OT: What was your first job as a teenager? | Page 2 | The Boneyard

OT: What was your first job as a teenager?

Cashier at Bradlees. Not fun. Then camp counselor for a bunch of years. Job was okay, but after hours were a blast.

This actually triggers something I've been wondering about. Both my kids work. My son was a counselor and then cashier. Daughter has worked at a local shop during school and summer. But many of their friends from high school and now college don't work and never have. Some have bogus "internships" with a parent, others take a class/session at a fancy location. But some just sit on their butts or travel all summer. Is this just because I live in a wealthier town than I grew up in, or do kids not get part time and summer jobs anymore?
 
Dairy Queen, Manchester, CT. We were a "Brazier" so had food. Chili dogs, burgers, fries. The manager gave the easy job to girls (taking orders, making ice cream). We guys mostly did the custodial or worked the grill, scrubbed the fry pan, cleaned the ice cream machine at close. Wore an ugly uniform with brown pants and I always smelled terrible when I got home. Seems it is gone now. Pretty sure it was on Broad St.
 
CL82 said:
Building New England stone walls when I was 13. Figured out that what made them so strong was the fact that they collapse into themselves. Me and a buddy started making them for people and did pretty well. I'm a big believer that everyone should have a job where they come home sweaty and dirty with blisters on their hands. It shapes your thought process for what hard work actually is. The next year I got a job as a lifeguard, which I decided I liked considerably better.
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Stonemasonry was fun. We made a deal with a guy who had an old rundown farm with tons of acres. We would take the Ford F-150 out and navigate around his three legged goats and three legged sheep and scour the farm/woods for stones all morning, go to the quarries and then get to building walls in the afternoon.

Every day was an adventure and we built walls on some sick properties up in Salisbury, Norfolk, Falls Village, Lakeville. One day my buddy is at the other end of the wall and he yells down to me and my boss, "That's weird, there's a NY Times in the middle of the retaining wall." My boss starts laughing. 5 seconds later my buddy is screaming, "I'm covered in s^^^!" My boss is now dying laughing, "That's because I took a dump in the wall and used the Times to wipe my ."
 
Concessions Attendant at Hoyts Cinema in Mystic Village, Mystic, CT. Learned how to upsell and suggestive sell really well.
 
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I deveined Shrimp at the Old Riverton Inn. Will never eat or touch one again. Then they made me clean their gutters. So I left to work at New Hartford Pizza.
 
HuskyHawk said:
Dairy Queen, Manchester, CT. We were a "Brazier" so had food. Chili dogs, burgers, fries. The manager gave the easy job to girls (taking orders, making ice cream). We guys mostly did the custodial or worked the grill, scrubbed the fry pan, cleaned the ice cream machine at close. Wore an ugly uniform with brown pants and I always smelled terrible when I got home. Seems it is gone now. Pretty sure it was on Broad St.
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Thought it was on Hartford Road? We used to go there all the time. Was there another one in Manchester? The good old days when Dairy Queen was everywhere.
 
Did a portion of my brother's New Britain Herald route from like age 10 to 13, then got my first job as part of a large crew setting up a King's Department store, which promptly let most us go after being open for a month. Numerous dishwashing and pot scrubbing jobs followed.
 
Chuck said:
Cashier at Bradlees. Not fun. Then camp counselor for a bunch of years. Job was okay, but after hours were a blast.

This actually triggers something I've been wondering about. Both my kids work. My son was a counselor and then cashier. Daughter has worked at a local shop during school and summer. But many of their friends from high school and now college don't work and never have. Some have bogus "internships" with a parent, others take a class/session at a fancy location. But some just sit on their butts or travel all summer. Is this just because I live in a wealthier town than I grew up in, or do kids not get part time and summer jobs anymore?
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Im in a sort of wealthy town, 2 of my 3 kids started working while in high school but most of their friends and classmates did not. I think the stupid pressure to load up the college application has most of them playing sports, clubs, and whatnot as well studying far more than I ever bothered in high school.
 
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HuskyHawk said:
Dairy Queen, Manchester, CT. We were a "Brazier" so had food. Chili dogs, burgers, fries. The manager gave the easy job to girls (taking orders, making ice cream). We guys mostly did the custodial or worked the grill, scrubbed the fry pan, cleaned the ice cream machine at close. Wore an ugly uniform with brown pants and I always smelled terrible when I got home. Seems it is gone now. Pretty sure it was on Broad St.
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Pawcatuck, CT Dairy Queen for me. Ages 16-20. Best job I’ve had in my life by far. The guy who owned it had the ideal life (basically worked 01Apr-31Oct). He was an awesome dude.

For food We only had hotdogs that we cooked in the microwave and chili.

