About your job - how, when?

[CarGuy65]

28 years ago I was hired by a classic car restoration shop to disassemble and reassemble cars going through the restoration process. The owner saw the attention to the smallest details on my own car at the time. I worked for him for 11 years until he passed away. A few months after his passing, I bought the shop from his widow and have been a small business owner for the last 17 years. Still restoring classic American muscle cars with an even closer attention to detail. Even though it seems I make about $1.17 per hour, I still love my job and look forward to going to work almost every day.
I will probably never retire and will probably pass away under the dashboard of some car that I will be working on.
I am one of the few that loves my job!

[ChadCoxRox]

If you live in the states I might can help. It's part of my own work. So send me a private of the county and state and I'll send you a personalized reply.

[Ryocchi]

Currently working towards my dream job, and currently employed on a very decent job with decent light work load and good payment.

How did I get there?

Internet ads.

[East]

My first "real job" ....I was a ride operator at an amusement park...Frontier Village. I ran The Spirit of Kitty Hawk airplane ride. That was in High School

I am self employed now..been that way for years.

[CarGuy65]

Wow I remember Frontier Village! Went there when I was a kid! Blast from the past!

[swalter]

My first job was as a paperboy, delivering the local newspaper in my neighborhood. I was 11yo, and made virtually no money.

When I was 15, I got a job working for "Gilda's Party Pals". It was my job to dress up like various characters (Sesame Street, TMNT, etc) and entertain at birthday parties. That job was sorta fun, but again, I made very little money. It also led to a short stint as the mall Easter bunny.

At 18, I started my own business, my county's first ISP. After two years, I sold that business to the phone company, and put myself through college, where I earned my B.S. in Computer science.

After college, I went back to NYC and worked as a network engineer for several well-funded start-ups. When the dotCom bubble burst, I took my capital and started a technology consulting company, which I sold just a few years ago. I'm now retired.

My advice: take whatever job you can get, and work it with passion. No matter how menial or insignificant the job, take pride in your work and do the best you can. Instead of looking for shortcuts to the top, take the opportunity to develop a strong work ethic. Make the most of every job, and be good to your coworkers. I can't stress this enough - DON'T BURN BRIDGES! You never know who is going to be in a position to help your career later on, and the professional network you develop will be your most important asset. Finally, don't be afraid to take risks and fail. The people who succeed in their careers are the ones who are not afraid of failing and losing everything.

PS... Start saving money now! No matter how much you make, you should take 10% of every check and put it a savings account (preferably high-interest like ING).

[East]

Wow I remember Frontier Village! Went there when I was a kid! Blast from the past!

It was right behind my high school so I could walk to work. I am 56 now so I might have been working there when you visited.

[Wade]

First job I had was a summer job running a children's theatre program when I was 15. Did that for three summers. I got that job because I was a part of the program when I was a kid and did a lot of community theatre there afterwards. The owner really liked me.

Then I worked for the community college I was attending as a math and English tutor, working mostly with adults reentering the education system. I got that job only because my brother worked there and he basically convinced his boss to hire me.

When I quit school I got a job at Shakey's Pizza for a year. Standard interview procedure. Did a lot of towel snapping at that job. Making the dough was the funnest part. Cleaning the deep fryers was a fucking nightmare. First day I worked there I had to throw barrels of old, used oil and uneaten food into the large dumpster outside and someone told me that I had to get on top of it all and stomp it down. Ruined my clothes... then the guys laughed at me and said I didn't actually have to do it, they were just fucking with me. It was actually a pretty fun job as far as those things go.

Then for three years I worked full-time at a theatre based day program for adults with developmental disabilities. A friend of mine had worked there and asked if I wanted to fill in for a role in a play they were putting on (we would write children's plays mostly featuring the developmentally disabled adults and tour them around to elementary schools all over California and promote positive messages). I said yes... started hanging around a lot until the manager basically said "So, do you want to start getting paid for this?" I said "yes please." I designed a music program there and started writing little musicals to tour. That was a lot of fun.

Then I worked at Applebee's as a line cook... for six days. I call that time the Time of Tears, or the Age of Inadequacy, or The Six Days I Fantasized About Every Creative Way I Could Possibly End My Life (sticking my head in a deep fryer was a real contender there for a while). I got the job by basically lying about knowing how to be a line cook. Not a smart a move. It was basically six days of getting yelled at by thirty strangers for reasons I didn't even understand. I did such an awful job there that every time someone said my name (which was rare by the way. I was mostly known as "Hey! uh... you!") I just started taking off my apron, cause I was sure I was being fired.

Now I'm a bum! Well, I'm actually doing pretty well giving piano and guitar lessons in the evening, and I'd like to expand that little business. I go to school and all that and I want to begin a career as a freelance music arranger, but that's proving... difficult. I'm looking for work in that field, but it's a no-go so far. I actually just started handing out resumes again today, so I'm getting me another fer-realzies job while I continue trying to do what I really want to do. We'll see how it works out.

[Wade]

If you live in the states I might can help. It's part of my own work. So send me a private of the county and state and I'll send you a personalized reply.

That's very nice!

[ceez]

ok, so now I'm jealous of a couple of you and a little upset that swalter is taken. my first job was in retail at 16, it sucked, never work in small retail stores, they try to make one person do all the work. but history is repeating itself and the younger generations are starting to work early like the older generations. my neighbors son had his first job at 13, then at 15 he was home-schooled working two jobs, one full time:o I finally have a job I like now, I'm an electrician for a huge government contractor. so far the only down side is the majority of the people I work with are assholes but I still like it, plus pretty soon I will be moving up to engineering