What was your first Saturday job?

[FayKnights]

I was just reading a thread on items people still use from shops no longer around and one of the posters mentioned shoes from Dolcis.
I worked there in the 90s when I was 16 and earned £2.09 per hour!
It was an absolute hoot and everyone there was of a similar age. We also had a couple of older kids who were supervisors and allowed to work the till. I personally didn’t reach those heady heights, but definitely would have liked to!

I worked there for a few weeks and hated it. The managers were knobs and I didn't like the regimented nature of it. My previous first Saturday job aged 15 was in a farmshop where we were just left to get on with it, worked unsupervised and managed my own time. Sadly the shop closed so I had to get another job. This branch of Spudulike was in a shopping centre and opened in summer when not many people wanted a jacket spud so I was bored and hated not having autonomy. Cos it was so quiet I was made redundant and was actually relieved. A few weeks later I got a Saturday job in another farmshop and loved it so all worked out in the end.

Staff canteen at Debenhams. The makeup women were horrible to me especially the Chanel ladies who could hardly open their eyes with the amount of mascara they wore. I was 14 and had no idea how to make a proper pot of tea so it would have been awful weak tea, I probably deserved the dirty looks to be fair.

At 16 I worked at Boots in Birmingham on the flask counter. I hated it! Hadn't got a clue about flasks and I was useless on the till. I hated it when people would give me a note and some change to make it easier for me to give them change.
Just Saturdays but it meant giving up watching my beloved Baggies. I had a cow of a supervisor that everyone including me was terrified of.
I was always trying to finish early because I was going out and I phoned in sick so many times. I don't know why I bothered really. It was just the done thing.
I started in the February 1976 and had handed my notice in by the April!

Asda, a 3hour shift for £1.10 an hour as a 16yr old, I paid £1.50 return on the bus to get there, so made £1.80 a shift!
They didn’t want me when I turned 18 and would’ve been on adult rates.

Woolies, from 83 to 85. Can’t remember how much I earnt but loved it.

i think a Saturday job is part and parcel of an education. It teaches discipline, motivation, working as a team and with all kinds of people. I think it’s sad that with the state of the high street that youngsters these days don’t have the same opportunities.

I lived in a market town & worked from around 13/14 on a handbag stall. It was 1983 & I stayed until I was 18. In fact when I began to work full time, I carried on for a few months as I loved it so much. We worked for £10 a day plus commission. Xmas was great as I’d earn £20 to £30 for a Saturday. It has left me with a lifelong addiction to handbags though.

I worked in a launderette doing service washes in a pink nylon overall. I was 15 and grossed out by the butchers' bloody aprons and the rugby clubs' undergarments. I didn't have brothers and knew little if sweaty male parts. I was so happy when I got a new job in M&S Brent Cross in the lingerie department - even if I had to wear a beige nylon dress. I was always volunteering for training and loved my food discount and reduced offers at the end of the day.

I potato-picked the summer I turned 12. It was backbreaking!

Strawberry-picking as well. We got picked up in a van with no springs at 5.45 am at the local church. You got paid (not very much) per punnet.

Then on the deli counter of the local shop. Slicing ham, luncheon meat etc on a terrifying slicer machine, and pulling ice creams in summer.

To all those who worked in Woolworths, did you help yourself to the weigh and pay sweets?

I delivered newspapers, then worked in Galbraiths, a small supermarket chain.

I never had a Saturday job but I worked every summer holidays from age 11. I did different jobs each summer.

I was a chambermaid for my first two jobs in hotels. Then I was a chambermaid/cleaner in a small B and B. Then a waitress in a tearoom (the year Charles and Di got married!) and then a waitress in a silver service restaurant.

I was then given a summer placement at my apprenticeship firm, so I did that for my final "summer job"

Of course!😜Perk of the job!!!

Sometimes they put me on Pick n Mix for the day, it often involved going to the store room for supplies which was the perfect opportunity to nick a few :)

I did potato picking one autumn and although it was good pay (for a young teen) it was back breaking, so I only did two days.

Worked Saturday afternoons in a petrol station serving petrol and checking oil, filling up screenwash and polishing the nice cars. Got paid £6 for 5 hours 1-6pm.

Four gallons of four star was £4.80 😱

First Saturday job was at 16 in Stead and Simpsoms.
I was obviously not given any training in fitting shoes, yet customers would ask me to check their children's feet.
We were strongly encouraged to sell the terrible handbags and tights which matched the shoes; the patent high heels with some sort of sparkly motif on the heel.
I think I got £1.36 or £1.96 an hour (probably the former, this was 1987).

I also worked as a silver service waitress in the local hotel. Again, very little training. I remember being asked about the cheese board and making most of them up. We lived in rural Norfolk, my Dad didn't eat cheese and my post-war baby Mum didn't know anything other than the usual English ones (cheddar, red Leicester). Oh and dropping a bread roll between a diner's back and the back of the chair.

Louis ' cake shop in Hampstead

I worked on a candyfloss stall and also doing hair wraps at festivals from about 14. Oh and making pasties and cakes for expats (this was in Europe)

I didn't have a job but my best friend had a paper round. In the winter when the mornings were dark she was scared to go out on her own, so I would do the entire round with her to keep her company ... and I never got paid a single penny.

@tribalmango

Me too! Stead & Simpson shoe shop. We got bonuses for selling extras - shoe protector sprays and those dreadful ‘matching’ handbags😂
I loved it - I felt v grown up collecting my wages in cash in a little brown envelope. I still have my payslips 😂

My eldest sister worked in Woolworths and my other sister worked in a tack shop , I didn’t have a Saturday job as someone needed to be home for the horses so I just did the tack shop job if my sister was unwell / wanted a day off - we knew the owner and he wasn’t bothered .

Was 15 and worked in the kids dept at Clark's. The uniform was dreadful. Grey, sticky polyester skirts with nylon underskirt. White blouse with Kelly green bow thingy around the neck. I did a course in children's shoe fitting which came in very handy when I had a family of my own!

Not me but a relative’s daughter aged 14 worked in a care home for elderly people. She was bathing male residents on her own which her mother could see no problem with. This would have been late 80s.

Co-op supermarket. £1.32 an hour until age 16, when it went up to £1.45. I was gutted the first week I worked there fulltime - earned £58 but only took home £42.50 due to National Insurance.

I worked in a fish & chip shop one evening and on a Saturday in 1974/5. Then in Barton's the Bakers and finally Sainsburys on a Thursday evening and Saturday before going to work full time in an office job in 1977. Can't remember the pay, but I paid for my driving lessons when I was 17 from my Sainsburys pay. They were £1.95 an hour when I started and went up to £2.35 an hour.

I had a Saturday job in Etam/Tammy girl when I was younger, loved it!
My first summer job was in a cafe though where all the customers smoked and one of our jobs was to clean the ashtrays!!

At 17 I got a job in a cafe at a leisure centre. I was there for only 6 months or so before I was sacked for having a panic attack! They went out of business shortly after so I'd have been without a job anyways!