First Jobs
Remember your first job?
Like many people, I started working as a teenager. Jobs were hard to come by in our African city, so I cleaned teachers’ houses on Saturdays. Each week as my friends slept in, I would wake up early, walk a couple miles, work a couple hours and walk back.
My first summer job was working in my dad’s office typing documents in a language I didn’t speak. That was an interesting challenge.
Then came college in the U.S. All four years, I worked on the maintenance department. During the year, I swept stairwells and cleaned bathrooms. Summers I lived in a dorm and worked on a cleaning crew. We cleaned each student room one at a time, working our way through all the buildings, and cleaned them again as each summer camp departed. Believe it or not, we had a lot of fun together on our crew! (Mark, Jackie, Rich, I still remember our crazy antics… More about that another time.)
I also worked in the dish room, did administrative work for the social work department, in-home care for a professor’s elderly mother, and made pizzas and waitressed at the Italian restaurant near the college.
You may have noticed that many of my jobs were not glamorous. They weren’t glamorous, and they weren’t high-paying, but I sure learned a lot! Such as how to operate a floor buffer–you never know when that might come in handy! No seriously:
- I learned to be disciplined and hard-working.
- I learned you can make almost any job fun.
- I learned the value of teamwork and camaraderie.
- I learned to appreciate good role models, supervisors, and training, because they were not universal from job to job.
What do you remember about your first jobs? What did you learn? As HR people, how can we apply those lessons as we hire young folks today?
Photo by Robert S. Donovan
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My first gig was working for my parents. I’ve mentioned it before on UpstartHR. It was tough, dirty work, but it taught me more about life than most of my friends have found out yet.
http://upstarthr.com/my-parents-had-it-right/
.-= Ben Eubanks´s last blog ..Just what is RSS really? =-.
My first job was a summer job when I was 16. I was a locker room attendant and cashier at the municipal swimming pools (one indoor and one outdoor). It’s interesting to go back such a long way and think about what I learned:
Business income can vary depending on market circumstances.
Customers need to be satisfied, but also protected from themselves.
The people you work with are your family, which means there will be good and bad. Love them all and get along.
There is always something that can be improved. Help do so.
If I work hard and set the right goal, I can advance (I took some classes and got my certificate to teach swimming, becoming an instructor and lifeguard).
Nice post, Krista.
My first Job was for Holiday Inn. I was a Hostess for the restaurant. I learned many lessons on discipline,hard work, and teamwork. Customer Service was Priority number one.
Everyone starts somewhere. I think as HR professionals, We need to go beck to the “basics” and keep it real.
Cheers!
@Ben, your parents did you a favor by having you work in their business, that’s for sure. Do they have any idea how fabulous you are?
@Joan, thanks for your comments.Those are some deep, significant lessons you learned at a young age!
@Shennee, I can just see you at Holiday Inn!
Those first few jobs are powerful. Almost like one’s first kiss or first true love.
Amazing how the lessons stay with us.
My first job was when I was 16 working in a dying mall in a dying small town where my dad has his office, I think he maybe got me that job. In a greeting card/balloon/toy store type place. This job challenged my use of tight spaces cause it was more of a kiosk than store. It also taught me that you can’t always just do what you want when you want.
Then I went to be getting paid under-the-counter at a mall food court type place where they told me to serve caffeinated coffee to everyone who wanted decaf. The guy was such a jerk but how can you pass up $5/hr and no taxes being taken out. I finally just went and bought decaf instant coffee to serve people, it upsets me to lie.
I’ve worked in food service, retail, dishwasher, front desks, oh and lets not forget the donut shop. That place we would give the day old donuts to bear hunters instead of homeless shelters. It drove me nuts, so did the small little cuts I get on my hands from shelling 12 dozen hard boiled eggs for egg salad. Ugh.
The donut shop led me to the first job I actually loved. Probably the most formative and rewarding. After slinging donuts to truckdrivers at 6 in the morning every Saturday you start looking for something better. That’s when I started working in my mom’s agency serving three guys with developmental disabilities in their homes every other weekend. At first it was really hard not knowing if I was doing the right thing. The overwhelming feeling that if one of these guys walks into traffic that’s my fault and the will surely die while in my care. But over time, as I got to know Paul, Rich and Buzz we became friends. I earned their respect and they stopped pretending they didn’t know how to load the dishwasher or trying to let stay up for the late late show. They earned my respect by teaching me that it doesn’t matter what your IQ says on paper each person has the ability to teach, laugh, love, and nurture. When I would come to work sick they would let me relax and bring me tea or an onion (Buzz’s favorite foods were onions). They taught me not to be self conscience singing in the car and would sing along with me. They taught me that what you put into a relationship is what you get out of it. They taught me sign language.
PS I love your blog.
