Your first jobs.

[Masquerouge]

419s
10 char

Mmmh what's that?

 

[Mirc]

If giving private lessons counts as a job, then I earned around 5 euros the first 2-3 months (teaching classical guitar) and then went up to around 10 euros an hour. But (there are MANY buts): 1) you need to be very specialized and sure of what you are doing to do that; 2) you can't do it too many hours in a row, especially since I couldn't bring the students home (I'd go to their places every time, which is a real pain in a big city), and 3) it's not a regular source of income since either of you can cancel it at any time. Actually, I only ever did a few hours per week.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Mmmh what's that?

Nigerian email scams.

(Thanks, Irregular Webcomic!)

 

[theskald]

I worked at a library, putting away books as well as a lot of things it wasn't really my job to do. Also not the greatest people. Good pay though. 6.75 at first and 7.75 at the very end before I left to do my radio internship.

Wah! 6.75 is good pay?!

My first job ever is when I worked at the first Burger king in Poland! i was a cashier guy. There are only 4 Burger Kings in Poland, and i worked at the first one to be built.

That is 4 too many if you ask me. What are fast food restaurants like in Poland, I wonder...

My first job was a summer camp counsellor. Very low pay. Next year I went to another camp, and had a much better pay. Then the next two summer I did some interim job in a high-tech plant, even better pay, and that was the end of my summer jobs - after that, a couple of internships, the first one with a crappy pay but it was for the experience, the second one with an great pay. And after that, a real job, as a consultant, awesome pay.

A consultant? For what? And why do jobs involving the care of large groups of children not pay better?

My first job was working at Woolworths over the Christmas period which is in the process of closing down. I think the pay was something like £4.2831 (It was an odd number) an hour.

What was your HR guy a computer accountant? That's seriously bizarre.

My first paying one was this HRM thing when I was 16, where they would tell me the type of people they wanted for a particularly profession and then I would go on some website I forget which and find the people that met their requirements and then sent them the info and I got paid if they called them in for a job.

I got paid 500 Rs once for one person. And then the guy who owned the company fled the country. It turned out that he was a wanted criminal. He was apparently using the HRM company as a front and was in fact using scam porn sites to gain access to people's credit cards and taking money from their account. He had armed guards and stuff because the police were after him. So he ran away....bah and I only got paid once.

Holy crap, did you have any idea something was up? At least you were a contractor.

We did this like 3 weeks ago.

(very recent) Dupe Thread.

I was not aware, but so what? People who didn't participate last time can share their experiences this time, and it looks like there are plenty of people with something to add. I could understand if it was a dupe thread for a piece of news or something, but this is just a casual discussion.

Check what the award wages are for various jobs. Check what the penalty rates for various stuff are.

If you're looking for higher pay without needing to acquire too much in the way of higher skills, find stuff that involves shift work and/or late nights/weekends. Pulling beers & bouncing heads at 4am on a Sunday morning at the end of a 10 hour shift paid much better than pulling beers and bouncing heads on a weekday lunch shift, for instance.

I honestly didn't understand half of what you said. You mean bartending? In six months I can do that, but until then I guess waiting tables is similar. And it's not that I want a low-skill job, I just have no choice. I'm still working on the degree and I need to work in the meantime.

My first real job was as a banquet server at a restaurant attached to a golf course. Pay was decent, ranging from $15-$40/hr, usually around $20-25/hr IIRC.

How much was in tips? That may actually be a living wage for me on top of my part-time work, but I imagine the pay had a lot to do with the affluence of the patrons.

Does forcing people to pay for your teaching them how to play chess (I always teach them anyway) count as a first job? If not, I have yet to get one .

I'm on the fence as to whether it's extortion or a job, how good are you at playing chess?

paper boy
pea-packer
pusher
painter
politician
roadie
writer
retailer
record-keeper
retired
researcher
and rubber worker

(all true, but not in any order)

1. Are painter and writer in past tense? And did you make enough money to subsist on that alone?
2. What kind of politician?
3. What did you research?
4. And are you really retired? I saw you say you are around 40. I'm impressed.

My first job was a co-op (internship) position at Canada Trust (now owned by TD), doing COBOL programming, making $18 an hour or so.

Yeah, I never did the burger flipping thing.

It was horrible and it taught me a valuable lesson: COBOL programmers can make a lot of money, but it's one of the most boring jobs you'll ever do.

Yeah, $18 isn't "a lot of money", but if I had stayed in the "field", there's tons of fairly well paid COBOL jobs at banks. That kinda thing ain't for me though..

