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View Full Version : What a way to make a living



Shauna
03-24-2013, 09:53 PM
It's my first day of my first ever job tomorrow. It's only taken a year of unemployment and 4 years of trying to find part-time work to complement university, but I've finally found my way there. It's been a tough ride, not many people like to take a risk on a 22 year old with no work experience. x}

I'll be working for HM Revenue & Customs in the Debt Management & Banking department as an Assistant Officer - Collector. Whatever that is. :3 I'll find out tomorrow! I am mostly looking forward to not being stuck at home by myself all day, but I'm sure once my first pay-cheque comes in that'll be a great addition to my life too.


So guys, what was your first ever job? Were you a teenager? Older? Find it difficult to find yourself work? EDIT: Or just post your work history! That's cool too. xD

Psychotic
03-24-2013, 10:01 PM
I'll be working for HM Revenue & Customs in the Debt Management & Banking department as an Assistant Officer - Collector. Whatever that is. :3 I'll find out tomorrow! Haha holy trout Shauna you literally became my enemy because my job is the actual opposite of this and I regularly deal with folk who do your job. This is a great day.

PRO TIP: Make sure you've made people wait for two hours or so on hold before picking up the phone. That's the HMRC way! :jess:

Shauna
03-24-2013, 10:04 PM
Seriously? xD

Of course, I imagine that my day to day work will be napping at my desk and maybe taking a call if I feel like it.

Psychotic
03-24-2013, 10:06 PM
Dude yes seriously. If I ever encounter a Scottish lady called Shauna I am actually just going to start giggling like a schoogirl! :D Then I'll play hardball with you. :colbert:

I am very pleased for you by the way, it sounds like a damn fine first job! I'd definitely be fascinated to see what goes on over there. I'd be surprised if you will have a lot of time to nap but trust me, the stories you will hear will blow your mind.

Heath
03-24-2013, 10:07 PM
Gosh, if Shauna is your enemy you'd love who I work for :D

My first job was doing a bit of data entry/website work for a family friend's appliance spare parts company. Before that I volunteered with the British Red Cross. First proper job with a real application process was working for Woolworths. Despite my efforts over 12 months I couldn't save it from administration.

Psychotic
03-24-2013, 10:09 PM
Unless it's Wonga or Provident you'll have trouble beating her.

Shauna
03-24-2013, 10:11 PM
First proper job with a real application process was working for Woolworths. Despite my efforts over 12 months I couldn't save it from administration.

:( RIP Sweet Prince


I am very pleased for you by the way, it sounds like a damn fine first job! I'd definitely be fascinated to see what goes on over there. I'd be surprised if you will have a lot of time to nap but trust me, the stories you will hear will blow your mind.

Thanks! :) But yeah, I've heard that it can be crazy.

Jinx
03-24-2013, 10:19 PM
First job ever! Woop. And yeah, even having a crappy job when you're younger is better than having no work experience. There's this guy, Ethan, I know who's...25 now? And he's studying to be a doctor. But he's never had a job. He's gonna have a hard life, let me tell you.

My first job was at McDonald's. I did a bit of everything, but mostly I did customer service. I was so bad ass I could have an order taken and payment handled in less that 20 seconds, yessiree.

Sephex
03-24-2013, 10:21 PM
I was very briefly a bus boy at a wedding reception place right next to a fancy golf course. I dropped a whole tray of champagne glasses and never went back.

Iceglow
03-24-2013, 10:35 PM
My first ever job? Lets see. I held a paper round for a few months as a kid but I hated it so jacked it in, I wasn't the up at 5am type tbh as a kid. I then worked for a local independent computer game store for a few years cash in hand. It was fine but considering there was no real contract with the boss there it was a case of I could earn £40 for a full days work or £40 because he had to leave in a hurry and asked me to step in and watch the store for 2 hours. I was essentially the assistant manager in that place by the time I was 17. In the mean time, I spent a few weeks up in Essex when I stayed at my brothers putting bikes together at a cycle shop because it was the Christmas orders for some extra money. I also began working with a friend on our own "business venture" we'd repair PS2 consoles for £30 a pop (far cheaper than the £75 Sony asked for) splitting that income between us and my bosses store since he'd let us use the shop to do it all in. Was a good earner because when you pop a PS2 open the most common fixes take no cost to repair and a maximum of 15 minutes, 2 consoles at a time, 15 mins a console - 10 each on the repair. Sometimes we'd earn up to £100 apiece for repairing them, plus if we done any alone/on our own time/property we'd keep the full wage.

