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Childhood jobs - What did you have?

As a kid my grandpa would built custom homes would hire me here and there to walk around the job site with a wheelbarrow cleaning up all the trash, he didn't like his sites looking messy. My other grandpa would hire me to do landscaping work. In both cases it was just a way to give me money without just spoiling me. The home builder grandpa certainly enjoyed showing me around the houses he was building and introducing me to everyone on the job site, that was pretty cool.

I think I was 13 or so when I got my CPR certification and started babysitting here and there. My parents would whore me out to friends who needed a night out away from the kids, easy work, but kinda boring once everyone was in bed.

Around 14 we'd moved to a new area that had a local flyer they helped list me for odd jobs, I'd mow lawns or whatever needed doing. Learned how to operate a chainsaw that way, I got all of 5 minutes of instruction and then went to it, cutting up a bunch of old logs that had bee used for landscaping so they could be disposed of, the digging out the beds for whatever was going in.

Eventually got a steady gig with a local gal who ran an escrow business out of her house. I'd mow her lawn, help with organizing files, clean out the garage, feed and clean all the birds (she also bred cockateels (those fuckers were mean and I got bit frequently). Id also walk her morbidly obese lapdog that probably also had breathing issues. She smoked constantly and the whole house was thicker with smoke than any casino or bar I've been to since. Made enough money to buy my first mountain bike. I was pretty sure I sure I was gonna be a pro racer so I told her I couldn't do inside work anymore because of the smoke but would still mow her lawns when needed. She quit smoking apparently and was trying to get me to do more work inside.

But, by then I had a job working at Einstein bagels, I'd be there to open and get off mid day. All the bagels you could eat (though they started getting stingy later which was dumb because I'd see how much they'd throw out each day). Worked with some interesting characters, managed to give myself 3rd degree burns on my feet by spilling a full coffee urn while taking it into the kitchen to wash.

A friend in high school then told me about a job a the local garden center, it paid a bit more than Einsteins so off I went. Worked that all through the school year, they had a gravel lot and a rear wheel drive flat bed golf car and we'd slide that thing around from section to section. Only peeled a tire off once, the maintenance guy wasn't stoked. He was also a cool old dude who ran his own sprinkler company. He offered me a summer job to train up on it and noted it could be a career. My dumb ass "needed to train" for my mountain bike racing career. I still regret turning him down, coulda been an interesting skill to learn, could have been a business for life.

Around then I was 17 so not really a child anymore, but I had plenty of odd jobs until I finally found my way into a bike shop.
 
Bud, at which Sizzler did you work, and when? My dad managed Sunnyvale, and filled in at Palo Alto and Mountain View, all of which IIRC were owned by Barry Rahn. I washed dishes in Sunnyvale, was a busboy, then I became a cook in Mountain View. It's a small world indeed.
 
Mostly just got paid for doing yard work at home. I subbed for a couple of friends' paper routes a couple times but getting up that early made me want to kill myself :laughing
Did one summer at a friend's dad's company when they were moving to a new building, helping clear out trash and debris. Did a couple summers at a wedding venue doing setup/teardown, food prep, serving, bussing, dishwashing. That job made me realize how miserable the hospitality industry is and I vowed never to do that kind of work again :laughing
 
900ss said:
Bud, at which Sizzler did you work, and when? My dad managed Sunnyvale, and filled in at Palo Alto and Mountain View, all of which IIRC were owned by Barry Rahn. I washed dishes in Sunnyvale, was a busboy, then I became a cook in Mountain View. It's a small world indeed.
Click to expand...
Palo Alto. El Camino south of Oregon on the east side. Boston Market now I think.

I used to practice wheelies in the back parking lot until customers complained. :laughing

I actually sort of enjoyed it.
 
Probably like many of you:
7 Y/O: Helped with brother's paper route (West County Times, or was it Contra Costa Times???)
12 Y/O: Took over the paper route, barely made any money because they made us go collect and shitty adults gave excuses when I came to collect.
13 Y/O: Dug ditches for the neighbors for their sprinkler systems in our new housing tract.
15 Y/O: Hercules McDonald's, was a closer within 2-3 weeks (.25 raise, worked til midnight or later)
And so on.
 
Well, this thread sent me down a rabbit hole. I’ve done:

Baby sitting
Lawn mowing
A paper route
I worked at Brentwood Farms, a dairy that processed and packaged their own milk. That job allowed me to drive their van and make deliveries. And I didn’t have a driver’s license.
My last job, before joining the army, was making artificial marble sinks, counter tops, and shower stalls.

I never got paid for any work I did around home. We were too poor.
 
