ADVERTISEMENT

OT: Where Was Your First Paycheck Job and How Much An Hour Did You Rake In?

RutgersRaRa

RutgersRaRa

Hall of Famer
Gold Member
Mar 21, 2011
38,334
10,102
113
I'll start.

McDonald's on Stelton Road in Piscataway (on the South Plainfield border), and started at $2.35/hour. Rode my bike four miles to get there, rain or snow or sun, and loved the job because the people were cool.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JRZEER, RUsSKii, zazoo2002 and 4 others
Toolex Inc (lampshade factory) the year was 1978 and I made $2.10/hr. Worked all summer to buy a red Schwinn Varsity
 
Fun idea for a thread. I’m going to give two answers (first paycheck job and first job).

First formal paycheck: The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company. Better known as A&P. Route 35 in Middletown. This would’ve been around 1995 or so. I think I made $5.05/hour. Some of that had to go to union dues, of course.

First actual job: Friends of my parents at church ran the newsstand at the Middletown train station, but they were older and had health issues. So they hired me to bring the newspapers in and set them up on the stands inside the station. Woke up at 4 every morning, took me about 20-30 minutes, went home and grabbed another hour of sleep. $50 per week, cash. Not too shabby when you figure it was maybe 2.5 hrs of work a week.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RutgersRaRa
Lakewood Forest Country Club, Houston, TX, outdoor maintenance. I believe $2.35/hour.
 
When I was 15, I washed dishes at a seafood restaurant in Norfolk, Va for minimum wage.

The worst part of it was at the end of the night, waiting for the bus, drenched from the sprayers, sweaty and smelling like the tiny bits of shrimp tails and she crab soup that were stuck to every article of clothing.
 
Rustler Steak House in Perth Amboy on Convery Blvd ( now a Quick Chek). 3.35 an hour to start back in ‘82. Also delivered the Star Ledger beginning in '80 (iirc) sometime but that wasn't a "paycheck" per se. You collected on Friday and whatever was left after you paid for the papers went in your pocket
 
Last edited:
RutgersRaRa said:
I'll start.

McDonald's on Stelton Road in Piscataway (on the South Plainfield border), and started at $2.35/hour. Rode my bike four miles to get there, rain or snow or sun, and loved the job because the people were cool.
Click to expand...
Down the street from there at R&R sub shop ( maybe now pretzel factory?) summer of 1971, $1.10 an hour, or maybe $1.15, I forget. Actually I think I painted a couple houses in the neighborhood the summer before for $275 or so.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RutgersRaRa
OTBOTOR said:
When I was 15, I washed dishes at a seafood restaurant in Norfolk, Va for minimum wage.

The worst part of it was at the end of the night, waiting for the bus, drenched from the sprayers, sweaty and smelling like the tiny bits of shrimp tails and she crab soup that were stuck to every article of clothing.
Click to expand...
Your fellow riders on the bus thought you entering the bus was the worst too.
 
Had many cash jobs from paperboy to pizza chef. But my first actual paycheck with taxes taken out was Spring Meadow Golf Course working everything but maintenance. Pro Shop. Course Ranger. Open the gates before dawn and bring out the golf carts. Lock up at night. Since I loved golf it was a great job. And since it was a state job the pay was great for a high school and college kid. Overtime every week. Best of all free golf at any course in the tri state area.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RutgersRaRa
Delivering phone books for a competitor of the yellow pages for a company named Lithoid (makes of the books). Don't remember the rate but it was decent money. 1976ish. My nerdy but scary history buff neighbor (called all the problems w the Catholic Church at age 16 around 1979 as he said it's the history of the church) got me involved and his fairly massive brother ( who played football for Moravian) got me involved. 1-2 memorable stories such as other guys finding piles of Playboys in the recycling and putting the centerfolds up in the bathroom of a McDonalds.

From there my Dad helped me get and I earned a summer job with a local female Veterinarian with pay after volunteering my senior year. She was a nasty arrogant person though (akin to the star player couldn't coach others) and combined with Cooks weed out curriculum and staff the vet school dreams were destroyed. And oh by the way the head of the cook Douglass internship department treated me and I assume others like sh*t while proclaiming her family's love as a big donor. No good job. Treat people badly equals like or no donations in the long run. Low donations likely equates to poor football . I more than did my own for awhile despite. Nowadays nah.
 
Last edited:
First paying job: McDonald's in Downers Grove, Illinois. 95 cents an hour.

First real full time job: Assistant Prof at Rutgers in 1976. $13,200.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mikefla
Cashier and delivery person for the pharmacy in town. Drove around all summer with the heat stuck on in the delivery car lol. $2.35/hr.
 
