What was your first paid job?

Lia_lia · 22-11-2014 8:28pm

Babysitting in a hotel. I was only 15, but it was the hotel my Mother works in so she got me the job. I was so lucky! €12 (cash in hand) per hour to pretty much watch TV most of the time. I was always good with kids so I enjoyed it anyway. Was probably too young to be doing it, but never had any complaints..

A year after that I worked in a kiddies club and pool in a hotel, was there for 3 years. Was on €5.10 per hour there. Was stressful enough, sometime we would have 40 kids at a time in the place. Still did the babysitting in the other hotel at night.They moved me to the creche after two years which was easier, but a bit boring. Only so much Dora The Explorer you can watch.. I was quite lucky with jobs when I was in school. There was always work.

Greenmachine · 22-11-2014 8:33pm

Lia_lia wrote: »

Babysitting in a hotel. I was only 15, but it was the hotel my Mother works in so she got me the job. I was so lucky! €12 (cash in hand) per hour to pretty much watch TV most of the time. I was always good with kids so I enjoyed it anyway. Was probably too young to be doing it, but never had any complaints..

A year after that I worked in a kiddies club and pool in a hotel, was there for 3 years. Was on €5.10 per hour there. Was stressful enough, sometime we would have 40 kids at a time in the place. Still did the babysitting in the other hotel at night.They moved me to the creche after two years which was easier, but a bit boring. Only so much Dora The Explorer you can watch.. I was quite lucky with jobs when I was in school. There was always work.

Paper route.
then a fast food place

qo2cj1dsne8y4k · 22-11-2014 8:33pm

Working in a shoe dept of a massive dept store. I used to work Thursday after school Friday after school Saturday and Sunday, and get paid on a Saturday night, which would go on the shoes I would hide at the back of the stock room for pay day. The start of an obsession. The best job ever

SoSheSaid · 22-11-2014 8:34pm

Working in a hairdressers, washing hair and cleaning floors. I was convinced I wanted to be a hairdresser at the time, and no harm to anyone who is but I'm bloody glad I changed my mind!

Buona Fortuna · 22-11-2014 8:37pm

Dayton Disgusting Threesome wrote: »

Wtf is a lounge boy..

I think its what Dubs call rent boys

cruiser178 · 22-11-2014 8:47pm

Musgrave Cash & Carry 1988, collecting trollies from the car park and bringing trollies out to costumers car and packing them, nor sure what the wages were but not bad, and a lot of tips.

Rubberchikken · 22-11-2014 8:50pm

At 14 in a local sweet/toy shop. And the owner would give me my supper before i went home. she was a nice lady:)

JillyQ · 22-11-2014 9:05pm

Laura Palmer wrote: »

Tesco - shelf-stacking!

Well Quinnsworth...

/old[/quot

ditto shelf stacking in Quinnsworth

hairyslug · 22-11-2014 9:07pm

Pushing trolleys in the underground car park in superquinn, getting paid £2.11 an hour,back in 1994

Mars Bar · 22-11-2014 9:13pm

Shopkeeper in a souvenir and gift shop

SMJSF · 22-11-2014 9:20pm

Cashier in a credit union.
took it part time (summer months) before college - but the manager/boss took advantage that I didn't fully know my rights - and didn't pay me for my last 3 weeks work, and I didn't even get 3 hours off one day to go to a doctors appointment I waited nearly 3 years for.

Kat1170 · 22-11-2014 9:25pm

Delivering papers around Cabra in the early 70's. Guy I worked for used to sell papers on the corner during the day (outside bank think it was AIB) and used an old pram to carry them on Saturdays with 3 or 4 of us young lads running from door to door with papers and collecting the weeks money. Got 50p for the day, felt like a small fortune.

TheBeardedLady · 22-11-2014 9:27pm

Picking strawberries on a farm when I was 15! Farmer used to come round and grab our legs under the strawberry bushes! Good times! I lasted 1 week and earned 18 Irish pounds with which I bought a Blur t-shirt. Got a job on the tills in Super Valu soon after.

Macavity. · 22-11-2014 9:27pm

Selling stuff on Ebay.

P_1 · 22-11-2014 9:34pm

Picking cucumbers of all things

Keithmc40 · 22-11-2014 9:42pm

Commis chef 1991 £1 per hour, double time for a Sunday , also £15 if you served the supper in the nite club

cloud493 · 22-11-2014 9:43pm

I was working in a games shop for a while, I got paid in games, which I thought was amazing, till I copped onto the fact the owner was significantly ripping me off. Then it was marks and spencer during the boom, great time, didn't even need an interview, my mum just rang up the manager and got me the job, then I moved to Ireland, worked in HMV for a bit, then finally wound up in tesco which is where I am now.

The Bowling Alley · 22-11-2014 9:43pm

Going around, from house to house, renting out videos.

