My first paying job was a summer one either when I was a sohpomore or junior in high school (I'm trying to remember whether I worked there one summer or two) which I got through the auspices of a high school buddy who was working at the same place. I was a dogsbody in an advertising agency in Cincinnati...I ran errands all over town, wrapped packages, ran the photostat machine (this was still a few years before xerox, I think), set up displays for photographers, etc.
It was interesting because everyday it was different and they handled a lot of interesting accounts...Kenner Toys down the street, lots of Proctor and Gamble stuff. I often saw products that were not yet out on the market...I used to stack mountains of toilet paper or toothpaste to be shot for the photographers.
During college, my summer job was at American Book Company in Cincy, on an assembly line, packing books (usually text books) that would come off the presses. It was hot sweaty work, but paid well, and I stayed in shape.
For a year after college, I worked shortly as a store clerk at Shillito's department store in Lexington, Kentucky, then did display work at their competition at McAlpin's, dressing dummies and setting up Christmas trees. For a short time, in Dallas, I worked at an answering service. And out here I worked a few years, intermittently between acting gigs at Book City. And that was pretty much my entire employment record of "real" work...the rest of the time I made a living acting and writing, something like thirty years all told...I'm tired!
