Seriously, I've been working since I was 18; in Chicago when I was younger, there was very little available except paper routes.
When I was 18, my very first job was as a carpenter, building parade floats 40-60 hours a week, for $1.40 an hour. I did that every summer and fall for three years.
When I wasn't doing that, I pumped gas during the day in winter and spring, and unloaded trucks at UPS in bitter cold, on the midnight shift at Christmas time. UPS paid $4.75 an hour--good money back then, except that the Teamster's Union took my first two paychecks every year for dues.
When I got out of college and there were no design jobs available, I worked as a maintenance guy in a large apartment building a few doors down from the Playboy mansion in Chicago. Purty girls. Limousines, movie stars over there. Stopped up sinks, painting ceilings, cleaning up after dead people, where I was. Paid the bills, though. Then I found a design job and still enjoyed working with my hands just as much.
I remodelled my houses and built cars for myself for a couple of decades, on the side. But my physical labor days, while over these days on the job, still continue on the side as I built my music room and remodelled my workshop in the last two years; now the shop gets redone to accommodate some new machinery, beginning next week.
In the process, over a long life, I've stayed fit, learned a whole slew of manual skills, and become self-sufficient, in the sense that if something needs fixin', I can do it myself.
Nothing wrong with hard work. And, as you adjust, your hands will adjust, too.
