Discuss Detroit » Archives - July 2007 » Another Memories Thread - Your First Job « Previous Next »
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Archive through November 05, 2007Philm30 11-05-07  5:49 pm
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Spitcoff
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Username: Spitcoff

Post Number: 136
Registered: 03-2004
Posted on Tuesday, November 06, 2007 - 10:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

caddy a detroit golf club
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Yaktown
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Username: Yaktown

Post Number: 253
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Tuesday, November 06, 2007 - 10:08 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

56pack, Johnlodge is correct. The "Bubble" is located on Commerce Road in Commerce. Then again, once you get to Milford, Commerce Road intersects with...Commerce Road. I think it's the nexus of the universe or something. Anyway, my first day of work there was my sister's 20th birthday, March 8th 1988.
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56packman
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Username: 56packman

Post Number: 1889
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Tuesday, November 06, 2007 - 10:44 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

threadjack alert!

Yak-that area drives me crazy--every road running in every direction is called Commerce road (there are 7 in total), the roads all curve around the lakes and every Billy Bob that lives in the area drives a jacked up hobby-horse pickup (Ford, mostly) and they like to go 85 mph on your back bumper while you are merely going 15 over while trying to find the right Commerce road to turn onto. I honestly don't know any places up there, just a few strip-mall joints on.................Commerce road.
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Goblue
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Username: Goblue

Post Number: 528
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Tuesday, November 06, 2007 - 10:59 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Caddy at the Country Club of Detroit...best carry I ever had was William Clay Ford...a genuinely nice man.
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Eastside61
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Username: Eastside61

Post Number: 403
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Tuesday, November 06, 2007 - 11:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Gb - I thought that you caddied for Mackinaw the watch salesman you met at the bus depot?????
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Mtm
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Username: Mtm

Post Number: 261
Registered: 06-2006
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 10:33 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Like many, I got my first job as a highschool co-op in 1976 (from defunct Dominican High). It was with Price Waterhouse & Co. where I was a receptionist, secretary, statistical-typist, proof-reader, etc. After graduation, they hired me full time for all of $7K per year!

Left there several months later to join the Bell System (did everybody spend some time working for the "Mother"?) working in Corporate Safety. My boss noticed my geek skills and, when another staffer requested to be submitted for the Berger Computer Skills test, she put me in instead. Passed on the first try and I've been a certified geek since.

When promotion lists came up, she put me down for Computer Operations Manager though I asked her to cross it out because I was also attending WSU at the same time and didn't want to work shifts. That was the job that came though and, though I passed if up on the first offer, I was told that I HAD to take it on the second offer or I'd be removed from the promotion list. (Believe it or not, in one of the interviews for the job, I was asked if I had children or planned to have any soon because they disrupt shift-workers' schedules! Ah the 80's!)
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Sbll
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Username: Sbll

Post Number: 4
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 2:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

my first job was in 1952 at The Michigan Inspection Bureau. It was in the Cadillac Square Bldg. On the 40th floor. Great job for a 16 year old. I think I made $40.00 a week.
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Johnlodge
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Username: Johnlodge

Post Number: 3440
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 2:34 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"Yak-that area drives me crazy--every road running in every direction is called Commerce road (there are 7 in total), the roads all curve around the lakes and every Billy Bob that lives in the area drives a jacked up hobby-horse pickup (Ford, mostly) and they like to go 85 mph on your back bumper while you are merely going 15 over while trying to find the right Commerce road to turn onto. I honestly don't know any places up there, just a few strip-mall joints on.................Commerce road."

Well, allow me to unthreadjack your post, 56. My SECOND job was delivering pizza in that area. There was a learning curve, let me tell you!
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Applesauce
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Username: Applesauce

Post Number: 109
Registered: 06-2007
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 2:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

One of my first gigs was delivering flyers for D's Pizza (across from Osbourne HS).
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Treelock
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Username: Treelock

Post Number: 229
Registered: 03-2005
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 3:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Me and my buds, ages 15, landed jobs manning the phones and making pies at Domino's Pizza in Ann Arbor. We'd bring our skateboards to the mall and shred in uniform while we blared Licensed to Ill from the boombox.

Then we'd punch in and get scolded by middle-management hierarchy about wearing T-shirts with print on them that showed through those God-awful polyester uniforms.

