My first job began when I finished my first year at TAFE, or Jackson College as it was then, in December 1978.
In between trying to get a real job, I took a job cleaning bricks at a demolition site not far from our Shepparton East farm.
For a full week I toiled in the summer sun during a heatwave, cleaning and chipping mortar off old Shepp red bricks and stacking them on pallets.
There were thousands of the bloody things.
At the end of the week, I had plenty of blisters and sunburn to show for my labour and a $70 cash pay packet stuffed in my wallet.
My first pay!
After knock-off on Friday I went down to the East Goulburn main channel for a swim and jumped in off the Boundary Rd bridge.
When I emerged – my new wallet, stuffed with my first pay was gone.
I duck-dived for an hour but couldn’t find it.
I was shattered.
Anyway, all that brick cleaning experience didn’t help a lot in my later careers in the water and now library sectors, other than teach me to look after my wallet!
18°C