# How Much did you make at your first job?



## Ship Wreck PE (Feb 26, 2014)

I started as a janitor at a Municipal Auditorium and they paid me $3.10 an hour.


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## snickerd3 (Feb 26, 2014)

my first real paycheck job was at toysrus for like $5.10 an hr, which was min wage at the time i think By the time a graduated college and stopped working there over school breaks I think I was up to like $9.75 an hr


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## roadwreck (Feb 26, 2014)

McDonalds at $4.75 an hour.


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## Ble_PE (Feb 26, 2014)

At a local fish house making either $4.25 or $4.75 an hour.


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## knight1fox3 (Feb 26, 2014)

I worked as a "custodial engineer" for the Green Bay Packers for $5.25/hr IIRC. Great HS job.


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## FLBuff PE (Feb 26, 2014)

McDonald's at $4.25 an hour as well.


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## Supe (Feb 26, 2014)

$10/hr at my first one that gave me a W2 form at the end of the year. Tool and die shop.


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## YMZ PE (Feb 26, 2014)

$7.25 working as a barista at the on-campus coffee shop/Baskin Robbins.


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## csb (Feb 26, 2014)

$5.25 at a bakery.


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## DVINNY (Feb 26, 2014)

I can't remember.

But I remember how much I paid for my first job.



OOOOOYYYYY!!!!

Jack and Jill, both went up the hill,

each with a buck and a quarter.

Jill came down with two fitty :bananadoggywow:


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## Road Guy (Feb 26, 2014)

That ducking whore......

$3.15. - gas station by my house.

I filled propane tanks, filled bags of ice and stocked beer....

Best job a 15 year old can get.....

Now they want minimum wage to be what my salary was the first year out if college:-


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## DVINNY (Feb 26, 2014)

My first Engineering job I made $10.00 / hr.

With a 4 year ABET accredited degree.

[RANT] And I fully agree, these bums today want that as minimum wage. Where would the incentive be? I had the incentive that I didn't want to live in the card board box behind Macy's department store, so I stayed in school and off of drugs. Still seems simple enough. [/RANT]


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## knight1fox3 (Feb 26, 2014)

^ exactly. While it might be "easy to say" from my current position, those low paying jobs also gave me the drive I needed to find something better in getting a college education.


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## csb (Feb 26, 2014)

I made $11.25 in 2002 as a fresh out of school engineer.


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## ventilator (Feb 26, 2014)

$8.00 /hr at a plumbing shop. things were booming at that point so I was usually working 50 hr/wk so for 10 hours each check is was $12/hr for overtime, man I thought I rolling in it then. Which I kinda was because I was still living at home so it was all basically spending money.


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## YMZ PE (Feb 26, 2014)

$27.40/hr starting out as an engineer in 2006.


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## Ship Wreck PE (Feb 26, 2014)

^^^. Wow!! That's a great first job. You are winning so far, and I have the lowest paying first job.


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## engineergurl (Feb 26, 2014)

$4.25 at Chuck E Cheese... ugh


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## Dleg (Feb 27, 2014)

$3.35 an hour, at a Dairy Queen "Brazier". Probably 1984?

Oh the stories I could tell..... I'll sum it all up with "I never ate at one again!"


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## Ble_PE (Feb 27, 2014)

YMZ PE said:


> $27.40/hr starting out as an engineer in 2006.




$19.23/hr as an engineer in 2005.


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## Capt Worley PE (Feb 27, 2014)

When I was a lifeguard, I made $3.85 an hour, which was awesome, because the job pretty much entailed watching teenage girls in bikinis.

Funny thing was I subbed as a guard for two years prior to that. Because the lifeguard had to find and pay his own sub, subs usually made $5/hr under the table. The guy I subbed for had a drug and gambling problem, and could never pay on time. Deal was if I could wait til the end of the month, he'd double the $5/hr. And he did. I was in the jack those years.

First engineering job paid $27K/yr back in 1989.


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## Flyer_PE (Feb 27, 2014)

$3.25/hr loading and unloading cattle trucks at the stock yard next to my uncle's farm.

First engineering job was $32.5k/yr in 1990. With the overtime, I wound up around 50k that year.


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## Weavs33 (Feb 27, 2014)

$24.04/hr first engineering job out of school in 2007


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## willsee (Feb 27, 2014)

Nielsen Media Research ... $7.50/hr in 1999

First Engineering Job $57k in 2008


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## Golden Eagle PE (Feb 27, 2014)

$5.25/hr working at a grocery store. Min. wage at the time. I started working there at 14.


