The other thread got me thinking. There are a lot of people nowadays who never have a job in high school. Heck, I think about half the women I knew in college never had a job until after they graduated. Spells out exactly what's wrong with this country if you ask me.

I had my first "real" job at 15. But before that I mowed 4 or 5 yards in my neighborhood during the warm months, bought and sold 4-wheelers, did odds and ends for people, etc. the summer that I graduated high school, I started a little landscaping company and worked 70+ hours a week, employed a couple of classmates, and a few Mexicans.

I'm 25


lets hear your experiences, and age.

15

I'm pretty much the same as you, my first "real" job was at 15. Before that I mowed lawns, did stuff for people around their yards or houses, walked dogs, all that stuff.

also 25.

15

16 at a "real" job. Mowed yards during summers and did odds and ends for spending money since I was about 9 or 10.

15 here too.

Mixed mud for my paw at 13. Just me and him but he was a union man and we worked union rules.

I started plowing cotton at the age of 13. Plowing means driving a tractor pulling a cultivator. Made $50 a day and thought I was rich at end of the summer. Never looked back since. Graduated AU on a Sat in May and was on a tractor planting that Monday.

13. Worked a 40 week at my grandfathers door and window business from the time school let out for summer till the time it started back. He paid me $100 every Friday. Saved $3k to put down for my first car.

Been working ever since.

I started hand sanding and buttoning furniture in my parents plant around 11. I would get out of school and work a couple of hours a day. On the weekend I bussed tables and washed dishes for my grandfather's restaurant. Had my first job outside my family when I was 13. I built slot cars and ran the track.

15. And I'm 19 now. It teaches something very valuable

15 when I took a full time job....I have worked ever since.

13-14 I had a yard business, mom had to drive me and pick me up. Worked at jacks Hamburgers when 16. Worked construction every summer. Worked thru Auburn, last two years I worked a quarter, schooled a quarter, worked a quarter till done.

Had a few summer jobs through high school. At 17 I quit and friend of the family gave me a job framing houses in hopes it would scare me back into school. Completely backfired , I loved every minute of it . I don't frame much anymore, mainly trim& finish type carpentry. I'm 30 now and really don't know what the heck I would do if it weren't for the job I have . I love building things.

I hope to start tomorrow, lol. But I think outside of mowing grass and shoveling snow it took me until 17 to get a 'real' job as there just wasnt many businesses in my small town so the waiting list was long. I agree with the OP.

I didn't have a W-2 job till I was 17 - all the other jobs I had were farm jobs (payed cash).

We had a farm (cattle - small, 75-acres), but there were many, many, many chicken houses in our area and our adjacent neighbor had a very large thoroughbred training center.

So, from the time I was about 12-yrs old - I'd catch catch chickens when they'd send them to the processor, "tear down" the houses, clean them, then put everything back together. Most all of the houses were breeding houses, so the nesting boxes were suspended in the middle of the barn - with the feeders and watering stations on the edge. With the exception of perhaps Swampy - I've walked/waded in, shoveled, ingested, or otherwise have been around more chickenShit than anyone I know.

When I wasn't wading through chickenShit - I was raking and shoveling horseShit, being bit, stomped on, or otherwise harassed by a bunch of overpriced glue producers.

I would say that by the time I was 18, I was an authority on chickenShit and horseShit.

First real job was in a cane pole patch at 13, before that, had a part-time paper route at 12.

16/17 been at it ever since.

It was at whatever age I was when I was strong enough to push the clutch on a tractor. Somewhere around 8-9 yrs old. I remember standing up on the platform and leaning against the seat because I wasn't tall enough to sit in the seat and reach clutch/brakes on tractor.

Cut grass when I was in 8th and ninth grade saved enough cash to buy a
94 Winchester that I still have. worked on my uncles farm then anw2 job when I got a drivers license.