First cash job at age 10 delivering Mo'town Daily Record in Chatham Twp., first paycheck job, dishboy at King James Nursing Home, 17, Chatham Twp. $3.35 - $3.50, first salaried job out of RU, 1988, as a systems engineer with IBM in Piscataway for $30K.
 
Worked at a Grand Union during HS. Started in 1977 at min of 2/30 or something like that with a couple of decent min wage hikes the nest 2 years.
Hired out of HS ay 18 by IBM fulltime in Poughkeepsie at $6.10 per hour to run a forklift. Great bene's that included a country club for $3 per year that allowed for unlimited play at a Robert Trnt Jones Jr golf course. You did have to pay $2 per round for a cart if you wanted to splurge. Unlimited sick days discount stock plan, great pension etc etc etc...thought my next 40 years planned out with a pre 60 retirement. hahaha how the world changes
 
  • Like
Reactions: LC-88 and RutgersRaRa
1967. IGA Grocery Store in West Orange. $1.10/Hr. Before that as a caddie we were paid $4 a bag. After college I made the big $. $120/wk at Pru.
 
I thought my $3.50 an hour was going to be impressively low.

Though this was around 1989, so factor in inflation.

But washing dishes in a marina side breakfast joint. Had to be there early too, like 6 AM(If I remember right). I remember riding my bike early in the morning, in the dark in November after an icy snow storm. At least there was free pancakes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RutgersRaRa
Petroleum engineer (pumped gas) at a Sunoco in Mercer Cty for something like $3.35/hour. If you put in more than the customer asked for, and they wouldn't pay, it came out of your paycheck. Meter checked at the end of each shift to match the register.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RutgersRaRa
Hardee's, Largo Maryland (next to Capital Centre), $3.35 (minimum wage).

First post-college: Capital Systems Group, Bethesda, Maryland, $18K per year as computer programmer.
 
first job was working PT in a deli in HS...cannot remember how much I made then. First actual full time job was as a RN in Beth Israel Hospial in Manhattan....made about $10/an hour in 1981.
 
Worked on a Wise potato chip route helping stock shelves at supermarkets in 1981. 10.00 a day cash usually about 9-10 hrs. And 5.00 for half a day on Saturdays during summer. I was 11 yrs. old and had more money than any other kid my age!
 
  • Like
Reactions: RutgersRaRa
First summer job in 1965 - chipper in the iron foundry at Ingersoll Rand for $1.95/ hour. First real job - 2nd LT. in USAF in 1970 for $7,900 ($5,011 taxable).
 
  • Like
Reactions: RutgersRaRa
Got a job around 1991 working at Laneco as a CSA.
Think that stood for customer service assistant but we called ourselves cart shoving a-holes.
Fun job, made about $4.50 an hour but was in the union. Did help to get promoted to the dairy department and a pay raise. Also no cameras back then so we slugged chocolate milks and ate pudding containers that were "broken".
Anyone remember Laneco? Almost like a prehistoric version of Walmart. Good times.
 
Summer of '69 at something that no longer exists, a small brokerage firm on Wall St. doing back office stuff that computers now do. Wage was $1.65 per hour, which was the non-restaurant minimum wage. The real benefit was being able from the 40th floor of 40 Wall the watch the Apollo astronaut's helicopter land where now South Sea Seaport stands to get the start of their ticker tape parade after the moon landing and, even though we were a block off the parade route, throw everything but our supervisors out window during the parade.

A few weeks later on a Friday I was covering 2-3 jobs in my department as everyone 25 and under had taken a vacation day to head up to Woodstock.

Quite a summer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: phs73rc77gsm83 and RutgersRaRa
Great Eastern Dept. Store (doesn't exist anymore), made a cool $1.75 and hour which after taxes netted me less than $60 for a forty hour week.
 
shu2x79 said:
Great Eastern Dept. Store (doesn't exist anymore), made a cool $1.75 and hour which after taxes netted me less than $60 for a forty hour week.
Click to expand...

Yea, but you could fill the gas tank of your car for $4. and pay 50 cents for the round trip across and back over the GW Bridge.
 
RutgersRaRa said:
I'll start.

McDonald's on Stelton Road in Piscataway (on the South Plainfield border), and started at $2.35/hour. Rode my bike four miles to get there, rain or snow or sun, and loved the job because the people were cool.
Click to expand...
Worked at Mutual Brief Case in Newark NJ. 1942.Right after high school and waiting to get called up into service. FORTY CENTS an hour, $16 a week. AND they took out something for War Stamps.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sleeping Giant, ChasRC69, RC71 and 5 others
You must log in or register to reply here.
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT
Top Bottom
Back