To ask what your first 'proper' job was?

[thelongwayhome]

As the title says, what was your first job as an adult, ie. not doing a Saturday shift as a teen but your first full time job?
Did you enjoy it, did you hate it?

went to work in a Bank at 16 and was there for 8 years. Had the best time there

PA. I was rubbish but loved the job as I worked in a niche industry and spent my days on the shop floor with the chaps drinking tea

Worked as a researcher for a creepy horrible MP for my first proper job, started as an intern then became an actual job, was the worst experience of my life. Horrendous, the relief when I left was incredible.

Writing scientific software. I'd done a PhD first so it wasn't till I was 25. I changed company after about 9 months, but still doing the same sort of thing 35 years later.
Yes, I enjoyed it (be a bit sad if I hadn't!)

Flogging display advertising in bullshit magazines charging the same rates as Vogue at the time.
I was very good at it, earnt a shit load then (which would still be a very handsome reward today), hated every second of it had the good sense to knock it on the head and run for the hills after 18 months.
The money and investments made with it from that job ultimately gave me my seed money to become a successful 'entrepreneur' for want of a better term.

Trail guide at a ranch in the USA. Hated it but made good friends.

Civil service. I must have liked it, I stayed for 10 years! (Couple of promotions in that time, but same organisation)

@memberofthewedding that sounds amazing, I'd love to take my granny with me she's brilliant I'm hoping to go into the civil service eventually, did you stay in the civil service profession?

First proper job aged 19 straight after 6th form was Full time Receptionist/ Secretary for a small Software Developers working on Y2K projects from 1996 for two years at least... I really enjoyed working there actually.

Back in the late 90s, Data Administrator for a medical research company, loved it but was only part time, stayed for a year before taking another Administrator role, in current role for 7 years but due to business reasons this will end in December

My first 'not Saturday' job was as a psychiatric nursing assistant in an old style big psychiatric hospital. That was a shock to the system at 18! Did it FT every holiday until my last year of uni when I got a job as a Health Physics assistant, and found all the skills I had learnt actually were amazingly transferable...

1960, secretary to a team leader in a finance company. Five minutes before 5pm, going home time, silence fell on the huge open plan office, covers were put on typewriters, coats half on. If you were still there two minutes past 5pm, there wasn't a single other person in the office.

I was paid £6. 50 shillings a week. Gave my parents £2 a week for my keep and the remaining £4 50 shillings paid for clothes and going out at the weekend.

Software engineer for multinational electronics company. Stayed there ~20 years in various roles, met now DH, only left when the DC came along.

bar staff in my university student union for 4 months then i was let go for refusing to serve someone who had spent the night pouring shots down his almost unconcious mates throat. The next grown up jobs were all temporary funeral arranger specialist reptile pet shop and selling advertising on a local free magazine. then 8 years in learning disabillity care and now i work for my local council.

Proper job as in contract, pay-slip each month etc etc.

Never.

Proper job as in registered as a sole trader - I learned to make high end leather goods and set up my first small business aged 24, and hauled my ass out of unemployment and OOW benefits from there on.

First full time, permanent (i.e. not a summer job) was a sys admin. It was really interesting, I learnt a huge amount about how to get on in the work place and it added me a much better paying job as a programmer later but it wasn’t nearly as much fun as my previous stints working Saturday and Sumer jobs had been. This was mainly as all other employees were in the “right” roles for their sex (warehouse was all male, office was all female except the accounting manager, all other IT staff were male, receptionists were all female, etc.) The women were suspicious of me and the men annoyed that that management had made them take down the porn they’d had up in my office until I joined. Some of the male managers refused to accept anything I said and checked it with my (male) manager every time.

• added = got (not sure what I actually typed to get that autocarrot!)

Proper job : tax code, payslips, contracted hours - supermarket P/T

First full time job: Teacher

I went as an A level management trainee at Sainsburys at 18. I took it as they offered accommodation in a company run hostel in London. Long hours, but rapid promotion, and although it was hard work it was fun. Left after 6 years to sell tissue products and feminine protection (as it was called in the 70s) for Kleenex. The Sainsbury job set me up for life, gave me a life in London, away from Lincolnshire, and met my future lifelong partner, so all round a good decision.

Recruiting graduates for the civil service. Straight after uni so a lot of applications from people I knew. Also involved recruitment for MI5 and GCHQ so had to sign official secrets act. Sounds exciting, really was mostly data entry, setting up psychometric tests and using a big machine to mark them. The interesting bit was done by the London office 🙄

Did get to visit the home office and ONS which I eventually ended up running the process for but still reasonably unexciting.....shit pay too!

Thinking about it I should have applied to ONS myself. I bloody love statistics lol