HeidiHeidi · 22-11-2014 9:43pm

Macavity. wrote: »

Selling stuff on Ebay.

Jesus, now I feel like an archeological artefact :eek:

T'internet hadn't even been invented when I was trying to buy those jeans......

Filmer Paradise · 22-11-2014 10:07pm

Factory hand with Irish Sugar in the 1980s.

£2 per hour.

crockholm · 22-11-2014 10:13pm

TheBeardedLady wrote: »

Picking strawberries on a farm when I was 15! Farmer used to come round and grab our legs under the strawberry bushes! Good times! I lasted 1 week and earned 18 Irish pounds with which I bought a Blur t-shirt. Got a job on the tills in Super Valu soon after.

Why do 90% of your posts sound like innuendo?:D:p

Littlehorny · 22-11-2014 10:20pm

14 years old, worked on a chicken farm, 10000 chickens in two sheds. The first ten minutes of each day was taken up with you just getting used to the smell. Rest of the day getting scratched and pecked.
After they were sent off for slaughter we had the delightful job of cleaning out these huge sheds that were just caked in hard chicken ****e.
All for the kings ransom of 6 punts per day, good times!

doughef · 22-11-2014 10:37pm

Caddying in local golf club.

10 years of age and £5 for a round (approx 4 hours).
It was huge money at the time.

Imagine kids waiting to ask strange men could they go off with them into the wilderness for a few hours these days?

Does it still happen?

Wompa1 · 22-11-2014 11:03pm

12 years old, working 9-6 during MidTerm break and then Friday evenings and all day Saturday when school was on. De-waxing and hoovering out new cars and re-arranging and cleaning a parts department in my Dads garage. He left that business due to an injury and then I went to work in a petrol station for over 7 years....shudder

TheBeardedLady · 22-11-2014 11:16pm

crockholm wrote: »

Why do 90% of your posts sound like innuendo?:D:p

That's your dirty mind.

pharmaton · 22-11-2014 11:24pm

I think I was 15, maybe 16. I was a waitress in Bewleys

I wore the old school maid outfit complete with apron and silly hat thing. On my first day I broke all the teapots. I cried a lot and that was the day I also discovered how much feet could hurt. I only worked Friday evenings after school and all day Saturdays and I think I earned about £28, twenty of which I had to hand over to my mother. I remember the perks of collecting the freshly baked goods from the bakery just after dawn on the weekends, the smell was delicious and we always got a freebie for breakfast, a chocolate eclair or cream doughnut that we would have to gulp down before returning to work. Memories..

zef · 22-11-2014 11:38pm

Mine was in a pharmacy in O'Devaney Gardens, beside the Phoenix Park. It was a really 'old fashioned' chemist, and smelt like deep heat and furniture polish. It was the late 1980s and I got £60 a week. A tiny bedsit at the time on the NCR was £25 , so I couldn't afford to move out.
Loved getting paid on a Friday and going (underage) drinking with me friends. Ah, the happy simple times.

Cake Man · 23-11-2014 12:01am

hairyslug wrote: »

Pushing trolleys in the underground car park in superquinn, getting paid £2.11 an hour,back in 1994

Doing trolleys in an underground car park doesn't seem too bad, my first job was a supermarket and nothing worse then having to haul in trolleys in the lashing rain!
To be fair though, the oul trolley job wasn't the worst as you could take your time doing it arsing around the car park and you'd always pick up a few loose trolleys with €1 or €2 coins in them, people being too lazy to drop them back to the bay so most nights I used to come away with €5-10 in coins!

Littlekittylou · 23-11-2014 12:23am

Art teacher's assistant in an art centre that did school tours. I was 16 it was for the summer. Or before that I guess you could count babysitting.

eeeee · 23-11-2014 12:28am

Picking strawberries at 12. Never ate any, but still made fcuk all, fairly miserable, but felt like a millionaire when I got paid!

Oops69 · 23-11-2014 12:29am

Altar boy !! , got 5 pounds for a wedding around 1982 , handy number for an hour on a Saturday to bang a gong a few times and look angelic.

delw · 23-11-2014 12:41am

First job was a kitchen porter in a hotel

pharmaton wrote: »

I think I was 15, maybe 16. I was a waitress in Bewleys I wore the old school maid outfit complete with apron and silly hat thing. On my first day I broke all the teapots. I cried a lot and that was the day I also discovered how much feet could hurt. I only worked Friday evenings after school and all day Saturdays and I think I earned about £28, twenty of which I had to hand over to my mother. I remember the perks of collecting the freshly baked goods from the bakery just after dawn on the weekends, the smell was delicious and we always got a freebie for breakfast, a chocolate eclair or cream doughnut that we would have to gulp down before returning to work. Memories..

