Working during WW11 in the summers

The first real job I remember doing was picking cucumbers in the field when I was 12, and between putting my fingers through rotten ones and sitting on them so they would squished all over me, I couldn't eat a cuccumber for 50 years because of it. The smell would to get me.
I also did baby sitting jobs also at 10 cents an hour, but not sure how old I was when I started. The thing I rememer most about them is trying to stay awake until the parents got home which was really hard. One lady decided that 10 cents an hour was to much and went around to all the other parents trying to get it down to 5 cents. I didn't just do babysitting as I would do the dishes and little things that needed to be done, so I was pretty pissed to say the least. Thank goodness she didn't get the rest to agree to the 5 cents, so it work out fine. Can you imagine 10 cents an hour now? Pretty pathetic.
The boys, Bob and Dick, had paper routes that they ran everyday, so they had a way to make money. I remember helping Bob collect on his a few time, but don't know if I ever helped Dick. It was a job I really didn't care for.
Other jobs were cutting cots, picking prunes and then I was old enough to work in the cannery, Barron and Gray. I think that I was about 13 as they lowered the age limit to get enough workers so they could get the fruit canned. Most of the time I worked on the pear machine, which wasn't bad. It was a lot better than working on a belt picking out the bad stuff that came down. I, for some reason, disliked the grape belt the most. I know I worked 3 summers there, and once I went over to Dole for a short time. When a gal cut off her finger tips on to the the fruit cocktail belt that did it for me as couln't eat fruit cocktail for quite awhile. I was still working in the cannery when the war ended, but the next years were not as easy to get on as the guys started coming home from the war. The jobs for kids and women dwindled after that.
My next job was a full time one working for the phone company as a long distance Operator and that lasted around 4 years. I disliked the broken shifts though, and getting off late at night. Sorry to say but I took off quite a bit because of it.
About that time I decided i wanted to go back to school, so went to see about getting my GED and then about entering San Jose State's junior college. I ran out of money after the 2 semester, and quit thinking as soon as I made the money to continue I would go back. I didn't go back to the phone company as found a job at Gousha's Map company, and i really liked that job. Being a cartogapher was more to my liking and it was day hours. I never did go back to college as I met my hubby to be about the same time I started working again. In the mean time I went over to the college and they up graded my status to 4 year college because my grades were so good the two semesters that I went.