What was your first job?

What was your First Job?

Mine: Age 12, sitting in my dad's little home office (right next to his fax machine, and the boiler😂), sorting cash into brown paper wage packets.

My dad ran a painting contracting business.
Friday afternoons. After school, if the bus got me home on time.
I thought I was just helping out.

Turns out, I was learning some important lessons.

Each brown paper packet represented hours on a job site, long days, hard work.

Someone's rent. Their groceries. Their kids' school shoes.

Several times, the bus ran late. I'd miss my <30-minute shift entirely.
Everyone still got paid, even me 😅. My dad handled it.

But I felt it.

He taught me that when people depend on you, even when things are outside your control, you feel the weight of it.

3 decades later, entirely different job.

The stakes look different now - Transformation programmes, not cash in wage packets.

But the lessons he taught me then still apply:
- Every change in our work affects real people with real lives and real families.
- Trust isn't given because you're perfect. It's given because someone believes you'll take it seriously.
- Reliability matters. Even when things are outside your control.

My dad trusted a 12-year-old with people's wages (of course, he checked them).

That responsibility shaped everything that's come my way since.

So, what was your First Job?
I bet there's a story behind it.