Your first Saturday job

[Bri]

Following a thread earlier Deniser has prompted me to start the above. Should prove to be interesting.

I had quite a few from paper boy to cleaning the flour off the floor in a bakery,scouring the labels off used pill bottles in a pharmacy and cleaning the owners 2 cars in all weathers for 50p extra, turkey plucker in a butchers.

However probably the best was when I left school prior to my apprenticeship starting. My dad told me I wasnt going to waste the summer till the apprenticeship so he said he'd get me a job where he worked for the summer.It was in a university local to us. I naturally didnt want to be anywhere my dad worked but was forced to attend an interview with the bursar. Got to the facility and met with the bursar who was very nice, I went through the motions for my dad and all was well. She proceeded to give me tour of the uni, so being bored went round with her. As we went passed the refectory it was now lunch time and she showed me through the glass doors and a vision of what heaven must be like for men hit me. Four hundred girls, just girls mind you, all sat at lunch.


The bursar stood on my tongue to bring me back to life, I could not believe my luck. Naturally I accepted the position and would start the following Monday. All weekend I couldnt wait to tell all my mates. Sunday, bath night. Two bars of soap, shampoo. Monday clean collar, clean shoes, clean hair and liberal sprinklings of BRUT 33. Met my superior, Head Porter in the kitchens. All I could think about was show me the girls, show me the girls. As the day progressed I was led around the building and it was suddenly dawning on me, I asked where were all the gir... I mean students. Well in best nursery rhyme fashion......Theyve all gone home for the summer. The moan was heard echoing around the building for days

Ahh Halcyon Days:redface:

 

[David Griffiths]

My first job apart from paper rounds was as a pump attendant at the local garage. Remember the days when somebody actually filled the car up for you?

We got immediate training in cross selling and up selling as well. Water, oil and battery check, of course.

And if anybody came in for four gallons of Regular (thats two star in today's terms) we were told to ask if they wanted us to round it up to a whole pound!

Those were the days!

 

[derren]

sticking up skittles for a skittle team. Was paid in coke (the drink) and about 50p a night.

Dad told me it would teach me the values of money and saving. 20 years on I have nothing!!!!!!

 

[Sphinx]

My first saturday job was as a sales assistant in Next. Actually at the time where i lived, getting a job at Next was pretty good going. Not the same these days.

 

[deniser]

These are all the things I can think of that I worked in at weekends, eveings and holidays as a student ( I know there were 28 in total but probably won't remember them all):

1.Sorting letters from 5-10pm weekdays
2.Delivering letters on a bicycle on Saturdays when the regular posties called in sick
3.Adminstrator for home income plans
4. Selling shoes to rich Arabs in Bond Street
5. Selling shoes and matching handbags in Oxford Street
6. Folding and pricing fabrics in Libertys
7. Behind the counter at MacDonalds
8. Waitressing at Pizza Hut
9. On the tills at Argos
10. The dreaded wetsuit factory (which included modelling the wetsuits at which point I promptly resigned!)
11.Playing the organ at church
12.Babysitting
13. Photocopying in an insurance company
14. Working in a charity's appeals section
15. Selling conservatories in a garden centre
16. Silver service at a golf club
17. Waitressing at Next cafe
18. Waitressing in Mayfair
19. Making jewellery and selling it at car boot fairs and craft fairs
20. Running one branch of Knickerbox in Central London
21. Manning a switchboard for a business centre
22. Clearing tables in a canteen

23-28 ??

Can't remember the others but 1, 3 and 8 were my favourites as the people I worked with were such a laugh.

I can honestly say that I learned a great deal from every single one and can see now, looking back how I have applied what I learned to my professional career and subsequent businesses.

Jobs were really hard to come by in those days so I did appreciate every single job I got (except modelling the wetsuits!)

 

[Zeno]

For me it was helping out my Grandfather's joinery business. Of course in those days the joiners also made coffins.

 

[FreelanceSEO]

I worked in an electric appliance shop in Rickmansworth. Hated it, but taught me a lot about how customers should be dealt with. The owner was very good with the public.

 

[deniser]

My first saturday job was as a sales assistant in Next. Actually at the time where i lived, getting a job at Next was pretty good going. Not the same these days.

You're right. My husband got turned down for a job at Next and I only made it into the cafe!

 

[leemason]

Pushing trolley at Fine Fair (anyone remember them)? Also working in a warehouse which stocked everything religious! Both good fun.

