Summer Jobs when you were a kid?

[Rogar]

My first summer job (that was a real job) was at the local greyhound racing park. I was one of the guys who would walk the dogs around the track before each race and then load them into the starting box. Then trot down to the post race area to retrieve the dogs at the end of the race, put their leash on and bring them back. Of course, none of us were old enough to place bets, but after a while we got to know the personalities of some of the dogs and would place imaginary bets. Even after watching 11 races a night 5 or 6 nights a week, we had trouble predicting winners. What I remember most was how poor some of the people looked that were placing bets. It was a fun summer but I've not had the urge to gamble away money ever since.

A few years later, while I was in college, I worked at a fish hatchery in southern Idaho. The family of one of my co-workers had a ranch and I helped "buck bales" of hay after work and a few weekends. That was about the hardest work I've ever done. I also did a stint with the forest service doing campground clean-up, which included trash collection and cleaning outhouses. That was messy!

[Mrs-M]

Bump!

What an opportune time to bump this thread, seeing how summer is right upon us.

Looking forward to hearing more summer-job stories!

[Mighty Frugal]

My first summer job as a teen was working at McDonald's! I had a blast. They had such a solid employee incentive initiative that we really loved working. There were formals and semi-formals (swoon I danced with the burger flipper) and bbqs and picnics and scavenger hunts.

We also had the latest and greatest Atari video game in our break room!

sure, they only paid minimum wage and worked you like a dog (you could remain idle for about 3 seconds before the manager would get you to clean the gunk off the strawberry sundae topping dispenser) but it was so much fun to work.

And since that job no other jobs have even come close to being as physically strenuous or being as micromanaged as working at McDs as a teen.

sure we ate our weight in McChickens, fries and Big Macs but I was also swimming 9 hours a week back then so I didn't gain a pound

[treehugger]

My first summer job (that was a real job) was at the local greyhound racing park. I was one of the guys who would walk the dogs around the track before each race and then load them into the starting box. Then trot down to the post race area to retrieve the dogs at the end of the race, put their leash on and bring them back. Of course, none of us were old enough to place bets, but after a while we got to know the personalities of some of the dogs and would place imaginary bets. Even after watching 11 races a night 5 or 6 nights a week, we had trouble predicting winners. What I remember most was how poor some of the people looked that were placing bets. It was a fun summer but I've not had the urge to gamble away money ever since.

Rogar, your post is interesting to me since I have two rescued racing dogs. They both came from Colorado. Did you work at Mile High?

No matter how I feel about the industry in general, I can certainly tell from the demeanor of most of our dogs right off the track, that there must be plenty of kind, humane people who deal with the dogs day-to-day. Since there isn't any more racing at Mile High, our adoption group now brings in dogs from Florida. The dogs come with way more health problems than they did from Colorado, but the dogs still mostly love people, which is a great sign.

That's funny about placing imaginary bets and it being so hard to predict the winners. The races are so short, and, well, dogs being what they are (and no jockeys), I am sure that each dog fares differently in each race. One of mine raced 193 races, and was considered a champion, but even his race record fluctuates wildly.

Thanks for sharing your memories,

Kara

[IshbelRobertson]

My last summer from school (aged 17-18) I worked as a courier on local coach tours around the city of Edinburgh - taking in places like the castle, Holyrood Palace and the New Town.

It scarred me for LIFE!

[Mrs-M]

Super additions!