- and let us not forget the brave woman cradling the dead man as Ingrid spoke to the man in the picture... - ro.watson
- Oh, I just realised that the "Gee" above must be the same "mother" with five children that works as a surgeon and can't think of a single work place where children can be present without causing problems! I have been dwelling on that a bit, as I work at my desk writing, or outside with our horses (we have a stud farm), or in the office of my politican employer, with the children near me most of the time... No public broadcaster...now, that would have to be a good thing..? - Dodieh
- Links to both the extract and competition entry for 'The Yearning' are broken.... - Jacqui
- Thanks Carole~ yip, it was Claudia Wright, I believe too. What a big difference a few brave women can make in changing public awareness from knowing nothing about an area, to knowing something about an area... - ro.watson
- Yay Emma! Thank you! As a journalist who has worked for the ABC, and who does not belong to a political party, I so agree with everything you have said! Even though I have quite strong political beliefs I have always bitten my tongue and remembered "two sides to the story", "what are the facts". We cop abuse from all quarters, and, as you say, when the critcism comes from all quarters, from both sides of the political spectrum, then that is some comfort. You do a great job, as do most of the ABC journos! Where would we be without you! - Dodieh
- sue elliott, you seem to be suggesting there is no inherent discrimination against women. That the only barrier to success is in self created and perpetuated. This is patently false. - Sharon
- I know this is not the topic~ I love my fix of a regular cartoon~I still miss Victoria Roberts' weekly cartoon in the Weekend Australian. - ro.watson
- Ro.watson, That woman was Claudia Wright I believe . - Carole/m
- Dear Mr. Gee, I'm sure you will remember every election every single second of ABC broadcasts are scrutinised for bias. I mean every second and it has been shown over and over again that there is no bias and each side is given equal time on air. If anything this year has seen a savage turn to the right by the ABC as well as the stacking of the board with the ultra right. So do your research before you shoot off your mouth. - sue Bell
- [...] Fashion Week With Mrs Woog [...] - A FACE WELL LIVED
ON THE HIGHWIRE ANSWERS
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST JOB?
We’re thinking of the Queensland dad who offered a year’s free beer to anyone who would give his son an apprenticeship, and we were wondering… what was your first job? Both Jane and Caroline took jobs in nursing homes and Wendy started out stapling brochures in her uncle’s printing factory. They didn’t last long. How did you get on?
17 Responses to this article
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Ned Manning July 2, 2012
My first (theoretically) paid job was growing gherkins on the banks of the Cudgegong River. I was dragooned into this by my father who was into ‘experimental’ farming. He omitted to inform me that if you don’t pick gherkins the moment they are the length of index finger they become cucumbers and therefore virtually worthless. Nor did he tell me I had to provide ‘facilites’ for the gherkin pickers who were women from a nearby town. They went on strike, the gherkins grew into cucumbers and I vowed to never take on such a dodgy exercise. What did I do? I became a writer. Mmm…don’t think I learnt much.
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Vanessa July 2, 2012
I guess my very first job was picking strawberries when I was about 7. My family were travelling gypsies for a couple of years and I remember mum and dad taking whatever work they could find. We often helped out.
My 2nd job was as a McDonalds chick in the 70′s. Such great memories there with all my friends working alongside me. It was the place to be every weekend.
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Bianca Dye July 3, 2012
i hosted childrens partys at a function centre in Nerang in QLD & dressed up as a clown & entertained them for around 4 hours & then cleaned up after the party & took home $50! i loved showing off & making the kids laugh & i guess – being a brekky radio host – nothin has really changed ?!
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Helen July 3, 2012
Deli in the local supermarket. Had to regularly wash the saveloys to get the salt and fat ooze off them, then dry them and put back in the showcase. Never eaten one again ever.
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Nicole July 3, 2012
My first job at 15 was walking around the Sydney precinct putting money in the parking meters for the executives of a film company.
I got the sack when coming around the corner a few seconds late the boss’s Merc was being towed away! -
linda July 3, 2012
Hairdresser’s assistant in Newtown. Saturday mornings at 7am finished around 3pm. I was 15 and still at school! It was boring – great insight as to how small business works. Shop hours then were 9-12 (strictly) the owner got around that by having people arrive early – sliding doors were closed at 12 but people just opened them and sat down waiting to be served next. Washing various heads you soon found out how particular customers can be. Too hot,too cold, too rough, not quick enough, not dry enough – phew! The sucking up (customer was king – basta!) I was exhausted – on my feet all that time with no break and a pittance pay- I knew that I most certainly did not want to become a hairdresser!
