The Citizen asked followers of its Facebook page (www.facebook.com/pgcitizen) this week about the first pay cheque they ever got and where was it from?
The response was so large that we thought we'd share some of them, while adding a few more of our own.
For more than a few local residents, their first-ever job was as a newspaper carrier for The Citizen.
We also got everything from sign-waving clown to ice-cream stand girl, along with hotel workers, fast food jockeys, and department store clerks.
Here's what a few more had to add:
Gorden James, who grew up in Prince George, is now a musician who will perform at the Treasure Cove show lounge July 6.
"My first job was at McDonald's on Massey Drive! Wow! The memories that brings back! Flippin' burgers and wearing the lovely uniforms that they had back then! Remember the McRib? I got employee of the month and I think I made $3.10 an hour." He was 13 years old.
Susan Andrist, member of the Prince George chapter of Muscular Dystrophy Canada:
"My first job was at Ted's Service about ten miles out of Dawson Creek when I was about 16 years old. I flipped burgers at the lunch counter and was in charge of the cash register. I made about $5 an hour and they provided room and board above the garage."
Jim Brinkman, owner of Books & Company:
"My first pay cheque came from TF&M Sawmills in Telkwa when I was 14 , back in 19??. It was a Saturday cleanup job, shoveling sawdust out from under all the machines. Had to have a shower after work. TF&M Sawmills, I think, though I could be wrong, but it was owned by the Broderick family from Chicago or some big city. They owned a number of mills from Crescent Spur through to Smithers, and eventually went bankrupt."
Jose Delgado-Guevara, artistic director, Prince George Conservatory of Music and concertmaster, Prince George Symphony Orchestra
"My first pay cheque I got was during my first orchestra job with the National Symphony of Costa Rica as part of the viola section, I was 18. Why didn't anyone warn me about deductions?
Anyway I loved that job. During my first year with this job we toured Spain, and several Costa Rican provinces as well as what then felt like hundreds of school concerts."
Kathy Nadalin, Seniors' Scene columnist, Elder Citizens Recreation Centre Association past president
"My first job ever was baby sitting for four boys, aged one and a half to five years old, Monday to Friday when I was only 14 years old. I got off the school bus at 4 p.m. and that's when their parents left to work graveyard shifts. I cooked, washed diapers by hand, and then did the laundry, cleaned the house, and washed up all four boys, played games or watched TV and then tucked them into bed. Then I did my homework and went to my bedroom and got up the next morning and caught the bus to go to school to do it all over again. I was paid $15 per week and because I had a full-time job and was not home to do my chores at the family home, I had to pay for all my school supplies, class dues and clothes out of my pay. I did this for nearly two years and then when the children got old enough to go to school the arrangements changed and I lost my job at 16 years old."
Colleen Sparrow, Citizen publisher
"My first job was at 10 baby sitting all summer to save for back-to-school clothes. I also shared a paper route with my brothers. I spent every summer baby sitting for that family and I started with the first son when he was only a few months old. When I stopped looking after the kids during the summer and started working at Ospika grocery there were three beautiful kids that were like mine. I even lived with the family for a few years after I graduated, like their nanny when I wasn't working my corner store job. Needed to be in style and it was the only way I could get the clothes I had to have."
Neil Godbout, managing editor
"My first real job was as a shipyard labourer for Arctic Transportation in Tuktoyaktuk in 1985, the summer I was 17, at the height of the offshore oil boom in the Beaufort Sea. Total nepotism - my dad was the terminal manager. Horrible way for an Okanagan kid to spend his summer but two summers up there paid for nearly half of my university."
Mark Nielsen, reporter
"My first job was to use a circular saw to convert low-grade cedar planks into fencing of various lengths. I was stuck in the very back of a lumber yard somewhere in Port Moody or Port Coquitlam, and it was about a 45-minute drive to get there from my parents' home in Surrey. I was too much of a day dreamer to be productive but I was making about $4 an hour so I guess the boss didn't really care. Probably about 15 years later, when I was working at a newspaper in Port Hardy on the northern tip of Vancouver Island, he and his wife showed up in a vintage sports car and I took a photo for the newspaper. I recognized him and, of course, he didn't recognize me but it looked like he missed that place about as much as I did, which was not at all."
Arthur Williams, associate news editor
"My first job was as a landscaper in Calgary one summer, while I was still in high school. A buddy and I printed some flyers, bought a lawnmower, tools and a weed wacker, and went into business. After a summer of back-breaking work and sweat, we'd just about doubled our money. Not exactly a roaring success, but I learned a lot."
Christine Hinzmann, reporter
"My first job was at Camp Big Canoe. I was 15 and I was a camp counsellor. For the first two weeks of the summer I counseled a bunch of rowdy 12-year-old boys. Really happy I could out-run, out-throw, and out-paddle them, not to mention outsmart them, because boy, they weren't sure what to do with a girl counselor. Once they got over the girl thing, it was the best fun I ever had and the rest of the summer was a breeze. I got $500 at the end of the summer but it felt like a milllion to me!"
Mick Kearns, associate editor
"My first job was as a lounge boy or waiter in a pub in Dublin. The age to work in such a place was 16, but my dad - being the evil genius he is - gave me my older brother's birth certificate and told me my name was now Martin. I worked in the job for four years until I finished high school and began working as an apprentice bartender. You had to serve a four-year apprenticeship to become a bartender. The only problem was when people I knew came in for a drink and called me Mick. I had to try to get to them to tell them the situation before they called my real name across the bar. I worked between three and five days a week depending on the time of year.
Shifts usually started at 6 p.m. and you got home at 1 a.m. It was a great job. In 1979 the tips were decent and at Christmas some of the regulars had a whip round collecting extra money from the patrons on that night for the waiters. It was usually about 10 times what we would make in a regular night."
To add your first-job tale, stop by our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pgcitizen.
