Who Had The Worst First Job In Central Minnesota?

Social Security has been in the news a lot the last couple of years. Since I’m closer to the end of my days working than the beginning, I pay a little closer attention to anything I see about the subject. 

Thinking Back To The Our First Job

I worded it like this to the folks I work with, “What was the first job where taxes were taken out of what you made”. As I mentioned this turned fun when, first some had to think back to what the first job they had actually was, but some of the stories that came along with those jobs when I asked how long they worked there were pretty interesting. And brought back some memories for me too. 

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Here are some of the replies that came out of Townsquare Media St. Cloud. 

Of course, there were a few folks who started working in grocery stores as cashiers. These gigs must have paid better than the stores in North Carolina where I grew up, but the folks here in Minnesota stayed for multiple years. Back home, our stores had a constant turnover of high school kids. 

The first job for one of my co-workers was as a maid at a hotel. She finally got tired of cleaning up after other people and was able to transition to working the front desk. She had a rather humorous story about a frequent guest at the hotel, but that one will have to stay between she and I. 

Another of my co-workers' first job was a seasonal one, working in the corn field. This one lasted about three months, and that seemed to be the only year he did that one, so I’m not sure how much he enjoyed it.  

Other jobs included: 

• Picking up all the range balls at a golf course 

• Working for the school newspaper while being a teacher's assistant 

• Janitorial type work around the high school and teaching swim lessons 

• Stocking shelves at a grocery store 

• Pumping Gas and working in the garage of a gas station 

• Being a cashier at a gas station 

• Working at the YMCA as a greeter 

• Cleaning up around a car wash and laundromat and then removing the change from the machines and car wash. 
• Cashier at a movie theatre

There was of course lots of restaurant work too. 

One co-worker started at Burger King feeding the burgers into the griller. That became short lived because of the ugly hat she had to wear and how uncomfortable the polyester uniforms were.  

Another co-worker had the responsibility of reloading the salad bar at a restaurant in Princeton. She shared that she had to learn how to chop the vegetables without cutting off the tip of her finger, which she did. 

When I asked if she told her manager and she replied, “oh no, they would have likely told me that the knives were sharp, plus I didn’t want to lose my job”.  

Another of my Townsquare mates started working at 14, and washed dishes in a restaurant for two years. Once he could drive himself to a different job, he did. But I love the fortitude to stick with that for two years, as a 14-year-old that for sure wasn’t a cool job to have. 

Someone else in our building started at Pizza Ranch and hung with being a cashier for a year. I think being around all of that pizza all the time had some influence in the length of the job for sure. 

Broadcasting started early for one co-worker who covered sports for his high school paper, and he would have to call in scores to a radio station across the border in Canada which was across the river. His flashback was getting calls at 3am from the station and his mom not really taking kindly to a call in the middle of the night. 

There were a couple of folks I work with now whose first jobs were pretty physically demanding. 

One fellow ripped out old railroad tracks from a train that wasn’t being used anymore. Luckily for him, this one was seasonal and lasted only about three months and for him it was on to the next. 

But the one that took the grand prize for probably the worst first jobs, at least in our building, was the one where the guy had to catch chickens. When I asked for more explanation he said, “it is what it sounds like”. When I bemoaned that it probably smelled bad, his facial expression led me to believe that he could probably still smell it.  

Plus, he did this during an overnight shift before going to school. The scratches that came along with this job should have required hazardous duty pay. He said it did pay good and that’s the reason he stuck it out for close to a year. They had to pay him, because not many other people wanted the gig. 

I didn’t get to talk to everyone our the building, but I got to everyone that was around.  

Like I said earlier, this turned out to be a really neat way to learn about my co-workers because most of them had a story to add either positive or negative. But even for a brief few minutes, this created conversations in our building that had our staff remembering back and sharing a few laughs at the stories that were told.  

So, let me ask you, “what was your first job that took out taxes”?