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## MetsFan (Feb 27, 2014)

My first real job was for $8 or $10 an hour (can't remember) working as an in-house messenger at Time Warner as a summer intern in 1995. I loved the free magazines and cd's.

First engineering job was in 2004 for around $22 an hour.


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## snickerd3 (Feb 27, 2014)

it's hard to break it out to a true hrly rate here because it changes every pay period depending on the # or work days/holidays in that time frame.


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## K19 (Feb 27, 2014)

First summer job at 16 was working on litter patrol for my local DPW for a kingly $4.15 an hour a.k.a min wage at the time. I think it was through a state grant or something, four 6-hour days a week; we'd drive around in a sped bus picking up trash at all the local parks, playgrounds, ball fields, etc. There were 4 of us and after a short while we were too good, started running out of places to clean up that we hadn't already done a day or 2 prior. So we'd collect whatever few bagfuls we could in the a.m. and then spend the afternoons mostly playing wiffleball. Good times!


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## mudpuppy (Feb 27, 2014)

Dleg said:


> $3.35 an hour, at a Dairy Queen "Brazier". Probably 1984?
> 
> Oh the stories I could tell..... I'll sum it all up with "I never ate at one again!"




Except that those things happen at EVERY restaurant. Every single one, no matter how fancy. I'd heard the stories from my friends who worked in food service and for that very reason decided I wouldn't go into food service. I ended up at a plastics plant as a press operator, which paid a lot better anyway. I think I made $7/hour in 1995. Working second shift sucked, though, because I never saw my friends.


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## Lumber Jim (Feb 27, 2014)

My labor was free when I was 6 years old shoveling hog shit into a wheel barrow and hauling it to the shit pile 200 feet away at the home farm. It was also the first year I drove a tractor.

I made $1.00 per hour picking rocks at my grandma and grandpa's farm when I was 10 when I wasn't working on my parent's farm (my friends in school were getting $10/ hour for the same work...) I also earned $0.25 / gopher that I could trap.

I made $5.25 as a janitor cleaning office complexes after football practice when I was 16. I saw some weird stuff at the lawer's offices (officially this would probably be my "first" job)

this has given me a clear appreciation for what I do now...


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## Exception Collection (Feb 27, 2014)

$8.50 per hour, if memory serves correctly. $10.00 for my first in-field position (drafting).

The state I grew up in has a higher-than-normal minimum wage. I think it's around $10 now.


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## engineergurl (Feb 27, 2014)

Lumber Jim said:


> My labor was free when I was 6 years old shoveling hog shit into a wheel barrow and hauling it to the shit pile 200 feet away at the home farm. It was also the first year I drove a tractor.
> 
> I made $1.00 per hour picking rocks at my grandma and grandpa's farm when I was 10 when I wasn't working on my parent's farm (my friends in school were getting $10/ hour for the same work...) I also earned $0.25 / gopher that I could trap.
> 
> ...


Yeah.. I skipped the $hi+y jobs and went for the first one I paid taxes at


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## Capt Worley PE (Feb 28, 2014)

mudpuppy said:


> Dleg said:
> 
> 
> > $3.35 an hour, at a Dairy Queen "Brazier". Probably 1984?
> ...




That's why I tend to only eat where I can see the food being prepared.


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## goodal (Mar 2, 2014)

I mowed yards from 12-15 and made decent money at it. I don't remember what I did with all of it though. The first one I paid taxes on was at 15 for $5.25/hr for 2 hrs a day as a dishwasher.


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## Master slacker (Mar 3, 2014)

First job paid $4.50 / hour in 1994 - swim coach.

First "real" job paid $48k + $60 per diem in 2002.


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## Badger (Mar 7, 2014)

My first legal job was making minimum wage of $2/hr working in the university cafeteria, before I dropped out.

Two years later I was really in the chips making $2.65 at gas station That was back when they pumped gas and fixed cars.

Then the minimum wage went to $2.65/hr and I was minimum wage earner again.

I did get to pull a motor out of 65 Pontiac GTO and learn a few valuable lessons in mechanics.

Here in Washington State the minimum wage gets a cost of living increase most years, it is $9.30 now I think. So now I about $7/hr underpaid compared to when I started working.


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## petergibbons (Mar 9, 2014)

$7.12/hour as a part time operating room materials technician in 1998 for my first "official" job. Lots of odd jobs prior to that at $5 an hour.


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## cement (Mar 9, 2014)

TG you finally changed your post #


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## rktman (Mar 11, 2014)

6 cents per bale of hay


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