Good thread.
My first job, when I was 12-13 or so, was running a paper route for the Washington Post while I lived at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. I had a sweet gig. My route consisted only of the Bachelor Officers Quarters located a couple of hundred yards from my house. Most of my subscribers were young Second Lieutenants who were attending the Engineer Officer Basic Course and were only there for about 3-4 months. I got a $10.00 bonus for every new subscriber to the paper, and didn't suffer any penalty when someone stopped. Accordingly, I was raking in the money each time a new Officer Basic Course started every couple of weeks and about 2 dozen Lieutenants began subscribing to the paper. That, in addition to my route being entirely indoors in a large hotel like building, made that job awesome.
My first "real" job was during the summer after my sophomore year of high school when I was 15-16 and living in Newport News, Virginia. I was a dishwasher at a new and very popular Rock-Ola cafe restaurant. I showed up every morning at 7:00 a.m. and cleaned that place from top to bottom all by myself. Sweeping, mopping, buffing floors, cleaning the bathrooms, etc. Once I got that done before 11:00 a.m., I then transitioned to washing dishes until 4:00 p.m. -- nonstop, hot, messy work in an extremely busy restaurant. All in all, a very hot and nasty job, all for $3.35 an hour (the minimum wage at the time.) I learned some good skills, but more importantly learned that I did not want to do that kind of crappy job ever again if I could help it.