More Nostalgia - Old Timers - Your First Job?

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skewbald_again

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Twenty quid a week, newly qualified AI, turned up and was given other end of mobile home from very frosty head girl.
All lessons were taken mounted, you had to ride out into the fields and teach from the saddle, the horses you were mounted on were certifiable.
Head girl and BF spent every night banging away at one end of the distinctly unstable mobile home, with me bouncing around in the cold and dark like an underweight hedgehog on a see saw at the other end, couldn't sleep a wink, and was profoundly embarrassed.

Worked a week in hand, then another, then another, then after three weeks of riding nut cases, no sleep because of the insatiable HGs carryings on, and no money, I packed my bags on the qt and beggared off!

First jobs from the old timers?!
 
YTS (Youth Training Scheme) at the local riding school, something like £18 per week although I also used to claim £3 per week for my bus fair but rode their and back on my purple chopper bike, worked 6 days per week doing everything and I mean literally everything from early morn to evening, but absolutely loved it, then Head AI left after I was there 6 months, new one took over and was awful so I walked, that's been my one and only horsey job, I found after leaving that I could earn more money being suited and booted and have spent the rest of my working life in an office.
 
devilwoman said:
YTS (Youth Training Scheme) at the local riding school, something like £18 per week although I also used to claim £3 per week for my bus fair but rode their and back on my purple chopper bike, worked 6 days per week doing everything and I mean literally everything from early morn to evening, but absolutely loved it, then Head AI left after I was there 6 months, new one took over and was awful so I walked.
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Ooh, I trained some YTS girls in my time! Boy, that was an abusive scheme! How many hours? Then they had to go to college on Wednesday afternoon and the sadists made them do PE!!! I ask you. They were totally exhausted!
 
skewbald_again said:
Ooh, I trained some YTS girls in my time! Boy, that was an abusive scheme! How many hours? Then they had to go to college on Wednesday afternoon and the sadists made them do PE!!! I ask you. They were totally exhausted!
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ohh yes I forgot that I had to go to college one morning per week, to an agrucultural college, we had some boring old bloke lecturing us about cattle and so on, think he was a cattle farmer, it was nothing to do with horses ever, much daydreaming done in those mornings each week :D
 
At 13, I went to work at a local stable in exchange for riding lessons. My best friend and I. We were the only employees. The place was run by a husband/wife team who were totally in over their heads. They had a breeding operation and lesson barn - about 35 or 40 horses, four of them stallions.

We had to clean all the stalls daily, as well as scrub water buckets, clean tack and help feed. The place was a disaster - some of the school horse's stalls had not been cleaned in weeks, if not months. One stall was a foot deep in manure.

In the 2 months or more that we worked, we got a total of one lesson but were too young and shy to push for more. It was always, "Oh, maybe tomorrow." We did get to see our first foaling there and that was special but it was all too much. They had us turning out their poorly mannered studs by ourselves (!) and basically doing their jobs half the time.

We found a position with another stable and I still ride out of there to this day when I'm in that part of the world.
 
16 fresh out of school through Bishop Burton College on a YTS scheme yard experience at Chris McGranns yard earning £18 ish a week for a 6am till 6pm 5 days a week and no top up payment from my boss LOL Walked to and from work too up a very steep hill for 15 mins to get there too!!! Hard blooming work...left after a year (how I managed that is beyond me certainly couldnt do it now). He used to make me ride every horse with NO STIRRIPS to lengthen my leg - even xc schooling - the *******!!!
 
horse wise - i started doing slave labour at about eight years old for nowt :rolleyes: but this i forgot - i worked in a greyhound kennels picking up sloppy s***, and mashing up tripe, to pay for my horse when I was 15..
 
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My first job when i left school was at an animal sanctuary near me.5 1/2 day week for twenty five pounds. I worked with cats ,dogs, horses, sheep, donkeys, deer, sea birds, oh and had to milk the goats by hand, i loved working there, but did'nt like the owners, although the managers at the time were lovely. After working for six months i got 28 pounds a week :O.
went on from there to work at a thourabred stud, same wage 28 pounds. :(
 
I was 16, it was 1979 - my first job was as a messenger on the London Evening News (long since closed down). It was old school Fleet Street - no computers, no mobile phones, not even faxes. Messengers ran all over the building and all over London, erm... passing on messages!

