Worked at a factory that made advertising magnets you stick on your refrigerator. It paid minimum wage but was air conditioned and I didn't have to provide customer service to anyone. Just stand there for 8-10 hours counting and packing magnets or waxing sheets of magnets before they were cut by a big press.

What a motivation it was to go to college.

Had a yard cutting business, worked in a small, old grocery store with a couple of gas pumps out front. Later I worked at my Uncle's full service gas station; I pumped gas, learned to change oil, mount and balance tires and do small repairs.

Started at the truck stop as a busser, then dishwasher, then cook. Moved out to the pumps where I thumped tires, cleaned windows off a step ladder, and pumped diesel. Everything I owned smelled of diesel. Lol

I had my own lawnmower repair business in the summers and worked in a Kosher bakery at the counter. God bless my dad for letting me fill his garage up with broken lawnmowers.

I installed satellite dishes and cleaned old printing presses for rebuild.

I worked a lot to save for College. I drove a furniture delivery truck, at 15 was in same truck as a furniture monkey (all 115 lbs of me). I raised Pheasant and Quail in Suburban Miami - and sold them through an Ad in the Miami Herald Classifieds. We'd sell the eggs, sell them live, or sell them butchered. I would sell fish we speared, lobster we caught or tropicals we caught when diving off Key Biscayne (had an old 11 ft whaler and a friend had a 17 McKee). Other than the Quail business, I kept working these after graduation when I would come back on break.

I was a lifeguard at the Coral Gables Country club, did valet there too. I taught swimming at the YMCA and had my own list of private lessons for teaching kids.

This while graduating 11th in class and lettering in Track and Cross Country - I look at my kids now and look back and wonder how in the hell we found the time for all this.

Yardwork, pool cleaner, dishwasher, busboy, barback, bartender, bouncer.

I worked for my dad in the printing industry. Also unloaded rail cars at cold storage plant.

I stripped old wrestling mats for about three hours,
so they could be refinished.

got so high , that I passed out.
took me 2 hours to be able to ride my bike home.

come to think of it , that may explain a whole bunch

Painted houses, shoveled driveways, mowed lawns, worked as an assistant to a plumber/electrician which meant a lot of digging and pulling wire and drilling holes. Bagged groceries and stocked shelves. Delivered groceries. Scraped boat hulls and applied bottom paint. Worked on a farm helping bring in the hay. This was in the 70s.

Then I paid my way through college bussing and waiting tables and bartending.

No student loans for me.

I worked for my dad in his side business, Minnow farming in Mississippi. Raised Golden Shiners and supplied bait stores. Hot, hot and muggy. Got over my fear of snakes, though.

I helped hang drywall for a bit and I worked at Taco John's for a bit. Those are the only two jobs I've had other than military/DOD.

My first job was after school and weekends and summer when I was 12.
Worked on a dairy farm doing everything from cleaning the stalls, milking cows and driving behind the hay bailer picking up hay bales that didn’t make it into the wagon...

Learned to drive that truck with 3 on the colum by stumbling around in the field...best time of my life back then!

1. Sold magazines door to door
2. Kitchen help at lodge at Bryce Canyon (First Year)
3. Baker's assistant at Lodge at Bryce Canyon ( Second Year)

I was also on the gymnastics team, an Explorer Scout and boxed. I was a mediocre student.

First job I had that came with an actual paycheck was at a Burger King. Whoppers were 59 cents, IIRC.

I had a paper route, had a part-time job as a janitor in my school, made the bulk of my childhood money detailing cars. Bought a used drum set and made money playing in bands.

Thankfully, my father didn't believe in giving kids an allowance. He said, "If anything, a kid should pay room & board!" This seemed like a buzz-kill at the time, but now I realize it made us kids realize "there's no such thing as a free lunch."

I’ve enjoyed reading through this. Lots of interesting stuff.

I grew up on a farm. Tobacco, cows, corn, hay, fences, wood, etc. I didn’t get paid for any of that until I was about 13. I worked with the field hands then, no special treatment, and was paid equally. $5/hr, mid 90s.

I made my first $100 selling eggs when I was 8 or 9 though. We had about 25 hens I raised. My dad ordered them as chicks. I remember them coming in a cardboard box. I tended to them in an incubator until they were big enough. I got to keep 100% of the egg profit.

Made about $400 from a cow I bottle fed after his mom died giving birth. I remember walking the fields when I was about 7 and seeing the calf’s foot sticking out his mom’s butt. I alerted my dad who called the vet...who resorted to a tractor and a chain. I learned a lot about life really quick.

My uncle was a master wood crafter. Unfortunately demand wasn’t enough for that to pay his bills. I helped him some with his side gigs for fun money.

Other odds and ends...Got paid to do some painting and I remember digging post holes for a fence in damned granite that definitely wasn’t worth what I was paid.

Served food in the cafeteria at the private high school my parents sent me to to help with tuition.

First “real” job was waiting tables at a steakhouse my senior year in high school.


I think if my dad had educated me more about the farm and how the finances worked, the business side of it, I would have kept interest. When I came of age, all the farm was to me was hard, hot, miserable work for (then) $6/hr. I was ready to be anywhere else. My dad never really taught me much, other than how to work hard. There certainly is a lot of value in that, but I find myself challenged on teaching my own son things sometimes, because I never learned them from my father.

In my senior year I went to School in the mornings and worked at an Oldsmobile dealership in the afternoons. They sent me to the General Motors Training Center. It was three days a month for 10 months. Each month was a different system (engine, trans, carbs, etc.) Great fun, and a hell of an educational experience.

Piano player in a house of ill repute.

Growing up I had all sorts of odd jobs - lawn mowing, landscaping, driveway sealing, etc. My first job with an actual employer was in high school. I worked for Chuck E. Cheese and landed the highly coveted position of dressing up and going out onto the game floor. I would be Mr. Munch or Jasper T. Jowls. To my lasting lament, I never ascended to the ultimate position of being Chuck E. Cheese.