Second job was in Bewleys aswell in the kitchen, remember the sticky cherry buns yummmmm

Senna · 23-11-2014 12:50am

Finished my last junior cert exam at 4pm on a Friday and started work at 5pm as a lounge boy in a local hotel. £1.50 per hour and my first shift was 12 hours long, at 5am I was barely hanging together and they said I could go home, my feet had gone beyond sore and I couldn't even feel them anymore.
They told me to start at 3pm the next day and it was 5am again when I got finished. I was just a glutton for punishment and kept at it, over 20 years later and im still working in a hotel, just a different one.

JohnMearsheimer · 23-11-2014 12:59am

I pushed trolleys for £3 hour back in 2000 when I was 16. I got paid £60 a week in cash. I remember the first time I got paid, I was handed a small envelope with 3 Daniel O'Connell £20 pound notes in it. I remember feeling like a millionaire

Summer wind · 23-11-2014 2:01am

First paid job was babysitting for my neighbours when I was 14. Got €5 an hour. Started working in hair salon at 17. Started at €35 a week. Slave labour for awhile:)

demanufactured · 23-11-2014 3:18am

Fuel injection engineer/pump jockey

shruikan2553 · 23-11-2014 4:25am

Lab assistant for first years in college.

Lia_lia · 23-11-2014 8:59pm

Can anybody enlighten me on what a Lounge Boy is/was?

Is it a porter?

KERSPLAT! · 23-11-2014 9:04pm

Lia_lia wrote: »

Can anybody enlighten me on what a Lounge Boy is/was? Is it a porter?

They deliver drinks from the bar to customers' tables and collect empty glasses

edit: and usually help cleaning up at the end of the night

ghogie91 · 23-11-2014 9:09pm

I am still in my first job 5 years later

happy out too

rsl1976 · 23-11-2014 9:12pm

Lounge girl. Got paid £1.75 an hour

Lia_lia · 23-11-2014 9:17pm

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

They deliver drinks from the bar to customers' tables and collect empty glasses

edit: and usually help cleaning up at the end of the night

Oh right. Glass collector

HeidiHeidi · 23-11-2014 9:20pm

Lia_lia wrote: »

Oh right. Glass collector

Nope, more than that. Table service, serving drinks and clearing tables. I lasted precisely one week at it when I tried it

Is "lounge boy/girl" really not a term (or even a job?) any more these days???

KERSPLAT! · 23-11-2014 9:21pm

Lia_lia wrote: »

Oh right. Glass collector

I rather drink delivery officer

Scratch that, drink delivery executive officer :cool:

>.>

KERSPLAT! · 23-11-2014 9:22pm

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

Nope, more than that. Table service, serving drinks and clearing tables. I lasted precisely one week at it when I tried it

Is "lounge boy/girl" really not a term (or even a job?) any more these days???

I did it for a year before moving behind the bar, had great craic doing both, loved it!

One eyed Jack · 23-11-2014 9:24pm

Lia_lia wrote: »

Oh right. Glass collector

That's what I had always called it too, but that was before the celtic tiger time when people started introducing fancy names for everything and asking for half lattes in the hotel bar!

I was also promoted from being a night porter to a 'chaperone'. Tipping also became a thing. I remember running after one lady telling her she left a fiver under her saucer

retalivity · 23-11-2014 9:31pm

there's still plenty of lounge boys/girls n the locals at home.

My first was as a Milkman's helper on the saturday run in rural donegal in the late 90s, got 20 pounds for a 6am-Noon shift.
Was great craic, talking ****e to whatever milkman i was working with, stocking up on chocolate and crisps in every shop we passed, and as Saturday was the day a lot of customers settled the bill I got to meet a lot of mental auld ones. Mad biddies with moustaches and talking football to oul fellas with only radios who probably wouldnt speak to anyone else til I was back the following week.
Today, whenever I smell mothballs or damp it brings be back to those days!

Flabangav · 23-11-2014 9:45pm

One eyed Jack wrote: »

That's what I had always called it too, but that was before the celtic tiger time when people started introducing fancy names for everything and asking for half lattes in the hotel bar!

My mam was a lounge girl in the 70s. That was in Dublin though, I had never heard that term before she said it!

23-11-2014 9:47pm

I guess you could count when we were smaller and went around to neighbours' houses offering to wash their cars. 50p! We were very rich :cool:

the_syco · 23-11-2014 9:50pm

Delivering leaflets. Sporadic, but jobs were scarce for a 16 year old at the time. 1p or 2p per leaflet, and I could get anything from £8 to £30 depending on what I had to deliver ("free samples" gave me an extra 2p or 3p).

800 houses would take time, and sometimes I'd get another 400 houses if the person meant to be doing them was too busy.

I see people still doing the leaflet runs, and wonder much they get for it these days.

What was your first paid job?

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