Your teenage/ student jobs

[ianrauk]

Cleaning the Guvnor's car of the pub my mum used to work in. Every Saturday for 50p, bottle of coke and a bag of crisps.
Then went on to knocking door to door for old newspapers for the chip shop that my mum also used to work in.
We got also got 50p per shopping trolley full. This was way before the days of recycling.
First proper summer job was window cleaning. Worked for a company that had a council contract. Libraries, old folks and kids homes etc. Did that from 15 until 17.

 

[Alex H]

My one and only regular job was an underpaid (as I found out much later) paper round for WH Smith in Chelmsford. I probably cycled about 8 miles in a morning, including visiting Marconi with loads of FTs for the bosses and the County Library with a lot of magazines. I did the round for 14 shillings a week (other lads I knew were getting up to a pound for less work) and lasted exactly 20 weeks, which had enabled me to buy a reel-to-reel tape recorder from my sister's mail order catalogue. The time that I was doing the job included Christmas (not one tip from anywhere) and several periods of snow. It was a happy day when I told the boss that I wouldn't be coming in any more - no notice required

I did a couple of days with a mate on my Dad's workmates smallholding;

"It's just to clean out the chicken sheds and you'll get £10 a day each".

No mention of the fact that the sheds held 2000 chickens and the carp was up to 3 feet deep in places

 

[Crackle]

Paper round, the highlight of which was forgetting to deliver the manageresses paper and then opening the door to her with her half read paper in my hand later when she came to see where her paper was. I never got my own permanent round, I just filled in. No idea why.

Delivery driver to a bunch of offy's in Liverpool. I was the original 80' white van driver.

Working in a fishing tackle shop, the best bit of which was the 10 mile ride to and from it, over the Runcorn bridge.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Paper round
Saturday job at a model shop putting together train kits
At 15 I laboured on a building site for the summer and bought an electric guitar with the spoils
Weekend night-shift at a bakery

 

[Drago]

Best job I had...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUZq6cjXjzs

 

[growingvegetables]

Worked on a local estate every summer for five years - grass-cutting, vegetable gardening, car-washing (included driving a classy BMW convertible), labouring in a saw-mill, painting gates/farm sheds (graphite paint on a Nissen hut roof is .... interesting)/cow-sheds, grouse beating, forestry ("brushing" trees!), driving land-rovers (proper landies - series 2 six-cylinder jobs). Pay was "not great" - but it was good fun, and I went back year after year as a student.

 

[cosmicbike]

Paper round which I took over from my older brother at the age of 12, then handed on to my younger brother. Weekly rag called 'The Leader' which no longer exists. Used to get paid about £3.50 a week IIRC, with an extra 25 pence per leaflet added. Near Christmas was always a bumper week with 4 or 5 leaflets for the few weeks leading up to it.
Worked at a greengrocers from age 13, funnily enough my older brother worked there and they needed extra hands in the lead up to Christmas, so started with stocking up bins. 25kg sacks of spuds were heavy to a skinny 13 year old, but the money was better, and Mum got lots of cheap fruit and veg. 0600hrs starts too during the week to set out the front of the shop. This was all back in the days where you were served, none of this pick your own stuff..
Age 15, Summer school break spent being a cleaner at Thorpe Park. Good money, excellent staff restaurant where you got free lunch if you worked more than 4 hours. Early starts again..
Shop assistant from then, where I met the girl who is now my wife.

 

[MontyVeda]

1st job was a milk round from 4.30am to 8am before school. Hated it. Packed it in after a couple of months.
Left school and started a YTS as an apprentice fitter at the local bus company... loved it but the novelty soon wore off. My workmates were peanuts, I was being used as a dogsbody, deregulation came in and the local bus company's days were numbered. I couldn't wait for the two year 'sentence' to end.
After that i worked at Frontierland, the UK's least convincing 'wild west' theme park. Initially i was a rides operator, but when I realised that I'd get 20p an hour more for cleaning the theme park, i became a cleaner for the rest of the season.
Went to college to get some newfangled Gcse's and worked as an evening shelf stacker at Wilkinson's. Packed that in when the boss wouldn't give me the night off to go and see a band in Leeds. ...and then i turned 20 and everything else is off topic.

 

[cyberknight]

Couldnt get a job as a student , lived i a tiny village with an irregular bus route , no other transport as parents couldnt afford to buy me a bike , when i got to school leaving age it was get a job we cant afford to send you to college .

 

[steveindenmark]

Paper round, potato picking, life guard, waiter, selling ad space in my local paper, barrow boy at the local train station.

That was all by the age of 16 and I have never stopped working since.

 

[swee'pea99]

Worked in shops from about 13 (health foods and the like...I actually sold an article off the back of that one, 'Nuts to nuts') then electrical goods - toasters, hoovers and the like, then photographic stuff. Paid for cycling trips to Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy, as well as general stuff. Quite enjoyed it on the whole.

 

[Fnaar]

2 paper rounds from 13 to 14.
Cleaner in "Mental Hospital" from 16 to 18 (weekends as I was still at school).
Barman when I went to uni.

 

[Markymark]

If you ever feel your job is worthless, spare a thought for the person who fits the indicators to BMWs.

 

[slowmotion]

I picked orders and loaded them into lorries at a large Curry's electrical warehouse. Washing machines, kettles, hair curlers...the lot. It was mind-numbingly boring but I saved enough to make an overland trip to Nepal.

 

[Electric_Andy]

Co-op aged 16-22. Bullyish Uncle (tractor driving) aged 15 - 24. The co-op was fine, nice people, nice customers and a good way to make some money. I was on zero-hours contract when I went off to Uni, so I often came back and did 50 hour weeks in the summer.

Driving for my Uncle was horrendous. I sort of liked the work but he was a brute who often lost his temper when uncontrollable things went wrong! Plus he paid me a pittance but i couldn't tell him where to go because it would have upset my Gran.