My first job was more of an accident than anything else in more ways than one! I had a major league baseball contract laying on my desk at the university where I was a freshman and had just been drafted by the Royals a week or so prior – we had an away series in Memphis that weekend and I had an appointment with a lawyer the following Monday afternoon to go over the contract – once signed, I would report to a rookie league team in Idaho for the rest of that summer. More importantly was the money – they were going to pay me an $80,000.00 signing bonus, guarantee me a minor league salary of $40,000 a year (1978) and if I was called up to the majors within my first three years, my salary would have been $101,000 pro-rated! As fate would have it, instead of staying in Memphis Sunday evening like we should have, a group of us got on the van and started driving back to school early. I was asleep in the front passenger seat when the driver went off the road and hit one of those small concrete barriers on the side of a bridge. It was a good thing it was there or we would have been in the river and probably died. It was a bad thing because the impact was on my side of the van and I basically destroyed my knee and achilles tendon. Of course the contract was pulled because everyone knew I would never run as fast as I once did. 10 months later (no overnight knee or achilles tendon repairs in 1978) I was finally able to walk and do something that looked like a really painful jog. About a month later, as I was rehabbing at the local YMCA and shooting basketball, a couple of friends came over and asked if I was interested in working with them. The local McDonald’s was going to field a softball team and everyone had to be employed by the sponsor. I was broke and felt pretty good, plus I wanted to play some ball so I accepted. For the next six months I worked grilling burgers and playing softball at McDonald’s. The owner asked if I was interested in moving up into management, he gave me a clothing allowance, put me on a bonus program and a salary and that began my management career – I ran the breakfast shift for nearly a year. I worked for some pretty good store managers and eventually got my own store when the owner expanded. We did really well and I went through the McDonald’s training program including Hamburger University. I was able to develop a pretty good management team around me – yes, we had a great softball team as well!!! Our local Field Rep from McDonald’s Corporate office stopped by one day and listened to a training lecture I gave to our management team – three weeks later I had a contract offer from Hamburger University to come teach with them! I spent almost a full year at the University and then left to help a friend open his own restaurant back home.
At the time, I thought the accident in the van was the worst thing that could have happened to me, but in reality it turned out very positive!
.-= Bob Myers´s last blog ..Day Three – February 3, 2010 =-.
@Jen, you have totally blown me away with your story. Of course, I know what you do because you work together. But I hadn’t heard this story in quite the same way before and I am touched beyond words. I am glad to know you and work with you.
@Bob, thanks for your very inspiring story. It would have been so easy to become embittered, but you didn’t do that, you accepted what was and you went on to create a new reality for yourself. Thanks for sharing!!
WOW! What fascinating stories. I can’t wait to read more. Reminds me of one of several jobs I had while in college. Most of my jobs were with restaurants but I was lucky to stumble upon a job every Saturday, sitting in the lobby of this beautiful, old, granite building, part of the Texas Archive Library in downtown Austin. It was a bit of a bike ride to get there (I had no car) but it was worth it.
All the offices in the building were closed on Saturday except for the Genealogy Library where (mostly elderly) folks came to research their families. Keep in mind this was before the internet, so ‘research’ was more slow and painstaking and this was a hobby most of the people had put hours into already, forming their family tree and reading tidbits they might dig up about a distant, distant relative who fought in the Civil War. Now, growing up in Texas one is accustomed to feeling proud of one’s heritage, but these folks were ultra proud and so delighted when they found some history about a relative, even if only a name. Not all Saturdays in the library were fruitful for them.
My job was to sit in the lobby and greet them when they came in. That’s all. It paid very well compared to other jobs I had and I was told I could study, which was ideal. The only drawback was this glass wall display that stretched around the circular lobby depicting Texas battles and events with a 15 minute long recorded narration. Most people who came in pushed the play button, realized it was boring, and left, leaving me to hear the narrative alone for the thousandth time.
But back to what I loved about the job… what quickly replaced studying as I began to recognize the regulars was their desire to share with me what they had just dug up about their ancestors. One elderly, outgoing gentleman in particular was just dying to share his family history with me every week, and every week he had something new to tell me. He would talk to me for hours. While I would have preferred to study during that time, I came to realize that my listening to him was perhaps more important than doing what I wanted to do.
Listening to others, even strangers, might not have been in the job description, but what this experience taught me was that everyone has a story to share, if you take the time to listen. I also learned that when you accept a job, you write a lot of the description of that job yourself!
Amy, If I ever have questions about Texas history, I know who to call, LOL! You must have been so tired of that tape. At least when the elderly gentleman came in, he had a different tale to tell.
Seriously, you are a beautiful storyteller. Thanks so much for sharing your touching and inspiring experiences. Sounds like this job was good training for working in HR.
My first job was actually working as a Custodian in my high school also; great minds…work-alike? (I know I’m reaching with that one).
It was a simple move. My parents and I wanted to keep me in a Christian education and the family could not afford to fork over the bill for it. So I joined the work study program as a Janitor. I learned many things in regards to facilities maintenance during my time there. I painted, stripped and waxed floors, scrubbed toilets, shampooed carpets, cut grass in our fields and most of all took pride in how the school/facility looked (when you realize how hard it is to lay down 5 coats of wax, without bubbles, you take pride in your floor work).