My first official contracted, income declared job would be Sainsbury's where I worked as a general merchandise (read; dogsbody) assistant. Essentially my department was things like; furniture/electricals/clothing/books/dvds/cds/cookware and so forth. However being nothing on my department was perishable, we'd often be seconded over to other departments, most notably checkouts. I also ended up spending a lot of time on beers wines and spirits, fresh food and produce (fruit and veg) worst job in the world was being asked to put the flowers display up in winter when I wasn't on my anti-histamines. It was during this job I found the time to work as a writer for Serial Dreamers as though I worked some 30 hours a week officially I was still part-time and my shifts would be Sat - Tues only.

After leaving there, it was HMV, simultaneously balancing that and Pizza Hut to make ends meet at the time I started. After a while though I solely worked for HMV since I managed to get full time work. I quit there and frankly in hindsight it was the luckiest escape ever, that company is in dire straits and genuinely whilst I was one of their best sales staff there was and still is so much that company does wrong that it could do so right I feel I had no other choice.

Currently I'm now working as an inbound customer services tech support. I answer calls where customers are having trouble streaming stuff. Now if I can fix the problem this is great and I get lots of thanks, unfortunately when it's a customers equipment/own fault you tend to get a lot of abuse. I'm a pretty open person and I will outright state to a customer that they called me as they needed help, if they continue to be rude or aggressive towards me, I will not help them. Most of the time that shuts them up, they're calling a premium rate number, more often than not from their mobile and get abusive when told to do stuff they need. It's like half these customers think I'm sitting there with a magic button in their acct waiting for their call to go "Oh don't worry sir, even though you're receiving a line speed of 300kbps I'm just going to press this button and allow you to stream regardless" rather than tell them the truth of; "the minimum speed you need is 2.4mbps, call your isp because clearly there is a problem with your line speed at this time."

Araciel
03-24-2013, 10:44 PM
16- kitchen staff at a summer camp for young athletes. It was a sweet gig - six hrs a day four days a week, free run of camp facilities and room and board... End of the summer pay check was like a thousand dollars.

Denmark
03-24-2013, 10:52 PM
my first honest-to-goodness real life job was as a busboy the summer between high school and college. the restaurant was pretty fancy/expensive, and we got a portion of the tips, so it was good money.

the next summer i had my next job working at a Dunkin' Donuts central manufacturing location, or, as i put it, the donut factory. made/sorted donuts for 50+ stores which got sent out by truck at the end of the night (1-2 AM). 40 hours a week, so made a lot of money (for a 19 year old kid living at home). also still managed to have somewhat of a social life that summer despite working nights.

then nothing until grad school. i worked as a tutor and a grader for undergrad courses. i enjoyed the tutoring; grading is just busywork but still fairly easy.

the summer between my grad years i had an internship working for a start-up company writing code. it wasn't my ideal job, but it was some good work experience and my former boss recommended me to another company in the same building, where hopefully i'll be getting an offer this week. fingers are crossed.

before this most recent job prospect i'd been out of work/school for almost a year, living with my parents. i'm definitely ready to move on with my life.

edit: oh this wasn't post your job history? fuck it.

Night Fury
03-24-2013, 11:01 PM
I did a paper round from the age of 14-16

I then worked a summer on an ice cream van and a small cafe in a park. I HATED ice creaming, omg. People were so rude. We'd be packing up to go and like... people just didn't get it. So we'd have to make them an ice cream, and then more people would come along. Also, the ice cream machine once like fucking exploded on me and I was covered in ice cream when there was a queue! :( It actually wasn't that bad of a job really, just very long hours that were sometimes boring, and because it was cash in hand I got underpaid. But I got a free lunch and free ice cream :) and I only did it for like 9 weeks or so and I was able to do all kinds of cool stuff that summer with the money.

Then I got a job at Primark and I'm still there, now a Supervisor. I actually kind of like it, as a Supervisor I get to just do whatever I want and I like to make it as fun for my staff as I can, I think I run my department really well without having to be a total bitch to my staff which is always awesome.

Shorty
03-24-2013, 11:07 PM
I was a little sixteen year old carhop at Sonic.

No, I did not wear skates.

Shiny
03-24-2013, 11:23 PM
My first ever job was when I was fifteen or sixteen and I filmed Board of Education meetings. It was entirely as boring as it sounds. There was only one time it was exciting and that's when the theater and ROTC groups started arguing with the Board over all the school's expenses being spent on the Football turf. I've never had a job unrelated to media with exception of babysitting, which I don't actually count because it was all family.

Parker
03-24-2013, 11:31 PM
I worked in a tinsel factory for a few weeks.

Then I worked in a supermarket. I still work there but only as a seasonal colleague.

The Summoner of Leviathan
03-24-2013, 11:34 PM
My first paid work experience was "volunteering" on weekends at the local ski-doo club. Basically, I sold passes and checked that people had their passes for the trails. It was a 10 hour day, each day. I got 50$ at the end of the weekend. So I spent the winter saving up and eventually got myself a PS2.

After that, my first official, but part-time job was tutoring. I was a tutor for my school in math and science. I also did private tutoring too. That was during my last year of high school.