 

[FreelanceSEO]

sticking up skittles for a skittle team. Was paid in coke (the drink) and about 50p a night.

Dad told me it would teach me the values of money and saving. 20 years on I have nothing!!!!!!

Sounds like a great first job, at least they wern't bowling at you directly

 

[Matt1959]

working on a farm on saturday mornings. I can't reall how old I was but probally something like 12 or 13. Starting off mowing lawns, bagging up grain, help chasing herds of cows as they were moved around the country lanes, cleaning out milking parlours of **** etc. Later, I too did sticking up, moving on to bottling up and washing up in the kitchens of a massive out of town nightclub. All hard physical work and for me, well paid and a great grounding for a working life

 

[The Topcopy]

The Potato Palace in a shopping centre in Bexleyheath

 

[Makingthenews]

Chip shop in Newton Mearns, Glasgow - £8 foor 3hrs if I remember right but you got to take home a sausage supper which was to die for.
Every so often you were allowed a pizza.

 

[Marzipan]

For me it was helping out my Grandfather's joinery business. Of course in those days the joiners also made coffins.

Me too! My grandad was an undertaker and my earliest enterprise was bagging up the vast amounts of sawdust and selling it to my schoolmates as pet bedding. From the age of around eight I was also chief maintenance officer (or so grandad told me!) for his fleet of limos and the hearse of course - as well as the vast amount of cleaning involved it was my job to top up oil, water & tyres and to put the ribbons & seat covers on - the limos were used for weddings as well.

My first job apart from paper rounds was as a pump attendant at the local garage. Remember the days when somebody actually filled the car up for you?

We got immediate training in cross selling and up selling as well. Water, oil and battery check, of course.

And if anybody came in for four gallons of Regular (thats two star in today's terms) we were told to ask if they wanted us to round it up to a whole pound!

Those were the days!

Another snap! Must have been after your time though as I remember it more like 70p a gallon. It was a great learning ground for the benefits of giving excellent customer service. I remember a regular customer who had a jag with TWO petrol tanks to be filled - now that was dead posh!

I checked out the price of a gallon back in 75/76 in case I was remembering it wrong and boy, did that jolt the old memories reading what else was happening around that time. It went completely unnoticed by me at the time, but apparently this bloke called Bill and his mate Paul were just deciding on a name for their company selling software for microcomputers..... well they sure managed to eclipse me on the career front!

 

[Sphinx]

. It went completely unnoticed by me at the time, but apparently this bloke called Bill and his mate Paul were just deciding on a name for their company selling software for microcomputers..... well they sure managed to eclipse me on the career front!

If only I'd been old enough to have bought a few shares in that company.

 

[HSLS]

Worked for £1 an hour in a clothes shop when I was 14, then in a newsagent and at 16 got a job at Tesco. £2.52 and hour - I was in heaven! I worked for Tesco for 4 years as a weekend job, and it was great. Well paid and we were looked after. I went back during my uni holidays as well.
Worst student job was working QC in a pea factory - so boring.

 

[JamieM]

Chip shop in Newton Mearns, Glasgow - £8 foor 3hrs if I remember right but you got to take home a sausage supper which was to die for.
Every so often you were allowed a pizza.

Which one?

I think my first job might have been the Cream Service or something like that. Delivering bacon, cheese and yoghurts and stuff. Didn't do it long.

My first entrepreneurial idea was at 16 I made up leaflets on my computer to do a grass cutting service locally. True to current form I couldn't be arsed posting them so paid my friend's younger brother a fiver to do it. I got three customers. I think my headline showed natural marketing genius - 'Do you hate cutting the grass?' Just because my Dad hated doing it I thought it might be a winner.

 

[serrano]

Washing dishes and frying chips in a local pub restaurant, 1.50 an hour plus tips. Chef got a free pint of Best Scotch and I was relegated to a shandy - lot of years ago that mind at a young 14 years old!!

 

[vmuk07]

my first job was idulging in chocolate still doing it now lol

 

[Deleted member 3454]

My first job was at the British Library in London while I waited for A Level results - 8 weeks in the department that dealt with requests for copies of pages from very rare and delicate books. My job was to catalogue and file the negatives of every request so that they could be used again if ever required.

Back then the British Library was housed in the British Museum and to get to the British Library offices you used large keys to let you through hidden doorways in bookcases. Behind the bookcases there was a labyrinth of corridors leading to offices. I loved the job but hated the travelling - I lived in Dunstable at the time and got the coach into London at about 6.45am every morning and got home around 6.15pm every evening.