Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What did you make when you started your first job out of college or high school?

1993-

$859 a month gross swinging a brush hook for a DOT survey party.

I was still in high school when I learned how to drive cement mixers.

I remember my high school French teacher asking me how much they paid me to drive cement trucks.
Her jaw dropped when I told her. She said, "That's more than I make!" a little miffed.

I think it was about 12 bucks an hour.

$4.50/ hr as a meter reader for the electric utility company. Still with them as a Journeyman Lineman with 39 years of service.

1972...out of HS started painting houses for 1 1/2 yrs, don't remember $$. 1974 started working in a machine shop for $2.98 hr. working 50-60yrs a week. OT was good. 40+ years later it was a living but never got rich. Enjoyed the trade but worked some real A-holes.

Worked the summer at GM for $19/hr (My dad juiced me in). Then went home after the temp ended and made $9/hr welding patio furniture. I paid $9 a week for full medical, prescription ,eye, and dental too.

1988 PVT E-1 in the US Army. I think it was $700? Maybe $750 a month?

fifty cents per hour.....and it was a good start

Mid May...1988

Straight out of Tech school into an injection moldmaker apprenticeship

$5 an hour

Summer of '93 I made $4.35/hr pumping gas in Riverside California...

1975 - $3.90/hr . . . thought I was in tall cotton at $8112/yr. Boy, was I wrong.

$1382 a month in 1982 as an Army 1LT after Grad School/ME Degree.

Early 70's working all the time (after school and weekends). Learning carpenter trade. So poor I couldn't pay attention. Wert we all. Worked my way through college. Got a job with a badge and a gun. Working 4-10's. Construction work on the side.
After 5.5 years, I gave up my badge. Made more $$$ part time than woring fulltime badge work.
It helped me grow as a person. Thankful for all I've done.

I feel like I should represent the millennials here .... Lots of [bleep] jobs in high school and during college, 21k/yr after college as a university teaching assistant in 2008. That was while I was a grad student. After grad school 11/hr working for a furniture store for 6mo. Then a professional job in my field for several times that, by then I was 25 or 26. Now I’ve got a family and feel more broke than when I was a grad student making $10/hr.

I did two summer internships as a mechanical engineer at a Shell refinery in the Bay Area and was offered $30k a year prior to graduating. This was 1985 and one of the best decisions I have ever made was to accept. My youngest son is following the same path.