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I had a few.
The first one I had was delivering newspapers on my bicycle.
then I set up bowling pins into the machine on a manually run two lane bowling alley. It was a small smoke stunk bar. I got free drinks. Just kidding about the drinks.
then I also worked at an Italian restaurant bussing tables.
all that with no car.
I can go on after I started driving but that’s not the question. Share your pre-16 work history.
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.
First job 9 yrs old. Sweeping , picking up scrap and stacking lumber. My BIL was a home builder. My nephew was 8. We made $1 a day.
Worked for BIL learning carpenter work for a few summers. He, my nephew and I built my parents only house they ever owned when I was 12.
Pay went up as we got better at it.
Cut lawns some.
Worked one day at 14 with my cousin delivering milk to country stores on his route. He drove to fast and busted some cartons. Used metal crates in truck. I had to wash the cartons as I brought them into the stores. He mostly shot the bull and I worked my tail off. Also at the end of the day, which started at 3:30 and ended at 12:00 I smelled like spoiled milk and was filthy from the rust on the crates. Told him don't bother to come get me again.
Summers of 15 and 16 I worked each summer for 10 weeks at my uncle's camps in Grand Isle La. Job was cleaning camps, and cutting grass mostly. Also cleaned fish for clients and even guided a little. That was extra pay. Also did odd jobs like repairing screen on porches, digging holes for a couple septic tanks. Whatever came up. Made $30 a week first year, $35 a week second year. Got tipped by clients sometimes for doing errands. Came home with every dollar. My uncle would not let me spend anything.
Started working in Body Shops at 13 years old after school and on the weekends. I guess I learned something. Wiring houses in the summers by the time I was 16. Full time working as a Marine Shipboard Electrician by 18 years old. Unlimited HP Chief Engineer by 29.
How many only 1, same job I have today…farm.
I worked at a super market in the produce department where at a skinny 120 lbs I was unloading produce trucks by hand.
50 lb sacks of potatoes makes for a long shift. I work there for about 8 months then I got hired by Al Copeland and worked at the very first Popeyes Fried Chicken store in Arabi LA.
By my junior year in HS I was closing the store and locking it up every night. I was paid $1.50 p/hr because I was the crew chief. Every one else was getting $1.35. A 2 piece with Frys and a bun was 89 cents. I still have the hot grease burns from slinging tons of battered chicken pieces into that 350 F oil.
When I was in the third grade, Both much older sisters came home with babies 2 weeks apart. Very shortly there after they started working. I got babysitting duties before and after school. Mom and dad wound up raising the oldest, My niece, Of coarse I was the built in babysitter till I went in the Army. Along with the babysitting came chores around the house too...
Mowed yards for the neighbors and made decent money (I thought so at the time) and then went to work at a local full service gas station until I left for college. I rode my bike to work before I got my license at 16, sometimes dad would pick me up on his way home from work. Riding to work was mostly downhill, going home after work, not so much. LOL
At the age of around 12 , I had a pretty sweet job , ketchn goldfish for people’s back yard ponds out of a spot called lake mullenberry , if I remember correctly , downtown Allentown Pa.
It wasn’t easy , there were herds of black ones in the way and them golden targets were few and far between…
The tiger versions sold for more than the solid gold ones …..:Rofl
Then we rolled em up …..every Sunday morning at 3 am ….big old bundles of papers tossed out in front of a laundry mat …..saddle bagged up our stingray bikes , loaded em till the back tire was about flat and off we went into the darkness …
I was 15 when we tossed the news ….next stop was the bag boy at the grocery store …and on and on it went ….
I started as an Electricians helper about that time. Before that the standard cutting grass and such
Does chores for money count as a job ?
1.Lawnmowing yards 2.Paperboy wrapping papers to keep up with them being thrown out of the truck 3.Caddy at golf coarse 4.Bottle collector paid ok and anything my folks could think of.
Mowed yards, helped customers load and tie down Christmas trees on their car, cleaned up yards and pretty much anything for a buck back then. First real job was at 16 at the closest McDonalds. Worked it hard for 6 weeks and got fired for not being in one of the cliques that made up the other folks that had worked there forever. Best thing that has ever happened to me. I stayed away from that kind of work from that day on. On a funny note; fast forward thirty years. I had moved to TN and met a man down the road a ways that had a vineyard and farmed some too. He invited me to hunt his land on my first or second trip to his house. In a conversation over some of his excellent home made red wine, I found out that he owned the McDonalds that was my first job. His name was Sam McAllister and he was laid to rest yesterday. Funny how the world turns sometimes.
Cut neighborhood folks grass at about 10 years old. Most yards paid $2-3, but one old woman paid me $5 for a large yard. Boy I thought the cops were gonna arrest me for sure for taking that much money! At 15, I planted pine seedling trees on rough bulldozed land. It was in the winter and it was so cold you had to turn your back to the wind to keep from freezing. We also rode in the back of a truck out to the country to plant the loblolly pine trees. Made 75 cents /hour too! Good memories.
Mowed neighborhood lawns from about 10 years old. Made $2-3 a yard, but one old lady paid me $5 for her large yard. I though the cops were gonna arrest me for taking that much money! By 15, I was planting pine seedling trees on rough bulldozed land for 75 cents/hour. It was winter and it was so cold you had to turn your back to the wind to keep from freezing! We also rode in the back of a pickup to the jobs out in the country. Good memories.