Between high school and university, I worked the summer at the local community centre. I basically mowed the law, fixed things, and painted. Occasionally helped with the daycare program too. I repeated that job the following summer between my 1st and 2nd year of university.

My first "real" job was at an Irish pub/bar as a dishwasher (for like a month), though I quickly became a cook. Worked there for 3 years. After that is my current job, a cooking position but at a high-end restaurant. Been there for almost 3 years now. I have mixed feelings about the industry. Kinda want to explore other job interests but right now it works with my university schedule. :/

XxSephirothxX
03-24-2013, 11:52 PM
My first real job was working at the local library my senior year of high school; I volunteered there a few times during the summer prior and got a part-time job offer pretty quick. It was a great job--I liked the small group of coworkers, it was super easy, and I was good at sitting behind a computer and checking books in and out! I spent a lot of time talking to rubah on the computer while I was at that job. I worked there for a year before I went off to college.

About six months later, the boss of the library was busted for having embezzled tens of thousands of dollars, if not more. He was the nicest guy, so it was a total shock. To this day I'm not sure how much he was stealing, versus how much he was just fuzzing the numbers on the books. He'd regularly use library money to buy us lunch, and stuff like that, and I'm guessing he borrowed here and there and then whoops, he'd stolen a shitload of money from the government.

Bunny
03-25-2013, 12:21 AM
When I was 14, I split my time working at a nursery and a landscaping company. The pay was shit, the hours were shit, and my boss was shit. Oh, and they were both owned by my uncle.

Leeza
03-25-2013, 02:26 AM
The summers of my teenage years were spent picking raspberries, strawberries, beans, etc. for the local canneries. Those were fun times. :) My first real job was as a busgirl for the best restaurant in town at the time. I did this only for a few months and then went on to more school :cat:

Faris
03-25-2013, 03:52 AM
My first job was as a deli clerk shortly before my 17th birthday. I was interviewed and hired maybe a few days after I dropped off my resume.

4 years later -a semester away from graduating with my second diploma- I started to look for something more career related. At first I was going to volunteer for the Sales Pros branch in the area but I straight up told them that I wasn't the person suited for what they needed and recommended someone else. While at one of their breakfast sessions, I met my current boss who pretty much hired me on the spot. At my office job I do the bookkeeping, some marketing, office administration... pretty much a little bit of everything part time.

10 months later, only working 16 hours a week and out of school for 5 months it was time to get out of the house more! I dropped my resume off at a few places, had an interview and the only reason why I didn't get the job was because head office wasn't going to give hours for training. No luck finding another job until February. Got a call back for an interview from a jewelry store and I was hired the next week.

Overall, I think I've been fairly lucky with finding work and I can't even fathom how I talk my way into jobs. Currently, I'm still trying to figure out what career direction is ideal for me. Right now I'm testing the waters for sales-based jobs.

Quindiana Jones
03-25-2013, 05:32 AM
I worked at Burton Menswear for... three years, I think? Then I was unemployed for two years of university. Then I moved to China to become an English teacher! :D

NorthernChaosGod
03-25-2013, 07:55 AM
I worked as a bagger for Vons when I was 16. It kind of sucked, but I was young and would probably have hated anything.

Rye
03-25-2013, 12:00 PM
I worked as a cashier at TJ Maxx when I was 16, and then I went on to do a similar job at Gamestop. Both were pretty annoying and stressful, but looking back I can see why it was important that I did it. Afterward I worked part-time for a few years as an order entry troubleshooter during college.

I work in a marketing firm as a copywriter now, particularly in search engine optimization.

Pheesh
03-25-2013, 12:13 PM
Graphic design for a website development company, I hated it. At least with my current job I get paid better, don't have to deal with insane requests and get a great tan.

Rantz
03-25-2013, 12:41 PM
Ha. HMRC are my enemies also, although at least they're better than the German equivalent. I'm not gonna call you, though. I'll just curse your name under my breath while trying to make sense of your ridiculous documentation. :D

My first job... I guess that'd depend on what you'd define as a job, but my first real job was as a web developer. Pretty much the same as I am now, except my current company has a much better grasp on routines and business in general.

Pumpkin
03-25-2013, 04:17 PM
My first, second, and third jobs were at Subway.

Unbreakable Will
03-25-2013, 04:55 PM
Alright here goes;


Engineering Intern with my stepfathers company
Dollar Tree clerk
Quiznos sandwich maker
Farmhand (hay fields)
Farmhand (cattle and roof repair)
Dishwasher for a Korean-American restaurant, my bosses were the nicest people I've ever met and actually cried when I moved
Walgreens employee, photo and clerk
Cici's Pizza, pizza cutter and customer service rep
Leaf Chronicle (newspaper) product coordinator
Electrolux line worker, I quit this job so fast... I was stuck in wool insulation and was allergic to the wool and my boss refused to move me. Asshat.
Walmart employee
And hopefully I will be a U.S. Navy Intel officer or med school student soon :D


Lots of jobs.

