When he was 12 years old, he got his first job. He became a newsboy on a train that ran between Port Huron and Detroit. He set up a laboratory in a baggage car of the train so that he could continue his experiments in his spare time. Unfortunately, Edison's first job did not end well. He was fired when he accidentally set fire to floor of baggage car Edison then worked for five years as a telegraph operator, but he continued to spend much of his time on the job conducting experiments. He got his first patent in 1868 for a vote recorder run by electricity. However, the vote recorder was not a success. In 187o, he sold another invention, a stock ticker, for $40,000. A stock-ticker is a machine that automatically prints stock prices on a tape. He was then able to build his first shop in Newark, New Jersey. Thomas was totally deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other, but Edison thought of his deafness as a many ways. It kept conversations short, so that he blessing in could have more time for work. himself a two-shift man" because he worked 16 out of every 24 hours. Sometimes he worked so intensely that his wife had to remind him to sleep and eat.