It was great fun and there was a real buzz in Fleet Street. The best errand was running a message for the astrologer, the late Patrick Walker. He would tip you £5, even if you'd only got him a sandwich from the canteen. My wages were £30 a week, so that was a very good tip!

I am still in journalism, running my own magazine publishing company.
 
Sunday job at 13 working for the local fruit and veg shop for 25p an hour. Subsidised by babysitting and "teaching" local children to ride their ponies. Progressed to working in a Cafe on a sunday evening serving cups of tea and chip butties amongst the cockroaches - he'd never have survived a visit from the EHO! Various secretarial jobs for four or five years and then have been in my current job, with the same company, for 31 years! AAARRRGGGHHH!
 
Saturday job at Saxone, I hated it, boss used to insit we wore high heels and I could barely walk by the end of the day! Then part time at Prestos a supermarket whilst I was at college, best days of my life. What a laugh we had. Then 18 yrs at the Inland Revenue, regret leaving there, then a few other jobs short term. Cant seem to settle and on the lookout again!!
 
At the local hairdressers, on a satuarday. Sweeping up and passing perm rods! Then the local petshop satuardays and after school. Such fun!
 
YTS Scheme with horses £29.50 per week plus travel. I had to catch a bus and a train and walk up a steep hill, I was knackered before I started woman who ran it was an old battle axe. None of the place ments ever kept trianees on at end of 2 years just outed them and got a new set, it was exploitation!!
 
Local RS. 7am to 7pm Tuesday to Sunday,lesson and lecture weekdays and £60 a week.
Loved it,stupidly left over a guy :rollseyes:
Second proper full time job,a full livery yard. Was the first time I realised that people lie :o Money was better then the RS,but no training although they took £30 a week fo it from wages and our riding lessons were on whatever horses the yard had been paid to school or exercise...
 
First horsey job was just after I left college.

A much skinnier and braver me thought it would be a good idea to ride out for the local race stables.

I thought I would be just doing yard duties, WRONG.......... 9 hrses in a morning later I was walkng like John Wayne, I have never felt soo much pain before or since LOL
 
Working in Ratners Jewellers as a christmas job, 9 hours a day (min plus 1 day late night) 6 days a week for £95 - a week! The often 4 or 5 hours sunday to do stock. In the days when the shopping centre was owned by the church comissioners and did not open on a sunday.
 
Fun post. My first proper job was at a riding school as head girl/instructor. Sounds good? NOT! place was a complete dump, people who owned it were dodgy, hence hiring an 17 yr old with no working experience outside of college/own horses as a head girl! I can't remember what I got paid but it was less than £100 per week and I was working 60hrs+ (in 1995). I was supposed to share the mucking out with the son of the owners but he did JACK, so I used to have to much out 20+ stables before the first lessons; needless to say they didn't get mucked out very well! The lessons were a joke. 15 under 8s in a 40x20 school? With just me and a 13 yr old kid roped in to lead them one by one in trot? Nightmare. But the adult lessons were the worst. Big heavy men who had never sat on a horse before and thought they were John Wayne, and had on intention of listening to a tiny blond girl telling them what to do. The school horses were overworked, and although fed well, it was so hard to keep them properly because we were so understaffed. Tack was in poor condition, and while I tried to get each horse turned out on a rota, the fields were poached and poo filled, and some horses just didn't go out at all. I lasted two months before exhaustion and depression took their toll and I quit. Only for the lovely owner to ring me the next day, saying I was "fired" and witholding my final weeks pay, and refusing to give me a reference. :eek::eek::(
 
rst proper job was as a secretary in the NHS aged 18. Earned £2554 pa (still remember it now 33 years on). Before that worked in parents off licence selling draught beer and cider, cigarettes and sweets (all the glorious bad for you things) that was from about age 9. I used to ask when in my early teens don't I have to be 18 and was told "No your the landlords duaghter so that's OK":D - Yeh like that was true! BTW I neither smoke or drink to excess - saw too much!
 