If ever there was a company with a hard-on for adhering to corporate rules, Domino's is it. But I will say I learned some good work ethics there.
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Wkl
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Username: Wkl

Post Number: 121
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 4:11 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

My first real job was in the Kressge stock room in the store on Warren near E. Outer Drive. Stayed until the store closed at the end of '73. Was paid $1.65/hr. Got paid in cash too.
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Jan
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Username: Jan

Post Number: 30
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 4:20 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Applesauce,

We used to order from D's every Friday. They had the best pizza!

jan
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Applesauce
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Username: Applesauce

Post Number: 111
Registered: 06-2007
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 4:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Yeah, they paid me in Pizza partially! Jimmy D was a great guy. He used to laugh & joke with us & let us eat whatever we wanted. We put in some long hard days there traversing the neighborhoods. I bought a moped with the money I earned one summer, took me all summer to save up $800.00!!
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Jrvass
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Username: Jrvass

Post Number: 302
Registered: 01-2007
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 6:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"If ever there was a company with a hard-on for adhering to corporate rules, Domino's is it."

Treelock,

You never worked at EDS under Perot, did you? Working in a oily-greasy-grimey GM plant in a 3-piece suit!
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Dhugger
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Username: Dhugger

Post Number: 228
Registered: 03-2005
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 7:44 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Mid 60's professional ice cream eater at my parents ice cream shop.

Pay check work: worked under age for Little Caesar's. They paid below minimum wage too. Government caught up with them. Several years later I received a sizable check in the mail to make up the difference in my paltry pay years earlier.
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Gannon
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Username: Gannon

Post Number: 10850
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 8:57 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I'm not sure which one came first, cleaning the catering truck of a local entrepreneur (who disliked my craving for his Hostess sweets) or cleaning the shop of our barber, Paul, from that shop on Warren between Wyoming and Schafer...immediately next to the old Laviolette's Mobil. (He disliked my craving for his Playboy mags in the back room)


Next was a Dearborn jobs program where I met one of the maniacal founders of the Abreact Theater company, Tom Hoagland.


THEN, a few years at Laviolette's Mobil...became weekend manager and assistant mechanic before I turned sixteen...built one good Beetle out of three bad ones, and 'borrowed' the license plate off the front bumper of the service truck to drive my friends to their driver's education classes. I was the youngest guy in class, didn't get my license until Junior year, but had been driving for two years before then!!

That was probably the best job I've ever had...we really ruled that full service gasoline station, people came in just to get fawned over. Only souvenir I have from then is a large dead frostbite spot on the surface of my right thigh from the fast-frozen backwash of one of those pesky LTDs with the side mounted filler pipe.

Couldn't be bothered wearing winter clothes, running in and out of the station...
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Macknwarren
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Username: Macknwarren

Post Number: 3
Registered: 10-2007
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - 11:10 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I installed underground lawn sprinklers for Santora's Landscaping, a small company on E. Warren and Nottingham. Our big job during the summer of 1968 was Berry Gordy Jr.'s newly bought mansion at Boston Boulevard and Hamilton.

I worked with one other high school student. The other guys on the crew were older: Mostly off-duty Detroit fire fighters and, basically, junkies. We never saw Gordy, but we saw his father, "Pops" Gordy, every day. He closely supervised our work, and made sure we dug every trench to the specified depth.

The older guys hated Mr. Gordy. They thought they were getting back at him when they urinated in his son's swimming pool. It's still a disgusting memory all these years later, but it said a lot about race relations a year after the riot.
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Elimarr
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Username: Elimarr

Post Number: 33
Registered: 09-2007
Posted on Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 11:11 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

That's nasty! I swam in that pool in the 80's.

I had a summer job bagging groceries at a Kroger store (Chene & Palmer.) The employees got first pick of the reduced day-old Awrey's baked goods and, for a teen with a sweet tooth and a high metabolism, I took advantage of that frequently. One of the regular customers was the "Catman." He rarely bought human food, but each week brought in his own leatherette tote bag to carry dozens of kitty food cans home to his pets. Oh yes, I packed that tote bag and it had the worst smelly cat odor you can imagine.
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Ray1936
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Username: Ray1936

Post Number: 2269
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 11:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Gotta comment briefly about my wife's first job. When she graduated from Allen Park High School, she was hired by the Auto Club of Michigan and sent to travel counsellor's school. She was assigned to the East Dearborn branch (where, lucky me, I met her) to provide routing services for AAA customers.

As a result of her training, to this day, she reads maps upside down.....the way she was trained, so the customer could see where she was routing him.
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Frank_c
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Username: Frank_c

Post Number: 1415
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Saturday, November 17, 2007 - 11:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Everyone used to piss in that pool. It was the most entertaining thing to do in the neighborhood, besides watching them swimming........
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Elimarr
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Username: Elimarr

Post Number: 35
Registered: 09-2007
Posted on Sunday, November 18, 2007 - 12:49 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Frank_c,
Unless "everyone" was a troupe of paid entertainers, that digresses from our topic of FIRST JOB.
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Warrenite84
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Username: Warrenite84

Post Number: 178
Registered: 01-2007
Posted on Sunday, November 18, 2007 - 3:05 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

My first job was at the Sign of the Beefcarver near Oakland Mall. $3.35/hr. and I was glad to get it. This was August,1982, with no jobs to be found otherwise because of so many people were out of work. It payed enough to keep gas in my 1970 AMC Hornet. That ended when my only raise in 13 months was $0.10/hr. They did and still do have the best roast beef.

