Your First Job

[beachboy]

Mowed lawns, raked leaves, shoveled snow 7-16 yo + organist 9 yo [[$2 per svc, $10 weddings & funerals), upgraded 2 assoc dir music 11yo [[2x raise), wedding singer [[$20/hr)...cash...

"Real" job...wtf? college - '70, carilloneur $2.75/hr, reg gas ~30c/gal. Punchcard computer cataloger [[IBM S/360) at museum $2.50/hr, tuned musical pipe organs, worked summers in chem lab, $3.25/hr no A/C bad fumes, fun people. Spent $$ on music at Grinnell's, books + suit with extra pants at Hudson's.

Got rich gf '72, traveled, fine clothes, good food; Dad sneered, "gigolo..."

Nice thread - simpler times, sweet memories

[Brian1979]

Dishwasher at Ram's Horn

[GUSHI]

Dishwasher @ the Brewery on Hayes

[maxx]

I baby sat in high school, but my first real job was teaching at a high school in Jackson County. I was expected to get top grades in high school and college. I didn't own a car until I graduated college and that was an old monster Chrysler. I walked to high school and biked around MSU and the Lansing area.
I didn't party every night or even every week. And the term party didn't mean getting drunk. I don't understand middle-class young people who feel they must have a job in high school especially when it hurts their school work.

[Switchmanjim]

I delivered the Detroit News; delivered pizza for Pauls and Zukins. When I turned 18 I started working at Valley Die Cast Corp. until I hired in to the railroad a year later.

[1st_Sgt]

Paperboy for the Free Press, then US Army, now a contractor, I've only had two real jobs.

[CountrySquire]

Delivering the Southfield Eccentric back in '83. I was paid roughly $30 bucks a month to deliver to eighty houses twice per week. I later moved up to Delivering the Detroit News which was fewer homes and more money. Then the summer of '86 I was a Caddy at Plum Hollow Golf Club and made super bux then. $15 to $20 bucks per eighteen holes worked; For a three day tournament at the end of that summer I made $140, enough to buy my first car; A '72 Biscayne with no trunk floor and a busted front spring.

[Danny]

My first paying job was working assembly at CWC [[ Contracted Work Center) in 1995. in Garden City, MI. Earned about 20.00 a day. Now I'm a independent filmmaker. And founder and CEO of Rennaisance Pictures in Detroit, Farmington Hills and Ypsilanti, MI. and currently making my first documentary film called " Burger Speaks" I have 30 film proposals planned coming soon.

[Motor City Sam]

First job was flipping burgers at McDonald's when I was a junior in high school. I made it to the interview despite the fact that a tornado warning was in effect and they were impressed with that. Shortly thereafter I started work at my high school cleaning up the locker rooms and mopping the pool area. Worked both jobs part time while I was a high school student.

[Downrivergal]

My first organized "job" other than babysitting was delivering the Mellus [[the Lincoln Parker specifically), I was 11

When I was was 12 I worked Bingo every Thursday night at St Mary Magdalen in Melvindale, I was a food server in both the gym and the gym basement. 2 levels of Bingo fun.

My first real job with a payroll paycheck was at the new Burger King at Northline and Allen. I worked drive thru and front cashier. We used to get a lot of drunks through there from Nifty Fiftys.

[mjlafountain]

As I retail co-op student at Redford High School in the 50's I chose to work downtown at the B. Siegel Co. Woodward & State. That was a great program for non college bound kids. As a volunteer many years later for the Detroit Historical Society I volunteered to check credentials for a show house in the Boston Edison area, the B. Siegel's home, next door were the SS Kresge's. Love that area. Living in the northwest now, I miss you Detroit, you have the character & the grit to survive.

[Herman Krieger]

I had a Detroit News paper route in 1939-40 on Woodland and Tennyson streets. We would pick up the papers at a local delivery point for the route, but when there was an extra edition, a bundle of papers would be brought to our house, that we would then sell on the streets. This would occur after a Joe Lewis fight, but I especially remember the morning of September 1, 1939, when there was an extra edition on the German invasion of Poland.

