Hello everyone!Welcome aboard Eddie's Railfan Page.
This old 1983 vintage photo, was taken one day after I had came home from work. My first job I had ever held after I graduated high school, was a part time job working at a local Zayre Department Store. It was My first job, and unfortunately...was not a very good one in the long run. It only paid minimum wage, $ 3.35 an hour and was only part time. The good thing was, most of My fellow store associates were really nice, and were really a cool group of people to work with. We were like a small family of some sort. I was 21 years old at the time of this photograph.
What was Your first job?
I would like to hear from everyone on this one.
10 comments:
Stock boy at Polk Brothers on West 63rd Street, Chicago, when I was 16.
Of course, there were newspaper carrier jobs, lawn cutting and snow shoveling before that, but my Polk Bros. job was was my first "real" employment.
I delivered newspapers when I was 8 years old in Burbank, IL. Did that until I was a teen, then worked at the Eggstore on Ridgeland (the cool one that used to be open, not the new one that's there now).
Zayre...wow
I too started out at $3.35 an hour working at a store. I started as a sophomore in high school at the local McCrory's store. Stayed there until I graduated College!
Low pay but a fun job and very flexible hours so I could get my homework and other projects finished.
Was this before or after the famous security tag on the shopping cart incident?
Hi Tom!
I believe that this was taken around the time of that humorous security device on the shopping cart prank. Ha Ha Ha!
There was also other incidents like..Security removing a drunk from the housewares department...Grouchy little old man bitches out the mean manager
( I loved it! He had it coming!)
Toilet bowl cleaner leaks on customer...Grown man playing with plastic toy Army helmit and gun...Family caught shoplifting and find religeon in the detention holding room ( Halelugiah! Amen!)
and other unplanned think on Your feet ad lib situations.
I din't make enough money for all the jobs they had Me covering, but We had lots of public laughter.
Thank You.
Eddie,
...and the trash cans for sale came complete with trash!
Ha Ha Ha!
Yeah, that was unofficially true.
People would walk through the store with food and drinks from the snack bar, and deposit their waste into the plastic household garbage cans, that the store was running a sale ad on that week.
I tried to bring it to one of the store managers attention, but He refused to do anything about it.
However...If He found trash on one of My departments displays, He would bring it to My attention in front of the customers and talk down to Me! What a JERK!
Eddie.
This talk of stories from early jobs reminded me of just about the craziest one I ever heard, and I actually witnessed it myself. I guarantee this is not some urban legend.
Two friends of mine worked at a well-known Southwest Side bowling alley (Eddie and friends, you probably easily know which one I am referring to). They worked in different sections and were well-separated due to the large size of this establishment. I had recently gotten my driver's license and went over at quitting time to pick them up. One was ready to go when I got there, and as we walked over to the other section where the second friend worked, we heard some commotion. A manager was heatedly chewing out our friend for something. We were coming in on what was apparently the tail end of it. The manager finished his diatribe and stormed off.
Our friend stood stock-still and fixed an icy stare on the manager. We said "Come on, man, let's get the heck out of here. Forget that jerk." Our friend said "Wait until I finish giving him the evil eye." We, of course, thought he was joking and within a few more seconds it was all over and we headed out of there to go have a good time together.
The kicker: That manager DIED in his sleep that same night! No kidding. I know that for a fact.
My "evil eye" friend and I are still close and he is a very nice person. I'm sure it was just teenage anger at being embarassed in front of other people that caused him to do that all those years ago, but you just never know!
My first full time job straight from high school was on the AT&SF which was in 1964 and it paid $22.18 or $2.77 an hour. That same year there was a pay increase to $3.35 when the firemen were pulled from all but 10% of the jobs.
I worked at a liquor store in suburban Westmont. My family used to shop for appliances at that Polk Bros on 63rd Street.
I had forgotten all about Zayre. They went out of business fast.
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