First job experiences

[acatfrommars]

What was your first job, and what was your first day like on the job?

The first place I worked officially was McDonalds and I knew a lot of people there from high school so it was pretty chill. Just made fries for 4 hours then went home. haha

 

[Bay]

My first job was working in my university dorm's cafeteria. My first shift was cleaning/washing dishes. In there I actually pretty much put the dirty dishes in a machine and it does all the washing. However once breakfast/lunch/dinner is finished the workers had to clean the dish room and it can get messy.

 

[Margot]

I worked 3 days a week at a restaurant a long time family friend of mine owned in the city. I only worked like 4-5 hour shifts, it was a fun restaurant with a great bar and I enjoyed the people that I worked with. I was a hostess and I mostly worked dinner rush on their busiest days, but every once in a while when it quieted down, the bus boy and I would play tic tac toe or hangman on my reservations sheet.

I also got to take home dinner which was a nice perk. The only downside was that I was under 21 and married dudes kept trying to buy me drinks. Not that my age was the only problem with that scenario. It was a great first job, though. I would have kept working for them once my summer break started, but they eventually closed down shop.

 

[Nick]

I worked at CVS in high school.

Spent my time smelling candles and putting on shades in the back.

 

[acatfrommars]

I worked at CVS in high school.

Spent my time smelling candles and putting on shades in the back.

I've thought of working there as a pharm-tech but heard it's awful. :c

 

[Loki]

My first job was working as a student intern at a radio station, and about a week before my first day of work, a huge forest fire engulfed my state and so my entire town was evacuated for about two weeks. By the time everything was resolved and we settled on a new first day of work, my bosses (who hadn't heeded the evacuation orders in order to continue reporting on the news), were so busy that they didn't have any time for me, and so they just sat me in the radio control room with three computer monitors and had me go through like 4 years of backlog filing/labelling, and I spent the whole first day listening to horrible old-people-music and typing dates and radio station jargon that I barely understood while they flew in and out of the office to do on-site live reporting....

Thankfully the job got more interesting after all the hubbub died down, and I was able to take full advantage of the outpouring of edible thanks that the town sent to the radio station for keeping everyone up to date with the fire. All the free cookies B)

 

[NinjaRaichu]

My first job was doing an admin apprenticeship with the local council (I did admin with them before that but technically that was training and not a job)

It was pretty decent, worked with good people and got a lot of experience with that type of work and it really helped me in communicating with others (I was extremely shy when I started). If I hadn't got that job I wouldn't be half as confident in my abilities as I am now.

The only thing I hated was the qualification you had to do for the apprenticeship because i'm really bad at stuff like that.

 

[killer-curry]

My first job was a part time plastic delivery job during secondary school. We deliver plastic stuff like bags and containers. From there I learned lots of types of plastics (lol) and the people were nice too. They gave me lunch for free hahahah.

The van we used was old and kinda cranky. But my college just stepped the gas pedal very hard every time. He really don't care who the freak was at front.

Really enjoyed the job till my final term test came. I thought I could continue the job but they got a better worker. Sad.

Least now I work at Chinese medical shop which is quite nice though.

 

[Alex]

My first job was as a food runner/bus boy for a busy concert-oriented restaurant. The kitchen was upstairs in order to make room for the seating area and stage. So I had to take big platters of up to 7 dishes down two flights of stairs during the service hours. Service was supposed to be a maximum of three hours, though, so it wasn't too awful. The earliest dinner was at 5:30 and the show always started at 8:30, at which point the kitchen was closed and only deserts would make it out.

Thinking about this reminded me of a funny story: the kitchen expediter had a bell (the type you see at a service desk to ring when you want help) to ring when she needed a runner to come get food. A coworker of mine, I guess, thought it'd be funny to hide the bell. In hindsight, maybe he thought it was degrading to be rung at. Not sure what he thought would happen, but I was basically rushed the next day to go find and buy a bell to replace the missing one, because it was apparently super important. I ran into that same coworker that hid the bell while I was rushing to find a replacement. He was nice enough to lend me his bike for me to go buy a new one.

Man, those were some nice days. Easy work, fun people, summer time. My boss really hated me though, lol.

