Low income jobs might be looked down on for their perceived position in society. However, only the uninformed think there's nothing to be gained from this level of work. In fact, these jobs can teach you valuable lessons for life, as demonstrated by these people's experiences.
Reddit user, u/KSacc1210, wanted to hear what you learned from low pay jobs when they asked:
What is the best low income job you ever had?
When It Feels Like Play Instead Of Work
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I've waitressed in way too many restaurants and I hated all of them, except for one sushi spot. It was in a hipster part of town so my co-workers and the customer base were cool as hell. It truly never felt like "work" because I was essentially just socializing my entire shift.
Enough time has passed where we all moved on or literally moved out of the city but they felt like family and I really f-cking miss it.
Oddly relevant, my old manager texted me yesterday (haven't talked to him since I left in 2016) just to say he was thinking about me and wished me well. Feelsgoodman.
Paid To Pee
I was a lab tech on the 7pm-11pm shift a couple days a week a year in college. Very few people made use of the labs at these hours, and the few that did most of them already knew what they were doing. For the most part, I was paid to do homework and browse the internet. Also took a bathroom break whenever I wanted because no one was really around to complain otherwise.
Grabbing The Best Of The Worst
I worked at a computer store. It was great I got to fix computers all day, talked to customers about computers. When things were slow they would have us build a custom system to showcase and sell. Sometimes it was the best low end budget PC or a PC for a college kid. The best were the top tier gaming rigs. Of course we had to test them out and make sure they worked.
Also every return had to be thrown out. So they put a box up and all returns went into the box. If you wanted an item you signed the sheet. At the end of the shift they went down the sheet and you got to pick out one item until everything was gone or no one wanted anything. No one would sign the sheet until something good was put in the box. I just signed the sheet everyday when I started my shift.
I got a $400 video card for free. Just needed a new fan.
Do You Even Gym, Brah?
Sales/front desk associate for a gym (specifically Planet Fitness). I love all of my coworkers, my manager is easily my favorite person I have ever worked for, and they are super understanding and willing to work with my University schedule.
After coming from some pretty high-stress work environments in the food service industry, it is amazing to have a job that is incredibly relaxed, and non-stressful. They pay isn't that great, and I could easily get a job that pays better, but having amazing coworkers and a stress-free work environment is more than enough to keep me around while I finish off my degree.
Dealing with dumb gym members who don't understand Covid rules can be pretty frustrating, but otherwise this is probably my fav minimum wage job I've ever had
Zen Work
Probably working for the city. I mowed all the baseball fields and city owned lots. It was pretty nice, just working alone and listening to music. I also got to drive around in a loader when I needed to clean up the dump spots. It wasn't glorious work, but it was almost zen like and I got to drive some seriously heavy machinery
Backbreaking Work
Landscaping for a small local business. It was my first job after walking out of Toys R Us in the middle of a shift 2 weeks before Christmas because of how wretched it was.
Boss was just a regular guy, all he cared about was that you worked hard. It was hard work, but felt good being outside and active. And very rewarding working your a-- off for 10 hours and then being able to step back and admire what you created, be it a fish pond, stone patio, a nice shrub garden, ect, as opposed to unending lines of pissed off customers and cleaning up toy shelves that would be wrecked again in 15 minutes anyway.
And pay was actually pretty great, $10 an hour for 50 hours a week. At 17 when your boss hands you $500 cash every Friday afternoon you're basically rich. All in all the job was no bullsh-t. Boss gives you instruction and you do it. No dumb sh-t about tricking old people into buying insurance they don't need, no guilt trips if you request a day off, no 19 year old middle management c*nts with bad skin on a power trip, and if someone came in with an attitude demanding stuff, the boss would tell them to f-ck off, simple as that.
An Orientation For The Ages
Worked for a firework stand one summer. Pretty much explains itself. Oh and at the beginning of the season they had an orientation, which was just them naming and showing each firework and then lighting it off.
A Job To Show You The Coolest The World Has To Offer
Up until the pandemic, I had been working as a cameraman. Loved it despite the pay. I was onstage with great bands, behind the net in the AHL, in the pits at Motocross, and so much more.
I've used this time to earn IT certs but I may try and keep my side gig if I land a "real" job.
Leading You To Your Romantic Destiny
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I worked in a record store off and on again for nearly eight years when I was young. Met the woman that became my Wife, and two of my longest/closest friends while there.
