Your first job

What was your first "real" summer job while in HS.

I washed rocks for a mason ---- 20 bucks / week

I stocked shelves at a Fay’s Drugs part time in high school. Before that I mowed lawns here and there and filled in when my brother couldn’t do his paper route. After I turned 18, I was a McDonalds cook and did a summer as an overnight “maintenance man”- basically a full time mopper, then an usher at Hoyt’s Movie theater in Crossgates Mall, then worked at a couple Subways around the Albany area (first time I was trusted with the keys to a business) and then as a security guard for one summer.

Wendy's: $5.25 an hour

Then the Saratoga Race Track, 6 days a week,  for $39 a day + tips.

My mother found the job for me.  We'd just moved to North Carolina before my junior year.  I got to muck horse stalls in exchange for ring riding for an hour or so.  I had experience, but it was a lot hotter in the summer down south than in upstate NY where I was around horses at camp or school (different places).  It was just as well that school started around the third week of August.

Dishwasher at terrible burger/fry/milkshake restaurant. Also some lawn mowing and caddied a bit.

I did some lawn mowing, but I consider my first "summer job" a job I had in a bank.  I sat in a small cramped room with no windows and tons of mortgages doing some repetitive mind-numbing task I can't even remember. I hated it.

That summer I had my first real girlfriend. I had been out with other girls, but I can't even remember them.  This girl was a sweetheart who was totally into me and she loved to smooch.

I sat in that stupid vault all day dreaming about her, and I'd head right to her house as soon as I was off.  We'd hang out all night, until like one in the morning, then I'd drive home and crash. It seemed like Fleetwood Mac's Dreams was always on the radio as I drove home. I can still see the dotted lines on the road going past to the beat of Mic's drum.

The next morning I'd wake up exhausted and do it all over again.

One time at 1:30 am, I ran out of gas in my Dad's car about 4 miles from home. Obviously I had no cell, I walked home and woke up him to drive me back up the road with a gas can in my mom's car. Man was he pissed.

Not Summer, but selling Christmas trees. 'Bout 9 or ten years old. Then a paper route. I put the route in my brother's name because I was too young. I remember this black and gray German Shepherd named Mickey. I thought he was cool until one day he got loose. I tried to bring him home, but he bit me in the ass. Bastard bit right through my bag and a few papers. Still had 4 tooth marks on my right butt cheek. He couldn't catch me on my Mongoose Supergoose though. Good times.

After sporadic yard work type stuff my first steady job was the paper route I inherited from my brother.  In a way that led me to my first real job.  I’d use money from the paper route to play Galaga on a table top machine in the front of a family Italian/pizza joint on Main St. in Brewster.  Started as a dish washer and worked my way through the ranks to line cook/chef and manager.  Ended up working with that family for 10 years, through college, then working nights and weekends there after putting in 40 a week at my career job.  We took his big old house in Kent and converted it into a fine dining establishment that is going strong to this day.

JTG4eva! wrote

 Brewster.. Kent

You grew up very close to where my wife grew up (Dover Plains).

Agway in Camillus, right across the street from my high school (West Genesee), where I restocked driveway sealer, fertilizer, weed killer, bird seed, garden tools, and Xmas trees. I assumed that Home Depot put the final stake in Agway's heart but it looks like the company still exists, including a half dozen locations down here in NJ.

I started picking sour cherries for a neighbor who sold them at a stand in front of their house when I was 9 or 10. Got paid 5 cents per quart. I started a paper route when I was 11 ( had to lie about my age because you had to be 12) I did that for three years then I became the "trash boy" at the local municipal swimming pool for a summer. Walked around emptying trash cans around the pool and in the snack bar. Then washing down the locker rooms at night with bleach.
I started as a busboy at a fancy restaurant when I was 14. Worked there up to college and trained as bartender when i was 18. I worked mainly in the service bar (for waitresses and waiters serving tables) and parties. When I was 16 I started working at my uncle's candy, tobacco, and sundries wholesale business in the summers. I filled in for whoever was on vacation. When I filled in for one of the truck drivers, the warehouse manager reminded my uncle that you had to be 18 to drive for pay. He told me, " Just tell them you're borrowing the truck if you get pulled over." I thought, "Right! With $50,000 of cigarettes in the back of the truck!"
Continued waiting tables and bartending on weekends for about a year after college.

Agway is still alive and well here in CNY. I buy my wood pellets from the Agway in Dryden.

Summer after 6th grade..swept up a warehouse  for 1$ hr..44yrs ago...Then cut lawns/shipping clerk/truck driver etc...

It appears everyone has done some sort of manual labor jobs when they where young.. I don't see  many young people doing that kind of work anymore..

$1 / hr --- LOL

Before my first "job" of washing rocks (that still makes me laugh) I would mow lawns, shovel sidewalks/driveways for .50 up to 5 bucks depending on the job. Of course it was cash

Best thing was all the cookies from the old lady's ---- man those fresh hot chocolate chip cookies were the best

Got off bus at Lakeside Farms in Ballston Lake, took out garbage, swept floors, vacuumed, stocked sodas etc for closing

I cleaned fish tanks / bird cages for $3.35 an hour. The birds would mock me and call me fish boy all day long.
Funny chit I guess.

Agway here in Plymouth, NH too. I get sand, salt, and garden stuff there.

Weed Man! My Agway brother

Thehof wrote

I cleaned fish tanks / bird cages for $3.35 an hour. The birds would mock me and call me fish boy all day long.
Funny chit I guess.

That's hilarious --- how did you ever survive!

campgottagopee wrote

Thehof wrote

I cleaned fish tanks / bird cages for $3.35 an hour. The birds would mock me and call me fish boy all day long.
Funny chit I guess.

That's hilarious --- how did you ever survive!

It looks like he has now adopted a bird for his avatar picture. He became the avian spirit that he was tormented by. Some Batman shit right there.