- Shoveled snow (went around the neighborhood after snow storms)
- Put up department store Christmas decorations (1 day 1 time job Thanksgiving weekend, but i remember it well)
- Busboy at Uncle John's Pancake House (HS summer job) ha! had to change list after @NerdMom88 reminded me I did this:
- College registration terminal operator
- US Postal service mail carrier (college summer job)
- Social Security application taker (temporary job)
- HUD (US Department of Housing and Urban Development) area office economist
Hmmm, do we count unpaid “slave labor” jobs?
I grew up on a farm, jobs never stopped,
- fed the chickens/gathered eggs age 5
- fed bummer lambs, slopped pigs age 6
- drove the tractor to pull the wagon that my sister and brother threw out the hay from for the cows ages 10-18
- does housework count? nah
- moved sprinkler pipes in summers ages 14-18
- moved irrigation dams for irrigating ages 13 - 18
- milked cows ages IDK to when I got brother to do it
- raised beef 4-H, sold every year from ages 10 to 18, funded college so sort of paid All those were unpaid, do they count? Oh I forgot, one summer I painted the little house and separate garage that my parents rented inside and out, with my sister. I think they paid us something that year.
Paid jobs
- babysitting who knows how old?
- maid at Crater Lake Lodge (summer only) - 17
- money counter at Crater Lake Lodge (summer) - 18
- key punch operator (summer)(now days would be data input) - 19
- graded math papers - college
- worked cafeteria line (I was the sandwich girl!) for food - college
- NCR in Kettering Ohio, plotter programmer
bonus points if you know who NCR is…
National Cash Register?
Babysitter
Summer day camp counselor
Summer relief clerk typist
Mortgage clerk at bank (that job lasted a week before I quit)
Teletypesetter at newspaper
Cruise ship purser
Customs inspector, then Customs entry specialist
- Babysitter
- Cashier at grocery store
- Vendor at Yankee Stadium
- Messenger on Wall Street
- File Clerk at insurance company
- Above ground pool installer
- Lawn mower at NY Botanical Gardens
- Newspaper delivery
- Babysitter
- Christmas help at gift shop (became really good at tying ribbons on gift boxes and am still overly fond of fancy ribbon today)
- Cashier at drug store (Large, family-owned, and sold everything)
- Three jobs during one summer: checked in passengers at Kennedy airport for five international airlines (Aer Lingus, Guyana, Dominicana, China Air, and Kuwait--security was much more lax then); food prep & service for catering division of DNA lab; grocery store bakery.
- Ran a birthday delivery business at college five days/week. (Couldn’t get a campus job because those were reserved for Work Study applicants.)
- Verified commissions taken by travel agents on the red airline ticket stubs. Compared red carbon copy against these giant dot matrix print outs. Dead dull, first 'desk' job and I hated it.
Babysitter
Telemarketer (worst job ever!)
Accounting clerk
Waitress - Pizza Hut
Waitress - trendy restaurant/bar
Law Clerk
Lawyer
What fun! I think I want to be esobay.
babysitting
sewing custom cushions
teaching flute
restaurant dishwasher
housecleaner
peach picker
camp counselor
There were many more before starting my profession.
First seven-
- Babysitter- 50 cents, then 75 cents/hour 2.Local pool worker (lesson aid, foot checker, ticket booth) college summers-one dollar an hour 3.Res Halls food service worker- dish room to cashier- $1.80, $1.85/hour after midnight 4.Drugstore counter waitress (hated it) one summer- minimum wage most likely plus ridiculously high tips compared to the price of the coffee bought. 5.Research lab assistant (thank you undergrad thesis professor for using that grant money)- total of $1000 6.Family practice externship (after first year of medical school)- did no real work but got a stipend/room and board to learn things. 7.Resident physician- around $1000 or so a month- seem to remember $13,00 a year I believe. It paid the bills and started loan repayments with it living frugally.
Then I got to practice medicine. My last, and most lucrative, paid work.