What the--It's a lot of money by my standards! What do you make these days?

I worked as a grocery store cashier for just less than a year, which had it's moments, but was a pretty big drag. The people were great, and I have fond memories of days where nobody would come into the store at all (really cold out, really hot out, hockey team on a run). Most of the time it was a madhouse however, and I realized that working harder only meant working more. I did get a 33% raise off my starting salary in the first 4 months though, so that was nice. The most unexpected thing was just how depressing it was to sell cigarettes and lottery tickets to the same people every week. First hand account of how much money these people were just throwing away.

We all have our drugs, what're you gonna do? I'm sure Blizzard feels fine about their monthly fee revenue from WoW, and it's just as much a waste of money.

If giving private lessons counts as a job, then I earned around 5 euros the first 2-3 months (teaching classical guitar) and then went up to around 10 euros an hour. But (there are MANY buts): 1) you need to be very specialized and sure of what you are doing to do that; 2) you can't do it too many hours in a row, especially since I couldn't bring the students home (I'd go to their places every time, which is a real pain in a big city), and 3) it's not a regular source of income since either of you can cancel it at any time. Actually, I only ever did a few hours per week.

And I imagine around there you'd have a lot of competition. I know a guy that makes a good bit of money giving drum lessons at his house, but the most successful tutors I've seen tend to cut deals with music stores. Maybe it's a matter of trusting people with the support of an established business more than freelancers? I don't know.

 

[TheLastOne36]

That is 4 too many if you ask me. What are fast food restaurants like in Poland, I wonder...

Due to it's rarity here in Poland, Burger King's are treated as Restaurants, people only come there rarely. Although the one in Warsaw is inside a huge (and gorgeous) mall so that particular one is treated more like a fast food place then the others.

 

[silver 2039]

Holy crap, did you have any idea something was up? At least you were a contractor.

When I started work for him I did know he was under investigation by the police for running a porn website. It was in the paper plus he had armed security guards around his house. But I didn't know he was running a scam, I thought he was just running a porn website, I'm not uptight or conservative so I didn't care. I assumed typical India the moral police are at it again, heh I guess not. It turns out he's wanted in the US too by the IRS for tax evasion of millions of dollars.

 

[scherbchen]

first job: selling clothes in a place that was considered to be haute c... high fashion for our town. bad pay, despicable customers, and a wife who was 100% supported by her husband (our boss) who did not need to worry about petty things like profits. really bad.

second job: tending bar at - I guess - a teen's disco. had a blast (apart from the one time I got punched in the mouth). made decent money. free beers!

 

[Harbringer]

OOOOOOOooooo wait wait, it was legit, like on papers or anything, but my first job was playing guitar with my older brother at festivals and partys and stuff. I quit a few months later becuase I didnt like it, and I ussually didnt get paid anything either.

 

[Mirc]

And I imagine around there you'd have a lot of competition. I know a guy that makes a good bit of money giving drum lessons at his house, but the most successful tutors I've seen tend to cut deals with music stores. Maybe it's a matter of trusting people with the support of an established business more than freelancers? I don't know.

Yeah that's not a problem here since most people wouldn't really go to a music store to learn music (especially guitar) and I actually have to turn down many offers thanks to lack of time (competition being the last of my problems here).

By far my best deal was with some guys from an embassy, who moved with their whole families here, who had 3 children and all three were learning guitar. That was 45 euros in 3 hours. Although I only did that once a week. But for those 3 hours (add 1.5 if you count transport time, as they were living out of the city proper, in some rich residential area), I got this money, many relations with many people, a couple of concerts, free food and drinks, etc. That's a rarity for me.

 

[jessiecat]

[*]Are painter and writer in past tense? And did you make enough money to subsist on that alone?

* painter/decorator for about half a year after uni. Editor of college and trade union weekly magazines for 5-6 years(while working). Several published poems in my teens.

[*]What kind of politician?

* trade union political officer and local govt. council member (2 terms)

[*]What did you research?

*Post-grad MSc. in 19th.C British Colonial Policy in Africa.

*Early retired due to mobility issues (Also lucky with investments) and I'm older than just 40's. There are a few of us on OT who are over 50 you know. Not that unusual for old war gamers like us. (played Civ for 15years). The rest of the list is also true. I've had quite a few different sorts of jobs in over 30 years. Read my profile.

