First job
The very first paid work I can recall was delivering newspapers. I had a Sunday morning round and a week day evening free paper round. The guy in shop sorting papers on a Sunday morning invariably had a drip on his long nose. And he used to sneak a read of the top shelf magazines, I regularly caught him with a copy of Razzle hidden in the Sunday Times! The week day round was huge and it took me ages for very little money. The bags of papers weighed heavily and my Mum used to walk full bags to various points on the route so I didn’t have to keep going back home to restock. That was very kind of her, mind you the whole crazy paper round thing was her idea in the first place!
Worst job
I once worked in a timber yard. It was back breaking work and I’m sure the team I worked with were extras from the Addams Family and The Hills Have Eyes. One guy had no teeth and swore a lot. He couldn’t pronounce the letter f so to him, everyone was a pucking plonker! Lugging bags of cement and stacks of wood was knackering, mind numbingly boring and shockingly badly paid. Needless to say I didn’t stick it for long.
What are yours?
If you would like to share your first and worst jobs with us I’d be pleased to hear from you.
First Job in a bakers, Worst job,(and second job) working in a Chinese Take away helping prep food – the chef threw a knife at me. It missed by inches.
Mmmm cake 🙂
Not a fan of chicken chow mein – now I know why – it’s probably got bits of slow knife dodgers in it 😛
First job: paper round. Early starts and heavy bag for not much money wasn’t great. That said, got my first boom box with Christmas tips!
Worst job: cleaner at a factory. Lasted only one day it was so grim.
Cool – I remember buying my boom box with my first month’s perm job wages. I starved for the remaining three weeks!
Cleaning eh? I quite like hoovering (form an orderly queue folks) 🙂
My first job was also a paper round but my first “real” job was as a trainee dental technician. At first that was just mixing up plaster to make molds of teeth from impressions but by the end of my term I was making dentures and crowns too.
My worst job was doing retail security, in a store, in Brighton. Getting threatened with knives, used needles and guns on a regualr basis isn’t fun… especially when you’re on little more than minimum wage.
Nowadays, I have a proper job. 🙂
Wow! Thanks for popping by and for sharing (no disrespect to the rest of the crew…) the techest first job (mixing stuff to fix folks teeth is cool) and the scariest! I for one am glad you survived to tell us your tale. Cheers!
First job and worst job was “bob-a-job” as a cub scout…. boring, not well paid, dodgy crinklies and I guess I was only in it for a badge!
First proper job was in reinsurance as the office boy for £6,800 pa – I lasted nearly 3 months! Formative but also dull as ditch water. Everything since has been worth it even spraying tomatoes in the Israeli desert!
Dodgy crinklies – love it 🙂
Ahh yes, I remember office boy – I like the way you described it for us. And how did the tomatoes taste?
Cheers – Doug
First paid job – probably – yawn – newspaper deliveries. Became disengaged after slicing my hand on a very dangerous letterbox. Achieved satisfaction by ensuring each ensuing delivery to that location resulted in the rusty nail piercing the newspaper – new letterbox fitted within the week. I’m not proud of my methodology but it did achieve the desired result – does that excuse my approach. I feel sure in hindsight that the same result could have been achieved through effective communication rather than wanton destruction of a week of big fat Times. Sorry occupier!
Worst job – mucking out pigs – absolutely nothing to do with either the waste product or the pigs – I still love them, particularly Tamworth and Gloucester Old Spots. The pig farmer, rude bully with no communication skills and no idea how to get the best out his mucking out crew.
Lessons learnt – 1, when catching young pigs to be weighed do not stand with your legs open but if you do release them when they run through, holding on leads to a very messy ending! 2, if you find yourself working for a bully leave as soon as possible which I did. 3, pigs are great.
You’re a great learner, and through your sharing a great teacher too. I must say as a fellow paper bot I understand your actions.
Pigs eh? Impressed – not sure I could look after them but I do like eatin’ em! Point number 2 – absolutely – useful advice. Thanks David – great to hear from you.
First job was also the worst job…
Saturday boy in the butcher’s department of a “well known supermarket” in Worthing.
