Ask Lemmy

I started writing and selling software at the age of 13.

I did some work at construction sites and worked at a place that imports plants and flowers. Just few weeks during the summer.

I worked making sandwiches and burritos. I never had a burrito or understood anything beyond a baloney sandwich. So this was a great experience is learning sauces and pickles.

My more fulfilling job was helping at an after school program. It set me on the path of being a teacher. Which I then quit and became a office monkey because I got paid way better.

Software dev, started at nearly-15.

It was the mid-90s and I knew how to press buttons on the computer, so I worked besides school and all that. Actually made a decent hourly salary, I think I was allowed to do up to 10 hours a week.

I worked at a truck wash. I would wash tractor trailers with a power washer, scrub the the tractors with a regular old wash mitt for a car and wash trailers with a brush of similar size as at a coin op car wash except with a handle l long enough to reach the top of the trailer while standing on the ground.

A group of 5 people would wash an entire truck in 15 to 20 minutes. My shift during school started on a Friday at around 5pm and would run till 11pm but usually ended up being midnight. Saturday was 3 till 11pm but again we were generally working till midnight and Sunday varried but we stopped accepting new trucks at 4pm. During the summer my shift started at 3pm and could run till 3am even though we closed at 11pm. There were many times we had 10 trucks in line at 11pm with two trucks in the wash bays during the summer and were turning new trucks away and leaving a couple parked till the morning to get washed.

During slower times we would take in degreaser jobs where we would use a pressure steamer to remove the grease from the entire truck so it could go in for some major work and the mechanic shop workers didn't have to clean it off of deal with it. Degreasing trucks sucks....

Waitress at 14 in my family's restaurant. Worked for dry cleaners at 17.

• bailing hay/straw in the summer for a neighbor from
• working at a fast food place
• working in retail at a farm store
• working at a movie theater

All before I turned 18 starting at 13. At first for the money, then to be out of a tough home situation as much as possible.

Paper route at 10 years old until I was 14 or so. I bought a PS2 and my first computer with that money.

Then I worked part time at a pizza joint until I was 19, just as a cook. I sometimes did opening shifts on weekends but not often. By Grade 11 / 17 years old I only attended high school until lunch break for my last two years there (I exploited a few specific classes, had 52 out of 100 credits in my first year alone) and then started work by noon and working until 7pm. A lot of my friends worked there too so they'd do 4pm - 7pm after school, just the supper rush.

Lived in a place just rural enough to not have any businesses other than a tiny supermarket, and just urban enough to not really have many orchards, much less farms. Typical shitty planning that required everyone to have a vehicle to get anywhere important. So before I got a car it was pretty much shovelling snow in the winter and mowing lawns in the summer.

I worked in a local butchers shop when I was 13, for an hour after school every day. I fucking hated it. I had to clean the knives and cutting boards, then sweep up. On Saturdays I had to do all that, plus disassemble and clean this big mincing machine. I got shit money. That was 35 years ago and I can still smell it.🤣

Got a job at 16 selling games in the mall at Software Etc. I loved that job.

babysitting, library page, the high school bookstore, janitorial off season help. I specifically tried to avoid fast food which was the easiest to get. In the aughts as an adult I was talking to an undergrad and said something about. You know a typical high school job or teenage job or such. He was like what. I was like you know the minimum wage work that is easy to get. He was like no those jobs are not easy to get and he was not able to work a job all through high school. What a wake up call that was for me on how things were going. That whole period in the aughts was when I realized we just were not trying with the environment and the economy was just rediculous, and more and more violence was ruling things.

I did back in the 70’s. I worked at Firestone tires after school and weekends for about 5 years. I changed tires (swapped old for new) and did on car wheel balancing. Towards the end I would fill in for peops who were sick etc at different locations. Had a blast.

I worked in a gourmet bakery/cellar/sushi restaurant, it was in probaly the most expensive mall in the continent, i was 15. The only part i liked was that sometimes the expensive products got close to the date of sale so they were put into the staff break room, so i got to eat some really good cheese, yogurts and exotic fruits for free, made me forget the staff break room was probaly inspired by the trenches of WWI.

Once I was 13 and I got my work permit, I changed busses after school and went to my dad's computer store after work. Learned how to build PCs back when Intel's 286 recently came out.

With computers these days a kid would be lucky to get a retail job at a Best Buy.

Started a web dev side hustle with some friends, back around 98 or so. We were dumb and didn't charge enough, but we were still making 3x what fast food roles were paying at the time so we thought we were smart.

worked at Dunkin donuts making coffee and whatnot for people when I was 16. kinda insane to be as young as I am and able to say "I made the federal minimum wage of $7.25 at my first job" but it paid enough to cover (almost) all the weed I could smoke so I was happy 😁

Shoe sales at a long gone sports and adventure store called GI Joes

After School and Camp Counselor at 17. I did not pay taxes as I was part of a program for underaged kids (I also barely made money). Legally the place I worked at could not hire anyone under 18, so they would hire companies that were set up to do so.

I went to college from 11-15. When I graduated my parents gave me a bit of time then said that I had the choice of getting a job or going back to school.

I started working at a convenience store. So far it's worked out for me but realistically I should have kept going.

14, grocery store stocker. My boss still works there, pretty awkward when I see him. He's been having the same day for 26 years and I've been off adventuring. He's only about 5 years older than me, seemed like a lot at the time.

Mowed lawns a few times at 12 and then got a job at 14 to glue boxes together in a lottle factory. Both were paid under the table work. I boight a lot of video games.

No regrets.

My "I was 18 and stupid" job was back of the house at a southern style fried chicken resturant in the heart of the american bible belt. While Hate Chicken will close on sundays and Colonel Fried does not give a shit, my franchise did the worst possible sale on sundays. If you came in with a local church bulletin postmarked for that day, we took 10% off your order. Now you would think this would be good for business and you are unfortunatly correct.

The problem was that everyone else that worked there was attending said services except for ~4 of us. I worked back of the house behind hot friers and ovens most, if not all, sunday mornings. The amount dead foul that has passed my hands, its an actual work of god that im not a vegitarian.