Re: Your first Job after leaving School.

Office Junior and telephonist using a 5_line PABX switchboard - can't tell you how many times I "pulled the plug" by mistake and cut people off

I also had to make tea in a massive teapot three times a day and take it round on a tea trolley - I hated doing that and couldn't understand why everyone got so excited about a cup of tea !

I was 15 and got paid £3.15.0 per week less 7/6d N.I. stamp ... mother took £3 and I had the 7/6d to spend.

Re: Your first Job after leaving School.

That was good money then Barry, my wages was £1 and five shillings and I was let keep the five bob. Interesting how in those days the young workers handed up the bulk of their earnings to help out the family.

Re: Your first Job after leaving School.

I also left school just after my 15th birthday. My Dad took me for my interview in an office and agreed my wage of £3 a week for 45 hours and
5 and a half days. Wage to keep the same until I was 18 when it went up
to £5 a week
Office junior work like some of you on here, doing the dreg things
I always wanted to type and they wouldn't let me touch a typewriter or
the PABX board either. Think I had the dreaded lurgie or something
Mum got half my wage so richer than some of you but I had to buy
my own shampoo and soap
Needless to say I became independent and left that job at 17 when I found
out my younger sister was going to get a job nearly double my wage for less hours. Adios to that parlava.

Re: Your first Job after leaving School.

That's true Jem, it was a matter of pride to be able to pay your way, unfortunately these days the opposite seems the norm. Some of my grandkids are on two or three hundred quid a week but give their parents barely a pittance....

Re: Your first Job after leaving School.

My mates and I stayed on for the fifth form, did a couple of 'O' levels and went to nightschool to learn shorthand typing.

My first job was as secretary to the shipping manager of a global company in the City, the pay was excellent and they paid towards the fares.
It was a very posh company. We had a German Countess and a couple of Majors in our office..all of whom had to be properly addressed.
We girls were not allowed to wear trousers!

I was happy to leave when I got married, I hated the trawl on the underground.
I then worked for the Royal London, in the local office, much more friendly
and near home.

I remember my mum taking about a third of my pay but as there were five of us working there was plenty coming in and we were all saving furiously, for weddings and deposits.

Re: Your first Job after leaving School.

My first job at 16 was as a messenger boy at The Evening Standard in Shoe Lane, just off Fleet Street.

I'd been doing all kinds of jobs in my own time for years so I don't really know what I was expecting at first because I was shown around and met messengers at the interview.

I remember turning up with pin-striped trousers, shirt and tie but soon found that was a bit uncomfortably with all the heaving and humping but then I took over the "Express Run" which meant I had a designated route with daily deliveries and some collections in both the Standard's offices and the Daily Express building in Fleet Street.

This meant I had to be smart because I saw mostly high-flyers, including Editors and the big chief - Lord Beaverbrook.

I enjoyed the job but the Print then was run by SOGAT and NATSOPA so you had to join the Union and the Union decided what job you were destined for and my Union - SOGAT - decided I was Filing Clerk material so I got the job in a Picture Library of the Standard, dealing with the stock mainly and then at the beck and call of the Picture Editor later on.

Although I did actually enjoy that job I could see that I'd never get farther up as it was a question of waiting until someone died and I was well back in the queue.

I decided I wanted something else but still in photography so I moved on and I ended up as a trainee Photographic Processor in Covent Garden.
Can't really say I regretted it but I do often wonder where I'd have got to in The Standard - or the Express. stevmk2

Re: Your first Job after leaving School.

After school and 'A' levels, I studied Electrical engineering at Uni.

I've been lucky enough to have good well paid jobs, but during my student days, I worked at all sorts of summer and part time jobs - council worker, postman at Christmas, repairing amplifiers etc.. in a musical instrument shop. This taught me a valuable lesson - never confuse the person with the job they do!

I stayed on at Uni and worked in the Atomic & molecular physics dept, designing and building experimental rigs for the Phd students. After a while I moved into computer engineering with a large multi-national company and later still into software development for industrial and commercial clients.

Re: Your first Job after leaving School.

Saturday job at Boots the chemist...When I didn't know what people were asking..I would say ''What's it for?''

This jumped up and bit me on the bum when someone asked for a tube of KY jelly!!

Re: Your first Job after leaving School.

My first reaction to your post Lilac was "What's it for?" because I serious never heard of it, that's how naive I can be on medical and other stuff, then I looked it up and was glad I never asked. Phew! what a narrow escape.

Re: Your first Job after leaving School.

Boots girl here too! Apprentice dispenser, the first week I had to walk miles to work because the buses were on strike! I quite enjoyed learning how to make suppositories and creams, ointments and medicines. A bit different to nowadays, there was mercury ointment, chloroform & morphine tincture, lead and all sorts of weird & wonderful stuff. Not what I would have chosen though, I had choice of that or hairdressing. What I would've liked was acting or window dressing! The first thing I bought with my wages was a black skinnyrib sweater, I thought I was the bees knees!
The head dispenser would chase me with a hairbrush if I was naughty and stand on a stool holding his trouser legs while I caught mice and chloroformed them!
I once shook a carboid full of cough medicine (about 2 litres) and the top flew off, the manager got it right in the back of his neck, he yelled, "What was that!" I was laughing so much I couldn't say, "Tixylix"...