Question of the Week: What was your first job?

I’ll start! My first job was working concessions at a waterpark. It involved a lot of screaming kids and taught me a lot of patience. I only worked there for the summer 😅

I worked at a chocolate shop when I was in high school but was quickly moved from putting together the chocolate boxes to front of house because I was so bad at tying ribbons 🤣 I taught a lot of piano lessons and worked at summer camps too!

Unpacking returned cigarettes inside the factory.

I think I was 16 at the time. It was supposed to be the summer job of my sister, but she didn't want it after all. So I took her place. 

It was fun. Rejected cigarettes were returned to the factory from all over Europe, and we processed them. We separated the cigarettes and the packaging, and we handed in the seals.

There were free cigarettes during the breaks (but I didn't smoke at that time, and never started). At the exit, before you were allowed to go home, you were searched, as you were not allowed to take anything outside the factory.

The best part was the tour of the factory that we got at a quiet moment.

It is hard to believe now that young people were allowed to handle cigarettes, and were allowed to smoke during their breaks.

My first job, when I was 15, was cleaning the local hardware store over the Easter break. Together with a couple of other kids we basically went from one end of the store to the other, cleaning everything (and boy was it dirty, they only did a really rigourous cleaning once a year).

For a day and a half I was in the paint department:

• Take all of the cans of paint off a shelf
• Clean them
• Clean the shelves
• Put the cans of paint back in the same order (expiry dates)

Higher shelves had me going up and down a kitchen ladder with a few cans of paint at a time… that was leg day 😅

Then for years I worked saturdays and school holidays at a company that repaired shipping containers (my dad worked there too). Lots of different things I got to do there, but mostly washing those containers on the inside.

I worked on a production line in a factory making electric motors when i was 16 (and for several summers beyond that).

A process not too dissimilar from an FME workspace. Instead of transformers there were people, doing just one type of thing to the items passing down the line, sometimes things would branch off, others were like blocking transformers where embryonic motors would be loaded onto a tray and processed in chunks of e.g. 100, motors would get tested and only those that pass made it through to the final stage. Sometimes you had runs that would build 10,000 motors, sometimes just 200.

In high school, I “worked” for my dad in the summers building and painting fences and sheds, and mowing the lawn on our farm. 🐄

In university, my first “real” job was a retail job in a running shoe store! I got lots of free shoes and gear, which was pretty awesome. 🏃🏼

Neither really relate to my job today - except I led announcements and speeches for a run club, so maybe that relates to delivering live training… 💻

My first job was pretty fun and I still miss it. 

I joined a Leblanc just out of High School and became a Steel Rigger.

I toured the Atlantic Provinces building and scaling telecommunication towers from the ground up to 600’.  Back in those days we free climbed and tied off only when stationary.  It was fun and rewarding work and very physical.  My grip and forearm strength have never been so strong since. 

I’ve often wanted to get into rock climbing for some of the same reasons but never have.  Still not too late (I ponder). 

The best part of the job was being so high up and being able to imagine flying high over everything.  The views were stunning from sunsets to sunrises… from whale watching to caribou spotting… I have a lot of found memories of that job… some we scary too.

Thanks for the provoking the memories of my first job with this question.

I was a surveyor assistant helping my dad at a big surveying company (everything was big in the USSR) when I was 15. The very first thing I did on my first day, when we came to an area for surveying, was step onto a muddy surface that wasn’t as hard as it looked — and I drowned my knee-high rubber boots. They got stuck so hard that it was impossible to pull them out. I earned enough money to buy lots of carbonated drinks, fruit, and sweet stuff for myself and all my friends during my three-week trip to Ukraine that summer.

My mum was a teacher and during the school holidays I would help out the school caretaker doing all sorts of work:

• Cleaning
• Light demolition
• Gardening
• Moving furniture

Towards the end of school and in to university I got a job at McDonalds. I did a bit of everything there too!

• Front of house
• Kitchen
• McCafe (back then McCafe was it’s own ‘service area’ - not a product line like it is now)
• Maintenance
• Deliveries

My first job in high school was dressing up as a mascot for a mattress company. I got to spend my Saturdays dancing around in a sheep costume on a street corner. I’m not sure I’ve been able to transfer those skills professionally but it was a lot of fun at the time. 

A friend of mine convinced me to take a job with her at a children’s restaurant / arcade / indoor jungle gym, and somehow they deemed me to be an ideal candidate for the Birthday Ambassador role! It was like putting on a live stage play 3-4 times per weekend day, including being the “voice” of our dinosaur mascot. I did take quite a few Drama classes in highschool, so I was a little bit prepared at least. Maybe not prepared for the chaos, but the voiceovers I could do!

I was only there for a short while before moving on to a job working at a garden center (much more my speed!), but I feel like my time at that restaurant really improved my patience and ability to just roll with the punches (or kicks or screams). Can’t complain about the access to pizza, either.

I grew up in small mining town on Haida Gwaii in British Columbia, and at 12, I became a projectionist for the Saturday matinee movies. I would set up the first two reels on the 16mm projectors, then let the kids in and collect their 25 cent fare. Apart from switching the reels during the movie and splicing any breaks with scotch tape, I was just getting paid to watch along with everybody else.

The best part was when one of the night projectionists was sick - I would sub in and get to watch more mature movies.

My first job was as a hockey referee for my provincial minor hockey league when I was about 13/14! The pay wasn’t great, but I always got a free poutine from the canteen with every game I worked (quite possibly the most Canadian answer ever 😅)

Evening newspaper delivery for me. Did it after school a few days a week.   

I grew up in Vancouver BC, where many movies and TV shows are filmed. My first job was at 15, working as an extra (background actor) in TV and film. I went to a few auditions as well, never landed an acting role but it was a fun experience! 
After that, I worked in retail and restaurants both in front of house (as a host) and in the kitchen (as a line cook).

I worked at one of the last Quiznos in Newfoundland, Canada. I'd definitely open a new box hoping the delivery people had been a bit chaotic with the shipment. 😋

No cookies wasted on my watch!! 😤

I’d like to think it helped me come out of my shell and connect with people. I loved meeting new customers and conversing with the regulars