I started my first job Christmas season of 2000, making me 16. My mom worked at Lord & Taylor, and they needed seasonal "fluffer and folders", ie neaten up after customers make a mess. That lasted two days, when one of the receiving guys left. They shifted me over and I did well enough they kept me until I quit at the end of high school. L&T has a policy of not hiring persons under the age of 18, except for fluffer and folders so I got lucky. The only problem was I could not get my employee discount normally. It was done on the back end of the L&T credit card, and I couldn't get one until I was 18.
After that was Barnes & Noble selling music, then ComputerWare doing deliveries, then VCU Health Systems moving patients around the hospital, and now Loudoun-Fairfax Ambulance moving patients between hospitals and other hospitals/home/the zoo.
Jobs where the people that have been there a few years are jaded and cynical, you don't want to stay at.
If you can, help out doing more then you have too. This factors in a lot when raise time comes. Don't do other peoples jobs for them, but if they get swamped give them a hand. Both the people and management appreciate this.
Wetzel