You Always Remember Your First

With the news of unemployment rising to 9.7%, this year Labor Day is more of a time to be grateful for HAVING a job rather than celebrating a day off from one. In the midst of the barbecues and bargain shopping that the holiday has become known for, I thought I'd take a moment to muse about what this Monday is really about:

Working and workers.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American will change careers 2-5 times and hold more than 10 different jobs during their working years. I thought it would be interesting to journey back in time with my Savings.com co-workers with this simple query:

"What was your first job?"

The overwhelming majority of first jobs were in the food industry. Specifically, at fast food restaurants. Although this was a popular answer by number of responses, the jobs themselves left much to be desired.

Marc's experience:

So, my sister's friend heard I was thinking about looking for a job during my sophomore year of high school to earn a little extra cash, ya know, to buy more video games. Next thing I know, my parents tell me about a phone message on the answering machine from her employer. Parental peer pressure forced me into calling them back, despite my less than inspired interest in working for Burger King. But, I reluctantly set up an interview, apathetically took the job, and showed up to work--only to walk out during my lunch break three days later, never to return. I give mad props to burger flippers everywhere. For I, apparently, was not mentally prepared to wage battle with an insanely demanding big cheese and the unwavering expectations of fast food fanatics everywhere.

Yasar worked for burger rival McDonald's, with similar results:

It's got a rep for being the worst job ever for a reason. I was still going to school and they tried scheduling me for 50 hours a week for almost a month straight because everyone kept quitting. I shortly followed suit.

Jacob H. had a more positive experience working at a Panda Express at his college. "It was great because I got free food (starving college student) and I got to meet many great students on campus."

Lindsay and Katie's food experience was with coffee, bagels and doughnuts with Katie declaring, "After I quit, I didn't eat doughnuts for about five years."

Henry worked at an Italian restaurant starting off as a dishwasher but working his way up to pasta maker and Lia was a restaurant hostess.

Heather S. and Ray also had food-related first jobs: working at grocery stores. Ray "stocked the shelves, rotated the milk and eggs, mopped the store and backroom," while Heather was a cashier--at the only store in town that didn't have scanners. "You had to put in all the numbers manually, including coupon bar codes. Torture. And I was horrible at it," she remembers less than fondly.

Office work were the next most popular category of first jobs. Chris started off in the mail room, Heather M. was a receptionist and Guy was an office assistant in a gynecologists office. I had a summer internship at Westinghouse thanks to my Dad (hooray for nepotism!) working in the order entry department for the nuclear center. Yup, we handled orders for nuclear power plants. You can't even imagine the number of digits those orders added up to...

Sheryl, however, had the best "worst" first office job tale:

I was a Finance major, so I took a job at a company that published a security class action alert newsletter and traded a number of different portfolios. I'm not sure which aspect of the job turned me off from Wall Street more. Not only did settling my boss' daily transactions make me ill, but reading all the lawsuits made me wonder if it was all worth it! On top of that, I kept wondering why he kept his accounts at so many different brokerages and why I had to refer to a list of aliases taped next to the phone before calling on them. Sometimes I called for Jim "Smith" (not his real last name), sometimes for James or Jimmy. Sometimes I'd call for his personal account, but other times I'd have to refer to "Jim from XYZ Newsletter." And then sometimes I had to call for his sister Pearl--using her maiden name.

My boss was an absolute genius and thorough slob. Everything I was learning in regards to trading stocks was invaluable, but this type-A couldn't handle the mess. So I came in on a weekend to make order out of chaos, throwing away piles of year-old newspapers from his desk, organizing important documents hiding under piles of who-knows-what. At the end of the day and bottom of the piles, I found a laminated article about a soft-spoken Jim "Smith," whose white collar Connecticut prison mates called the "Little Wizard" because he stayed in his cell all day long, studying index cards with stock symbols on one side and detailed info on the other. I had to log the most obscure companies when putting together the newsletter and he never hesitated when I yelled out a symbol in need of its name. I could never stump him..but according to the article, neither could his mates.

When I graduated college, he asked me to stay on so he could mentor me to eventually take over the business when it was his time to retire. Somehow I thought the job I took instead was less dangerous: sergeant in the U.S. Marines.

Retail was another sector offering precious first paychecks: both Erika and Clodagh worked in shoe shops, Holly in a record store, Scott in a video store and Tom worked at Sears. He's our Director of Deal Operations now, but back then working at Sears was a dream come true:

Having a job was a great excuse to be out of the house and not otherwise having to do house/yard work for free when I was young. I did yard work for any neighbor I could reasonably push a lawnmower to, so when I was of minimum age to get an actual steady paycheck job I had big dreams of working indoors--preferably with air-conditioning. Landing a job at Sears when I was about 16 years old brought those dreams to fruition. I worked in the "Home Fashions" department which basically means I sold George Foreman grills, drapes, and bedding. Not the most masculine of departments you could work in at a Sears--in fact, it was the least. Luckily, I was only hired seasonally and was let go after the holidays. I used the "experience" to land a job at another Sears, but this time in the electronics department. I considered this a dream job for some time as I could think of nothing better than getting paid to watch big screen TVs for half of my shift.

Clarice started her job odyssey working in her Dad's UPS store, Sara was a 16 year-old bank teller and Ryan worked at a golf course. Jacob S. and Pete will have to duke it out for worst first job ever. Jacob S. worked as a telemarketer:

First full time post-college job was cold calling for a company that sold leads to small business banks. It was the worst job primarily because it was a Mom & Pop operation where the owner's wife came to work in a sweat suit every day and spent most of the day screaming at her husband in our small office space. I quit after 4 months without having another job lined up because I just had to get out. I dug up my folk's backyard and helped their landscaping efforts for two months until I found another full time gig--and even that was better than cold calling for those crazy people.

Pete worked in a factory:

At age 14 I worked in the packaging department for an O-Ring supplier to the Military. The government they had very precise requirements: each O-Ring had to go in a sealed paper envelope. Our packaging machine never worked so we would stuff 5,000 envelopes and then seal them shut with an household iron. Eight hours a day, 5 days a week, all summer long for $3.65 an hour. I should have been a lifeguard.

While Sara was a 16 year-old bank teller and Pete a 14 year-old factory worker, they are relative slackers compared to Kip, who started working at the tender age of twelve:

When I was about 12 or so I was obsessed with getting a motorcycle. My parents said I could have one if I paid for it. So I proceeded to walk into our local bank and ask them for a $300 loan. The loan officer fell to my boyish charms and said the bank would loan me the money if I had (a) a steady job, and (b) a cosigner. So I found a steady job cleaning up horse manure at a small ranch home of a family I knew from Boy Scouts. I was able to convince my parents to cosign the loan at this point, so I got the loan, the motorcycle, and subsequently shoveled a lot of horse pucky for a couple years to pay it off. I'd say that was my first taste of adult finances.

Reminisce with us: share your first job anecdotes in the comments!