The July issue of InBusiness, which will be included (at no additional charge) in your Friday paper contains an absolutely wonderful feature by Jennifer Rouse in which various mid-valley notables reflect on their first jobs.
Without giving too much away, here’s part of a recollection from Oregon State University President Ed Ray:
“I grew up in New York City. I was 17, looking for a job, and I stopped at a women’s apparel store. He said he could hire me part time, and it would be varying hours and I’d be a jack-of-all-trades. He said he’d pay me a dollar an hour. I thought that sounded great, so I accepted.
“Now, between the time when I accepted and when I showed up for the job, I saw President Kennedy make an announcement that the minimum wage was going to be raised to $1.15. So I showed up for work, the guy asked me if I was ready to go, and I said I had just one problem: Kennedy was changing the law so the minimum wage was $1.15, and we had talked about only $1 per hour.
“He said to me, ‘You have a dilemma here. It looks like you can work for me for $1 per hour, or you can be unemployed for $1.15.’ So I took the job.”
The recollections from President Ray and eight other mid-valley residents got me to thinking that it would be fun to put out a call to readers for their first-job memories.
So here goes: Tell us about your first jobs. We’ll run some in Mid-Valley InBusiness, although we might not have room in the July issue — but we’ll run all of them on this blog and on the InBusiness website.
And I’ll find the time over the next few days to reflect on my first job as well.
The easiest way to send me your first-job memories is to click here to send me an e-mail.
