OT: What was your first job as a teenager?

[aceboon]

411 telephone operator at a company in Oakville, got it as soon as I turned 16

 

[Flipside]

after 4 years as a paperboy, at 16 I moved in to the front office as a Clerk Typist (on a manual Corona) for the Hartford Courant, Glastonbury office ... just about every day after school, Saturdays and Sunday mornings (which were hectic, as there was hell to pay, including implied bodily harm, when someone didn't get their Sunday paper w/ coupons)

 

[Drame]

At 11 worked for my brothers friends Bait and tackle shop. Also sold crossbows and ammunition. I counted sandworms and cleaned fish tanks. Got to work the register occasionally. Made $1 an hour. I was to be paid at the end of the summer. Instead of cash I was given a rubber worm kit. Used to get hung on this big hook by my belt. And I was fed leftover pizza crusts. Kids these days have it easy.

 

[Petero]

My first one was a bit unusual. I hauled coal in buckets from a basement bin to a coal stove in a third floor walk up (triple decker) for an elderly widow friend of my grandmother. She cooked and heated her space with the coal only. I did this for 3 years and passed the job on to my younger brother.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Lifeguarding is a sweet gig as a teenager. Easy all things considered, get outside and everyone is attractive. My brother was a lifeguard. I got the course done with him but kept doing home reno stuff instead until I became a camp counselor.

He married his coworker from lifeguarding. Mine was a 45 year old man named Manuel. The man can frame a load bearing wall like no ones business but he's not cute

Aim high.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I was never lucky enough to get our local paper route, it was handed down between brothers. But I filled in for him whenever he was on vacation or sick.

I agree I loved that job when I got to do it. Getting that bundle of papers and scanning the sports section before anyone else in the neighborhood had the news.

Always made me feel like I was a step ahead. Then racing through the route on my bike, I was like work ain’t so bad….man the innocence of being a 14yr old kid back then.

Am I remembering correctly, but didn't kids sell their paper routes when they were no longer going to do them? I covered my neighbor's Journal Inquirer route a few times, but never got one. I think eventually, businesses bought them all up.

 

[CL82]

I shoveled snow in the winter, dug out crawlspaces in houses to make a bigger basement and for the most part, I was just waiting for the Internet to be invented.

My uncle bought a beach cottage that was on a property that was adjacent to his beach house. He pretty much gave it to "the cousins", including his sons to be a hangout place for us. He gave them his credit card and told us we could fix it up if we wanted to.

One of the things that we discovered was that the house was pretty much propped up logs on sand. I don't mean that there were buried posts. There were literally logs just wedged in between the sand and the floor joists. That thing was one good storm away from becoming driftwood.

Because we were young and stupid, we decided to put a foundation under it. So we built a frame that supported the house from under the rafters and dug underneath it to make about a 4 foot crawlspace. We then made the forms for the foundation in the walls and did concrete pours to create kind of a half basement. I actually think it was done relatively well. For example, we knew enough to use forms and rebar, and I do know the house remains standing today, but as I think back on it, hanging a house from the rafters, which conveniently extended outside the wall line, and crawling underneath it and digging out, sand, was incredibly risky.

For what it's worth after we did that we also fixed up the interior. Since it was my uncle's house, his son got first choice as to rooms. When they got round to me, the only thing left was the uninsulated attic space which had to be accessed via a ladder. Not even Besler stairs. I painted it all white, put in two windows and a French door and build a small deck over an existing porch. It was actually pretty nice. My cousin's surprised me by putting in an actual staircase to access it. We bought furniture for it, and the rest of the house using my uncle's credit card. I loved it, because when you woke up, all you would see is ocean out the front windows.

At this point, the credit card bills must've come in, because my uncle wanted to see what the heck we were doing in the house. He toured the whole thing silently and when he got to the new staircase, he asked "what's this" and everybody said "CL's room". He went upstairs, looked around, handed me the keys to his beach house and said you boys will use this now. I remember feeling pretty proud that he thought we did such a good job that he preferred to live there. It made sense because there were a lot of us, and especially when friends came down, the original house was bigger and could accommodate more people. On the other hand, my uncle got a beachfront retreat. Everybody won.

 

[prankster]

My first job was in 8th grade, delivering the weekly "Rare Reminder" newspaper where people sell their used junk. I got paid $0.01 per paper and had 4 streets on my route. Probably worked out to $3.00 a week.

When I turned 16, I worked at Burger King on the fryalator. Then got "promoted" to the drive thru window. Smoked a lot of weed with the cooks out back in those days.

Diesel Fitter.

(IYKYK)

 

[temery]

Am I remembering correctly, but didn't kids sell their paper routes when they were no longer going to do them? I covered my neighbor's Journal Inquirer route a few times, but never got one. I think eventually, businesses bought them all up.

A paper route was big money when I was a kid. I had a friend who sold his for $200 (big money in the 70s). Best time to buy a route was January, after the seller got his Christmas tips.

 

[Staven]

My first job was being an errand boy for CT mobster Midge Renault. I would do errands all day including going to OTB and picking up his side lady friend to take her grocery shopping, etc. My reward was $25 per day ( that was a lot in 1977 ) and lunch at Mike & Marys Restaurant in East Haven. This was a time I would never forget.

