Ask HN: What was your first job?

The end of retirement article made me wonder about this. What was your first job, how old were you, and how much were you paid?

My first job was stacking bricks from an old building they tore down behind my house. I was about 10 years old and got paid a dollar or two, can't remember exactly, for a stack of 1,000 bricks, 10 by 10 by 10.

My first job was picking rocks out of the wheat field when I was 11 on our wheat farm. At 12, I was pretty much doing all the work for the dryland part of the farm. But being the family farm, that didn't directly pay.

After senior year of high school I worked on a wheat farm owned by a friend of my Dad and was paid $1.25/hr.

Lots of long days, hours wise. Carried that into computer profession.

However, at the end of the summer, farming was done. In this business, it is never done and there is no natural downtime.

17, I worked for a local family owned ice cream shop of course! $6.75/hr.

18, selling knives for CUTCO, commission only. And I freakin loved it.

My first real job was cleaning electronic and pipe components, typically of the sort which were used underwater for delivering oil. This was a somewhat under-the-table employment, probably because the owner of the company didn't want to deal with OSHA. As I recall I was 16 and the pay was an impressive $6.75 an hour.

After a summer of drama he became incensed that one of my pipes, which I had been cleaning of oil residue by means of scrubbing with a solvent and a toothbrush (it is exactly as fun as it sounds), was insufficiently clean. He attempted to demonstrate his displeasure by throwing the ~20 pound pipe at me. It passed close enough to my ear that I felt the breeze.

Thus ended my involvement in the informal labor market.