[Billfred]

Well, it's kinda hard to decide what my first "real" job was.

The first real, non-school task I had was from 1997-1999, when I was a writer for The State newspaper's Young Writers Staff. No money involved, but hey, when you're in fifth grade and your name is in the paper, who cares about that?

The first could be argued as my program sales at USC home football games as part of AFJROTC, starting when I was 14. $.20 a program (later increased to $.25) adds up when you're kicking everyone else's butt selling upwards of 150 a game.

Then there's football games, which I started filming about a month later for the athletics department at Irmo. Rain or shine, cold or hot, home or away, I was on top of the press box getting the shots. And the pay for a freshman year job was great--$25 a game, plus a reasonable dose of caffeine.

The first time I punched a clock, however, was just before my junior year of high school, when I was 16. I worked at the Irmo Piggly Wiggly as a bagger courtesy clerk, making a lovely $5.50 an hour.