 

[dennismenace]

Prior to 16 working on a dairy farm baling hay and cutting corn for silage. After 16 working in the city maintenance dept for Parks and the farm during evenings or on weekend when crops were harvested. Painting, staining, lawn mowing and later (college ages) supervising younger workers in the Park Dept.

 

[Marat]

My first real job as a teenager, which lasted for some time - worked in a frozen yogurt store ICBY in W Hartford/Hartford border . The store owner was a UConn alum and I got to play a few UConn games on the radio . This was during the dream season. Fun times.

 

[Ewekon]

My first job was in 8th grade, delivering the weekly "Rare Reminder" newspaper where people sell their used junk. I got paid $0.01 per paper and had 4 streets on my route. Probably worked out to $3.00 a week.

When I turned 16, I worked at Burger King on the fryalator. Then got "promoted" to the drive thru window. Smoked a lot of weed with the cooks out back in those days.

Paper boy from about 74-77 . Then Bridgeport Post/Telegram in Southport and Greens Farms.

Christmas tips were the best.
Won contests to go to the U.N. and CT state Capitol.

 

[Griggs]

Walking around Yale Bowl selling coca-cola in 1961 while also delivering New Haven Register in Lakeview Terrace in Derby. Also was a caddy at Race Brook Country Club in Orange.

 

[superjohn]

My first job was being an errand boy for CT mobster Midge Renault. I would do errands all day including going to OTB and picking up his side lady friend to take her grocery shopping, etc. My reward was $25 per day ( that was a lot in 1977 ) and lunch at Mike & Marys Restaurant in East Haven. This was a time I would never forget.

Okay, you win for coolest teenage first job.

 

[OviedoFLHusky]

At age 13, started weekly cleaning of my dad's office (vacuuming, dusting, floor washing, etc.). Did this through high school. Loathed it at the time, but now that I'm retired, I'm grateful, as it got me onto the Social Security records that much sooner.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

My first job was in 8th grade, delivering the weekly "Rare Reminder" newspaper where people sell their used junk. I got paid $0.01 per paper and had 4 streets on my route. Probably worked out to $3.00 a week.

When I turned 16, I worked at Burger King on the fryalator. Then got "promoted" to the drive thru window. Smoked a lot of weed with the cooks out back in those days.

Paperboy for me, as well, started in sixth grade and did it through middle school.

The first tax forms I got were working at an ice cream shop in Old Greenwich (which was surprisingly stressful considering some of the customers) and then started summer camp counseling when I was 16 and did that through college. Once at UConn, I got a sweet hook up at a small summer camp with like 20 kids, two directors and five counselors that paid something sweet like $30/hr back in 2005.

Favorite job at UConn was working w/ IT Tech in the building across from Homer. It’s amazing how you can become one of the more reliable guys by simply showing up to work on time and putting in an honest effort even though most of the time. They offered me a FT job after graduating but ended up going to UB for grad school.

 

[TGW93]

Paperboy for the Meriden Record Journal.

At one point, my route was a 3.5-mile round trip each day. I lasted one year before I said no mas.

However, I did attend a Hartford Courant carrier picnic that year by pretending to be a friend who was a Hartford Courant paperboy.

 

[RichZ]

I worked for the mob. Early '60s, I delivered the Bridgeport Sporting News -- aka the Scratch Sheet -- a "newspaper" the sole purpose of which was to deliver the number. My route was the East End of Bridgeport. Funny, how you could ride your bike down the street in some really seedy neighborhoods with a hundred bucks or more in your pocket -- a lot more if some customer of one of the bars, barbershops or diners on your route hit the number big and was feeling generous -- and never get robbed or even bothered. It was a while before I realized that we were protected by the mob as well as the police.

I did that for a couple years, and some years later, the whole operation disappeared when the state legalized gambling and started running their own numbers racket.

 

[CL82]

I saw this today and it seemed relevant to this thread.

Are Teen Summer Jobs Obsolete? | Commonplace

Summer employment for Americans teenagers is a perennial tradition worth preserving in our nation's economic and social life.

commonplace.org

Heads up for the mods there are two throwaway references to immigration so feel free to nuke this post if that seems like it's too political. Other than that it's an interesting commentary on the factors that impact kids taking summer jobs.

 

[Hoophound]

Christmas tree groomer. True story.

 

[TRest]

A paper route was big money when I was a kid. I had a friend who sold his for $200 (big money in the 70s). Best time to buy a route was January, after the seller got his Christmas tips.

My brother bought an existing route from a neighborhood kid who aged out of it, they were highly prized and lobbying started months before. I think the going rate (early 70's) was a buck a house. I have no idea if the papers knew the carriers were selling the rights.

 

[Puparoni]

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.

Yes, there were two. The one on Broad Street was near the intersection with Middle Tpke

 

[HCCForever]

I would shovel snow or cut grass for money although my parents wouldn’t let us take money from the widow next store. When I was about 14 I had both Courant and Hartford Times route. Half of the routes overlapped which made collecting easier but cut down on tips. When I turned 16 I was a service clerk at ShopRite making $2.15 an hour. I would sometimes work 8AM until 10PM on Saturdays.

 

[QDOG5]

First job - camp counselor
Worst job - working at KFC
Best job - after school I was delivering prescription drugs to elderly folks around town
Last job before entering the real world - security guard at GHO in 1984