[Whitehouse]

This might sound more exotic than it sounds... Working in the archives in the community building of Leeuwarderadeel, the Netherlands. Now I'm doing servey work for one of the leading Servey companies in the world.

[RickBeall]

Clerk at Cunningham drugs in 1972.

[Ravine]

This might sound more exotic than it sounds... Working in the archives in the community building of Leeuwarderadeel, the Netherlands. Now I'm doing servey work for one of the leading Servey companies in the world.

No, actually, that sounds less exotic than it sounds.

[MissingDetroit]

My office job was on Greenfield, for a "collections agency" sending out the series of threatening letters you would get prior to the phone cadre abusing you. A lot of scales fell off my eyes on that job, but it wasn't until much later I realized that there was most likely another component of the business that the burly boss and his thug-looking pals took care of. He came complete with a hot blond "secretary" who couldn't type or answer phones and who had regular nail, hair and *other appointments every afternoon. Love ya Detroit!

[Herman Krieger]

My first job, not counting a Detroit News route, was in 1941 at the Big Bear Market on Woodward and Tuxedo. I was 14, but lied about my age. Later jobs are shown at www.efn.org/~hkrieger/bio.htm

[takascar]

My father owned several restaurants in Detroit in the 1960’s. They were sub sandwich and pizza shops called the “Super Sub Shops”. One was at Jefferson and Van Dyke, one was on Second across from the GM Building and one was in the Golden Twenties Lounge on Livernois. During that time, he also had several concession booths in the summer that he set up at the Warren Fair at Halmich Park and at the State Fair. He sold Mexican food [[one of the first places in the Detroit Area) and Belgium Waffles.

My first job was working during the summer at in these concession stands. In fact, I started when I was 8 years old and my job was to dispense pop. Somewhere, there is a picture of me standing on a milk crate dispensing pop. They had to wrap the apron around me several times since I was so small and the apron was for an adult.

Later on, after my father sold the restaurants, he expanded his food concession business to include events such as the ethnic festivals in Detroit and various art fairs and other events around Detroit. I spent summers in my teenage years working at these events. Some of the places that we worked besides the Detroit ethnic festivals [[first behind Cobo Hall, then on West Jefferson, then Michigan and Third St behind the IRS bldg and finally Hart Plaza in 1980 or so) were: The Ann Arbor Art Fair, The Wyandotte Art Fair, Dearborn and Birmingham Art Fair, The Michigan Tastefest. Those were some of the most adventurous years of my life.

I remember working all night setting up concession booths at the Michigan and Third site, including one time that we did this in a massive downpour.

My first non-family job, however was working for Tom Catalfio at Mr. C’s Deli on East Warren, about a half mile from my house. I worked all sorts of jobs from making pizza to working the bottle return counter [[I *HATED* that assignment!), working the deli counter and restocking the coolers.

That store is still there, but is not a Mr. C’s anymore. Those “barrelheads” on the front of the store were the originals from the late 1970’s. Tom passed away in 2000, I think, but his brother Bill is still around, last I heard. He still owns a few stores [[including the bakery on 10 Mile) and operates several Mr. C’s Car Wash locations, including one near 8 Mile and Harper.

[Katie Bashlo]

I worked at the Dairy Queen in Gibraltar and got all the ice cream and hot fudge I wanted... when the boss wasn't looking!

I would like to invite you all to our really fun group!
http://www.facebook.com/groups/DownriverThings/

[DetroitZack]

My first was a bag boy at Kroger in Plymouth Township.

[gazhekwe]

After high school, I went door to door and hit every business on Grand River between Meyers and Greenfield, and down Greenfield all the way back to Plymouth and then over to Schaefer. If they were hiring, they wanted somebody with "experience." I cleaned house for a neighbor who was dying of breast cancer, and tutored another neighbor's son in reading. Finally, at the end of summer, I got a "real job" waiting tables at Big Boy on Greenfield just south of 8 Mile. I did OK until a new hire with more "experience" started stealing my tips. @50 cents an hour, you need every tip you can get, and believe me, back then a quarter was a good tip. I quit after a month, mainly because transportation was a problem and they hired new waitresses at higher pay and then one of them stole my tips. No bus after ten pm, and my shift ended at midnight. I rode my bike a few times and found it too dangerous riding eight and a half miles that late at night. But, with that "experience" I was able to get a job at the catalog center at Sears, Grand River and Oakman for the Christmas season. THAT was a fun job, $1.35 an hour, too, seemed like a fine sum.

