I was the drive-thru girl at the local Taco Bell. Still can't stand the stuff almost 10 years later.

My first job was at Macy's Sales Associate .. and yes lots of folding!

an auto parts store i was fired for not knowing the difference in the parts and not charging accordingly. it was a sucky job mostly anyway

When I was 16, I got hired at a small popcorn store in a mall during the summer. I wanted to work in retail (DISCOUNTS!) but no where accepted my resume so I had no choice. I can't really call it my first "job" because it lasted only one day. Well, I got one day of training and then a couple of days later I quit because I had relatives over for a week and my mom didn't want me working when they were visiting (they come here to Toronto once every two or three years). I wasn't that upset because I didn't even like it there, haha.

Then a couple of weeks later I applied at a amusement park and worked there for a month till school started. It was a great experience because I made a lot of cash (which is all gone now.. ) and made new friends, which I still talk to

Most of my friends worked in retail (American Eagle Outfitters, GAP, Parasuco) because they had more experience than I did and worked at an earlier age. We rarely got to see each other that summer because our work schedules were so hetic!

When I was 13, I worked the summer as a Mother's Helper for a family with 4 little girls. I worked 5 days a week, 5 hours a day giving her a hand at the pool or getting them changed or into the car.

Most first grown-up job was after school in an office doing filing. zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ....................

I worked in the Interlibrary Services department of a library, where I did a lot of copying, scanning, faxing, and mailing.

Administrative assistant at an art school. What I actually did was fold about a million pamphlets and dust dead flies off the art work. Also developed a little muscle moving giant easels and tables up and down flights of stairs.

I was also once tasked with finding real human skulls for a head sculpting class. Didn't have much success with that assignment.

When I was 15, I worked at a flower factory in the freezer after high school and weekends for six months before I found my cashier job at Burlington Coat Factory. I pulled flowers for orders and boxed them up.

I started working at a supermarket three days after I turned 16. I worked there all through high school and most college breaks. I didn't mind it too much until I realized how much fun my job at college was in comparison--it made standing at a register all day so boring!

Where's the love for the courtesy clerk?! I started out as a bagger and begged and pleaded when I turned 18 to be a cashier at a local grocery store. I got bored of it and quit one day without telling my Mom. I found a great job after that though and worked at the now defunct Blockbuster Music. Actually...almost ALL of my old jobs are gone now:

*Local Grocery - went bankrupt and bought out by other local chain
*Blockbuster Music - went out of business
*Car Dealer - after many, MANY moons in business was sold and the owner's launched a new, less successful one (the one I worked at is immortalized in a Sir Mix a Lot song)
*Car Dealer #2 - owned by above, sold off and now closed
*Elementary School - closed and relocated after my departure

(that's not the whole list of jobs, but all the ones now gone or altered!)

My first job was in a grocery store. I was a bagger, and I worked the drive thru. People out here in California don't believe me, but in the midwest we have grocery stores where you buy your groceries and walk out to your car, and then drive up next to the store and they have someone (a young 15-year old that will have future back problems) load your groceries into your car for you. It was a very glamorous, high paying position.

My first job was as a camp counselor. But my first job in my chosen field of journalism was even better: I wrote obituaries.

My first job was being a secretary's assistant at my dad's company. ha. so much grunt work.

nancita, my first journalism job (my chosen field as well) was writing for a entertainment/sex obsessed independent college newspaper. I wanted to write in-depth investigative pieces on the chancellor, and they wanted me to interview students who were strippers... blah.

My first job, at age 16, was a waitress at a crappy local restaurant.

The food was gross, the customers sucked, I always dropped stuff...I got fired after a month or so. My boss told me that I was a "lovely girl" but that she didn't see waitressing as the right job for me. Haha.

I wasn't upset!

My first job was at a local college, where at 16 I took Japanese exchange students around the town to do "American" things. It was 4 days a week for 6 weeks. I remember going to the mall, taking them to my lake house, having them cook me a Japanese dinner, eating pizza, and dancing with them. It was an odd job.

When I was 16, my first job was working for an upscale produce market selling freshmade smoothies in the summertime. Then when it got cold I was upgraded to the premade veggie/fruit tray salad department. And thennnn I finally moved on and became a waitress =P. Waitressing was nice b/c of the tips. Plus my boss paid us under the table so there were no taxes. Yeah, sketch, but hey, it was one of my first gigs.

