Alloy.com

For Tom Delonge of Angels & Airwaves/Blink-182 fame, earning a paycheck was a pretty messy ordeal. "My first job sucked -- I drove a truck transporting cement and dirt." But maybe it got him ready for the mud-slinging mosh pits that would be in his future.

Before competing on American Idol, Kellie Pickler taught gymnastics and worked as a paralegal. But her life was as sad as a country song when she got a job as a roller-skating waitress at Sonic -- apparently, Kellie's better off as a singer because she wasn't so good at "balancing the food on the tray," she says.

We bet Nelly Furtado wanted to "fly like a bird" away from her first gig. "My first job was filing home inspection policies for a neighbor into a little filing cabinet," she says. "I worked in a shed a few days a week and was paid $5 an hour." But no matter how she did it, earning a paycheck was a big deal for Nelly: "At the time, it was like I was an editor of a big fashion magazine!" Still, we're sure that she prefers her current job a whole lot better.

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