Across the street was Farrells Ice Cream Shop,another place I miss.
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Irunwscissors
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Username: Irunwscissors

Post Number: 8
Registered: 11-2007
Posted on Sunday, November 18, 2007 - 12:04 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

My first job was for a pizza place called "Pizza Boy",in Sterling Heights. it was owned by 3 sisters from Italy. We(about 7-8 neighborhood kids) would go out Saturday mornings and deliver handbills in the surrounding areas, when we were done we would head back to the Pizzaria and she would make us each a medium pizza and give us 5.00 each. What a deal! I was 10 .It was 1984. They had awesome pizza too.
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Alfie1a
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Username: Alfie1a

Post Number: 12
Registered: 10-2007
Posted on Sunday, November 18, 2007 - 12:35 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

My first real job was at the car wash on Telegraph south of 6 Mile. We had great fun working there. One day, a hydraulic line burst and we didn't realize it until after a dozen or so cars went through. Then we had to handwash these cars. That was not fun.
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Johns
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Username: Johns

Post Number: 4
Registered: 10-2007
Posted on Sunday, November 18, 2007 - 6:52 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

This thread bought back a lot of memories. One my first jobs also was at the Sign of the Beefcarver, although this was circa 1971 and the hourly wage was 1.60 minus ten cents for food and laundry. Couldn't think about beef for a year after I worked there. At the same time I was working at O'Shea ice rink (most fun job I ever had) and at a local vitamin distributor (least fun job). Quit all three to work at Hudsons.
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Whaler
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Username: Whaler

Post Number: 16
Registered: 08-2007
Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 11:58 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

My first job was at Ted's Drive In back in 1966
Bus Boy,Dishwasher,then I advanced to being a Cook,Carhop,Desert Maker..All for the tidy sum of 65 cents a hour by the time i left 2 years later 1.15 a hour..those were the days...
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Bobj
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Username: Bobj

Post Number: 2922
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 12:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I pumped gas at Harper Kingsville Shell near Moross and I 94

Made $1.90/hour in 1975
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Oladub
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Username: Oladub

Post Number: 62
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 9:44 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

First paycheck job - cutting lawns for the Dewey Santora Landscape Company on E. Warren circa 1964. Bicycled 3 miles to get there for the morning lineup. Foremen would take turns picking. Those not picked, went home.

Idiot hillbilly foreman wouldn't let us switch jobs all day and fired one fellow for drinking from a lawn hose. Best memories - 1)A black maid at a Grosse Pointe house snuck some glasses of water to the crew. 2) The ride back, legs dangling off the back of the stake truck, after long muggy days.
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Bigb23
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Username: Bigb23

Post Number: 35
Registered: 11-2007
Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 10:12 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Maybe not the first job -
but close, I was head of a carpet cleaning crew that also did upholstery. We mainly worked in the Points.
We had a job where the couch in question was custom made in Sweden and had a strange stain on it after a teenage party. Well, I had to ask what the stain was, to use the proper remover. 20 Questions was never so fun.
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Ptero
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Username: Ptero

Post Number: 147
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 10:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

First job was at age 11, selling the Emergency Press in the summer of 1964 at the corner of Grand River and Oakman. The Detroit newspaper pressmen were on strike for 134 days, long enough for someone to put out a daily rag to replace the regular papers.

It was a bad deal, somehow the guy who set me up, set me up. I ended up with nearly zero earnings with him charging me some sort of fee.

Job #2 was better. Music Librarian at Cass Tech for the city wide orchestra that practiced on Saturdays. It was fun anyway.
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Jrvass
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Username: Jrvass

Post Number: 328
Registered: 01-2007
Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 10:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Bigb23,

I also worked on a carpet/upholstery/fire/water damage crew. Early '80's the owner and I spent all day cleaning wool carpets in a house in Detroit. We had to move furniture out of rooms to clean underneath. Hot day in the city. We sweated gallons. Dog pissy wool carpet! When we finished and were paid, the owner gave us each a "Champale". Yuck!

The next job was fixing copiers. I was at an office in Royal Oak whose copier was busted. This was a model that the glass table slid back & forth on a cable. I fix the busted cable then go to clean the glass... A big set of butt cheek's prints!

:-)

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