family-owned grocery store.
$2.50/hr as a stockroom clerk at the University of San Francisco beginning 5/30/77. I cleaned and shelved glassware, prepared stock solutions and did whatever my boss (a survivor of Auschwitz BTW) told me. It proved good prep for a career teaching science.
First paid job at 13, $1 cash for about two hours of work delivering the local weekly newspaper (which still exists, believe it or not) Then $1.50 per hour for working in the kitchen of the local college dining hall, rinsing, washing, and stacking racks of dishes and pots. Sweeping and mopping after dishes done. Then my senior year of HS it was $2 an hour pumping gas, checking oil and washing windshields (remember that?!) at the Deep Rock station in the next town. Saved enough to shave a few hundred bucks off my first year of college loans.
I would say these jobs probably taught all of us the value of money, the satisfaction of doing a job well, no matter how menial or dirty, and the wisdom to treat others with kindness when they serve us, whether as wait staff, sales clerks, or whatever. There, but for the grace of God, etc.
Teenager jobs:
Lawn mowing all over the neighborhood.
Worked as a janitor in a bakery; had to get up at 4 am.
Then as a newly qualified submarine reactor operator, I got to clean the bilge beneath the feedwater regulating valves and main feedwater pumps in engine room forward. I earned more per hour from lawn mowing and janitor work at the bakery than from the Navy.
I think we got paid $3.25 per hour plus tips at Domino’s. I remember the checks went straight into the bank, but the tips went into the pocket. I ruled those summers! (Gas money came from the tips, and it cost about $1.25 per gallon back then.)
1976. $1.75, until we received a 3 cent raise. (BTW, ever notice the cent sign is missing from my the modern keyboard? Still have one on my Mom’s Truman-era portable I used in college.)
My first full time job was in 1970, waiting tables for $1 an hour, plus tips. Walking in tall cotton, I was!
Sacker, HEB grocery store, San Antonio, 1964, strict rule against taking tips and walked every shopper’s grocery to her car. Pay: 65 cents an hour. Gal of gas: 26 cents. Unless gas wars, then a dime. Remember how upset we were when Coke went from a nickel to 6 cents. Guy, Texas
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I started working full-time right after I graduated from high school in 1979. I *think* the minimum wage was maybe $3.50/hour. I was hired as a clerical at Firestone Tire and Rubber headquarters and was offered $4.75/hour with excellent benefits and a generous pension plan.
I was so grateful they had faith in me to hire me, and to be so generous. The Firestone family still owned the company then, and it was a fine place to work. When they sold out, things went south (literally) and I had to look for work elsewhere. But I *never* forgot the dignity and pride I felt working for Firestone and for that family.