--I remember picking tobacco for 50 cents an hour. I had a morning newspaper route that paid me $10 a week for 5 AM delivery 7 days a week, rain or shine. I set pins at a bowling alley for 10 cents a game. I worked in a newspaper pressroom for 75 cents an hour. All of the above jobs were in 8th grade through 12th grade. --I served in the U.S. Navy for three years, started out at $78 a month and discharged at $318 a month. --After my discharge I took a job selling classified advertising for a newspaper at $1.05 an hour, one nickel above minimum wage. Weekly pay was $42 and my bring home pay was $36. I paid my parents $8 a week for room and board which left me $28 a week.
I worked at a casting plant in my early 20s. Cast jet engine parts. It was just above minimum wage, rough finishing. The worst was the sandblast cabinet, 8 hours, standing at that cabinet, do a tray of parts, roll it down the line and repeat...for 8 hours. The water blast cannon was fun. It was lost wax casting with ceramic gang molds. A huge cabinet, insert the mold and parts in the chuck, close the door and blast the ceramic off with a 30,000 psi water jet. It would cut thru a firebrick in one quick pass.
-Corporate Trainer, I trained instructors on teaching computer curriculum and new programs. The school was for people reentering the workforce, some had mental and physical disabilities, been in prison, prostitution, trafficked etc. -Executive Administrative Assistant $15/hr, I absolutely hated it but learned a lot from that job. I worked as a model for a greater portion of my life, and in booking travel arrangements for the CEO, I learned how to save a lot of money when traveling and finding good deals so it benefited me later in life. -Sales, Asset Management and Quality Assurance in banking and mortgage industries. I hated it!!! Oddly, I was good at those jobs but miserable! Made decent money, but it wasn't worth it to me to dread going to work every morning. -I started modeling at 15 years old and did that on the side till I was 23, and built up my clientele and starting traveling full time. I started off in runway in my teen years and got into print work when I was 18. Also did promotions for liquor brands, which was weird because I rarely drink! Lol Money really does depend, I had steep times and I was fortunate to make really excellent money! Jobs on average range $150/hr-$650/hr depending on job type, market, location etc. It can be a very taxing job, because unless you're a supermodel, one has to hustle, network and travel ALL the time, so being away from family and lack of a social/personal life can take an emotional toll at times. I love it overall, but Instagram and Facebook have pretty much destroyed that industry, also Covid-19 hasn't helped either! Lol
I worked on my parents farm for no pay until 15. At 15, I got a job in town at a local pool and I made grilled cheese all day for 7 an hour. Later in life worked as a gvt contractor, an operations manager for a startup, and of course the Army.
I stayed up all night to make sure I got up early. I was a caddie. Singles the first year and then strong enough for doubles the second year. Singles were about 3.50 a loop and doubles paid 6.00. With tips it was 5.00 single and 8.00 double. I could get two 18 hole loops and one 9 hole loop in a day. And I usually did on the weekends. Picked up golf balls from out of bounds and sold them at the public courses on week days. Did pretty well actually. Financed my tropical fish hobby, bought golf clubs, and all new clothes for school.
A golf course before the casting plant, I had to be there at 6 am, rode a bicycle 8 miles one way. I drove a machine with a bar of leaf rakes on the back, drive in the sand traps, drop the rakes, drive in circles and get out and do the edges by hand with a rake, that took until ten am, then various task until quitting time at 2:30 pm. I found a few putters broken in anger, lol. Also worked in the pit at an oil change place. Some of those damn filters are a bitch to reach.
I was just a flunky laborer, I wish I worked in casting, it paid well. Though I did do some casting today, .454 round lead ball in my lyman, double cavity mold. Using a small ladle with a pour spout and propane torch, cast about 50 or so. Used soil stack flashing, cut it up with my loppers.
Interesting. My first job was cutting a guy's lawn for $20/week around 1976. I made $20 one year rolling hands of tobacco. I washed dishes at Chi Chi's and Sizzler for $3.25/h for about two years. I joined the Army in Nov 83 and made about $600/mo until I ETS'ed in 87 at about $996/mo + about $150/mo BAS. I helped out a residential construction home-builder for I believe it was $8/h. I DJ'ed weddings and parties for awhile. That was usually around $150/4h. This was awesome. Really enjoyed it. I probably broke about even overall on the gear and CDs. Only job I really miss. Had a pair of JBL Cabaret 4691Bs. Carver PM1201 amp. 16Ch Mackie CR1606 Mixer. Can't remember the CD player brand. About a thousand CDs in two large road cases. Cubicle gig since Dec 1995. Traveled a bit, commissioned a couple of startups. Kazakhstan was the most interesting job assignment. Oil & Gas stuff paid pretty well. Really hated my last job at the end. All the real work is outsourced to India for about 10% of what previously had been paid to Houston employees. And the clients were so ****ing stupid - mind numbingly stupid in fact.
