Ask HN: What was your first job? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What was your first job?

#71

Post by sid » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 3:35 PM UTC

this is fun ! let me think

I had a job as a cleaner at a shopping centre which i did at night times, i had a friend who was doing that full time and he asked me if i wanted to help, pay was good cause i was 13 so any money was good :P I first used those scissor sweeps, then i did some of the mopping then finally i got to use the buffing machine.

Then i worked in dominos pizza. I was making pizza's and chopping and boxing them, never did counters for some reason.

Then i worked at a call center as one of those annoying people that call you in the middle of the day to sell you phone plans and phone deals. Wasnt to bad a pay. This was during uni summer holidays between 1st year uni and 2nd year uni.

Finally between 2nd and 3rd year of uni i got a job as a developer coding perl cgi's. I was coding online shopping carts and delivering dynamic content for this small shutters company ....

Once i graduated then it was real world work ... consulting firms, systems engineering, realtime stuff, architect etc etc, been like that for the past 6 years and now hoping to graduate from this 9-5 cycle to the one finally owning the company :)

Re: Ask HN: What was your first job?

#72

Post by jamesbritt » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 4:32 PM UTC

During my high school years I delivered dry cleaning in my neighborhood in upper Manhattan. Great exercise. :)

I learned a few things about business, also learned how to use a steam presser for assorted fabrics. (Watch out for silk!)

Tried to learn some Chinese from the owner, but I failed big time. :(

I got to listen to assorted Chinese music when pressing clothes or working the counter. It was interesting, but it never really grew on me as something pleasurable.

Re: Ask HN: What was your first job?

#73

Post by arantius » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 4:49 PM UTC

High school (16 or so): McDonalds College (18-20 or so): summer internships at Johnson and Johnson

Re: Ask HN: What was your first job?

#74

Post by abyssknight » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 4:52 PM UTC

I was a sophomore in college. I took a job at a small web development company writing PHP. I made minimum wage, about $7.25 at the time.

Not the greatest story to tell, but those roots got me where I am today.

:)

Re: Ask HN: What was your first job?

#75

Post by aristus » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 7:06 PM UTC

jonah wrote: post #55

aristus wrote: post #6

Unsoldering resistors, capacitors, etc from old VCR mainboards. 1 cent per part; 1.5 cents if I sorted them by spec. My family had an electronics repair shop. I think I was eight or nine. (Back then components were about the size of a large ant, not stuffed in by the billion) I've been thinking about this lately -- giving kids work gives them skills and I think people would be surprised what they can handle.

Eeek. Lead poisoning?

Eh. We rode around in an equipment van with no seats, much less seatbelts, and which burned lots of juicy leaded gas. Different times.

Re: Ask HN: What was your first job?

#76

Post by haseman » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 9:43 PM UTC

Lifeguard, 16

Re: Ask HN: What was your first job?

#77

Post by richesh » Wed, Jul 01, 2009, 3:24 AM UTC

Unpaid intern at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and at the same time worked Drive-Thru at a McDonald's (High School)

Application Developer at Cingular Wireless (College)