How many jobs you have before you were 16?
According to my annual social security statement, I began paying taxes into the system at the age of 14 on a tractor working fields and ranches for a local company.
Previously, rode horseback running barbed wire fence lines working on a cash basis at 13. All of this in far West Texas.
At 15, with a hardship drivers license issued, I began roughnecking on drilling rigs. Roughnecked all through high school and college.
I mowed yards and worked for local farmers picking up limbs and roots after they dozed ground clear.
Worked on a hay crew when I was 13-14. We hauled from the time the dew dried off hay bailed the day before until the dew fell that night. Most days that was from 9am till midnight.
Moved up to big time at 15! I worked at a western themed attraction called Kaintuck Territory. I did odd jobs before it opened for the season then was selected to do gunfights, train robberies, and Ky long rifle demonstrations. Nearly killed myself when I fell out of a wagon and hit my forehead on my Colt 45 pistol!!
Once I started driving I went to work at a resort busing tables and washing dishes.
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Not sure when I started doing farm work pretty much everything from crops to livestock. Helped my grandfather on his rabbit ranch with 15000 rabbits at its largest. All day feeding and moving rabbit crap. Then we set, tended, cut, and housed several acres of tobacco. That tobacco was what kept me from wanting to be a farmer.
Paid jobs, 2. Delivering newspapers and cleaning up a farm shop. Unpaid, too many to count.
One, I grew up on a farm and was helping my dad as soon as I was big enough. I got my first real job at 16.
did 2 paper routes at 8 and 9. Then sold lemonade at 10 (we lived on the river at the time, and that was pretty popular). Then started mowing yards for the neighborhood people. 11 got into racing....go karts in summer, slot cars in winter. Won tons and tons of races, met a lot of people, some of which are STILL racing today (and well known names). 13, we had to move 9 hours South. 34, I started cutting a cemetery, then they wanted me to do full-bore groundscare for the same $$$. If you've ever done it, it's a LOT of physical work. Mowing is easy but the trimming takes several days. Paid $1800/mo for 4 months of the year so the pay was nice! 32 started my own repair business and still doing that as a side-gig, until a building comes available. Took first "real" job at 15 and worked that until I was 46, changed jobs because the original owner sold the business and the new owners hired a GM that I didn't get along with very well. So far so good--except insurance-they don't offer insurance here so I'm looking around again.
Mostly ranch chores from as young as I can remember. Started working cows when I was 12. By the time I was 15 I was pretty proficient with assisting my Dad and Grandfather with any and all things required, with exception of the finances. I moved cows, heifers, bulls and steers (by horseback), cut and baled approximately 700 acres of hay, repaired and replaced barbed wire fences, pulled calves, steered bull calves, tractor and implement maintenance, fed and groomed horses and I went to school every day. No regrets.
The first was mowing residential yards for $2 each. Then I worked at a shoe shine station inside of a barber shop. Then at 15 I made pizzas at Pizza Hut (back when it was good pizza).
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I had a lot of jobs when I was a kid, but my first paying gig was picking hornworms off tobacco plants. I was given a quart mason jar and was paid a penny a pair for the hornworms. I also suckered and primed tobacco a few years later. I was paid $2.25/Hour when the minimum wage was $1.79/Hr.. I thought I was in the Big Money.
I worked at the Wildlife Club loading clay pigeons on the thrower in a trap house & did whatever maintenance every Wednesday night, Saturday, and Sunday. I was paid $4.00/Hr. plus tips. I did that until High School.
I sold drinks at the N.C. State football games and cleaned the grounds around the stadium the day after the games. I don't remember what that paid.
I also worked on a lawncare crew with a couple of friends my first year in High School. It was mind-numbingly dull, but we had fun on breaks and after work.
Jim
I started working on a farm driving a tractor, tromping cotton, and hauling grain to the elevator during season at about 10. At 13, my dad put me to work picking up welding rod ends and mowing grass on the shipyard he ran. From there I moved on to sandblasting, painting, welding, a pipe fitter's helper, and finally a diesel engine mechanic in their engine shop. While working in the engine shop (when I turned 16 and could drive the truck we built from scratch), I got a job in town working in a parts house as well. Parts houses in the rural South almost always sell farm supplies. I sold and serviced all kinds of farm equipment that the store stocked. I was pretty well versed in how to work long before my 16th birthday, and it still causes me problems at times. My wife says I expect people today to work like I do, and that's just not reasonable in these times. I've finally decided she's right.....
Newspaper route
Mow grass
Pickup trash at a drive in theatre
At a small hamburger joint
Assistant to dad when he built A house
I worked in my dad's shop sweeping and such . Mowed lots of yards too.
Shoveled walks, mowed grass and farm work til 16 then worked in Hospital kitchen. Service then Factory. Now time fishing at retired.
Before 16, I was a technical assistant for the computer lab that my piano teacher setup for her students to work on piano and music theory using technology (think early and mid-90’s PCs and some old Commodore 64s and Amigas). It didn’t pay much—I got my piano lessons for free or discounted back then.