Describe your first job

Illustration: Candor Visuals

Mowing lawns, carrying out groceries at your neighborhood IGA, working as a waitress . . . what was your first job, and what were some memories you have that made this job special? Send Candor your submission to editor@candor.news, and we may print it right here, in “Just Reminiscing.”

Reader responses:

I knew from the age of 4 that I was going to be a teacher. My father tried his best to suggest more profitable occupations for me, but, I became a teacher. My first teaching job was in a little town outside of Hays, Kansas. I taught 7-9 English and 7-12 Home Economics, as it was called in the old days. K-State  prepared me well for the classroom, but it didn’t prepare me for all of the extracurricular assignments I took on as a new teacher. The class sizes, as you would expect, were small. I had only four students in my 9th grade English class so dividing my class into discussion groups was a joke. I learned that discussion didn’t work for us since these kids had known each other from birth. Each could tell you what the other three were thinking before I even asked the questions. I may have had a lot less papers to grade but made up for it in trying to find innovative methods to teach such small classes. 

My 9th graders were in charge of putting on small plays for the elementary students. We had a stage and that was all. Most costumes were put together with yarn and construction paper. Props were brought from home. Everyone had a great time. 

I wasn’t at this school very long before I was assigned extra duty. The home Ec/English classroom was also the sports concession stand. We sold our goods out of an outside facing window during football season and opened the room for all indoor sports. 

One year I was the Junior High track coach. Obviously, they were desperate. During the first practice I set up the hurdles only to discover a little later that I had set them up backwards. Luckily, they were the low hurdles so no one got killed, just a skinned knee or two. Today it would have meant a lawsuit. It was a rainy track season and you could always tell my kids from the opposite team because we didn’t have rainwear. We cut holes out of large, black trash bags and that was our rain gear. It worked pretty well. 

I think one of the highlights of this small school was the lunchroom. We had wonderful cooks. No one ever packed a lunch at this school. Every Friday they would prepare authentic German bierocks and the entire town would turn out to eat lunch with the teachers and kids. We never had to call parents to report a misbehavior because the kids knew we’d be seeing their parents every Friday at lunch.  

I really enjoyed teaching in this small district. I was blessed by a super Principal, a friendly go-out-of your-way-to-help faculty, great kids, and a supportive community. It’s been gobbled up by a larger district now and is no more, and I feel saddened by that. 

Dawna Ruggles, Wichita

WHAT IS A REAL JOB?

As I thought about the several forms of employment I have had in my life, I began to wonder what is a “real job?” Like many kids growing up in Wichita, Kansas, in the 1950’s and 1960’s, I found numerous ways of earning spending money. But these were always short-term deals usually limited to the completion of a specific task for an agreed amount of money. I can clearly remember at nine years of age earning my first five dollars this way, which involved a couple of days raking leaves for a neighbor. 

But the thing that separated what I consider my first real job from earlier work experiences was that it required me to show up every day for an indefinite period of time, to work with other workers, and that it gave me a good idea of what the working world is like and a glimpse into private enterprise. That was in the summer of 1963, working for a company known as Western Delivery. What that job did for me was to expose me to a larger world beyond the sphere of family, neighbors, school, and church that had been most of my world up to that time. 

1963 was quite a year, as anyone who remembers that time would agree, but especially for 16-year-olds like me who began driving (legally) that year. My mind was heavily focused on my first car that I had acquired and gotten into running condition just in time to be able to drive. There were lots of other, more  important things, going on that year. Civil rights unrest was everywhere, and marches and demonstrations were in the news daily. The United States was becoming increasingly involved in military action in southeast Asia, however it was not yet as widely known as it soon would become. But for a teenage boy, earning and saving money was more important. I had ideas about going to college and maybe being a engineer someday, but that was far in the future. Right then, it was more important to put gas in my car. 

Western Delivery was a loosely-organized “company” operated by a nice man named Bob. As name suggests, its business was delivering, in this case, furniture and appliances. The operation consisted of Bob and his helper Sonny, two pickup trucks with “headache racks” for hauling furniture, and a couple of appliance dollies. “Crazy Dave” and I comprised the second crew of two, and during the course of the summer, some of those guys left and were replaced by others. There was no office, and I suspect there were no books; as  far as I know everything was done in cash. By virtue of arrangements Bob had made with two or three local businesses, we would deliver furniture and appliances they had sold, and in many cases, return trade-in items to the stores. We also installed the washers, dryers, refrigerators, and window air conditioners. Pay was commission only, we each got a share of the payment for whatever work was  available. Some days there was no work at all. I learned a valuable lesson when one week I earned less than I spent for lunch. After that, I brought a sack lunch. 

As I would realize much later, Bob was a guy much like me, never really content to work for someone else, and willing to take the hard knocks that came with that attitude. He worked hard at his business, treated his employees well, and would later become the owner of a very successful motorcycle dealership; and I would eventually become a Professional Engineer, and co-owner of an engineering firm. I wish he were still alive so I could thank him for the lessons I learned from him. 

Tom Ruggles, Wichita