Here's another great first job story to start your week.  This one is from Matt Heinz who runs Heinz Marketing here in Seattle.  He is a great guy and if you have needs in the areas of sales pipeline development or marketing effectiveness, give him a call.  

From Matt:

My first job was a courtesy clerk at a local food market.  It was a small family-owned market in the middle of the town I grew up in.  I could walk there after school, and bike there in the summer, so it was a relatively easy job to get to.

My job was varied.  In addition to bagging groceries and helping people get bags to their cars, I was in charge of stocking soda, dairy, beer, chips and occasionally produce.  I also cleaned everything, broke up boxes, mopped up (the whole store) every night after close, etc.  There was a hierarchy of kids doing my kind of work there, and I was always at the bottom rung – hence why I always got stuck with mopping and other crap jobs.

The market had two managers.  One liked me and the other hated me.  The one who liked me was this old Italian guy, and I think he still works there.  On a busy summer day when beer and soda was flying off the shelves, he'd yell (from wherever in the store he was), "Matt, we're getting BLASTED!".  I'd dutifully come running with reinforcements of whatever was low from the back.

I'll never forget the one night we were closing down, and the old Italian guy was taking the tills from the cash register up to the safe.  The market was small, and one story except for a small store room and office up these rickety stairs in the back.  So the manager heads up the stairs, takes a few steps, then there's this enormous bang followed by the sound of change rolling everywhere.  Following a few moments of what can only be described as "Profanity 201" education, I was called up to chase after loose quarters for what felt like forever.

I eventually worked there long enough to take a turn behind the meat counter.  I want to take this moment to apologize to anyone who had to cook or eat the chicken breasts I attempted to split for customers on request.

Thanks for sharing this Matt!  If you have a first job story you'd like to share, send it to me and I will post it.  Also, check out my first job.