Got a paper route when I was 10 or 11 because I wanted a boom box with one of them new fangled CD players in it. Prior to that I was an altar boy at the catholic church where I attended school, which got me out of religion class on occasion to do the morning mass. I also would get paid for doing weddings and funerals so I count it as a job (it actually was for the most part).
In HS I started working as a drummer and took just about any gig I could find. I ended up playing for the local community theatre group and would make something like $10 a night. Paid for gas and I got a ton of great experience out of it.
Took a job one summer before my junior year remodeling a Rite Aid. The manager in charge of the project was pretty abusive and not too bright. One time she asked me to remove an end unit from an aisle and yelled at me when I started to remove the glass items from the shelves that were "upstream" of it. I calmly explained that if I remove the end unit all the shelves will tip and dump everything. She yelled at me and hurled all sorts of insults as to my intelligence. She then promptly assigned me to some other menial task and got someone else. About 10 minutes later I hear this deafening crash as all the shelves tipped like a teeter totter over the center support and dumped 4 8ft shelves full of glassware. She called me over and fired me...
Been working my entire life in some capacity or another since I was 10. I meet far too many "kids" fresh out of college that have zero work ethic and have never broken a sweat at anything but think they deserve a promotion, unearned respect and $100k a year. Makes me sad...and frustrated since I have to pick up their slack for the day before I can fire them.
There's an entitlement mentality in some wet behind the ears college graduates that rivals career Welfare.
