What was your first job EVER?

[thegreenroom1]

Just for fun.
My first proper summer job was at age 13, it was in a hotel for the carvery lunch service. I was paid 5 an hour and worked 3 or 4 hour shifts 4/5 days a week.

What was your first job?

Working on Morrisons checkouts when I was 17, god it was shite

Washing up in my local greasy spoon at aged 14 for the princely sum of £3 an hour. I loved that job :-)

@GreyGardens88 Awaah...I always wanted to work at a checkout🙈Some of my friends did it...I ended up always going for waitressing positions.

@MaidofKent78 I loved mine too...💕 at that age it was a huge sense of independence and freedom.

Writing a column for MSN money's student page when I was 17.

An industrial laundry that cleaned roller towels and overalls for factories. My summer uni job. I spent one week loading overalls into the dryer, another doing up the press studs as they came out of the dryer and another folding them and loading into trolleys. 39 hours a week!
I nearly died of boredom.

@MittensTheSerpent wow that sounds great!!

Waitress in a cafe at weekends when I was 13. I really enjoyed it.

12 years old (I think) newspaper round. Freezing in winter, boiling hot in summer wouldn’t recommend.

16 years old counter girl at a bakery, used to get 50% off, Dad still says it was his favourite of my & sister’s “Saturday” jobs because of the doughnuts, fresh bread etc.

Babysitting and dog-sitting when I was about 14. Our neighbours had an old dog with dementia who got distressed when it was left - so they paid me £40 a night to sit with him on the sofa, watch TV and eat chocolate digestives

Paper rounds when I was 13, mornings, evenings and Sunday

Saturday sales assistant in Clarks shoes. Hated it and only lasted 3 weeks!! Went on to a longer run at Argos which I absolutely loved (the people) and stayed there for a while after I started full time work.

@onlyk I love jobs with nice perks! I used to get my lunch for free at the hotel too! I loved it I used to do my shift, eat a big lunch and then go and meet my friends out and about for the rest of the day! 🙌

@vanillandhoney yes my weekend babysitting job was one of my most lucrative ( I was babysitting all of my teenage years since age 12!!) I wouldn't dream of asking a 12 yr old to babysit my two now!! 😬

Sports direct when I was 16. £2.70 an hour, had to buy my own uniform (so first week I didn’t get anything). If you left a tag on you got a warning, 3 warnings you were sacked. They searched your bag on the way out and made you show them your socks to prove you weren’t stealing.

In a way it was great because it was so bad- it’s made me appreciate every job I have had since then!

Saturday girl in the local cake shop, £5 for 8 - 2pm (which was very well paid for 1975) and the following year I added £30 (which was an absolute fortune) for working Saturday and Sunday afternoon and night in the off-licence, on my own while the owners took the weekend off - which was almost certainly entirely illegal as I was only 17, but in those days people didn't pay much attention!

When I was14 I also worked in the Spar shop on the till, there was only me and the manager, he was on a deli type counter. I earned 25p per hour for 4 hours on a Saturday morning

I am quite old

Waitress, kitchen dogsbody when I was 14 for the princely sum of £1.50 per hour. The restaurant owner was a pisshead and used to go to the pub up the road every lunchtime leaving me and my mate to run the shop which was in a busy seaside resort. We'd cook, waitress, wash up, take money etc. He'd just leave us to it with no training at all. Health and Safety would have a field day now.

@Turkeydrumstick wow that sounds awful 😭

I worked in a pharmacy from aged 16-18 after school and on Saturdays. Was actually a pretty responsible first job. My boss was a bitch and I hated it but loved the £3.20 an hour I made!

@LovingLen 25p 😮 that's crazy!!

Mine was 22 years ago...so I think 5 and hour was a good wage then.

Cleaning in a pub at weekends. 4 hours Sat & Sun mornings, aged 13.

depends what you mean by "proper"

Aged 8 I got money from helping my sister on her paper-round, but that was money that was already part of the household...

I actively brought in money by singing for weddings when I was 10, and ringing for weddings when I was 12 (these were the days when the choice was church or register office, so for most of the summer there'd be 5 weddings every Saturday).

Paper-round at 13, and baby-sitting at 14.

Obsolete Archive checker (ie make sure there was nothing there that shouldn't be thrown away) at a solicitor's for a few months during 6th-form (my mother was their filing clerk. I got £5 from the petty cash for a short morning's work).

Admin assistant to a dealer in niche collectables - ad hoc during 6th form and then full-time for 9 months.

Summer chambermaid in Bavaria age 21
Summer chambermaid in York (my uni town) age 22

Temp with an agency from 23 - factory, cleaning, office

thegreenroom1 I did wonder if I had recalled correctly but I’m sure I have because when I started proper work as a lab tech in 1974 I earned £15 a week which was good as a lot of jobs only paid £13 for the week. Inflation was getting on for 25% though in the mid 70s so pay rises were quite high each year

Cleaning hotel rooms when I was 15. I got paid 5euro an hour to clean pissy beds and pick condoms up off the floor.