 

[blue]

My first job was working at a busy shop, and I can honestly say I hated it. To make things worse it was around Christmas time, so you can only imagine how busy it got at peak times. Compared to the likes of office jobs which I've also worked, I wouldn't go back to retail work unless it was absolutely necessary for my income or whatever.

 

[SaniOKh]

I was a college intern at a software company, I enjoyed it a lot, and then they hired me as soon as I got my Master's degree. So when I went back there as a full-fledged employee, a software engineer, it was as if I never left, so... my first day was spent learning everything about a challenging project and working with people I already knew and liked. All in all, it was great.

If I consider college internships... well, it was still good. I was making an intranet website to help manage all the documentation in a poison control center. The people were nice, I spent the morning learning about what they needed of me, and the afternoon was just me coding, left to my own devices and no distractions.

 

[Flowerchild]

All of you guys and your "my first job was", meanwhile my current job is my first job. I work in a grocery store as a stocking clerk.
On the same day I went in for my interview, a few hours later I was biking and had the worst crash of my life. Broke my hand, huge cut across my face, etc. I was super scared that my boss would be mad because now my first shift had to be pushed back several weeks. Thankfully he was actually super chill and supportive and I healed pretty quick.

On a related note, a while ago I wrote a blog post about some common complains I have with grocery store customers.

 

[Nolafus]

All of you guys and your "my first job was", meanwhile my current job is my first job.

Same here!

I work as a barista in my local grocery store. I originally applied for freight crew, basically stocking the shelves at night, but they filled that position. Apparently I made a good impression, since they offered me a job in the coffee department instead, and here I am almost two years later. It's a lot of fun, I have some of the best coworkers I could have asked for, and although my social anxiety does stress me out more than it should, I like going in almost every day.

Plus you get great stories like the time someone wanted a hot milkshake, and the time I asked if someone wanted a lid and they said no, but they wanted a top instead.

 

[GatAttack]

My first job was as a cashier at this burger place a town over. It was a good job, and they were super flexible schedule-wise, and I ended up working there for about two years. Even to this day, when I'm home for the winter/summer, I occasionally take shifts there when I'm not working and they need some extra help.

 

[Lucid]

I had a dishwashing job at a diner when I was 15. It sucked ass. I had the worst hours and I made below minimum wage.

 

[Somewhere_]

Pretty bad. I was a leader at a summer camp, and my group was so bad I lost my voice by the 3rd day. And even worse, we found out at the last minute the position wasnt paid (it had been in previous years), so I was there for a week with no pay losing my voice.

Im going to try and get a job this summer. This time it will be paid.

 

[dad]

my current job is my first job and it's pretty great. i've been working at the local movie theater for three months and the only thing that sucks is having to work holidays (and minimum wage but what can ya do). my favorite thing is getting to see any movie, any number of times for free. we're having an employee-only showing of deadpool tomorrow and i'm pretty excited.

 

[Sheep]

I worked as an intern at a tax firm when I was in my senior year of high school at 17. Didn't learn a thing and what I mostly did was sit around alphabetizing oceans of files and occasionally scanning/printing things. Also staring at the wall for what felt like eternity until it was time to go home.

Good times. They were actually hiring recently but it was too late by the time I noticed. ]];

 

[Elysieum]

I worked at a retail clothing store in a mall when I was 18. It was a pretty negative experience overall. The fact that I was pretty much forced into it by my father didn't help. Long hours and negligible money, punctuated by the odd difficult customer (usually that stereotypical soccer mom who wanted to know why I did not personally make sure the particular garment she had in mind was in stock). The fact that I joined ship right before holiday season provided an added layer of hellish frenzy.

During my first week of working there, our staff break area and restrooms became off-limits because someone had smeared feces all over the inside of one of the stalls. I wish I was making that up.

All in all, the whole thing resembled more of a mad cattle drive than a well-functioning department store.

 

[Bounsweet]

I worked in a candy shop in a mall. It was pretty lowkey as far as customer service and retail goes. My co-workers were awesome and fun - mostly other college kids, the hours were decent, the work was easy; I kinda regret not being mature enough at the time to realize I had a good deal going on, but I quit because it took up too much of my free time since I was in college as well at the time, and the customers were starting to get pretty crappy since holiday shopping started soon after I started.

Oh well, live and learn! It was a good first experience working though, no regrets.