Your first job

DonQuay1 · 07-06-2012 06:12AM

Michael Weston wrote: »

What was your first role in employment and how does it differ to your current position?

Bens Boutique.

I thought we all started in Dunnes Stores??

mikemac1 · 07-06-2012 07:01AM

Hotel kitchen porter

2.50 punts an hour

I'm not particularly tall but my back woud be near crippled after a 10 hour shift scrubbing pots in the sink
Then wash the floors, bins and other cleaning. Take skips of plates and stuff up and down the corridors

Bullying chefs, even management were afraid of the chefs

I was thin to start with and I weighed near nothing at the end of the summer, about 9 stone for a lad :pac:

Mackman · 07-06-2012 08:36AM

When i was 16 i worked for a road crew, laying tarmac and concrete, sometimes cobbles. Early start though, had to be up at 6, but i was usually home by 2.

Got paid around £300 a week as far as i can recall. I was minted!! Got my first mobile phone with my first paycheck, good ole Nokia 3210

deman · 07-06-2012 08:43AM

As a 16 year old, summer job working in a shop. Many years later, I've come full circle, but I own my own shop.

Micky Dolenz · 07-06-2012 09:19AM

11 or 12. Worked on a farm with race horses, mucking out, riding out. £1 an hour. Got more on race days. Sometimes landing £50 prize for best turned out horse. Good times.

My work now is completely unrelated.

xzanti · 07-06-2012 09:26AM

I took a part time job in Burger King when I was 14 and still in School..

They put me on the tills on my first day with little or no training and it was one of the worst experiences of my life..

It tainted my view of the general public. People can be right cnuts when they're hungry.

xzanti · 07-06-2012 09:29AM

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

11 or 12. Worked on a farm with race horses, mucking out, riding out. £1 an hour. Got more on race days. Sometimes landing £50 prize for best turned out horse. Good times.

My work now is completely unrelated.

Yeah I did something similar to this as well when I was about 10.. was voluntary work.. mucking out horse sh1te and leading ride outs etc..

Got free horse riding lessons on a Saturday evening as payment.. I developed a fear of horses when I was a teenager though

strange.

Vicxas · 07-06-2012 09:31AM

I worked for my mothers boss, recycling Polystyrine packaging for washing machines and such. Made about 20 Pound for a days work. Not too shabby back then.

Nothingbetter2d · 07-06-2012 09:36AM

worked in a bar collecting glasses at 16

Jester252 · 07-06-2012 09:40AM

Work on a farm for most of my Summer holidays back then I got paid now the work I do goes to paying for me to live at home

duchalla · 07-06-2012 09:45AM

footing turf in the bog one summer, £15 a day, 6 days week, back breaking work. I'll never forget arriving in the morning, looking up the bank of turf and knowing I'd have to handle every sod while hunched over for the next 9 hours, soul destroying....

whistlingtitan · 07-06-2012 09:48AM

First proper job at 14 as a fuel injection engineer
Now have a job which nearly afraid to mention after a few people's comments here lol

mikemac1 · 07-06-2012 09:49AM

whistlingtitan wrote: »

Now have a job which nearly afraid to mention after a few people's comments here lol

Are you a tax collector? :mad:

kippy · 07-06-2012 09:49AM

My first "actual" job was working in a bar/filling station. Duties included, tending the petrol/diesel pumps, collecting glasses, cleaning toilets, cleaning floors,tables, serving customers, stocktaking and store management, and a tonne of other bits and pieces. Did this in the same bar from 15-18 in summers, weekends and holidays.
Pay was about £60 a week (summer weeks consisted of 80-90 hours, 7 days, for up to 12 weeks straight) Pay was a bit better for the shorter weekends throughout the year.

I really really enjoyed the work, being honest and at the time the money wasn't that important. Learned a hell of a lot about the world and about work in general, made a lot of good friends and had one hell of a social life!
The aul bar experience was handy to have and worked in a few places since then up until I finished college.

No my work is completely unrelated (IT Support/admin) but some of the lessons learned in interactions with people in the bar have really helped me in my career.
Salary wise I am happy to say I am earning a lot more than 60 quid a week and working a lot less hours.......

Ms.M · 07-06-2012 09:52AM

I worked in a leisureplex. Since nobody else would do it I had to dress in the "Plexy" costume (Dinosaur costume reeking of BO) and do a little dance at the table for the kiddies a couple of times a shift.
My lowest point was being bet up by a group of 17 teeny boys who were angry that anyone would think they'd fall for Plexy (who wasn't allowed speak) being real. They were literally hanging off me, got me to the floor and only quit when they hit the head so hard my pony-tail was revealed. "It's a girl!"

Got paid 3.50 per hour, well under the minimum wage.

