When I was somewhere in the range of 12-13 I used to help input data on a worksheet - I think it was either excel or a pre-excel type worksheet. I made something like 10 an hour, and worked maybe 5 hours a week. It was under the table, helping my mother out with her side work. I did it for a year (give or take a month or two)
See, what you call a downer, I call awesome.
See, this is where you look into her eyes and tell her you’ve been there all this while because you knew eventually she’d show up.
Been working continuously since I was 16. First job was in a local butchers/bakers. Great experience. I never took a penny from my parents since that first pay packet and always paid my way when I was still under their roof.
Of course it helped that both me and my wife could afford to get married in our early twenties and own our own house on a couple of pretty modest wages. That was the early nineties but in the UK at least the average wage/house price ratio got seriously skewed recently. I’m not sure we would be in such a fortunate position were we starting out now.
Grandparents owned a laundromat where from age 13 I worked 12 hours a day for a little short of minimum wage every summer, no overtime. Grandpa said I was allowed to live in his house rent free and eat his food, so he told me to consider the less than minimum wage as a very, very generous allowance.
At 8 I was paid a dollar a day to pick up ground leaves (tobacco). At 10 I rotated 3 different farms working tobacco and hay fields. At 12 I added mowing yards to this and at 16 I got a real job, by real I had taxes taken out of my check. This year (at 60) I became unemployed, it sucks.
Ages 11-16: I had a thriving babysitting empire.
Age 16: My first “real” job was at Rax Roast Beef, where I hated making chocolate chip shakes. But they had blueberry, which you will not find anywhere anymore. I lasted three months because they only paid sub-minimum wage to minors. Psh.
Ages 16-18: I worked as a page in the public library, which meant I pretty much shelved books for a few hours after school each day. Loved that gig. Climate controlled, I got to wear whatever I wanted, and not only didn’t have to deal with the public, I was expressly forbidden not to. Perfect gig for a smartypants, bookish, nerdy introvert like me, surrounded by my paper-and-ink friends. Also, my best friend worked there too, so that was fun also. I enjoyed library work so much I did the same thing in college, in the school’s Music & Dance library, where I was tasked with dubbing the library’s collection of vinyl albums on to cassettes, so music students could check them out for assignments. Great job.
I really haven’t been unemployed for more than a week or two since I was 16.
Mowed lawns and shoveled driveways and walks until I was 14. Got my Working Papers then, signed by my parents. Got a job immediately. Worked as much as I could from there on out. Busboy at IHOP, aide in a nursing home, etc.
Got working papers and allowance ended for good and forever.
14, bagging at a Mass. supermarket checkout, then restocking the frozen foods, then canned goods then cashiering, all thru high school and summers.
This has been the reaction of all my guy friends and coworkers. (One asked me today how the date had gone, then high-fived me when I mentioned the age thing.) Most of my female friends and coworkers, OTOH, are a bit ticked. I had a very pleasant summer romance last year with someone who was one year old when I started my current job, and we’ve remained close friends since, so I’m not putting the brakes on this one yet.
Aaand this is why it’s still creepy. 
“I got this job because I knew there was a 2-day-old out there who would one day be mine!”