Delivered papers from 12-14
McDonalds for 2 weeks at $2.25/hr before moving to NH from ID at 16
Burger king at 17
Then various summer work gigs to pay for college.
UPS before my final year of college, terrible hours but paid over 3x what I could make anywhere else.
 
Paper routes, of course. Dishwasher, busboy, cook at the Pacific Steamer in Cupertino. Sold dope. Ah, the life.
 
Golden Skate in San Ramon - pretty sweet 4 years. Eventual DJ and manager. Then Lucky's/Albertsons when grocery jobs had training and prestige (meat department, produce department). Put in 8 years I think. Got bumped from a protected manager role than laid off by someone with less years. Would have stayed in grocery if they paid for an MBA program which they did not want to.
 
Best friend and I sold switchblade knives (Edge company) that my mom somehow was fine ordering and thought they were "neat". We also sold porn mags/ videos that his brother would get at the farmers market (much less of this). IIRC, we were 14/15 and making around 300/ month each, IIRC...late 80's. It worked well cause we both went to different schools. I sourced the product, he sold to kids at his school. When we told my mom 30 years late she was shocked. The markups were like 300% cause kids wanted the stuff bad. Stilettos and switchblades were the only thing anyone wanted those days.

How we never got caught is beyond me.
 
Around 12, me a buddy spent the fall going around the neighborhood raking leaves.
At 15 I got a job at a concrete delivery yard. I basically cleaned it, did all the odd jobs. I'd crawl inside the barrels and jack hammer all the buildup.
I would also form/pour and finish concrete, and did side jobs with my supervisor all the time. I did that until my Senior Year in High School. It was hard, but also fun operating forklights, backhoes and loaders before i had my license.
 
Mowed lawns for a year or two around age 13.
Then got a part time job doing office work for a laser printer repair shop when I was 15.
That was making $5/hr and after a few months, boss tells me I'm getting a raise to $5.25. I was so proud until I later read that the minimum wage had increased. :(
 
Work was, for the most part, for the family. Brother was too young, so all the work Dad didn't want to do fell to his indentured servant...me. Reminded me often,

"What I do puts meat on the table. If you want more, help."

I did the sub-paper route thing, including collecting from malcontents and delivering when my buddies were shorted by the route driver. When I found out the drivers also were responsible for the racks in our area, there may have been some liberating to balance the bottom line.

One I will always remember the 'job' we never did...

Met some guys that were using scuba gear and a compressor to pump river bottom to a sluce, then panned for gold. They had no idea the best spot to get black sand that might be laden with gold flakes or more. Told them, think like a lunker, go where the big fish would hang out. They didn't know a thing so, us 11-12 year olds kidsplained it to them.

Two notable experiences. They had spear guns. The rubber band type that looked like surgical tubing stretched behind the dart. James Bond anyone? Found out that it is not a good idea to attempt to catch a razor sharp spear in water. Distortion of vision in water is a thing that can result in a sliced finger. And it did.

Despite the slice, was enamored with the scuba gear. They asked us if we wanted to go to Lake Tahoe with them and clean boat bottoms. Sure! When do we go?

Trip was arranged, some parents were not told and a couple of us went to Tahoe. I've swam in the Yuba. I've been in the water on both sides of Rollins Dam. Tahoe? Nice big lake where people recreate. Right?

Jumped off dock into the water and MOTHER F'N FRACKER THAT IS ICE COLD* DAMMIT TO HELL WATER!!!!! Instant brain freeze, think I levitated out of the water by power of goose bumps churning the freezing water into a fountain that propelled me back on the dock.

Clean boats? Clean this! Not happy dudes. They didn't leave us there because they didn't trust one of us. The guy that talked about constructive vandalism. Knowingly.

You don't have to ask who that was. ;)


*ICE COLD is colder than cold per Andre 3000
 
N4teTheGreat said:
As a kid my grandpa would built custom homes would hire me here and there to walk around the job site with a wheelbarrow cleaning up all the trash, he didn't like his sites looking messy. My other grandpa would hire me to do landscaping work. In both cases it was just a way to give me money without just spoiling me. The home builder grandpa certainly enjoyed showing me around the houses he was building and introducing me to everyone on the job site, that was pretty cool.

I think I was 13 or so when I got my CPR certification and started babysitting here and there. My parents would whore me out to friends who needed a night out away from the kids, easy work, but kinda boring once everyone was in bed.

Around 14 we'd moved to a new area that had a local flyer they helped list me for odd jobs, I'd mow lawns or whatever needed doing. Learned how to operate a chainsaw that way, I got all of 5 minutes of instruction and then went to it, cutting up a bunch of old logs that had bee used for landscaping so they could be disposed of, the digging out the beds for whatever was going in.

