What was your first job, and how much did it pay?

[Orang Utan]

I had a paper round til I was 17! I remember my first g/f accompanying me on my rounds
Then I worked at a posh restaurant as a kitchen porter for about £2.50 an hour - I quite liked it at first as it was an eye opener. It gets tiresome after a while, but I occasionally yearn for a job like that - one that has tangible results every day.

 

[spacemonkey]

My first paid work after my paper round was in a 24hr garage, I think I got £3.50/hr. Wasn't old enough to serve petrol so I just swept the forecourt and ate sweets.

The manager was cool as fuck, I still think he's the best boss I've ever had. Despite the job being shit he made it a good place to work, took us out on the piss etc...

 

[Pingu]

ignoring paper and milk rounds my first proper job was as a dole office monkey in Toxteth in the 80s...

bit of an eye opening experience that was I can tell you.

"dont worry about the ones who spit and sream at you, only worry about the ones who quietly walk away, they dont want the bizzies called."

 

[Matt S]

Saturday assistant at the local library - and then my first full time job was data entry at the local college. Both were astonishingly, astoundingly dull.

Matt

 

[Firky]

£50 - 70 per day as a paintball marshal on a paintball site when I was 15, was ace

 

[GoneCoastal]

First full time job, Alliance Building Society as a clerical officer (way pre Leicester merger days). First pay slip was £113 take home per month doing 35 hours a week)

And I just realised how many years ago that was as I typed that!

 

[jasoon]

£4/hr 7years ago when I was 18 working for a well know high street clothes chain

 

[*Miss*Sparkle*]

I grew up in Devon, so my first job was working at a tourist attraction - a butterfly farm and otter sanctuary. I think I got paid about £2.80 an hour, in about 1992 when I was 14. I enjoyed doing the tannoy announcements: "ladies and gentlemen, the otters will be fed in 5 minutes", but I didn't enjoy taking the money for the admission tickets. It was really hard to tactfully ask old people if they qualified for the OAP rate, so I spent half my time getting shouted at for assuming someone was old enough to be an OAP and the other half getting shouted at for not giving someone the OAP rate.

 

[girasol]

Delicatessen in Highbury, 1990, age 19 - £1.80ph

I couldn't speak English properly so I wasn't allowed to speak to the 'public' at first and spent the first couple of months stacking shelves. After that I was 'promoted' and Sade came to shop once and I got to serve her

 

[GoneCoastal]

So who had the shittest pay? We need inflation-adjusted figures.

Well to put things in perspective, my first mortgage on a studio flat was £52 per month (concession rate as I worked for the Building Society) and my net pay at the time had risen to the grand sum of £138 per month

Early 80's here

 

[Dan U]

i worked in a bakers when i was 15, fucked if i can remember what i got paid.

my first full time job when i was about 19 was £7.5k driving a van/warehouseman.

this was about 1993.

 

[ScallyWag II]

First job was a waitress around 1980. Can't remember what the pay was, around £1/hour i think. Went up a bit when i reached 18.

First full time job was with Redbridge Council, started on a bit under £6,000 in 1986.

 

[Nougat]

I worked on a stall in Brixton market for a saturday when I was 13. The owner tried to not pay me but my cousin came round and went nutty and I got £50 in the end!

 

[harpo]

Helping in a market garden. 50p per hour plus all the fruit and veg I could get in my bike basket once a week.

 

[q_w_e_r_t_y]

97p per hour, working in a chipshop/greasy spoon circa 1986 when I was 14.

Totally illegal - health and safety breached all over the place, late night shifts, underage employees, no breaks. Another girl I worked with slipped on the floor and burnt her entire arm with chip fat, owner took her to hospital and said that she was her aunt and it happened at home. The girl had to cover it up to her parents as well as they didnt know that she was working - her arm was a mess; she;s probably still scarred from it.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Cleaning printing presses on Saturday. I was 14. I got one dollar per hour. Today, that'd be 50 pence per hour. Back then, it was five dollars to the pound.

 

[kage]

My first job was a kayak guide in Mid Wales, age 12. The job consisted of guiding people down the river, picking up boats, paddles for up to 12 hours a day during school holidays and weekends. Loved it, although we were massively exploited by the owner.

I didn't get paid until I was 13 1/2

 

[Thimble Queen]

When i was 15 worked at a double glazing place for £4 p/h plus commission. £5 if you booked an appointment, £10 if that appointment became a sale. The more appointments you booked, the higher your hourly rate became for that weeek. They had competions with bonuses for the people who got the most sales.

On a good week you could come out with £150-200 for 15 hours work

Then I found out about all the poor old grannies that the sales people were pressuring

 

[Hellsbells]

I was a paper girl from 13 to about 15. I started off at £7 a week until my mum complained.

 

[Rollem]

when i was 12 i got a saturday job working on a hat stall down shepherd's bush market, and got paid £10a day plus all refreshemnts/lunch paid for

when i was 14, i got a pay rise to £15. i thought this was great, my mum pointed out that i wasn't getting paid a lot in the first place

i admit to finding other perks of the job, like borrowing hats, pocketing the change from the lunch run etc too...

also got an extra fiver every so often for helping out the dad of the crew, shift some stuff in steptoes yard

 

[tom_craggs]

Few jobs here and there but first regular 'proper' job was Little Chef, Sparkford, £2.50/hr...and god awful.

 

[the button]

Print finisher/sweeper up -- £2.50 an hour, cash in hand. This was my first "adult job."

I used to go bushbeating when I was a kid, which paid a tenner a day, IIRC.

 

[Bajie]

Picking spuds out of mud, £2.30 an hour.

 

[Bajie]

Actually, that was my second job. My first was a paper round, I really hated that fucking paper round.

 

[damnhippie]

janitor/odd job boy at the local Ford dealership and garage - unblocking drains, lugging tyres, washing cars, chasing rats with a broom.... aged 16, paid £12/day.

the bloke i worked with used to get pissed up at 11am and then drive the cars round the forecourt.

EDIT making number plates, too. that was ace!

 

[Ride]

I'm still working at my first job which is at Theshers for 5.50/hour or something around that, it's minimum wage but I put in minimum effort so I can't really complain.

 

[Ms T]

I did a stint at Burger King in 1995. £2.05 an hour, and we had to pay for any food we ate. Everyone hated me because I didn't go to the local comp. I walked out after 6 weeks.

I had a similar experience in Macdonald's in Boston. Can't remember how much the pay was, but we did get free food. Which wasn't much consolation. One day I was put on chip frying duty and completely messed it up and got shouted at my some twat who wanted to be a manager. I was put on lettuce chopping duty for the rest of the day.

At my four-week "appraisal" (what a joke) the manager said I would never be a success in life and asked me if I was going to Boston College. I took great pleasure in telling him that I was off to university.

 

[Belushi]

I was a trainee joiner on £30 a week (YTS kinda thing) which I left to earn the big money (£120pw) working for a gangmaster packing vegetables. This was 1988.

 

[Orang Utan]

I had a similar experience in Macdonald's in Boston. Can't remember how much the pay was, but we did get free food. Which wasn't much consolation. One day I was put on chip frying duty and completely messed it up and got shouted at my some twat who wanted to be a manager. I was put on lettuce chopping duty for the rest of the day.

At my four-week "appraisal" (what a joke) the manager said I would never be a success in life and asked me if I was going to Boston College. I took great pleasure in telling him that I was off to university.

Is this Boston, Massachusetts or Boston, Lincolnshire?

 

[smashthestate]

Shop, £2 an hour, age 16, 1995.