My first paid job at 14 was in a proper fishmongers, Friday evening and Saturday until lunch time. I loved it.

First full time job was a customer service engineer (computers) for Olivetti. 19 years old and I had a company car....well company Escort Van anyway. £2250 PA in 1978, I thought I was loaded...on less than 50 quid a week :D

Oh and my sister worked at a travel agents, so mention of Dan-Air (Dan Dare) really made me smile. They were still flying De Havilland Comets in the late 1970's, with wallpaper on the cabin walls. Eat your heart out Ryan Air:D
 
Not counting temping or summer jobs, my first proper job was working as a secretary for the Women's Unit of a very left wing council.

School summer holiday jobs was working in the kitchens for a summer school - hard work but a mixture of horrifying food wise and highly amusing all at the same time.
 
I worked on a showjumping yard supposed to be a saturday job, I ended up spending time there during the week as well.

Got paid a £5 er and had to ask for it every week

I told owner I couldn't work one afternoon and she said I treated the place like I could come and go ! I was like huh where did THAT come from. So I said ok I'll go then ! I never went back, stupid cow
 
First Saturday job was in a horrid Bon Marche (but even nastier) type shop - I lasted three weeks, the boss was an utter cow so I just refused to go back one day.:o

First real job - bank ward clerk at the local acute hospital during my uni holidays, then went back for six months after graduating to keep some money coming in.
 
Went to a riding school, 'meant' to be training on a YTS for £27.50 a week or whatever it was....

I was doing about 70-80 hours a week, the owners would be sat in the house boozing while I was lugging water barrels around until midnight making sure the neddies had water....

I stuck it 2 months, but only got one day off in that..and mother decided was enough was enough....and demanded I come home....

The place closed down soon after I went...

~shudders~
 
ages 11-13 worked at a local riding school at weekends, mucking out cleaning tack etc in exchange for 1 free lesson per week (never got one tho but i loved being around horses) Remember being told to take some bales of hay to the turnout field that was about 1/4 mile away, but all wheelbarrows were being used so YO told me to carry em. think i managed 3 before i went home in a huff

13-15ish worked on a city farm type thing during holidays and loved it.

first paid job was at 17 for the Inland Revenue. worked there 27 years before being made redundant last year. plan was to take a year off then look for a job. However last summer i injured my knee (my good one, having injured the other years before), so now looking for a job where i dont have to spend much time on my feet as iv developed advanced arthritis in both knees and am apparently too young yet for knee replacements (about the only b*****) thing im too young for :(
 
First horsey job was working for a dealer. I got paid a tenner a week. Food and board provided. It was such hard work but i kinda had it sussed., Other groom was a bit of a nervous rider but fab at mucking out so we traded, she mucked out a couple of stables for me and i rode a couple of quirky horses for her. It was my first experience of riding racehorses. He used to buy them in from Ireland and school them to sell on.

First non horsey job was Goldbergs, I remember working in the corsetry dept and being totally amazed at the size of some of the bras.

Shysmum, my aunt used to be a stewardess for danair. I used to fly as unaccompanied minor from Edinburgh to Bristol to visit them. I was so proud of her in her smart uniform, she was so glam.
 
12 years old, working 12 hour days at a riding school, mucking out twelve stalls, five looseboxes and four stables. Sitting on an upturned bucket cleaning all the tack on a Sunday, being the lead around for numerous lessons, taking in who needed to be taken in, grooming, tacking up, leading back out, getting the next ones ready. Piling five haynets over my shoulders to save time, lugging water buckets by the dozen BUT the best thing of all was when we had a day lessons finished a couple of hours early and my stomach used to churn with excitement because I just knew the Owner would let us take some of them out and let them and us have a blast over the field and jump gorse or we would all go out for a nice relaxing hack, reins loose, chattering away into the evening. Pay? Nothing in monetary terms but in experience and memories it was priceless, I still have the photos of my favourite pony a Welsh B gelding 28 years later. :)
 
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