Your first real jobs

[Woody]

Describe for us some of your first real jobs:

[Dottie]

Had a job working at Harris Pine in academy, but part-time. Worked in the snack bar at college...part-time.

Worked in the library summers while in a state college---full-time.

Taught for two years in Pennsylvania. First year had eight students, grades one through four; second year had eleven students (different school) grades one through four.

Then I got married, and that is a twenty-four-hour-a-day job.

My hubby had two girls, and I had two boys (from a prior short-lived marriage) and we made one girl. Very busy household. I did foster parenting for ten years. In that time, we had about sixty to sixty-five babies and toddlers. Usually we only had two at a time. Loved it. Had the most fun, and it was my most fulfilling, happiest time of my life.

[phkrause]

My first sorta real job was being the lifter of heavy objects for a truck driver at a meat packing company in the south Bronx. We delivered meat to Deli's in New Jersey.

My next job, and this was after graduation, was being a mail room courier for a company in Queens, NY.

Than came my Printing job, which I did for 45+ years until I got laid off back in '08.

[Naomi]

My first real job was the summer before my first year in college. I applied for a job as receptionist for a Hot Rooffing contractor. They obviously needed someone immediately and asked when I could start to work. I said, "Now" and now it was!

The only problem was that they didn't ask if I could type or anything else having to do with office work and I didn't ask how much they paid. - Working in an office as a seccretary was not a vision I had for myself in High School.

I couldn't even turn on the electric typewriter. Oh boy, it must have been very funny to watch me try to figure out how to make it work; finally did find a switch and I was leaning over the keyboard so it took off..............

It didn't take long to mutually decide the job wasn't a good match. But, I really liked the sales people and owner and they seemed to like me. They hired a new receptionist/secretary and moved me to dispatching. That was fun.

When a severe storm hit an area we would go in and set up a temp field office. Then the sales department would call on elevators, or anyplace that had a flat roof requiring hot roofing. They took me to one such area to set up the office. We had a couple of salesmen who had quit and were shorthanded, so they let me make sales calls. That was even more fun than dispatching and the commissions were much better than the small hourly wage I was making.

We had a company airplane and soon the owner was allowing me to learn to fly. I really loved that. I worked for this company off and on for 4 years and could never repay them for lessons learned.

My next real job was as a Literature Evangelist selling our books and Bibles. The experience I gained at the roofing company was invaluable in selling the wonderful books. My leader, Elder Denton James (some of you may remember him) was in my opinion the best Leader I could have ever had. We remained close friends until his death last year. I hope to see Denton & Betty one day when we no longer dwell on this old ball of mud.

I must add that I have never had a job that I didn't enjoy and felt in ways gave me more in experience than the compensation I received. I have been richly blessed.

[Liz]

In highschool I had a job being a gopher in a law office. I really enjoyed it, I was able to go to the courthouse and file papers, it was neat seeing how all of that worked; I did not enjoy going to the jail to see the inmates and after the first time I voiced my opinion strongly enough I never had to do it again. I also read the old law books for fun, and whenever I found a particularly funny case I would read it aloud during breaktime. Those cowboys could sure get themselves into some pretty funny pickles and the court system had a lot more common sense than what I see today too.

Then I went to work for Walmart for exactly one year, that was the most messed up place to work for, I'm not sure if all Walmarts are managed like that one, or if I was just lucky enough to pick the most messed up Walmart around. Either way, it made me take college seriously so I guess it wasn't ALL bad, just nearly all bad.

Then I became a nurse and loved just about every minute of it. I worked for a small county hospital, so I could be working in ER one night and ICU the next and in labor and delivery the third. The thing I remember most about nursing, was that no matter what was going on the participants only had two beers. Knife fight broke out, the stabbing victim would be brought in sometimes by the person that stabbed him. "How much you guys had to drink?", "two beers.", Person comes in after crashing his car, "How much you have to drink tonight?" "two beers". No matter what the circumstance, if alcohol was involved it was always two beers.

Best job I ever had though was/is being wife and mother and homeschooling my two kids.

[Woody]

That's funny. (About the beers - not being a mother)

Well Liz - you certainly have had an interesting past.

[Gail]

Yes- that IS funny!

First real job- assistant area manager of Vancouver's morning paper. I worked in the Burnaby/New Westminster area and had to report to work at 4:30 or some inhumane hour like that (the Province is their morning paper). I also worked at a pizza joint. So sometimes I would work late at the pizza place then head over to the other job.

I kinda liked working outside when the sun just came up.

[M. T. Cross]

My first jobs in high school were:

Dishwasher/prep cook

Janitor

Apple picker

Nanny