What was your first job, and how much did it pay?

Why this question works

People remember their first job in remarkable detail. They can tell you how they got it, what they wore, who showed them the ropes and exactly what they were paid, often to the penny. It was the first time the adult world took them seriously, and that feeling sticks.

Asking how much it paid is the part that makes this question shine. The number is always a surprise, and it opens a whole conversation about what things cost, what a dollar could buy and what the money was for. In many families a young person's wages went straight to the household, and hearing that tells you a great deal about the times and about your grandparent's character. Grandchildren with a first job of their own will find they suddenly have something real in common with Grandma or Grandpa.

How to ask it

A good moment is when a grandchild starts their own first job, or mentions what they earn. Ask across the table, with interest and a bit of friendly disbelief. Your grandparent will enjoy the comparison as much as you do.

Go for the practical details. How did you hear about it? How did you get there? What time did you start? Practical questions are easy to answer and they add up to a vivid picture. Keep the mood admiring. However small the job, your grandparent did it at an age when you may still have been in school, and it is fine to say so.

Other ways to word it

• What was the first job you were ever paid for?
• How old were you when you started working?
• What did you earn in your first week?
• Who gave you your first job, and why did they pick you?

Follow-up ideas

• What exactly did you do all day?
• What was your boss like?
• What did you do with the money?
• What could that wage buy back then?
• What was the hardest part, and what was the best part?
• How long did you stay, and why did you leave?
• What did that job teach you that you still use?

An example answer

This is an invented example, written to show the kind of detail to listen for. Your grandma’s answer will be her own.

"I was fourteen, and I worked Saturdays behind the counter at the drugstore on Main Street. Thirty-five cents an hour. I wore a white apron that came down past my knees, and for the first month I was only trusted to wipe the counter and wash glasses. Then one busy Saturday the owner handed me the ice cream scoop, and I felt like I had been promoted to president."

"I gave my mother two dollars every week and kept the rest. It took me three months to save enough for a blue wool coat I had seen in a shop window, and I have never been prouder of anything I owned. That job taught me to count change backward into a customer's hand and to smile at people even when my feet hurt. I have used both ever since."

What to write down

Record the name of the business, the town, the year and your grandparent's age. Write down the wage exactly as they said it, by the hour or by the week, and what that money could buy at the time. Add the boss's name, what the work involved and what happened to the earnings. Finish with the lesson they took from the job, in their own words.

A question like this one has its own page in the Tell Me Your Story journals for grandparents, in the chapter about growing up. The chapter on work comes soon after, so the first job becomes the opening of a whole working life on paper.

See the Tell Me Your Story, Grandpa journal or the Tell Me Your Story, Grandma journal. For more ideas, read questions to ask your grandparents or browse work questions.