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Aeron Winters July 3, 2012
I started my first job when I was 15. I worked at a chemist, a really big one that sold an amazing array of cosmetics and perfumes which I could purchase at a hefty (40%) discount. Needless to say, I spent a great deal of what I earned on those cosmeics and perfumes. I worked there for 5 years until I was nearly finished my tertiary education. I loved it. I thought it was much better than working at the supermarket or flipping burgers.
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Margaret Mila July 3, 2012
First holiday job? Darrell Lea. I think that makes me the winner!
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Jo Johnstone July 3, 2012
Picking christmas bells at dawn on my nonna’s property to send to the markets in Sydney……good memories
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Roni Jean July 4, 2012
Staying at a friend’s place for a couple of weeks when I was 14, my friend’s parents let me tag along with them to their work telling the manager that I was 16 (this was a good 36 years ago). I worked the night shift in a plastic bottle factory that made 2lt cordial bottles down to 300ml cream bottles. My job was to sit at the end of one of the huge plastic moulding machines, take out the completed bottles, rip the excess plastic off the top and bottom, check for holes, and pack it in a box. The machines never stopped, so if I took a short break to run to the loo, I’d come back to a mountain of bottles flowing out all over the floor! Then I’d have to work like a mad thing to catch up again. I didn’t mind the monotony, I amused myself by singing at the top of my lungs, and no one could hear me above the noise of the machines!
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Robyn ball July 4, 2012
My first job was as a junior advertising manager for beverage review magazine and fire news magazine. Selling ad space to booze companies and hose manufacturers. Selling ad space is a hard way to earn a living that’s for sure, especially when you are only 18.
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Julia July 4, 2012
Layby desk at KMart. I used to love it in June/July when the grandmas would come and layby toys for their grandkids for Christmas. They would come and pay $1 & $2 here and there over the next 6 months. The pure love they have for their grandkids was amazing and they would always treat me so nicely. I just hope their grandkids appreciated all the effort they went to!
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amd July 5, 2012
Trueform Shoeshop, aged 15, at the Pollok Arcade in Glasgow. Realised very quickly I could never be a sales person as I loathed trying to force customers to try to buy creams and sprays when all they wanted was a pair of shoes. Stuck it out over Christmas so I could buy people decent presents and then left, just as they were about to fire me.
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The Huntress July 5, 2012
My first ever paying job was not meant to be a paying job. I was 15 and we had to go on the obligatory “work experience” throught high school. At the time I had romantic ideas about being a chef and applied to work in a hotel kitchen, however just 3 days before I was due to begin they cancelled the spot.
Thankfully a friend of my dad said he’d take me in his office for a couple of weeks. There the people were really kind to me, I did all the boring filing and data transfers that no one wanted to do and I was happy to help them. On the last day they ran out of work to give me so I sat and spun my chair all afternoon (yes, I know!). The big surprise was when it all had finished and I thanked them for their kindness the boss gave me an envelope. I assumed it was a Christmas card (it was that time of year) and I opened it – and it was $250 cash!!! (a LOT, especially for a 15 year old back then). It was so unexpected and generous I could hardly believe it. I took it all with me to the shops that weekend and bought my family the most magnificent presents I could and relished every second of it. I’m feeling all warm and glowy remembering this now
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Zohra July 5, 2012
My first job was in the late 80′s in London, whilst i was studying pharmacy at Uni. I had applied to Boots the Chemist to work as a pharmacy student. At the job interview, i was told i had the job if i was willing to remove my hijab. Head office might not be happy to employ me because my head-dress might come in the way of my work.
I point-blank refused to take on the job if it meant i couldn’t wear my hijab, and then continued to point out to the Manager who was interviewing me, that i had noticed there was a Sikh boy working at the store, who also wore a head-dress.
Needless to say, the interviewer changed his tack, and said he would talk to Head office and get back to me.
I got the job, and worked happily ever after. I have never had an issue with employers since then, in England, or in Australia!
