What was your very first job with a non-family member (even extended family) ?

[Aristus]

43. A paper route, age 14.

I got up early, delivered my papers, and got done quickly enough to go back to bed for a snooze before getting up for school.

It gave me pocket money for a while. And as long as I delivered all my papers without customer complaints, and still got to school on time, my mother decided I wouldn't need an evening curfew. That would have been great if I had been a popular partying dude. But I was an enormously unpopular nerd who was never invited anywhere, so that was a waste.

After my parents separated, my Dad split the country, leaving my mother with a huge mortgage and three kids to raise. My paper route became part of my employment trifecta that helped us make ends meet. Paper route in the morning, McDonald's after school, and caddying golf on the weekends. Plus odd jobs around the neighborhood.

I kept falling asleep in class because of all of that. My teachers knew what my home situation was like, and didn't give me a hard time about it.