What was your favorite summer job?

I worked as a bagger at a grocery store. When we weren't bagging groceries, we went to the back and sorted the pop bottles people had brought in for their deposit refund.

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Former guest and big city kid becomes Assistant Recreation Leader at a Catskill area summer vacation property with cabins and main house hotel. Four 20ish guys as grounds guys and a College Baseball guy who was Rec Leader. Five young waitresses my age 14-17 or so, three teen girls working in the Rec Center and a hostess/desk college aged clerk plus an assortment of other older employees Most were local day commuters includiding all the young guys. I stayed in "Grandma's House",the property owners motherhouse next door. One housekeeper 40 yo and her 19 yo waitress daughter stay there as did four of the young female workers. . Never got the MomDaughter but the girls around my age seemed not to be bothered by the fact I was sleeping with all of them. Lots of families with kids stayed there and most of the guests daughters took my swim and horsemanship classes...Having a fresh group every week to pick from was nice most families stayed a week and a few for two weeks. A number of families came back every year.

Three summers of hard work with great times. Homestlye food served family style in the dining room was really really good all the stuff from local farms- eggs laid yearerday and one lady did nothing but bake bread, rolls,pies and cakes and she made the best ever icecream from farm fresh cream. Three of the girls were there for the all three years and by the second year were on "The Pill' All tis at the start of The Swinging Sixties

I cleaned tissue from various animal skulls that were to be used for museum displays. I smelled like bleach for the rest of the year, but it was by far the coolest job out of any of my friends.

My summer job as a teen was to smoke mass amounts of weed and then walk to store and buy bottles of Dr.Pepper and Charleston chews and then hang out.

Lifeguard. Sit around all day in the sun. Very easy and enjoyable.

Tour guide at a state park. The only downside is that the park was way busier on the weekend than weekdays so the chance of a saturday or sunday off was nil.

Rec Leader at a Chicago park that had a water slide.

Basically got paid to be a kid again. Swam 2 hours a day, played capture the flag and basketball, and went on 3 field trips a week (museums, movies, cubs games, etc.).

If I hit the lottery, I would work at a park. So much fun.

Any of you all ever work at the Philmont Scout Ranch? That is tough to beat.

Never worked at Philmont but I attended once and was very envious of the guys who got to work there.

MY best job ever though was working as a sort of groundskeeper at a local little league baseball park. I worked with one other person and it was a good friend so when we weren't screwing around we painted the lines on the field, cleaned the facilities, and just got the fields ready for the games. Only had to work between 2-5 hours a day (depending on how much was there was to do).

I had a pretty nice job at a weekly newspaper the summer after my freshman year of college. I was the sports editor, did all the layouts, and a feature writer and police report. Plus I wrote an editorial or two. I actually didn't want to go back to college.

I spent the summer of 2000 working for the US Census. I was 18 and making $18.50 / hour. It was the summer of clothes, weed, and video games.

My advice is to get an internship at a company that does what you want to do when you graduate. Real world experience is way more valuable than any college course. Lifeguard doesn't look so great on your resume. My favorite summer job was a a park ranger though.

When i graduated high school I worked a summer as a pool monitor. $10/ hour with no taxes. All i had to do was test the chlorine levels, straighten out chairs, and take out the trash. I didn't even need any sort of cpr training to qualify.

Next summer I worked up at a family resort in the Adirondacks. It was beautiful up there, and I got to do a lot of things I'd never done before, like kayaking, canoeing, hiking, and cliff jumping. Only downside was the black flies.

The best summer job I had was working at the local marina on the lake. I worked five glorious summers. On weekends like Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day, we worked incredibly hard and sweat more than I thought possible, but we walked away with a lot of cash tips.

The rest of the summer was getting paid to look at babes in bikinis and tolerate their drunk mothers.

The best gig was pumping the crap out of the houseboats. I drove a pontoon rigged with a septic tank through the marina to the houseboats, which are essentially permanently docked. I made bank on those shifts.

Frank's Nursery and Crafts. Working in the nursery and bullshitting people into buying the wrong plants. People ate that shit up, like some 16 year old kid has any clue about where to plant a begonia. Christmas time, smoking weed amongst the trees.

Counselor at a soccer camp in the Sierra Nevadas. The kids had 2, 2 hour practice sessions a day, which is when I got my runs in. The rest of the time was spent leading little day hikes, making up skits, swimming in the river....got in great shape and had tons of fun. I suppose in a way it even helped prepare me for my eventual teaching career (which I had no intention of pursuing at that time)

Somebody a few posts back said get an internship doing what you want to do for a career. I say, do what you really like doing and figure out a way to make that a career.

Rock climbing gym. Fun co-workers around the same age, flexible hours, got to climb for free and got a great deal on gear, and awesome after-hours parties at the gym. I didn't even know how to climb when I started, I was hired to work the desk, but it got me hooked and I'm still climbing 10 years later.

I worked at a specialty tennis/running store for several summers and also after college for a year.