Some good stories. My first job, well actually I had two first jobs Both started more or less simultaneously. Aged 14, pallet repairer and lounge boy. Yes, I just had to be different. My Mother arranged both for me whether I liked it or not.
The first was at a food distributor. They had a lot of pallets in the yard that were a bit damaged and they figured that a couple of boys with a hammer and nails could fix em up. My parents knew the manager and I got the job along with some other kid. We fixed up few but realised it was tough work and soon started pulling out good pallets from the pile and claiming them as repaired. We had other little tasks, one was sitting beside a noisy vibrating machine that washed dried fruit like raisins, picking out stalks and cigarette butts thrown in by inconsiderate Greek farmers.
There was an interesting diversion. The manager would pick me up every morning but one day he said he couldn't. So I walked. Just outside the building, there he was sitting in his car. I had seen enough cop shows by then to recognise a stake out
Turned out some staff were going in early and stealing stuff. They were caught.
Lounge boy, sounds a bit sleazy but really it was just a junior bar waiter. I did that in the evenings in a local pub. There was a bar and a lounge as there often is in Irish pubs. At the time women were not allowed in the bar, just men. They went to the lounge. I swiftly discovered an interesting fact. Men tip better when women are around. Tips were lousy in the bar. In the lounge, you always got big tips. Men showing off, I suppose.
I hated both jobs, I must say and neither lasted long. But unfortunately they were just a taste of the series of rubbish jobs constituted my 'career'.