The store is closed, and it was torn down to build a Chick Fil A a few years ago. I'll always cherish the years I spent there.
Working Out In The Wilderness
I worked a year in Finnland as a builder. Mostly building log cabins with only handtools like axes, big handsaws and chisels, and as i'm an electrician by trade doing all the elctrics in them. Pay wasn't much, but i didn't need much, as i had a car with gas paid for by the company, a nice VW Amarok, and our building sites were almost ever in the backcountry. Often Lapland.
As i only had to work 4 days of the week, I often went fishing, hiking, a colleague took me hunting. I built the furniture for those cabins we sold, and it made for a nice extra income, also. I have never felt this free again. I loved it and if live didn't intervene, i probably would still be working there.
Other Like Minded, Caring Individuals
Volunteering at a charity shop. So low income it didn't even pay. Had it have paid I'd have never left and got a 'proper' job.
Met so many nice people there whom I'm still Friends with and everyday was different. You really did not know what people would donate and what would come through that door. It was fascinating at times the stuff that people donated.
Showing How To Take Care Of Your Staff
I worked in a ranch every spring, summer and christmas break from middle school to highschool. The ranch would cook us breakfast and lunch. I learned a lot there, including how do drive manual shift at 13, tractor at 14 and 5 ton truck at 15. If you worked hard, arrived on time and didn't drink, the owner would co-sign any reasonable line of credit and a lot of my coworkers bought a house like that. In my case, the owner paid for everything that I needed, from supplies to uniforms to glasses to a bike, so that I had everything I needed to finish school.
Running Karaoke...For Profit!
I worked at an ice cream shop / eatery and the owners were wonderful people. The whole thing was a part time job where I would fill in and do just about everything / anything they needed when one of them had to be somewhere else during their busy hours so at most I probably did 20 hours a week making slightly more than minimum wage.
The real kicker (besides them being great people and close to home), was they ran Karaoke on Saturday nights for 4 hours and needed someone to run it. I love to sing, I love doing Karaoke to being with so once a week they were paying me to do nothing but that for 4 hours which I probably would have done for free.
They appreciated it too because I was enthusiastic, got people into it and like clockwork there were some families who became regulars and would pretty much stop by every Saturday for months. The job lasted about 2 years while paying for college and it was great fun while it lasted.
Providing An Actual Service To People
Selling comfort shoes. Nothing like seeing a customer walk in practically in tears because their feet hurt so much and leave with a huge smile on their face because their feet have stopped hurting.
The Empire Records Of Video Rental Stores
Shift Manager at Hollywood video, making $7.25/hr. For some reason, we were the only story in the area where corporate allowed us to order whatever movies we wanted for the store. A lot of the employees were film students at the local university so we ordered a lot of crazy sh!t. We had a great indie, foreign, anime collection. We had the entire Twin Peaks series on VHS. Because Hollywood Video didn't make you pay your late fees to rent new movies, our clientele were mostly customers who couldn't rent from blockbuster b/c of high late fees.
We hated the Blockbuster people and would crank call them all the time. We'd dial them up and ask sh-t like, "Do you have Private Parts...? Can I touch them?" or "Do you have Lorenzo's Oil?... Can I rub it all over my body?" Our store manager was the coolest guy who would let us play whatever movies we wanted (as long as they weren't rated R) in the store. We were such a motley-crew, it felt like working at Empire Records.
I miss that job and those people so much.
Sometimes, A Good Boss Makes All The Difference
Cook at a breakfast restaurant. No doubleshifts. The owner was really nice and would bus dishes when we were super busy. Most of the cooks and some servers were friends so we regularly hung out. To top it off we had windows/a lot of natural light.
The atmosphere really made all the difference.
Then the owner sold the place and the new owner was fully incompetent and we all left.
The Most Excitement You Can Have Taking Pictures Of Bugs
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Capturing live bees in little plastic bottles, gently chilling them until they were docile, and gluing tiny colored plastic tags with numbers onto their backs. Then sitting outside in a flowerbed with a notepad and trying to spot any of the tagged bees that returned to that site.
Other highlights of that job were: Sheltering in a grad student's car during a sudden intense thunderstorm and having the tree we were parked under get literally exploded by a lightning strike. Police arresting a student worker for sitting in the bushes next to a public pool full of kids with a big camera and macro lens (he was photographing insects). Getting shot at in the woods by people playing paintball. Almost falling out of a tree while trying to get a wide overhead shot of a survey site.
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