You Never Forget Your First...

[Mayhem]

Job: assuming paper rounds do not count, then I took a year off between school and starting university to earn/save some money (as dad had been made redundant, parents were in less of a position to help finance university). So got a one year placement to see how office life was, and thankfully aside from the expected tasks of "make teas and coffees" and "fix the photocopier so it doesn't **** itself later", I was actively involved in some of the work being done in risk assessment. Mostly for my whizzy PC skills in laying out computerised flowcharts in Freelance Graphics. One project was to do with the redesign for the Tube ticket barriers to make them dual direction I recall. Another with regarding existing nuclear power stations. I'm sure I'd recall more if I was my age back then doing it instead.

The other upside of the position was due to the time frame it ran, my earnings spanned the new financial year flip, and I only paid one month of income tax iirc (March) as the rest was still inside my personal limits for the two financial years. "Flush" with not giving the Government as much dosh as I'd expected, I was able to buy some more import SNES titles down the local market heh.

I'll get to the drunk part next time heh...

[Hirst]

My first job was a temporary one at a warehouse batching up and caging catalogues to be sent to local distributors. There were three types - the main catalogue (very thick), the fashion one (less thick) and the blue-rinser fashion one (thin). The main catalogue one was back-breaking, by the time you got off your shift you’d have your dinner and fall asleep and then you’d be due back at work. Once the work eased off I got to manage the waste belt, which was quite a cushy job in comparison - read the paper and occasionally some cardboard would turn up on a conveyor belt and you’d lob it in a trolley and take it to the furnace.

Think the contract was about 10 weeks, I used my earnings to get a really nice (at the time) home cinema set up and a Japanese PS2.

[Neon Ignition]

In fairness to your parents, this wasn't the worst call.

I won't mention the rest of my CV

[Blobcat]

First unpaid job was helping out at my mum's school soon after I left mine. I assisted in art and tech classes and did some filing but one job I kept returning to do over the years was basically chaperone a group of 13-14 year olds on a coach to a theme park at the end of the year. I had to do the bare minimum of chatting to them on the coach, some reminders to wear sun cream and stay hydrated than I was basically free to do what I want, often had a group of kids wanting me to hang with them a chunk of the day especially as I was happy to hold onto their bags and phones for the first couple of hours but I spent most of those days doing my own thing and maybe hanging out with 1-3 members of staff or their similar kids who were helping out.

First paid job was as a shop assistant at one of the local What Everyone Wants stores which I only got the job to buy a Gamecube with Smash Bros Melee and Pikmin. Job consisted of me mostly opening and adding stock, later I worked on the tills now and again but they liked me to do the promotional announcements on the tannoy as they liked my voice. I was on a long break from college and wanted that console so bad (I was 17). Manager was a **** and I was being underpaid. Finally quit after he physically grabbed me and dragged me into his office to shout at me for no reason (was in a bad mood hearing the football results from a customer). This was only 3 years after I was assaulted on holiday and any guy, let alone a fully grown man suddenly grabbing me like that was a big no no and it took all the courage in the world not to crumple or kill that guy. My mother helped me write a resignation letter effective immediately and a formal complaint. When my stepdad dropped it over apparently the manager wasn't there which may suggest he realised he f'd up. About a month later I got a letter of apology from him, the company, my owed wages and my missing pay when I worked through some bank holidays (golden jubilee) so I managed to have enough to get my Gamecube in the end.

First time drunk? Don't really remember, may have been the first time I recall being drunk in a bar, in the ladies loos singing the theme song to The Banana Splits VERY loudly to myself in one of the stalls.

[Dogg Thang]

My first job was picking tomatoes. It wasn’t long before I was fired because I kept picking the wrong ones and I found it too difficult to tell which ones were almost ripe. Found out years later that I’m colour blind.

[Mayhem]

My first job was picking tomatoes. It wasn’t long before I was fired because I kept picking the wrong ones and I found it too difficult to tell which ones were almost ripe. Found out years later that I’m colour blind.

Red green issues, that's the worst job to have!

[Dogg Thang]

Red green issues, that's the worst job to have!

Yes, it made perfect sense when I found out I was colour blind

[Neon Ignition]

You Never Forget Your First...

Memory

[Lebowski]

A whole 32 K turning my Spectrum into an 80s powerhouse Just kidding i didn't own a spectrum i had a NES so got to play decent 8bit games

oh that memory yeah

First memory lying in my cot trying to get to sleep staring at the sun coming through these weird 80s Red curtains with mushrooms and gnomes on them

[Blobcat]

My first memory was probably the aftermath of the 1987 storm. All the fences had fallen over and I was running into everyone's gardens whilst my mum's place was where everyone was gathered as she made cups of tea to discuss what should be done to pay/ get them fixed as soon as possible.

I was nearly 3 years old.

[Neon Ignition]

I remember that night, my school was doing something in the evening we had to go to which in hindsight was classic 80's nonsense thinking as tiny-NI is scuttled to school in the dark amidst falling debris and roof tiles


It's hard to pinpoint many of my early memories. They're more like very brief moments, flashes of stuff from being a young age and hard to put in order. I can just about recall being in a pram, also playing on the floor with a pull toy which would likely have been around the age of 2.

[Protocol Penguin]

My first memory was probably the aftermath of the 1987 storm. All the fences had fallen over and I was running into everyone's gardens whilst my mum's place was were everyone was gathered as she made cups of tea to discuss what should be done to pay/ get them fixed as soon as possible.

I was nearly 3 years old.

I was a bit older than that and oddly remember the storm aftermath really clearly too… Trees were lying in the middle of the main road outside my house, as were roof tiles (my parents quickly had to pay out to have the roof fixed). Fences blown over everywhere. A school friend who lived round the corner from me had a tree smash into the front of his family’s house, damaging his bedroom and the living room. A swathe of my primary school had flooded classrooms due to roof damage, and classrooms covered in glass due to shattered windows, so classes were doubled up or transferred into one of the halls. The local wooded area being so densely covered with fallen trees it was impossible to walk through. Old-style metal bins blown everywhere, having split their contents. It was all so flippin’ memorable, as there was so much disruption and chaos. I imagine that the height of the pandemic and lockdown was similarly memorable to the youngest generation.

(My own first memory? Playing in the dirt in the back garden of the first house I lived in, or visiting my mum in the hospital when my brother was born. Not sure which was first chronologically.)

[Asura]

You Never Forget Your First...

Memory

Watching the Fall of the Berlin Wall on TV. My dad got me up very late at night, and we watched it together. I, obviously, had no real idea of what was going on, but he told me it was important, and I should try and remember it.

I have earlier "memories" but to use that term would be putting it strongly; they're more fragments of moments, images, feelings - but this is the first thing where I can pinpoint myself at a specific day, at a specific time, doing/seeing a very memorable thing.

[charlesr]

Walking down a walled alleyway and making echoes with my mum

[Neon Ignition]

You Never Forget Your First...

Time on an Airplane