Shauna
03-25-2013, 05:28 PM
Seems I have made a few enemies on EoFF this day. x3

Vasher
03-25-2013, 06:57 PM
When I was 8 I started a lawn service. Me and a buddy would walk the neighborhood with my dads mower/hedge trimmer/etc.

I don't think working for my dad counts.

My first paycheck came from the local roller skating rink when I was 16. They had enough rink guards at the time, so I started in the snack bar. The lead manager was in her early 20's. She insisted that they didn't have shirts my size and none in the appropriate color. I wore a medium (tight), hot pink, collared shirt the entire time I worked there. She even made me a name tag with the character "Hot Stuff" (from the Casper comics) on it (I think I still have it).

escobert
03-26-2013, 12:22 AM
I've had about 42985405724 jobs.

My first was when I was 13 or 14 washing dishes illegally since I wasn't old enough to legally work!

Bubba
03-26-2013, 05:17 PM
I've had about 42985405724 jobs.

I'm not sure this is possible. That would mean you've had a new job every single second for just over 1363 years.

Like Miss Boobs, my first job was a floor manager at Macdonalds. The free meals were awesome.

Old Manus
03-26-2013, 05:49 PM
Of course, I imagine that my day to day work will be napping at my desk and maybe taking a call if I feel like it.I also deal with the public sector fairly often. I am yet to be convinced that this is not all that they do (apart from coming up with increasingly dumb reasons not to upgrade from using IE6).

I spent my younger days working for the family business (probably off the books, take that Shauna and your silly HMRC cronies!). I still do, but just on a consulting "here's 30 quid fix the servers" basis.

Pike
03-28-2013, 01:11 PM
My first job was working for my dad when I was about 16; he is a house painter and I'd show up and do prep work.

When I was about 17/18 I got a job at a local motel as a housekeeper. It sucked.

That was a long time ago and ever since then I've been in retail, which also sucked until very recently. The overnight stocking aspect of retail is CONSIDERABLY more tolerable than the customer service part of it.

I also do writing as side income.

Flaming Ice
03-28-2013, 04:05 PM
First was at some restaurant, got fired because all I had was my food handler's certificate not any "real" cooking experience (it was someone my sister knew so the person just took me in). I think I was 17 then (just finished school).


After that I worked at a catering place ......catering is so nice because you don't have to make specific things for individual people, nor do you have to rush as much .:)

Cloudane
03-28-2013, 04:23 PM
It's my first day of my first ever job tomorrow.

Congratulatio-


I'll be working for HM Revenue & Customs {as a} Collector

SCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM! :p

To be fair, HMRC just resolved a problem for me so that I don't owe them something that I didn't owe them, so woo

Denmark
03-28-2013, 05:11 PM
The overnight stocking aspect of retail is CONSIDERABLY more tolerable than the customer service part of it.

i would say, and you would probably agree, that this is because of the people. or rather, the lack thereof.

i just got a job writing server-side code for a (growing) start-up company. it'll be my first REAL real job. i am excite

Pike
03-29-2013, 09:23 AM
The overnight stocking aspect of retail is CONSIDERABLY more tolerable than the customer service part of it.

i would say, and you would probably agree, that this is because of the people. or rather, the lack thereof.

It is, yes. Dropping everything and getting a job where no people were involved was the best thing I ever did, to be honest.

Also the job itself is really relaxing.

Loony BoB
03-29-2013, 09:48 AM
Congrats on your job, Shauna!

My first job was working four hours a week at a timber yard, sometimes with more time after school if I felt like it (it was directly opposite my high school). I would clean up the yard, moving wood about, palletising wood, sweeping up the warehouse, etc. It was actually a pretty good job all told. There's something about doing labour work... it's just nice. Anyway, it was miserable weather on occasions and I'd have to move around sixty 6m long (yes) 4" by 6" (yes) planks of wood from one end of a timber yard to another, and when those things are soaked through they weigh about three times as much as normal. Needless to say, it built up my strength very, very quickly. I never gained much muscle visibly (I seem to be stuck this way), but people who would easily beat me in arm wrestling before I worked there would get easily beaten by me after a good few months of that place.

Burtsplurt
03-29-2013, 04:54 PM
I worked as a trolley pusher for Safeway from 1998-2000. I quite liked it in the summer, but it wasn't so much fun pushing trolleys around in the rain and cold. Most of the time it wasn't that busy, so I used to sit on the trolleys until they got all Nazi and put a camera that looked directly onto them. They trained me up to work on the checkouts as well, but I hated that. I totally understand why most checkout operators look like they just want to end it all.