Mowed yards starting at 11-13. $10 to mow and trim a 1/4 of a city block. Yes is was a 22" push mower.(gas powered)

First hourly job was a "ranch hand" for $2/hr in 7th grade with the best Game Warden Texas ever had.

Worked the summer of sophomore high school year for $2.50/hr digging post holes and setting posts by hand in black gumbo and flint rock hills and stretching barbed wire by hand. Shredded brush on said flint rock hills with a 1950s Ford tractor that had direct link (no power) thumb busting steering. IYKYK

Corn Dog 7 in the Brazos Mall

Grading 4th grader essays for the TAKS test. Was not an English major or education major. Have no idea why they hired me, I quit after the 2 week training period. First durable job I had was working in a mortgage servicer call center in the wake of the great financial crisis. I got cussed out and yelled at a fair bit in the year I did that. ~20,000 phone calls in the year.

I worked in a peach orchard for a summer, and in a warehouse the next. Then I was a clerk at a firm in the city the one after. I learned that I liked air conditioning; and at the time it was worth commuting in traffic.

My first one was spreading pixie dust on the tilt a-whirl, then I got promoted to barking for the yak woman. She's ugly as sin, but a sweet gal, and a hell of a cook.


Sounds cooler than sacking groceries at MiniMax in Belton at $2.65 an hour..

First paid job was as a plumber's assistant when I was 16.

First W2 was at Taco Bell at night after the plumbing job. I remember making $6.25/hr there.

Picking and hauling watermelons for an old local farmer. That old farmer was a mean sob.

CharleyKerfeld said:

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TCBY in a not-great part of the H with 3 of my buddies from high school.

In 3 epic summer months worthy of a daytime sop opera, we:


Found out that our married boss was banging the best looking married female employee

Were there the day the boss put his arms around a woman he thought was said employee, but it was really her twin sister who had come by to get the employee's paycheck for her.

Went to a mandatory staff meeting with some corporate flunkie about security policies after said boss stole money out of the store's safe to try and bribe the twin sister to silence to not tell the employee's husband or the boss's wife about the affair, for which he then got fired because somehow he didn't realize there was a security camera above the safe in the ceiling.

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This is an outstanding bit of karma.

I was 14, did literally everything in a local sandwich shop. Cashier, cook, dishwasher, cleaner. $4.75 an hour. A lot of my friends worked there too. It was a blast.

Chef at Sonic.

Selling cart food to idiots at Fiesta Texas.

First summer job was working on the greens maintenance crew at a golf course. $1.60/hour. I was the only gringo, but the older Hispanic guys were pretty good to me. Long before weedeaters and a lot of other handheld power equipment. I learned to swing a pretty mean machete.

We started at 7:00 in the morning when there was no wind and humidity seemed like it was 100%. I remember telling myself that I didn't know what I was going to do the rest of my life, but I was going to use my brain, not my back.

Miss that place. Hate that they had to sell it off.

I worked in a hot un-airconditioned warehouse in McAllen when I was 16.

First job was walking up to Mr. M's 3 or 4 nights a week to rack up returned soda bottles and sweep the parking lot. Paid $1 an hour in 1976.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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Miss that place. Hate that they had to sell it off.

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Agreed. Was nice to read that part of it was purchased as a nature preserve, though apparently not yet open.

cart boy at a golf course

CharleyKerfeld said:

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TCBY in a not-great part of the H with 3 of my buddies from high school.

In 3 epic summer months worthy of a daytime sop opera, we:


Found out that our married boss was banging the best looking married female employee

Were there the day the boss put his arms around a woman he thought was said employee, but it was really her twin sister who had come by to get the employee's paycheck for her.

Went to a mandatory staff meeting with some corporate flunkie about security policies after said boss stole money out of the store's safe to try and bribe the twin sister to silence to not tell the employee's husband or the boss's wife about the affair, for which he then got fired because somehow he didn't realize there was a security camera above the safe in the ceiling.

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Haha hell yeah that's epic

Started in the third grade for the elementary school lunch room scraping lunch plates into garbage cans in preparation for the dish washer. Was paid with free lunch for me and my two sisters.

Worked there through the 8th grade! Sad note, I never got promoted to dish washer a position i coveted!

fc2112 said:

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First job was walking up to Mr. M's 3 or 4 nights a week to rack up returned soda bottles and sweep the parking lot. Paid $1 an hour in 1976.

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Was that at the corner of Forrest and Abrams?

Only one I remember.

I mowed lawns and built fences until I was 14 and took a first W2 Job at Halleck's Chicken King. Abrams at Royal Ln.

I dropped battered chicken parts into a fryer. Cut up cabbage for coleslaw and shoved it into an industrial grader. Mopped floors and cleaned the bathroom. I would come home and smelled of grease. We had to dispose of my mattress cause it stinked up the house.

Guy that owned it was an Iranian immigrant that escaped the revolution....

Worked in the Framing Department at Michaels. Got to see a lot of cool stuff doing that.

Worked at Ace Grocery in Warren Tx from my sophomore year in high school to when I graduated…Mopped floors, burned cardboard boxes, stocked shelves , loaded feed, tended the BBQ pit, cleaned meat market and everything in between…Made minimum wage at $3.35/hr. and was happy to have it!

Cici's Pizza. The first store in Plano. I knew the owner Joe Croce.

lawn and building maintenance stuff in the summers. Started at 15 y.o. I think my second year my pay was $5/hr? Did that every summer until my senior year at A&M.

Lifeguard

I actually had a paper route throwing the Battalion at 14. This was in 1961.

Started working when I was 15 as a camp counselor at a summer camp. Best job Ive ever had, got to do fun activities all day, hang with coworkers, and flirt with the other counselors lol. Then I worked a retail job at a famous clothing store. That was also a fun job and got to flirt with the customers all day.

By the time I graduated college I probably had over 20+ jobs since I started working at age 15. I basically worked any kind of job you could think of that a college kid could do.

713nervy said:

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Lifeguard

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Public pool or country club?

713nervy said:

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Lifeguard

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Kings Buffet. Around 1976. I was ~15.

Quit the same day I started because people are pigs.

Pool attendant man at 17 and 18.

I worked 4 hour shifts at a residential community pool. The HOA president made it clear I was not a lifeguard and should not try to save anyone's life due to liability reasons. I signed in residents and checked the chemicals. Occasionally cleaned.

I was the only guy with a bunch of high school girls I went to school with that were smoking hot.

I wore a straw cowboy hat, swim trunks, a puka shell necklace (this was 1998) and a white shirt that I cut the arms off of that read "POOL ATTENDANT" in black letters.

I read a lot of books during my shift, and always wore sunglasses so I could stare at the big breasted ****s that would come in and flirt with me.

I never had to fish a turd out of the pool thankfully.

A kid threw up in the pool once during my shift and I immediately quit.