Eventually got a steady gig with a local gal who ran an escrow business out of her house. I'd mow her lawn, help with organizing files, clean out the garage, feed and clean all the birds (she also bred cockateels (those fuckers were mean and I got bit frequently). Id also walk her morbidly obese lapdog that probably also had breathing issues. She smoked constantly and the whole house was thicker with smoke than any casino or bar I've been to since. Made enough money to buy my first mountain bike. I was pretty sure I sure I was gonna be a pro racer so I told her I couldn't do inside work anymore because of the smoke but would still mow her lawns when needed. She quit smoking apparently and was trying to get me to do more work inside.

But, by then I had a job working at Einstein bagels, I'd be there to open and get off mid day. All the bagels you could eat (though they started getting stingy later which was dumb because I'd see how much they'd throw out each day). Worked with some interesting characters, managed to give myself 3rd degree burns on my feet by spilling a full coffee urn while taking it into the kitchen to wash.

A friend in high school then told me about a job a the local garden center, it paid a bit more than Einsteins so off I went. Worked that all through the school year, they had a gravel lot and a rear wheel drive flat bed golf car and we'd slide that thing around from section to section. Only peeled a tire off once, the maintenance guy wasn't stoked. He was also a cool old dude who ran his own sprinkler company. He offered me a summer job to train up on it and noted it could be a career. My dumb ass "needed to train" for my mountain bike racing career. I still regret turning him down, coulda been an interesting skill to learn, could have been a business for life.

Around then I was 17 so not really a child anymore, but I had plenty of odd jobs until I finally found my way into a bike shop.
Click to expand...

Graduated High School at 16. Started working full time pushing Shopping Carts all sweat and little reward. by 17, I took a shittier paying job at a Used Book Store. It was glorious. Owners were nice for a year, but screwed me by paying someone older than me with a college degree, that I trained to do the job, more than me per hour.

Got a job on the next block working for a local books and paper game store. Life changing fun scene they could make a John Hughes movie about. Moved on to my first real corporate job in a tech start up at 20, the rest is all grown up stuff.
 
Delivered the Des Moines Register from 10 to 12 (you haven't lived until you've delivered papers at 15 below), mowed lawns, bus boy and food prep at Rolf's XXX Drive-In, cleaned stalls at a big equestrian operation, pumped gas and worked the simple mechanical stuff (lube, oil, and filter, brake jobs, tune-ups), including working the first two oil shocks in 73 and 75, night chairlift operator, teaching assistant at community college, etc.
 
My childhood job lasted for fifty years.
IMG_0005.jpeg
 
Did The paperboy thing from a bicycle.

Started young at the family's 2nd generation welding and fab shop.
Doing whatever, learned to weld, oxy acetone torch, plasma cut, operate huge metalworking equipment that could injure, maim or kill, driving huge earth moving equipment and semi trucks with trailers years before I had a license.
Dad- "Bring that truck around and back it in"
Me- "the shiny sleeper kenworth with 100 buttons and knobs and 2 shifters attached to an enclosed 50' trailer, that I can't really reach the pedals on?,?"
Dad- * silent look of did you hear me or not?*
Me - 45 minutes of struggling later " truck is inside"

Dealt with a lot of rusted out vehicles.
I remember one day dad told me to get rid of the rusted out Ford station wagon that had been sitting in the yard for years and put it in the scrap metal bin.
I was really really young at the time and it was basically busy work, I went out with some wrenches and started taking every bolt I could reach out to try to disassemble the car and throw it in the dumpster piece by piece. Fun stuff.
Edit to add this was in 95 deg heat and 90% humidity in direct sun and the car was filled with Yellowjacket nests. Yeah.

The first time he fired me I went to go work a Carvel ice cream shop. That was a fun job for a 15 year old.
Back to the shop after getting fired from Carvel for always showing up late and giving away ice cream to all my friends.

Pretty much worked at the shop after school from 6th grade through HS

I still love working with metal and welding even though it has taken my hearing away and wrecked several of my fingers
 
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my first paying job - probably 6 or 7 years old, was frog hunting for my grandfather (he used them for fish bait). he gave me a frog box, and off i went. he paid 10 cents a frog with a 10 limit. i caught the frogs and collected my dollar. then i’d sit there looking at the frogs in the box. super sad that they were gonna be fish bait. i had to let the littlest one go. you know, poor little frog. then i had to let the biggest one go - not fair that the biggest one would never get the same break as the little guy. now there was a new littlest one, and a new biggest one. minutes later (after repeating the process), the box was empty. my grandfather never mentioned or complained that the frog box turned up empty. always offered me the job again. always paid me my dollar knowing full well i’d let all the frogs go. loved that man. figure he loved me too. as only a grandfather can.
 
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