#FirstSevenJobs

There's a fun meme abuzz on Twitter called #firstsevenjobs, in which folks list their first 7 jobs. I shared mine here.

Then I saw that notable VC Fred Wilson was taking it seriously, so I thought I'd take the list to my "serious" network (LinkedIn) and expand a bit.

Here we go...

1. Rock picker. Yep, my first honest days' work was at my fathers' farm equipment dealership, picking rocks from the lawn, and cigarette butts from the rocks. 
2. Paperboy. My first regular paycheck job was delivering Bismarck Tribune newspapers door to door in 4-foot snow in Mandan, North Dakota.  
3. Print Production Assistant. My first W9 high school job was working on the printing press for the Mandan News. I took the minimum wage ($4.25/hour?) job mostly so that I could have opportunity write freelance. Mostly, I used my chest and arms to "jog" the papers coming off the press so they wouldn't stick together. A machine wasn't working properly, and it was cheaper to hire me than fix the machine.
4. Sports Clerk. Thanks to my favorite teacher Scott Winter, I was able to work part-time for his father (and locally renowned sportswriter) Abe Winter. My job consisted mostly of writing game summaries and typing up box scores, based on phone-call dictation reporting of statistics from high school basketball team student managers. 
5. Fry cook. My first and last food-service job, I worked on the line at Red Lobster. I was chiefly responsible for the creation and quality of Bismarck's finest Cheddar Bay Biscuits. You're welcome, Beyonce. (Make your own!)
6. Telephone ad salesman. My first job, I was the sales rep for the Greek Telephone Directory, which cataloged the phone numbers of fraternity and sorority members at the University of Minnesota. I tried to sell ads to local businesses, including mostly bars, restaurants and campus bookstores.
7. Student paper publisher. Short on cash because of poor telephone book ad sales -- and spurned by the Minnesota Daily in my attempt to write a column as a freshman -- my first entrepreneurial endeavor was Speak Magazine. Along with co-founder Michael Hsu, we produced a bi-monthly magazine on positive campus happenings. Interestingly, the school paper that had rejected my efforts covered the launch of our magazine, and I later became Vice President of its Board of Directors. (Fifteen years later, I'd help Michael launch PERI, a consumer electronics startup.)

Interesting to look back and see how those early jobs had an impact on the man I've become. Doubly interesting to see that four of those first seven jobs were in the arena of journalism and publishing.

What were your first seven jobs? How'd they shape you?