GET SET GO- JOB! And a Story about Me

First Job! Fast Food*Waitressing*Receptionist

We've all experienced or are about to experience our first Job. You know the one, the burger flipper, video rental, ticket vendor at the movies, parking lot buggy gathering, paper delivery job. The simple one that only pays minimum wage and for most of us "sucks" because we'd much rather be doing something else.

But instead of looking at it as a time filler or waste of time think of it as an investment. That job will give you money to put in your own pocket. Yeah, it'll teach you responsibility and all the other good stuff that mom and dad hope you experience along the way to prepare you for real life, but the biggest part about that job is that it will get you money!


STEP 1: MONEY IS GREAT!
It's what makes people RICH! It's just not always glamorous. One of my first jobs was at a fast food restaurant, the second one as a waitress. Although I only worked Friday night, Sat and Sunday when I was in high school at minimum wage, I still managed to make nearly $5,000 in three years. However, because of unfortunate circumstances, I lost nearly all of it and had to start from scratch. Just think about that, in 3 years working minimum wage on the weekends at a fast food establishment I accumulated nearly $5,000! That could've been a new starter car! Or the start of a college fund!

Then off to college full time needed only a few hours here and there to give myself gas money, my mind not even thinking about saving up or budgets or the future. I was a waitress then working the weekends and a couple of days during the week here and there. Waitressing had its ups and downs as well as the fast food establishment but one thing that the waitressing job had that it didn't was TIPS. GLORIOUS TIPS!

Saving up those dollars and change left on the table after people ate was the best thing ever! I saved up $500 dollars for Christmas! And over $700 for my first two week vacation to the ocean! Just in TIPS!! If I was smart I should've invested that money into Savings or a CD and watched it grow instead of getting all over zealous of my big spending.

But can you see what I mean by getting your first job and making it into an investment? You have to take the good with the bad. Think of your first job as a start, no it's not going to be glamorous or the greatest thing ever. That's why it's a start. You have to learn the ropes somewhere in order to make it big in real life. Every job is a stepping stone and every stone you step on should be higher than the last one.

After that job I took a four year stint. Yes, you heard me. FOUR YEARS with NO WORK. Perhaps I was just catching up on my second childhood or I hadn't grown out of the first one. With four younger sisters to take care of, being the eldest, going to school and working nearly every weekend I didn't have much of a social life. In fact I had no social life. So when my only student loan came back to collect I was in trouble. I was broke and didn't have a dime to pay them and I couldn't go to school until I paid them back. What a corner to back myself into right? Only option was to get a job but without a car and no one hiring within walking distance I was in a pickle, a big bitter dill pickle. I was depressed, I was worried and I was broke. Then just as I thought things couldn't get any worse for me a miracle happened. I went into see one of my friends at their job at a gambling "cafe", I walked in through the door and just as I did my friend smiled big at me and the woman she was tending to walked over and handed me nearly half of her winnings saying "I said I'd share with the next person who came in through this door." I was in tears as this woman just paid off my student loan and I was out of debt. I couldn't thank her enough for it and immediately the next day I deposited the cash and called and paid off the loan within 20 minutes of one another. In fact I still have the date and time saved of when I did it. Nov.17, 2008 12:38pm was the day I got my life back and decided to start accomplishing something.

My current job for the moment is a receptionist at a bank. Answering phones all day and balancing between Customer Service and Front Desk at the town’s biggest bank. It gets hectic, it gets annoying and it gets down right stupid sometimes to the point I want to just walk out the door and not come back. Yet it's money. I'm making something instead of NOTHING.

Remember it's always better to make something even if you hate it, all jobs have their bad days and their loathed parts. Just make it through and relish over that paycheck and know that money from that paycheck also went in for retirement. Which we'll talk about later on in the blog at some point.