I would have had more grunge jobs in my resume but during HS (and college summers) jobs were hard to find, especially living in the suburbs without a car. I think I got some money for being my younger brother’s substitute newspaper delivery person one week while he went to camp- my mom drove the car. In my day 12 year old boys could have that job while girls needed to be 16- so unfair (more money than babysitting for the time spent).
Babysitter
Piecework maker of mandala kits
Floral arranger
Drive in movie cashier
Easter bunny at department store
Clerk at JC Penney
Political campaign staffer
Babysitter
Dry cleaners cashier
Fast food worker
Busperson
Waitress
Air Force Pilot
Airline Pilot
Though maybe I should count as my first “Paid gig” as working as construction slave labor on our house. However, while we got paid a bit, it’s not like there was a choice!
Reading many of these posts, I have realized how few jobs I have had, in comparison. It was probably because I worked as a busperson and waitress for about six years for the same restaurant, during the years that people change jobs a lot.
- Babysitter
- Baskin-Robbins (ice cream and learned to decorate cakes)
- Engraver/sales (Things Remembered in a mall) 3a. Selling cookware (very short-term and I didn't sell anything, so not sure it counts since I made $0)
- Planetarium - handled subscription newsletter and ticket sales
- Photo printer
- Lab dishwasher
- Lab technician
This gets me to sophomore year of college. I had at least 4 more in college, some simultaneously, then several in computer programming, several in law school, and 4 since. Not counting volunteer positions, including firefighting.
“Saturday’s child works hard for a living,” no kidding!
Reading this made me remember jobs I had forgotten! I had forgotten 3, 4, and 6.
- Helped in father's insurance agency
- Waitress
- Grader for Math at college
- Office worker at computer company in college town
- Intern in eventual career
- TA for Math at college
- Actuarial Student
newspaper delivery (remember when kids on bikes used to do this?! - glad to see a few others!)
coffee/donut place counter
fast food burger place
campus coffee house
campus dairy store
campus visiting professor/spouse apartment housekeeping (some left great tips and food!)
environmental consulting field work - NYC metro area
- Starting in third grade, my mom paid me to proofread the papers she typed for law students, authors, professors, etc.
- Lawnmowing
- Babysitting (ONCE!)
- Secretary for the Texas Optometrist Association
- Secretary for an engineering firm
- Draftsman for the same firm
- Engineer for the same firm, through college. Everyone assumed I would work for them after school, but the year I got my MS, oil prices collapsed and they couldn't offer me a job.
Whataprocess I did newspaper delivery as an adult when my D was born and my wife stayed home. I worked 3 am -6am every day. At first I worked for the newspaper covering down routes but I ended up taking one of the best routes when it came open. Back then gas was cheap and the economy was good so the compensation was better than they make today. I did it from 1990-1997. It paid for my D college. I made about $1,500 a month after taxes. When I ended up with the great route I only worked about an hour a day.
Babysitter (long term position with one family)
Camp counselor (6 or 7 summers)
Also volunteer at community mental health facility (does that count) during the school year in HS
Then all jobs were related to my grad school training and ultimate professional career
@thumper, yes NCR, used to be such a big company. National Cash Register.
@esobay I’m from Ohio and had friends who lived in Kettering. NCR…was a HUGE company at one point! And really! I didn’t do a google search or anything. I just knew what it was!
I need to amend my first 7 jobs. As people post…I see a LOT of other small jobs I had in the first seven.
Like others, I did key punching. It was part of my undergrad work with a professor. And I got paid.
I also did line work in a restaurant kitchen, and cashiered.
I worked as a dressing room security person in a department store during the holiday season…you know…the person who handed out the little numbers? But wait…I also worked in the closed circuit TV room which had cameras outside of the dressing rooms to film robbers…and honest folks too.
I worked a lot. If I hadn’t worked, I woiuld not have been able to got to college. Heck, I wouldn’t have been able to go to the movies in HS!