I was 14 in 1954 when I got my first job at 50 cents/hour, clerking behind the candy counter at H. L. Green Company in downtown Dallas after school and on Saturdays. Two years later, when we were back living in Houston, I hit the big time! I got a job clerking in the cigarette shop in the lobby of the old Humble Oil building downtown for the royal sum of $1.25/hour.

In those days we weren't paid by check. It was cash in a pay envelope once a week, with a handwritten slip of paper inside detailing gross wage minus deductions.

Bev

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I liked cash paydays. Small manilla envelope with a carbon from our time-clock card.

When I was in gradeschool we picked beans and berrys and hauled a lot of hay for school clothes but my first real job was pumping gas.I may have to do that again if the stations are busy enough next month. I think Oregon and New Jersey are the only states left that will not let you pump your own gas. They keep telling us we can save money by pumping our own gas for several years now but it is ironic Washington and California have serve yourself and are always higher on fuel prices than we are.

I live outside of Chicago. We have self-serve gas stations. We have the HIGHEST fuel prices in nation. Now $4.129 for Regular Unleaded.

Love my CR-V -- 25.1 MPG in local traffic.

I saw a guy yesterday break open his piggy bank to help pay for his gas.

George just to see where we are at today it says we are 16th in the nation at $3.82

Like Nick, my jobs have all centered around journalism (later called communications). I started selling advertising for the Foothill Farms Bugler (Sacramento suburb neighbor newspaper) while in 9th grade (14 years old). I got 10% commissions and had the title "assistant to the editor". (Hmmm, I think that eventually became Assistant Editor on future job resumes.)
While in high school and during college summers, I worked in the "backshop" of the local "throw-away" weeklies known as the Green Sheets (Sacramento area, not SoCal). Pay, I think was about $1.25 per hour. Linotype machines were just phasing out and never learned to use one. I cleaned up, ran galley sheets, did paste-ups, and eventually made it to the "Newsroom" where I got to write -- if you call doing obits, wedding stories, and DAR initiations writing.
In college I was very active in publications and was Editor of the San Jose State Radio-TV News Center. Quite an experience during the riots of the late 1960s. Won a national radio news reporting award for our coverage called "Pigs on Campus" (sorry, it was the 60s and these were not GOOD police, but rather bad ones.)
My first full-time job took me to Channel 10 in Sacramento where I worked in Promotions (I had wanted to be a news producer, but was told by the station GM, "We had a woman once in News and she didn't work out.") Don't remember the pay but I sure could write :02, :05 and :10 spot announcements!!! (The "older" guy in his late 20s next to me got to write the :30 and :60 spots. Today, he does all the Ross Dept. store spots.)
My "career" at Cosumnes River College lasted 32 years and included working as a Public Information Officer, teaching Journalism, Photography, Mass Communications, Student Leadership and, eventually, computer-based productivity software (desktop publishing, Office, HTML, etc.) I eventually became Dean of the Communications, Visual and Performing Arts Division which has made my retirement pay quite nice, thank-you. Finished my career by assigning myself (I coordinated a Study Abroad program, too) to a semester of teaching in London. Hubby got to tag along as my "mule" - carrying my computer and books to the University of London Student Union where I taught. We realized that we could be together 24/7 and enjoyed learning and traveling to different places.
Now enjoying RVing as much as possible. Hourly Pay: wonderful memories and great friends (some we haven't met yet).

George Stolz, this is really something. My first paying job was through "distributive education" class in high school. I began in fall of 1958 at the local A&P grocery store sacking groceries. The store manager (still remember his name) taught me (and others)work ethic, by admonshing me that I must have all the customers groceries sacked by the time the cashier handed them their receipt and change. Yup, paid in cash also.

Ray in Indiana,

That was our goal, too. M.L. Duncan was a tough boss. When i went to college I worked in a different A&P in the summer when I returned home. But the most fun was at school where a lot of college students also worked there. Friday and Saturday nights were huge (I tried to avoid Saturday night whenever possible) and some of us guys learned how to operate the NCR mechanical cash registers. We would PUNISH them pounding away on them at a near dizzying speed. Some of the customers used to look at us with their mouths open as the cash register whirled and clanked away. But the most fun was getting to meet a lot of pretty young girls.

Gary W,

I don't want to be first. Where are you located?

I don't remember which came first, picking peaches and selling them I think, mowing yards, both push then later with power mowers, delivering newspapers morning and evening routes, setting pins in a bowling alley, no semi-automatic setters, all on the spots by hand for 5 cents a line.

Bus station selling tickets, removing baggage and soda fountain, finally hardware store and small engine repair and then into the military in 1954.

In 1959 and 1960 while in Greenland us military could get jobs with the contractor for the sum of $2.00 per hour, twice the usual wage of $1.00. Jobs like driving sand packers, washing trucks, etc. I was working at the cafeteria as a pearl diver then cashier.

Working in a chicken hatchery cleaning two coops that were each 1 block long, I clean the floors and put new lime down with a layer of straw, cleaned all the dropping out from under the roost and gathered eggs to be candled if the hen had a clutch of chicks I would take them to a room where the chicks were sexed and then separated roosters in one group hens in the other this was in 1957 and my wages were about $20.00 dollars a week.

My first job was working in a fish market in Long Beach, Ca....I think it was $.50 per hour. Ot was 1956 and I was in High School so worked after school, Sat. and FT during Christmas, Thanksgiving and other holiday periods. They were also big on Turkeys and I remember cleaning them.

Tho it sounds messy, it was a pretty good job.

My first job was in 1959 as a "tray girl" delivering dinner trays to patients at the hospital and cleaning up afterwards. I got $16 a week working a couple of hours each day after school and one weekend day. I thought I was rich! It kept me in gas with enough left over for some new clothes once in a while.

My boss at that job finished teaching me what my parents had started: If you're going to do something, do it well. I remember her coming in and running her fingers along a counter top I had just washed and finding a sticky spot. Needless to say, I never made that mistake again!

Stephie

I worked in a bicycle shop beginning in 1960. I fixed bikes and did the general "clean-up". I worked from "school's out" until 7PM daily and then 9AM through 6 PM on Saturdays. The "boss" drank a bit more than he should have, so I usually opened on Saturday and did some sales as well. All this for $50 a week. . . and boy did I feel rich. I stayed with this until I joined the USN in 1966. Great topic. . . oRV

I was 10 or 11 and babysat the kids next door for a penny a minute, $0.60 per hour. They had four kids, two little ones and two boys older than me. The boys wouldn't watch the littles, so the parents hired me. I loved it: I got to play with someone else's toys, my Mom was right next door if I needed help, and I had a big crush on one of the older sons!

-Louise