What was your first job?

Teacher2

My first job, in 1975, was in a greeting card shop where I was paid £1 for the DAY. When I told my then boyfriend what I was earning he laughed heartily at me as he earned £12 a day. Shop work was tedious and lowly paid but I was doing A levels so I could become a teacher, which I did. I forbad my own children from working at the weekends so they could devote time to GCSE and A level study. The girl used the time to study and the boy didn't. However she earns twice what he does. I think that part time work at school encourages responsibility with money. You don't value cash unless you have to earn it.

Sharonella

Cleaning my uncles rugby boots after training for 50p a week when I was 10 (1976)!

forzaitalia

My first job was age 16 in 1974 at Rentokil as an office clerk. I was still at school and got the job, so the Manager rang the school to ask if I could be allowed to leave early (I had finished all my exams) and they agreed. I was paid £15 a week, not a lot even then. After a year the Manager paid me a bit extra out of expenses as he could not give me a raise as that was done by head office. Such a kind man. I loved my job, but after a while my poor salary just would not do, so I left after 2 years, for more money of course.

happyinflorida

My first job was 9 - 1pm at a newsagents on a Saturday when I was 13 & I was paid 25p an hour!! lol

I remember I got so embarrassed not long after I'd been there as one man came in to buy a sex magazine & plonked it down in front of me to pay. I'd never seen one before & nearly died - I couldn't find the price anywhere & just remember this big pair of boobs staring out at me - I was so glad when he left!!

jess1974

My first job was at Gateway supermarket....must have been around 1988.....i think i was paid £2.80 an hour....i loved that job and have some really happy memories of my time there x

susiejq

In 1969, while in my last year at school, I worked in a caf! from 8.30am to 6.00pm for £1 9d for the DAY.
At 16 I left school and went to work in Boots on the men's aftershave counter earning £6 17/6 a week and I saved up for a car on that.
I bought my first house at 22yrs old while earning £52 per week. I still think I was much better off than the youngsters of today.

teacherspet1

My first job on leaving school in 1970 at age 16 was as a cadet nurse earning £20 a month..wow!! Staff took the mickey by sending us to various departments for things like "a long weight" or "a pair of fallopian tubes. It was a brilliant insight into the world of work and you never saw a dirty ward or department in those days because we weren't allowed to stand around doing nothing, cleaning was priority then. I know nursing staff work hard today and are often understaffed so why don't they bring back cadet nurses? We had Matrons in those days and they ruled the roost then!!

jenniewb

MSE_Andrea wrote: »

We all probably have funny stories of our first jobs.

What was yours?

It doesn't matter if it was your Saturday job when you were a kid or your first "proper" job - spill the beans

My first ever was as a Saturday shop assistant in a shoe shop when I was 14 earning, if my memory serves me right, £1.22 an hour! I should add this was a long time before the national minimum wage!

Embarassingly it wasn't my first but my third job I'd say was especially bad, the previous two I got paid above the minimum and was treated well and worked just as everyone else did without issue. New study times (College and then Uni) got in the way and I left both at different times. Not counting the work I did helping at my mum's work as a teenager, the worst paid job was working in a greengrocer.


I was graduated, couldn't find work and got desperate; either being told I was too qualified, that they wanted permanent staff (despite my saying I was looking for permanent work it didn't seem to make any difference, they didn't believe me). So I handed in my CV to a local deluxe greengrocer shop.


I was paid £5 an hour, I had been registered at the job center as well as looking for work by asking just about everyone, so when my job search assistant contacted me to take me off the books, they said I could get a small grant to help with clothing for my new job. I didn't need any new clothing but at £5 an hour with only 10 hours fixed (plus unfixed overtime) I wasn't going to turn that down; I was still applying for new jobs elsewhere and would need interview clothes at short notice.


It transpired the look-down-your-nose-at-all-the-locals-shopping-in-your-store manager announced he was not going to verify my below minimum wage pay with the job center because he was not paying tax, telling me if I told them he'd deny my working there and it would get me into trouble for accepting the money as they'd think I was stupid for not realising and said no one was going to believe I was that stupid.


As the job went on, it appeared very clear that the post had been filled and dropped at short notice many times over, perhaps because the manager was a bully.


My favorites were;
cleaning the middle of three shelves then asking me to finish the job by cleaning the top shelf "without getting any dust onto the middle shelf I've just cleaned", being a clean freak I can imagine he probably checked with his tongue.
Telling me I was a failure at life (like I didn't already feel it after taking £££££ out in student loans to pay for a job I was not working) and even as I left making it clear I amounted to nothing.
Taking money from the till, telling me the tills were down and then letting the owner assume it was me who stole from the tills.


I left after making a mistake, was happy to work elsewhere (turned out that next job was working in a company well known for treating their staff poorly but it was still miles better than walking on egg shells around this manager).


It did at least teach me to stand back and look at people and not always take the blame for other people's actions; prior to that I was always the first to feel it was always my fault when something went wrong, this experience taught me that it isn't always my fault and to know in myself that if someone does something wrong, unless like this guy they have malice at the heart of it all, it is just stuff that can be worked around.

jussieb

Apart from my brother subletting his paper round to me, thus making money himself for doing no work, I started weekend work at the local hotel when I was about 15, in about 1984. I worked Friday evenings, Saturday evenings and Sunday lunches and seem to recall getting about £15 a weekend. I got tips on top of this, which I kept separately and used to buy my first car, a Mk 1 Ford Escort for £200. I loved waitressing and remember those times fondly, before leaving school to work in a bank for nearly 30 years. I loved the independence earning my own money gave me and just wish my 17 daughter, who also waitresses while in the sixth form now could manage her money as well as I did!

System

My first job was as a paperboy. I used to get £7 a week but the guy who worked in the mornings would sell me fags so i would buy fags and sell them to the year 11's at school. I made about £25 a week doing that

I must add to the year 11's i was known as burner boy lol!