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Katherine Thomson: Delivering false teeth. My Dad had a dental laboratory so from the age of 11 or 12 every Christmas I would take false teeth and models to all the Sydney dentists, carrying a trusty Adidas bag and walking miles. I'd sit with the two elderly men who were the other deliverers watching my father work until a job was ready to go. Then at 15 Kentucky Fried Manly every Sunday night, saving money for the suitcase I'd take to America as an exchange student. My poor Dad had to pick me up at 10, I heard him mutter once "I think I'd rather buy her the thing." Illusions of independence. In my late teens, picking bad garlic from good garlic off a conveyer belt at Taco Bills Manly Vale was another great job and guaranteed a seat on the bus.
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Jenny Owens: Unfortunately.... McDonalds!! I have nothing else to say haha!!
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Maggie Alderson: My first experience of employment was as a waitress in a dreadful pub. I was 16 and terrible at it. But I got some great character material from the customers - some so nice, some so nasty - and the people who owned the place.
They had a terrible spoiled son who used to sexually harass me and my best friend, who was the other waitress. One day we found his clean undies in the room where we changed into our 100% bri nylon uniforms. We ironed them using liberal amounts of spray starch in the crotch area.
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Liz Byrski: My very first casual job was washing up for a very wealthy old man who threw a lot of dinner parties. He was lavish with his guests but mean with everything else and I had to do all the greasy pots, pans and plates in cold water. It was truly awful. My first full time job was as a secretary in the scientific section of a major pest control company. Part of the job was feeding the cockroaches and measuring and how much they had eaten during the preceding 24 hours. After that getting a job on the check-in desk with the then British European Airways at Gatwick Airport seemed the height of glamour and luxury, despite the fact that we had to wear winkle-pickers with three inch stiletto heels all day. We used to rub surgical spirit on our feet to harden them so we wouldn't get such terrible blisters.
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Jacinta Tynan: After a failed stint in the David Jones Foodhall one uni Christmas (I misread the zeros on first $100 note I had ever seen.. but left of my own accord, I swear) and the next Summer as the cloakroom girl at Jacksons on George (where I didn’t leave of my own accord) I made a pact that the next job I did would be in “the industry”. Much to my delight I was hired as a Reporter at Prime TV in Canberra but within three months the newsroom had closed down and I negotiated my first retrenchment package before I had even graduated from university. So, I took to the hills. I spent a winter as the Thredbo Snow Reporter getting paid to ski and talk about it. Then I was picked up by WIN TV Canberra filing three stories a day before presenting the weather and sometimes the news as well. Such an invaluable training ground for live TV, meeting deadlines and mucking in as a team. It's all kind of come in handy...
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Marina Go: My first casual job on Saturday mornings was in a coffee shop that made fresh donuts on site. The upside was that I got to take home all the donuts that didn't sell that day. The downside was that I had to clean the donut machine. After a few weeks my family were well and truly sick of donuts. My first real job post school was as a trainee in the Securities Markets division of The Reserve Bank. I had to work out the daily yields and phone them through to The Stock Exchange each morning. The role bored me to tears but I stayed with it until I landed a journalism cadetship a year later.
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Stephanie Dowrick: I had a lovely job during my high school years at a local library. (The bliss of lots of books.) But when I left school and home at 16 and started at uni I was studying law and working as a law clerk. That was GRIM! I did other work also that I really disliked and was never much good at so when at the ripe old age of 22 I got my first publishing job I could not have been more grateful or enchanted. It was a modest start but London publishing was on a roll and so was I. Within a year I had a much better job; within five years I had the magnificent chance to start and lead The Women's Press. None of that would have happened without those years wandering in career desert and discovering what I did NOT want.
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So true Stephanie! I also have found doing menial jobs valuable, simply because I discovered all the things I didn’t want to do. In hindsight that is. Not so much fun at the time.
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Christine Whiston: My very first job was at the Woolworhts Department store in my home town during the Christmas school holidays. I was relegated to the Christmas cards and wrapping paper counter and by Christmas Eve, I thought my feet were going to simply drop off. I could barely walk to the bus stop to get home. I lasted one season only and moved on next holidays to selling shoes in the city's 'leading shoe store', where I was required to climb up and down one of those high ladders that moved on wheels along a rail, to retrieve shoe boxes. Not a good look in the era of the mini skirt but I liked that job and became adept at applying heel and toe plates to new shoes!
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