What was your very first proper job?

A crisp factory in the dispatch department, I loved it, it will always be my best loved job.

Think at the time there were only few flavours of crisp, they would shuffle down on this big spiral and we could just eat them as we passed (we even cooked crips for M n S)

Istill love a bag of crisp to this day.

MissAdventure

I had lots of jobs while I was still at school, but my first one when I left was a dental nurse, the same as DanniRae.

I really loved that job! Gruesome enough to appeal, lovely patients, and a white coat and Scholls.

MissAdventure - SNAP!!

Ooops. Should say when I was at school

When I was arts school I worked in a seaside cafe which I was often in charge of at the age of 15. Had to collect the float in the morning and cash up at the end of the day as well as serve and order supplies. Seems crazy now but quite acceptable then. I then went on to work as a waitress, look after children in a boarding school at weekend - get them up, feed them, washing clothes, entertain, bathing etc but when I moved to London for teacher training I worked In Lloyds overseas department in the city in my holidays. Really enjoyed that asa holiday job but would hate to have been there full time. From then on I was a teacher til I retired.

1970!

HowVeryDareYou

I left school on a Friday, started work the following Monday, as a Clerical Assistant for N.A.A.F.I., in the offices in town. I worked 9-5, and earned £18.56. That was in 1975.

I've gone all 3 Yorkshire men here. £18.56 blimey. I earned 11 and 6 in my first real job, in London, My digs were 7.50, with breakfast only (toast and a cup of tea).

I was the youngest member of a professional kitchen staff and being untrained did the routine jobs like buttering bread for sandwiches , slicing tomatoes and cucumbers, cleaning salads and other greens, peeling potatoes and carrots and cleaning fridges.

I was 16, most of the other girls in the kitchen were trained and in their early twenties, but they were a nice bunch, and as one of them said, "We all remember what peeling hard-boiled eggs for hours was like, so you leave those to me and go and help Jean set out the cold buffet for lunch."

I learned a lot from those nice girls, especially what a difference it made to be treated kindly and not as a skivvy because you were just out of school.

I left school on a Friday, started work the following Monday, as a Clerical Assistant for N.A.A.F.I., in the offices in town. I worked 9-5, and earned £18.56. That was in 1975.

I worked in the West End at at 15 I got a job as a 'junior' at C&A Modes as it was known then. I was in ladies dresses & underwear. We juniors had to start an hour earlier than the others to clean all the mirrors and there were loads and remove dust sheets from the racks which were put on every night. I loved it though especially when tasked with bringing up stock in the in the service lift where wed laugh and joke with boys from menswear or the posh boys who were trainee buyers. We'd meet at lunch time and walk down Oxford st to HMV to listen to records in the booths. I earnt £4.10s a fortune to me.

Best job I ever had? Waitress at a holiday camp. Went with a friend and we had a wonderful time. Met my husband - he was a camper!

I left school at 15 and thought I wanted to do office type work. Anyway a friend near where I lived stopped me one day said "Why don't you work at the bra factory it's just down the road, I do it's good money"

So I trained as a sewing machinist using a big treadle keep feet on to work the machine. Stayed for three years, making bra cups turn them, stitch down middle, moved on to other factories making tracksuits, I put zips in jackets then collars on.

Worked in Woolworths on various counters
Did a stint as chalet maid at Butlins in Filey good fun lots of entertainment there.

Then found a husband married.

I bet nobody can beat me on age for holiday woring . I lived in a rural area and all schools got time off to pick potatoes. The lady who worked in our shop was having a week's holiday to do this and she took me with her , I was seven and a half . The area you had to pick was marked out for you and called a bit . At my age i only had a half bit . We statred work at 7 am each day and it was hard work . I cannot believe my parents let me do this . The next year I went alone and had a half bit but at 9 I had a full bit.
When I left school I really did not know what to do with the qualifications I had but a job was advertised at school in a bank . I sat their exam ( found it a bit insulting really ) and started the next week . I enjoyed the work and it was good to be able to go back park time once the children were older .

I worked as a photo-copy girl in a large high-rise building full on engineers developing a steel-mill project. It was my first proper office job full time. We copied blueprints as well as any other booklets and documents. Imagine - there were 5 of us copying all day long!

The office was also central supplies, so the engineers were usually happy to come down to ask for copies and pencils while chatting with all the girls. We were all young and it was a lot of fun.

I was also tasked with being relief receptionist on the 19th floor... where all the executives were. I didn't like it at all, it was very stuffy and formal. I'd much rather be down on the lower floors where it was more relaxed!

The job did not inspire me to an engineering career. I ended up in transportation, as a planner, where I am still working.

In my last year at school I had a saturday job in a small painting and decorating shop. I knew absolutely nothing about painting and decorating and was really shy!!! I used to sit on a stool and do nothing all day, goodness knows why they kept paying me for a year until I left school and started a full time job.

Library assistant and I loved it

My first job after leaving school at 16 was as a GPO telephone operator, did that for nearly 4 years. Then a few fill in jobs, one working in a cotton mill as a cone winder, hated it. After several years of bitty jobs, I started at the local Boots warehouse, packing those big brown buckets that you see being unpacked in the shops. Then we moved over here in 1977 and I became a canteen assistant in a printing factory, after first working in the box shop stitching boxes. I took voluntary redundancy in 1992, aged 49, that was my last job.

Saturday job in a greengrocers when I was 15. At 18, as a qualified Nursery Nurse in a nursery school, I had my own class.

I wasn’t allowed to have a job while at
school - not that I wanted one. My first job after I graduated was teaching English Literature in Scotland. I hated it - both the job and the place. It seemed so backward after London. This was over fifty years ago and I’m sure it’s different now.

Then I got a job teaching English Language at a northern university. I quite enjoyed that, but all I really wanted was to get married and have babies. So I did that, and lived happily ever after!

PS I'm a great wrapper of presents. The key is in getting the corners of boxes super tight, or double folding the paper with squidgy parcels. 🎁

I kind of fell into a job as graduate management trainee for one of the big banks and had to work in every department for 2 years. Some of it was dead boring, but I was grateful for the experience to learn skills in finance, legal, marketing and advertising, HR and training etc. I think it taught me how important it is to try to get along with everyone in a big organisation, or any organisation for that matter.

I always wanted to work in a record shop!

Working behind the counter in the pop music section of a record shop on Saturdays.

What a dream job.

After Uni I didn't go into a profession. I "dropped out" and was a van delivery girl and worked in a plastic bag factory, and in the local community run whole food bakery, bringing vegan food to the community in the 1970's and gasp....wholegrain brown bread that was the real thing not Hovis.

Later reverted to family form and worked for SSD and Community Education. I got those jobs on the basis of lots of voluntary work though during said dropping out period.

Worked in the market in a jewelry stall when I was at school left at 15 to work in mill ,winding,weaving etc used to flit from job to job. I sat entrance exam to become a nurse passed and settled doing that for 40odd years .

Working a year in west Drayton mending gyroscope units for the aircraft industry. Lots of liquid nitrogen, mercury switches and Toluene about to play with. Little health and safety! . As I had a music scholarship at the same time I had to be very careful re my fingers. Still remember the fiddle (pun intended) that used to go on the timesheets when I was way over mine in hours and others with less used to amicably swap. But I learnt a lot, the cafeteria was great and the camaraderie was brilliant. Only three ladies in total so we had to stand up for ourselves. I was 18 and grew up fast! I don’t regret any of it.

Packing boxes of Polyfilla into bigger boxes as they came off the conveyor.