[G-DDT]

I don't count the gig as a dishwasher for the Family Buggy. My brother helped me get that work at that crummy place. They treated us like such scum.

No, I worked hard and hammered away at getting a job with Repeat the Beat music store on Telegraph. There were some cool folks, but there was one racist long-haired dude I hated working with there.

One night I worked there alone with racist dude, and the next day I was told I can't work register because $30 got stolen [["I'm not sayin' you took it, man, but..."). The only thing I ever stole there, was I pilfered a cigarette-that's right one lousy 8.9 cent cig from a pack of Marlboro Reds [[back when smokes were $1.75 a pack) off the desk of a manager. Anyway, when I wasn't on the schedule for next week, I was told to call in, and when I did I was told I was fired because of the money. I cried my eyes out in front of two of my friends at the atrocity of it all. My dad was right, the companies we work for hate us, so "F' em".

Every job I worked for afterwards I stole something [[both me and my friend-who became a WDET D.J. who moved to Louisville-each stole the long rubber foam padded anti-carpal tunnel wrist rester-what we called a "Shwapp stick", cuz' yopu could slap it hard-"SHWAPP!" on the cubicle surface when you were pissed off-from Ticketmaster Charge-by-Phone). I didn't care, anymore. I hated them all, and the funny thing was, the more I stole, the more I got praised for my performance as a worker. That is, until I wised up as a born again and quit all that.

Epilogue: turned out one of the Owners/Bosses [[watch out for any place that has multiple owners/bosses; they make for really unstable work environments) at Repeat the Beat was a coke-fiend who stole regularly from the business and would blame it on a new, young, expendable employee. I have since met a Barry and a Terry [[and a roommate of a girl named Laura who also worked there) who all said the same thing happened to them for the exact same amount of money.

Just another fine example of how other folk's cocaine usage would severely mess me [[a non-user) up. I probably wouldn't have had the sour attitude I got towards my later jobs, if it weren't that I had worked so hard to get the job, got it, and got dumped like that over a false accusation [[had a roommate who pulled the same thing and told everyone at Zoot's I stole $30 from a pay envelope he eventually found with his replacement roommate a year later) started by a sociopathic cokehead who doesn't think of how the consequences of their actions ripple out and affect others. Heck! I'm lucky I didn't get falsely blamed for all of the videos being stolen from Suncoast video at the Fairlane Towncenter; that turned out to be from my Assistant Manager who complained the most about the thefts [[classic deflection of suspicion ploy) and later drunkenly admitted to me at a D.J. Larry Hoffman party that she was the one who took all that.

Play it wise and play it honest, folks. That's all I can say. Whether folks will hate on you or accuse you of "hating" on their selfish schemes. Just play it wise and honest.

[Whaler]

1966 Ted's Resturant & Drive In... Woodward Ave Bloomfield Hills Bus Boy 1.15 per Hr.... Wound up doing everything... Dishes,Soda Fountain,Grill Cook... But the best was Car-Hop... Tips!!!!... Whaler

[mikeg19]

My first "real" job was in 01'. I was 15 and got a job at CVS as a stockboy/clerk. It was basically from that day on that I told myself I needed to complete college as fast as possible so I'd never have to work in the customer service industry again. I just may have killed myself if I had to deal with the general public any longer.

[Detroitnerd]

Never did get my summer dream job slinging hot dogs at the ballpark. Instead I took a paper route. First job with a paycheck and not as an intern would be in food service, first as a busboy at the glorious Chambertin restaurant at Dearborn's Holiday Inn [[gosh, it sounds so long ago, doesn't it?) and then working as a busboy and barback at Miller's Bar.