It's the one I have now. I work in IT at AT&T. Yeah, I was a spoiled brat. Never had to work until after college.

Ha my first job was at age 13 and I worked with a group where we went around to very very low income housing areas and had the owners complete surveys to submit for governmental grants for aid in their area...made some really good summer cash and met some of the saddest people that had just given up on life...really made you appreciate what you have.

I always had office jobs. Lots of filing.

A soil and water testing lab. It was lots of fun, and I've loved all my jobs since, although I must admit I can get bored sometimes.

Pizza Hut! I hated it and got fired too because I had to sit down at one booth to clean it. I was not about to bend over that far in front of a table (that usually sat large groups) and clean something.

I didn't mind because it was what I stood for, and I stood my ground when my boss told me that was why he was letting me go!

Wow. I thought I was the only girl who was a bagger. LOL! Yup my first job was being a bagger at Acme Markets. Eventually, I got promoted to cashier. After that, it was all politics to get to other positions (i.e. stocking, courtesy desk, etc). I worked there from the end of my junior year throughout my first two years of college. I came back one summer (after I transferred to a 4 year school), but it was the longest summer of my life. I found another job for future summers.

I had two jobs at the same time for my "first job".

I was a dining room girl at Gordy's Hi-Hat which is a family owned and operated restaurant in Cloquet, MN. You'll have to stop by and eat if you're in the area(only open in the "summer" months though). It's legendary.

At the same time, I worked as a fit model at Maurices Inc.(the head office is located in downtown Duluth, which is a thirty minute drive), as in the Maurices retail stores. THAT was a killer job. Getting paid to try on clothes. 40% discount in the stores! Crazy.

I worked at Petsmart in the aquatics department. Yep. I scooped fish! I once sold a $50 Koi for $10. It wasn't my fault - the tank was marked wrong.

A local farmstore with fresh fruit, crafts, preserves and a bakery. The worst part was the animals. I sort of still hate ducks.

Pushing carts at my local grocery store. I HATED it. Especially living in Washington where it rains and is cold 24/7. Wish I never had taken the offer!

When I was 16 I got my first job at a pet-grooming shop. When I first started there were 8 people who worked there, including myself, in a tiny cramped room, grooming dogs. Then one day when I was 17 I walked in and they'd bought the suite next door and knocked a hole in the wall and we expanded. Now, at Christmas, they're grooming almost 100 dogs, compared to a whopping 50 when I first started.

I worked there for 3 years and still go help them sometimes, I loved it!! It was the best first job ever. Now I'm in retail, and that is not very pleasant!

My first real "on the books" job where I filed out and application and interviewed and got the job was at Kids R Us. I was 17, I was lead cashier and also worked the Customer Service Desk. I did what my dad told me to do which was always be early, work hard and shut up. And the store manager took advantage of all of us new to the work force people by having us clock out before the store closed. Then stay and clean the store do all the returns and straighten all the racks. It would take two hours every night. We didn't know she was cheating teenagers.

Until my dad got pissed cause I wasn't home at 11pm drove out to the store and banging on the window and demanded I come home. It was past his curfew and the cities curfew. He waited for me, my manager said "oh you all can leave now we're done. And everyone walked out without clocking out. My dad says "Don't you all need to clock out?"

"Oh we did that before the store closed! That's how we also do it when Colleen works she has to turn off the time clock before 9."

My dad almost crapped himself. He pulled the store manager aside and she he hopped she BBQ cause he was gonna roast her ass. He called an Employment Attorney for me and filed a complaint with the EEOC. Toys R Us, Kids R Us parent corporate fired her so fast - and tried to give us back pay for the time she had cheated us out of but of course it was all taxed heavily.

He made me quit shortly after that. Yeah Dad - I was back on the family dole - dad's wallet! And he couldn't complain.

My first job was at Godiva Chocolatier... tough at times, being an idiot 16 year old dealing with an upscale clientele that had little patience for me. But nothing beat getting to take home the damaged items... incorrectly dipped chocolate covered strawberries, anyone? Yummy... I gained a good 10 pounds there!

my first job.... cold calling. hated it.

I was a Customer Service Professional. That means I replied to customers' e-mails.

At the beginning it was fascinating to see how the company works "from the inside". Then I knew it all, but I still liked the fact that my job was about helping people. But after a few months, I got really bored as the problems were always the same and my tasks were quite repetitive.