Now I'm a teacher. Secondary level. Thankfully haven't been physically attacked yet!!

whistlingtitan · 07-06-2012 09:53AM

mikemac1 wrote: »

whistlingtitan wrote: »

Now have a job which nearly afraid to mention after a few people's comments here lol

Are you a tax collector? :mad:

Lol
No

Kenno90 · 07-06-2012 09:58AM

I started working in SuperValu as a butcher for minimum wage, it gave me money at the end of the week and put me through college. Wasn't a bad job by any standards but the customers could really make you feel like carp sometimes

Now at the age of 22, I work as a software engineer for a travel firm (Guess i'm one of the lucky ones)

Susie_Q · 07-06-2012 10:00AM

Kenno90 wrote: »

I started working in SuperValu as a butcher for minimum wage, it gave me money at the end of the week and put me through college. Wasn't a bad job by any standards but the customers could really make you feel like carp sometimes

Were you also working at the fish counter?

Nothingbetter2d · 07-06-2012 10:01AM

whistlingtitan wrote: »

First proper job at 14 as a fuel injection engineer
l

so you worked in a petrol station putting petrol in people's cars :rolleyes:

whistlingtitan · 07-06-2012 10:03AM

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

whistlingtitan wrote: »

First proper job at 14 as a fuel injection engineer
l

so you worked in a petrol station putting petrol in people's cars :rolleyes:

Yep lol lol
Oh why the eye roll now

prinz · 07-06-2012 10:06AM

Worked at an upholsterers stripping down sofas and the like to prepare them for refitting. Lasted two days IIRC and told the ignorant bollix to stick his job after he started referring to retards/mongos and the likes.

Golf course greenkeeper after that. Happy days.

Ishmael · 07-06-2012 10:08AM

First job was picking strawberries @ 60p a bucket in the summer time. Never really made that much money but probably ate my own weight in strawberries.

BIG BAD JOHN · 07-06-2012 10:15AM

I used to assemble shirt boxes (back in the distant day when shirts came in a box). I got paid the princely sum of 10p (two shillings in real money) for every 100 (ie lids and bottoms). The first day (afternoon actually), I managed 60 and arrived home with my hands and arms sore and tired. After a while I was up to 250 an hour.
My first pay packet for part of a week was £1.40.
To get some perspective, a pint cost the equivalent of 9p - not that I was drinking at age 15 of course - and you could go to the pictures for as little as 5p (unless you wanted to impress a girl at which point you would be shelling out 10p each).
My last job was as the Financial Administrator for a locally based community development company.

southcentralts · 07-06-2012 10:16AM

Grew up on a farm but would not call it working as I did not get paid for it.
Happily though when I was 17 started working for Supermacs and was exactly like Kevin Spacey described in American Beauty, Stoned Drunk and getting laid all the time.

Would actually give an arm or two to go back to those times now!

phil1nj · 07-06-2012 10:25AM

First job was working in a chip shop at age 15.
The hours were terrible.
The pay was terrible (Less than £1.50 an hour)
The conditions were terrible, up to my ears in chip fat and grease for +8 hour shifts.

But the craic was unbelievable:). I got to work with three of my best mates and there was a good sturdy wooden counter between us and the ravenous, drunken and extremely loud members of the burger and chip eating public.

I'm an engineer now, better hours, better pay and better conditions but not as much craic on the job:(

yeppydeppy · 07-06-2012 10:38AM

I had a sort of job delivering the Southside newspaper for a few months but I suppose you could say I was fired because I missed a couple of weeks deliveries. The money was feck all but I was only 13. I can't remember if my first real job was as lounge boy or the summer job I had in an abbatoir (I used to pack livers, kidneys and tails in boxes). Either way I had more spending money then than I do now.

patmac · 07-06-2012 10:48AM

Worked in Woolworth's for 0.22p an hour in 1975 aged 13, child labour or what, left for a job cutting lawns for a whopping 0.50p an hour 16 hours per week leaving me with a wage packet of £8, never had as much money in my life before or since.:)

kippy · 07-06-2012 10:52AM

patmac wrote: »

Worked in Woolworth's for 0.22p an hour in 1975 aged 13, child labour or what, left for a job cutting lawns for a whopping 0.50p an hour 16 hours per week leaving me with a wage packet of £8, never had as much money in my life before or since.:)

0.70 pence an hour in 95 in that pub job I had........
things hadnt improved much, but you know what, I didnt mind a bit,

Nothingbetter2d · 07-06-2012 11:16AM

whistlingtitan wrote: »

Yep lol lol
Oh why the eye roll now

fuel injection engineer...lol thats like calling a housewife a domestic engineer

Kamjana · 07-06-2012 11:20AM

I started out at around 13 as a vision technician and garden architect,then at 16 i moved into the fuel injection business,been working many different jobs since then

Your first job

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