My fellow employees were maniacs. They would often pour a bucket of water on the floor of the walk-in freezer, send me in to get something and then hold the door shut – with the ‘hilarious’ result that I’d get frozen to the floor.
My duties included taking the out-of-date meat off the shelves and taking it to the storeroom to put new stickers on. Once we’d done that twice it went to the staff canteen.
Worst of all though was the fraud they committed. My boss would break one of the freezers with a hammer he kept handy. His mate would then turn up in a transit into which most of the meat got loaded. He’d keep some items in a bin bag on top of the radiator to keep to show the insurance guy who I presume came on Monday – saying that the rest had to be binned because of the smell/health risk. Oh, and he used to bulk out the ‘home-made’ sausages with about 20% blood-soaked sawdust from the floor of the fridge – he won awards for those things!
My worst crime was helping old ladies who couldn’t afford a piece of meat by re-pricing it but holding the item off the scales a bit so that it apparently weighed less.
On my last day a chap in the warehouse was dismissed for becoming extraordinarily intimate with a giant box of Wotsits.
A most bizarrely fantastic tale – I’m delighted you survived it so that it can be retold. I’m curious – what flavour Wotsits…?
Ah the memories. Continuing the dental theme – I spent a couple of months as a stand in dental nurse. Much of it was fun – but the absolute worst was the after lunch appointments when patients had negelected to clean their teeth.
I never did a paper round – early mornings? Nuff said. My first paying job was Saturday girl in a kitchenware shop – I gave great advice despite not then and not now being able the cook anything 🙂
More tooth related skill – impressed! Not with the dirty teeth though – yuck!
Hi folks – here are a couple more which came in via LinkedIn:
Karen Drury: First job was as a record shop assistant (totally brilliant!) my worst was as a “demonstrator” for chocolate in Alfreton
Dorothy Matthew: First was a glasswasher at Pontins in Southport…loved it! Worst was working on the assembly line in a picture frame making factory one summer.
Thanks to Karen and Dorothy – Karen’s first job is my fave so far 🙂
Hi Doug
First job, picking potatoes by hand at 5 cents a bushel – the goal was to make a dollar a day (of course, I was about 12 year sold, a dollar went a long way)
I struggle to remember a Worst Job -always managed to find the best elements of whatever job it was, remembering the goal was to make some dosh.
by the way, one of my best jobs was working in a timber yard -two in fact. I worked my way through Uni that way
cheers,
al
I grow spuds – so I kinda like digging them up. I recall doing this on farmer’s fields too as a kid. Love your optimism too. Oh – and I’m a little surprised you didn’t call it lumber? 😉 Thansk so much for popping by Al.
First job – making bales of clothing to be sold as rags to ? whoever needs a lot of rags – I got paid £0.35 per bale and they took 10 minutes to do, mind you it was 1985 and you could buy a house in an acre of land for £30 in those days.
Worst job – Wallpaper packer – packing rolls of wallpaper into boxes was incredibly dull and also, utterly exhausting to do 9 hours per day – I won’t even mention the wage.
I get to work from home now and I hardly ever wake up at night screaming!
He he – it’s good therapy this post eh? So if you went flat out baling – £2.10 per hour…you must own half of Surrey now 🙂
I’m pleased to tell you I haven’t used wall paper in my adult life, so I can say with confidence that I didn’t contribute to your packing nightmare.
Cheers for popping by Dave.
Excepting the ubiquitous paper round (which I didn’t enjoy ‘cos had a creepy house with a long dark drive that only got it’s papers delivered on light summer mornings or when the moon was out and I was feeling really brave) my first proper job was also the worst, it was as a Saturday lad at the little local Safeway, got all the scummy tasks like scraping the gunge from under the freezers on the shop floor and incessently sweeping up (dont think they must have invented vacuum cleaners then). And I was locked in the freezer at least once. I do remember a high point, one saturday being asked to clear a store room and found it contained hundreds of damaged easter eggs ready for chucking, I employed the well known “eat one, bin one” technique.
Cor – I’d forgotten all about the creepy house paper round thing – I’ll have nightmares tonight!
Love your eat one bin one method, eggeriffic!