We opened at 11 and closed at 10 so I could party all night just off my tips, sleep in, and still work the next day. ate my first meal of the day there as well as my last.

I started at 5.25, 10 cents more than min wage which felt like a big deal at the time.
I lived off the cash tips and didn’t even really need my paycheck. Ah to be young.

Only part that sucked was emptying all the trash cans at close. They were gross smelled and leaked all over you.
 
History Geek said:
Caddy at Mill River Country Club in Stratford, then when I turned 16 a dishwasher at a diner in Milford.
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Was it the Bridgeport Flyer perhaps? I'm gonna miss that diner, never had a bad meal there, and it sobered us up on many a nights.

First steady paying job was working at an audio/video chain store that has long been defunct. We'd have a sale, some dipwad would buy a big TV, then pull up with a small car:
Me: Sir, the box is not going to fit in that car.
Them: Sure it will.
Me: No it won't, not in the box, not in the trunk or backseat
Them: Yes it will, try it
Me: grumble grumble mutter...Yep, told you, gotta take it out of the box
Every. Single. Time.
 
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Paper route in Waterbury, caddy at CC of Waterbury, then a real job, usher at the State Theater downtown for a whole $.95 an hour! Summer job in my uncle's machine shop in Prospect.
 
Chuck said:
Cashier at Bradlees. Not fun. Then camp counselor for a bunch of years. Job was okay, but after hours were a blast.

This actually triggers something I've been wondering about. Both my kids work. My son was a counselor and then cashier. Daughter has worked at a local shop during school and summer. But many of their friends from high school and now college don't work and never have. Some have bogus "internships" with a parent, others take a class/session at a fancy location. But some just sit on their butts or travel all summer. Is this just because I live in a wealthier town than I grew up in, or do kids not get part time and summer jobs anymore?
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Kids definitely still get part time jobs & do gig work
 
Dishwasher at Armando's restaurant, High Ridge Road, Stamford. $1.60/hour which was minimum wage at the time. Obviously impressed by my pearl-diving skills, I was bumped up to $1.75 after the first night. Armando's was Benny Goodman's (Stamford resident at the time) favorite Stamford restaurant.
 
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HooperScooper said:
Thought it was on Hartford Road? We used to go there all the time. Was there another one in Manchester? The good old days when Dairy Queen was everywhere.
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There is one on Hartford Road. I worked at a different one over near the Parkade. I'm not sure there was one on Hartford Road back then.
 
13 years old. Dishwasher at The Inn on Lake Waramaug. One of my duties was to make sure the owner’s Mrs. made it safely up to their quarters upstairs after dinner which always included a bottle of vino as well as several aperitifs.
 
Caddied at Rolling Hills CC in Wilton in high school. Delivered for florist, then camp counselor. Summers sure were fun with money in your pocket.
 
I delivered the Middletown Press in the afternoons I was 11 and 12. I also cut grass and shoveled snow too. I remember the storm of 78 at the age of 14. Man that was a lot of snow
 
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I chopped vegetables for salads. Once, the guard slipped and I sliced my thumb open. I still have the scar.
 
First job was at Christmas tree farm/bagged ice delivery place. Trimmed the trees and bagged/delivered ice and ice machines in the non-winter seasons. Cut and bagged trees in the winter. Great job and a peak into high functioning alcoholism.
 
Summer ‘75 (15 yrs old jr to be) and summer ‘76 (16 yrs old sr to be) was summer counselor at Meriden Parks & Rec. First year Israel Putnam MS always had a girl as well as myself so we shared duties…. Me I took care of the boys baseball, wiffle ball, basketball and alike. 2nd year Washington Park which was my neighborhood our baseball team beat every other park we played with the kids had a stud team. Fun job for sure.
 
Paperboy for the Stamford Advocate for several years from around 9-13, after which I caddied, mostly at CC Darien, sometimes Woodway. First W-2 job was at Friendly's. I started as a busser/dishwasher and had to redo dishes left by the earlier guy, who in today's terms had an "intellectual development disorder". I was eventually promoted to the front, where I scooped cones. And I was fired because I repeatedly put too much ice cream in them (didn't use that scoop edge method that made the cones mostly air).
 
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storrsroars said:
First W-2 job was at Friendly's. I started as a busser/dishwasher and had to redo dishes left by the earlier guy, who in today's terms had an "intellectual development disorder". I was eventually promoted to the front, where I scooped cones. And I was fired because I repeatedly put too much ice cream in them (didn't use that scoop edge method that made the cones mostly air).
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High Ridge Road? Many Fribble glasses you didn't have to wash because they went out the door with me to be used at UConn keg parties.
 
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