 

[sanabas]

I honestly didn't understand half of what you said. You mean bartending? In six months I can do that, but until then I guess waiting tables is similar. And it's not that I want a low-skill job, I just have no choice. I'm still working on the degree and I need to work in the meantime.

I forget that people outside Oz don't always understand basic English.

Yes, I mean bartending and being a bouncer. And yes, waiting tables, being a kitchenhand, plenty of other mostly casual employment, can be similar. In most industries like that, you get paid more for working weekends, for working late at night. Which is particularly good if you're nocturnal anyway. Work until roughly my normal bedtime, and get paid nearly double the hourly rate, or drag myself out of bed before midday to get paid the bog standard hourly rate? No contest.

 

[Bigfoot3814]

Wah! 6.75 is good pay?!

It was minimum wage at the time, but I still could have been doing much harder work for even less money.

 

[Shylock]

Bagger, cleanup guy and cart shepherd for a supermarket.

 

[Perfection]

DELI SLICER DUDE!

 

[Fifty]

How much was in tips? That may actually be a living wage for me on top of my part-time work, but I imagine the pay had a lot to do with the affluence of the patrons.

Most of it. Minimum wage at the time was $7.63. Tips for banquets were different. We got a 20% service charge that was divided among us, the kitchen staff, and the managers. Given our rather small staff and the fact that it was pretty standard for banquets to exceed $10,000, and we got quite a lot of $$$!

My current job is a more standard tipping situation at a nice restaurant. The most I've ever made there in a night is about $58/hr.

It isn't just the menu cost that gets you money, it also has to do with how many tables you get in a given time period, and also whether you can sell people stuff beyond just entrees (you make a lot more money if you get a couple peps to have cocktails, then appetizers, then salads, then entrees with a bottle of wine, then desserts, then you would if they just had entrees!). It also has to do with the culture of the place... some people (CANADIANS) don't tip well regardless of anything else.

 

[King of Town]

Minimum wage was 5.25 I think when I first started working. Monicals pizza, my third job, gave me that and a 10 cent raise 3 months later. Then I waited tables and made a lot more. I used to get like 125 dollar checks every two weeks and feel pretty solid about that. Only ten more checks and I can get a car!

 

[soul_warrior]

first job was a couple of summers, as a bicycle messenger boy.
hard work, hot weather, but felt good.
earned minimum wage, which was i think about 2$ at the time.
thats 25 years ago.... ldman:

then i was drafted, and served in the Navy's Officer College as a driver for 3 years.
surprisingly Job included tutoring the officers in General History, Geography and English.
no pay at all. but i had my little "extras" off the table.
i just had to eat somehow!

following that i worked as a civilian truck driver for 3 months, till my knee gave out.
hated it, hated the pay. never looked back.
as a matter of fact, never even picked up my last paycheck .
well, water under the 15 year old bridge.

worked in a record shop for 7 years.
started at the bottom tier (tiny shop, short hours) and worked my way up to managing the biggest shop in Israel at the time.
well, i managed and ran the Jazz and the Video shops (it was a mini chain of 4 shops in the same mall)
wonderful time!
LOUSY PAY!

mid way there, started supplamenting as a stage hand, doing sound work for about 7 years, as well as lots of DJ work.
kept this through Uni, till i had to drop out due to not being able to afford it anymore.

in 2000, decided i was too old for that sh1t, so switched to IT.
started out as a lowly HelpDesk grunt, then started taking proper IT courses in the Systems field.
now im a qualified Pro
still working in the same place, better than decent pay grade - EDUCATION PAYS !

next stop is getting more certifications, moving to Australia and doubling (or quadrupling) my salary.

 

[downtown]

My ladder:


Newspaper Boy
Baseball Umpire
Computer Repairman for a School District
Computer Repairman for a different school district
Waiter
Pizza Delivery Guy
Computer Repairman for University Physics Department/Receptionist
Grunt in a Trophy Store
University Catering Waiter/Cook
Political Research Assistant
Pollster
Musician
Computer Guy for National Non-Profit
Government Bureaucrat (for a City, the Federal Judicial System, and now the State of Ohio)
Writer
and in June-Elementary School Teacher

A couple of the later one blend together, (I still play music for money now, just not as my primary income source)

You know whats depressing? I made more money per hour when I was 16 than I did when I Was 20

 

[Bast]

Night secretary for a stockbroking firm which means really just a typist. But I got to catch cabs home in the middle of the night - it was so Sex & the City.

 

[LucyDuke]

But I got to catch cabs home in the middle of the night - it was so Sex & the City.

You had sex with random strangers?