What did your first job teach you?

That naive 16 year olds who are responsible and reasonably bright get taken advantage of by managers. (I did the job of an assistant manager, closing by myself and making the night deposit, for minimum wage while my manager left early.)

I learned quite a bit at every job I've ever had, but starting with babysitting I learned that parents will trust someone to watch their kids when that person has no business being responsible for anyone's child.  Parents can be desperate people when they need child care, and trusting a willing teenager is sometimes their only option.  I was a terrible babysitter.  But I babysat lots and lots of kids.  I still cringe at myself for things I did or didn't do, like sneaking my boyfriend in, for one.

To never work fast food again! Get a college education so you don’t have to. Probably the most important thing I ever learned!

Wuuuuut. I think that takes the prize!!! Holy cow.

1.  Compassion!
2.  That I didn't want to be a nurse, but I did want to help people.  
I ended up being a medical lab technologist working in the Biochemistry depts of two large teaching hospitals.

For four years, starting when I was 16, I worked full-time all summer and weekends during the school year in Housekeeping at a large hospital.  

In the summer we would be assigned 2-4 week slots, filling in M-F for the regular employee on their ward. Weekends, we never knew where we would be sent.  

TMI WARNING - some of the things I describe may be hard to read!

I was a shy teen.  A bit of a scaredy cat.  When I think about it I am transported to the way I felt back then  when entering the Psych ward with my cart of supplies and hearing the door click and lock behind me. I was really nervous entering every room!  LOOOONG days on the Psych ward!  

Tied for hardest assignments were Oncology and Children's Hospital across the street. I had to really brace myself and take a deep breath before entering the rooms there, never knowing what I'd be seeing/ who I'd be meeting if they were awake/conscious.  I vividly remember going into a room in Oncology at the hospital for adults and seeing a 16 yo girl, my age. She had super long hair and most of it was on the floor and her pillow.

In the children's hospital I saw a young girl and her parents every day for 3 weeks one summer.  She was 8 years old and had suffered a massive stroke.  She had been a piano prodigy and was unrecognizable from the portrait in her room.  I also saw a hydrocephalic child who was many years old.  That was really hard.

I was thrilled to never have been sent to the Burn Ward, where friends my age were working. the stories I heard were heartbreaking. I don't think my 16yo heart could have handled it!

I remember meeting a man who had just been admitted to the hospital. He was alone in his room weeping.  He knew that the next day he would have his larynx removed and he would never again be able to speak normally, if at all. I saw him most every day for three weeks, and he cried an awful lot.
 
I always did my very best to make eye contact and let the patients know that I "saw them," and tried to somehow lighten their day a wee bit.  

One of the most inspiring people I got to meet was a delightful 85 year old man who had gone blind 3 years earlier.  At 82 he had learned how to be independent in his new reality!  What an inspiration.  He had been born in the late 1800s and told me so many interesting stories about the Depression and his childhood prior to that.

As hard as it was some days, I have always been very grateful for the personal growth that occurred as a result of my experiences at the hospital.  

I quit working there when I began working full-time as a lab tech upon graduation.  I was in the lab 99% of the time, but on occasion I was assigned to be one of the techs who went to the NICU at specified times each day to draw blood from the preemie babies, and sometimes we had to go elsewhere in the hospital to take capillary samples from patients when the IV nurses couldn't get venous blood draws.

I wouldn't trade those experiences if I could.

Primarily that people can be really, really rude to service workers.

There are sections of books that I'd never even heard of. I learned to expand my world through books.

That age doesn't matter and a woman doesn't need a man to take care of her - though I kind of already knew that last one from the strong women in my family. I worked in a 'mom and pop' grocery store except pop had died and mom and her mom were running the place. The owner's mom was there every evening when I came to work so her daughter could have a dinner break. She walked back home after her daughter came back to the store. She was 86 years old.

They had been robbed twice so the owner - this mid-60's grandmother who didn't look like she could hurt a fly - kept a pistol behind the counter. I never told my parents that part. She also had two German Shepards in her yard next door for protection after hours. Fortunately there were no incidents while I worked there.

KFC was my first job too!

I worked Saturdays in an independent jeans shop and I learned to be able to look at someone and know what brand/size of jeans would work for them.

I had many fast food jobs and I learned many things, but what sticks with me is to invest in good shoes. I had cheap department store 'nursing' shoes and after awhile I got terrible foot problems. Cheap shoes are not good for working, yet sometimes that's all fast food workers can afford.

I worked at a daycare starting Junior year in high school. Children will over share a lot of information from what happens in their household.

I also learned how to make coffee lol. My boss, the owner wanted hot coffee ready when she got to work and I didn't know then, but she liked it strong. I just made it the way she showed me. So I always made my coffee strong even after I worked there in high school. It wasn't until after when I had roommates etc that I learned the coffee I made was not the regular flavor but strong. I am 47 and still like my coffee bold.

My first job was McDonald's. I learned through that job (and confirmed through many subsequent jobs) that many people, from managers to customers, just want to be able to exert power over someone and those people are jerks. I also learned that at some point I wanted a job where I could be my own boss.

Because of the string of low-level jobs I worked throughout school, I learned to be nice to everybody. And once I moved higher up the ladder, I learned that the looked-down-on people can save your neck sometimes.