We (they) made wax blanks of the parts and they went to slurry, dipped in the liquid ceramic (or whatever specific formula) dried, redipped...etc Then heated up and the wax dumped. The casting foundry oven was insane, you could have drove a full sized SUV in there. Molds were preheated and very specific alloys poured. I'd like to build me a small furnace for hobby casting. I have done some sand casting, pouring molten lead into ant mounds
Our "cores" we're made of sand and resin made in a press. Sand was pumped in with resin under pressure and gassed. The gas.... We called T-gas made the core solid. We had departments.... Core, molding, finishing, final inspection, and shipping. The sand left in the part after molding was " knocked out" with air hammers. Every operation took 20 seconds . We poured a lot of aluminum. Three disamatics running 180 parts an hour for 20 hours a day... Or longer. It paid well... very well for a dumb hillbilly like me. It ran like a symphony .
I had a job interview at an AK steel plant over in Ashland Ky. Whoa! That operation was mind-blowing. I did not get to see the basic blast furnace but I did get to see some mind blowing other stuff. That plant was setup so that the blast furnace product was, I swear you can't make this kinda stuff up, shipped over to the BO furnace building in giant thermos railcars. Three cars emptied into a huge crucible - big enough for about three average size ~2000 ft^2 homes to fit in. Then this ****er was lifted to make a pour into the BO furnace/reactor. I was standing there freaking out as this pour happened right in front of me. Molten iron spilling in literal fireworks all over the place with a Hollywood typical industrial black and dark background framing the scene. I missed seeing the part of the process that included the secondary reactor that fed the continuous caster, but I saw the amazing output of the continuous cast. Wow - a floating rectangle of solidifying steel. Freaky AF. Their sheet metal finishing plant was also incredible. Huge sheets of steel with an automated vertical belay system that allowed for switching to new rolls at the end of the line while the sheet casting/rolling process continued upstream. The guy that was taking me on the tour hit the e-stop and I got to see how the belays started playing out the sheets as they rolled up into a 4 story vertical structure that provided something like 20 or 30 minutes of buffer between the final roll and the upstream process.
I was a high pressure arc welder for 10 years in a shipyard and military construction, then I had a work related accident where I busted one of my knee. I wen't back to school 3 years later, got a CS college degree. Been working as a tech since then and I'm schedule to retire with full pension in 4 years.
Crazy the equipment used in such manufacture, especially some of those giant, vertical hammers that make huge formed parts. I'm kinda of pyro myself, I find high and low explosives fascinating science. I know enough to know I should just admire the science and leave making and handling such things to the pros. Know the lowly "snap pop"? That's a high explosive known as silver fulminate, it's so unstable a dime size pile can detonate under it's own weight. The amount on a snap pop (IIRC) is something like 50 millionths of a gram (equivalent to a hit of LSD) on that pinch of gravel as a frictioning agent. If I read it correctly, it's basically useless for much else due to the instability. A great way to learn science and chemistry. I do make some things for the 4th, within boundries of the law. Molten lead is mesmerizing, after you get all the dross off, looks just like mercury. But gawd help you if you work with larger amounts and get so much as a drop of sweat in your crucible. My humble pour ladle is my crucible, maybe 3 ounces max. I work out doors on the ground, if I'm already on the ground, I cant drop it on the ground. Mistakes are very unforgiving. On an industrial scale, mass disaster.
Well, you are older then me, that's obvious. My first job was babysitting for $1 an hour. I worked in a kitchen at nursing home for $3---min wage at the time. Worked full commission for a while at a media company, kinda scary but I did ok. When I got out of college 25K was considered excellent pay.
One of my jobs was working for a company which studied traffic in DC. I would sit on a street corner and count the cars going through the intersection each light cycle. Other times I would drive a fixed route while a partner would time how long to get between intersections. I met a lot of interesting people on that job, a fellow who was researching Jacob Bohme, a sixteenth C. Protestant mystic; a classified mail clerk who had lost his job (as he had lost his mind) and was a follower of Annie Besant the theosophist; and a Midwesterner who wanted a political job and wanted to listen to a famous televangelist whose name escapes me now. Once I was driving a route which took me right in front of the White House. I made a turn and a cop stepped behind me and stopped traffic. I found myself driving alone right in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. A limo came out of the gates of the White House and we both stopped for the light at 17th St. I turned to look out the window and the rear window of the limo lowered so the passenger could eyeball me. It was Henry Kissinger.
i manage a hedge fund and have a few real estate investments. we are doing great shorting the stock market, but the real estate side of our portfolio is doing poorly.
I played a piano in a whore house for minimum wage. I gave that up and became a politician and now I'm a millionaire.
I worked my way through college by being a security guard graveyards and by transporting mentally ill veterans from one VA facility to another. All for very little money.