I also had the great fortune of working with my best-friend to this day, Oscar. He was crucial in me learning that you can have fun and complete your task too. We were always teemed up together and would work our butts off to accomplish a task then relax for a few minutes (it was a large building so places to disappear into were easy to come by).
My facilities manager then learned of how close I lived to the school so he asked me if I wanted to open up the school early so he didn’t have to commute so early in the morning. I took the opportunity and essentially learned how to wake up before everyone else and begin my day (I had a master key and an alarm code, thank God I was good kid).
For some reason, everyone at my school disliked our facilities management team (Mr. Rich and Mr. Borchers). They saw them as old curmudgeons that were out to disrupt our good times. I learned that they were just individuals that were proud of their work and did not appreciate snot-nosed kids messing things up for them. In conversations with them I saw that they were extremely smart individuals and I learned many things from them about life and the work that needed to be accomplished.
Lastly, wanting to be cooler than your fellow man WILL be the death of our civilization (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit). I was teased, early and often because my position was not the most glamorous of positions. I often found myself trying to defend what I was doing, early on. I don’t know what clicked but I soon started to not care about the ignorant comments that were thrown my way (ex: “Don’t worry about [picking] it. Andrew will get it after school.”). I think that helped me develop the self-confidence and backbone that I have today.
The lessons learned are as follows:
•When you want to accomplish something (Christian based education) you may have to step it up and go the extra mile (ex: getting an extra job, picking up extra task).
•Try to find a good team (or create good relationships within your team), that is as much for their professional skills as for their interpersonal skills (this one is tough because everyone always tries to play nice during the interview phase).
•Make your job enjoyable. If you are not enjoying it, it is not worth going through it.
•You can learn from anyone/everyone along the way so don’t pass up any learning opportunities.
Andrew, thanks for sharing the story! I suppose I was more of a custodian as well, though they called us maintenance. I too learned how to strip and re-wax floors, wield a dust mop with great flair, tie a garbage bag to prevent leaks, and much more. I try not to let my family know of my great skills though because I wouldn’t want them getting too comfortable with the idea that I can do everything for them!
One of my first jobs was working in a Singer plant on an assembly line building vacuum cleaners. What did I learn?
(1) How to repair my own vacuum.
(2) An incentive doesn’t impact behavior if it is impossible to reach. It just makes management look hopelessly uninformed.
(3) Why people get stoned on the job.
(4) I should stay in school so that I could get a good job.
This was 25 years ago and I still keep a bracket from a vacuum cleaner on my desk to remind me of the lessons I learned that summer.
.-= Janet McNichol´s last blog ..Snowmageddon Derails Weight Loss Efforts =-.
Uh-oh! For some reason, the part where I say that I did NOT get stoned isn’t showing up. A lot of the people that worked there full time, however, did. The work was mind numbingly boring and the hours dragged by. After a few months, I could undertand why they did what they did.
.-= Janet McNichol´s last blog ..Snowmageddon Derails Weight Loss Efforts =-.
Janet, thanks for the stories, the lessons learned….and the little clarification, lol!
My first jobs as a young teen of the 60′s: babysitting, cleaning houses, ironing starched cotton lab jackets (if scorched while ironing, had to be rewashed!); then on to waitressing.
During college semesters, typing (with a typewriter, retype if any errors!) for ten cents a page for college students’ term papers, grading English papers for English profs.
Summer jobs during college: working at a department jewelry counter, doing assembly line work (catalog store,) secretary at a department store credit department (using a dictaphone,) waitressing at a country club outside Chicago.
While teaching, some years went to summer school to get further college hours or taught summer school.
All those were temp jobs; career was in teaching; good and bad years; many lessons learned there!
What did I learn from the early and temp jobs, some of them tedious and menial?
I knew the importance of work as it was needed to put myself through college and later to pay my own way and then to help out the family finances.
I learned to want to work and knew I would be expected to make my own way. And that work effect was instilled at a young age on a farm, doing outdoors and indoor chores.
I learned to take directions, to show respect; to know how to “pick my battles,” learning mostly through mistakes!
And I learned that all of these jobs had elements of fun; the secret was to not resent doing it. Coworkers made all the difference no matter what the job.
Favorite early job? Waitressing outside a big city at the country club, 2 summers during college years, living in employee dorms, riding on a motorcycle to downtown Chicago to see the Picasso statue, endless pranks and jokes. This was the type of job where I had freedom to grow up with a group of late 60′s college kids with fun and orneriness; doing the job with just the right amount of work and fun. Being away from restrictions of home and college, learning to make my own mistakes and having some great role models in the work place.
Both my husband and sons worked during high school and college and I know experienced the growing-up process that I did; and the actual fun of doing a job without earth-shattering consequences!
Thanks for your comment, Linda. Reading it, I was reminded (once again) how powerful those early work experiences are.
Sounds like you had a lot of fun! Next time I see you, you’ll have to share some of those pranks and jokes.