Thread: How many jobs you have before you were 16?

My uncle and grandfather had stores that I was free child labor for them….lol. My grandfather had an economy auto store/Schwinn bicycle store. And I worked there some and my uncle owned a florist shop. Later I got a job at the animal hospital and remember riding my bicycle there to work.

Worked cattle and small time farmed with my Dad, soybeans and hay.
Didn’t pay, but I got to live there and eat, clothes to wear lol. Far as paying, I mowed yards and bush hogged lots for people. Will say, Dad let me use his tractor and diesel and I got to keep whatever I got paid for that. Got drivers license at fifteen and was gofer, driver for one of Dad’s wealthy friends. He was a pharmacist and owned three drug stores. Liked his Seagrams all day long, so I was his driver.
Perks were getting to play, unsupervised with his gun collection
and reloading equipment. A miracle I still have all my fingers and eyes.


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I mowed yards starting around 8 years old, delivered papers, worked at a Ponderosa Steakhouse bussing tables. Shoveled snow in the winters until I left home.

Paper route assistant (I ran the route when he wanted time off).
Apple salesman (assistant) ... rode around in a truck selling baskets of apples door to door.
Envelope stuffer ... stuffed envelopes with a local retail store's advertisements.
Blew up Christmas balloons on air compressor for the same local retail store (Christmas time).

Chores
Lawn mowing
Shoveling snow
Then at 15 McDonalds back then you had to be 16 but I lied and no one checked

Paper route. From 12-14. Worked at a grocery store 40-50 hrs a week. 14-16. First time I got pulled over driving I was 12 yo. lol. No failure to launch heah. I was running a crew at 18 installing hvac on Walmart stores. Which it was much simpler back then. Mostly flex. Just had to be a hard worker.

Home chores from a very young age, then at 11, I started working as a laborer in a greenhouse, moving and mixing all the soil, mowing and trimmer and keeping the place looking sharp, inside and out. That took me to my driving years and then moved in to metalworking.

When I was 14 we moved to a brand new apartment complex, my Dad's last job before retirement. I met a few guys and we unloaded furniture for folks. Paid pretty decent, just not real consistent money.
I picked up trash around the complex for a little money. Then I got a real job at a light fixture store. I pulled orders and assembled fixtures. That store moved to a big city and I got a job around the time I turned 16 repairing electric motors and did the coop program where I got out of school early to work.