Still waiting for my first job in cryptology.

Coffee shop.

Dairy Queen - hot eats, cool treats, a**hole employers. I was so bad at my job that I had to wear the trainee button the whole summer. And then at the end of the summer I wrecked my mom's car into my stepdad's car (in our driveway) and had to hand over ALL of my uncashed paychecks from an entire summer of work.

I deserved it though- i didn't have a license OR permission to be driving her car. The summer of 2000 was bad.....

I worked at Fazoli's Italian Fast Food handing out bread sticks and working the register. I quit after a month to work at a local winery, where I was a hostess for about 2 years.

The first money-making adventure I had was buying a thoroughbred off the track for DIRT cheap at auction (because I only wanted to spend $400 out of my savings since I was only 13!), training him for a year as a hunter/jumper, and selling him 14 months later for $12,600. The horse nearly killed me about 20 times, and I think my parents were insane to let me get an off-the-track thoroughbred so young and without professional training help, but they don't know anything about horses so they didn't know any better. I did that once a year throughout all of high school, and raked in over $60,000 profit subtracting the cost of the horse and the cost of boarding, and it all went straight to help pay for college.
My first paid normal job was teaching horseback riding lessons at my barn during the school year, and working as an assistant riding instructor at resident camp during the summer. They are still, to date, the BEST jobs I have ever had. Truthfully, I really wish I hadn't gone to college or graduate school, and just taught riding lessons for the rest of my life. I know I would be a lot happier.

My first job was when I was 15 and I worked for a US House Representative. I had to go around to people's houses and ask them survey questions about what issues mattered to them. It wasn't a bad job and you could go work whenever you felt like it for however long you wanted to. I worked with my friends and we would stop in whenever we needed some cash.

Julie, if it makes you happy, why don't you go for it?
I know it's not cool to waste a college degree, but isn't happiness worth it?

I was 16, and I worked at Subway. I came home smelling like herbs & cheese bread with marinara sauce. Sure, it was nice at first, but then it got disgusting.

And the people were SO RUDE. I didn't know people could be so rude as they were to me and the other Subway workers.

I've been a waitress, a lifegaurd, a law office assistant, a prom/pageant/bridal sales assistant, an all-star cheerleading coach, a broadcast news production assistant, a post production assistant, and NOW.... a post production editor! (Technically I'm an Edit Assist, but I edit everyday. It's just a technicality, so that in 6 months - 1 year I can get a promotion & a raise when my title is changed to "Video Editor")

McDonald's for TWO WHOLE WEEKS! Those tight, hot polyester pants---not a good look.

I worked in the advertising department of a newspaper for a year. LOVEd it!

I worked at Walmart as a cashier. I worked really close to a huge tourist area so I dealt with tourists all day. Most of them were not as friendly as the locals and would treat you like their servant, it was a hell in the summer.

My first job was right after college---a junior copywriter in an ad agency.

My first "real" job (not being paid under the table) was at Sears. That was when I discovered that many adults throw temper tantrums. I also discovered that there were a lot of "skeevey" characters that made frequent trips to the mall to "talk" & lurk. That was also where I learned how to handle perverted/handsy male managers. (It was before women discovered they could get help with all of the sexual harassment issues. Back then, you just had to handle it yourself. It was a great lesson in sticking up for myself.)

I hope I never have to go back to retail or any other job that deals with the public. Some people can be such assholes!

I meant to add, I worked there for seven years! It got me through high school & college. I did manage to work my way up to being the girl that gets the daily deposit ready. That time was great, counting all that money, working alone (not that many people had access to the room with the safe), coming in at 7am/leaving by 1pm at the latest, & not having to deal with customers the entire time.

When I was 14 I scored recreation league basketball and baseball games. It was fun and easy and I got to see lots of my friends, but I was only paid 5 bucks a game.

I later got a job as a front desk clerk at a local hotel. Great job for a student because when it was slow, you could do your homework.

When I was 18, I worked as a cleaner in a private hospital. I did the same thing for the following 3-4 years actually. And then I worked one day in a kiwi field, and didn't go back the next day - was super difficult and exhausting to work by 40°C and try to grab kiwis when I'm 4'11!

i started at dunkin donuts 3 weeks after i turned 16....talk about RUDE customers!!! i quit there after a few months and had a few other jobs, but i'm back at dunkin while i finish my 2 years of culinary school