Diddy Gets First Prison Job, Cleaning Up Dirty Laundry

2:28 PM PT -- TMZ just obtained the first image of Diddy at FCI Fort Dix, and he's walking around the prison yard in a beanie and a jacket.

Diddy's gray beard is also visible in the photo, which was snapped Friday, and it's the first time we've seen him since his September 2024 arrest ... aside from court sketches from his criminal trial.

Sean "Diddy" Combs is being put to work behind bars, and his first federal prison job has him doing the ol' fluff n' fold.

Sources familiar with the situation tell us Diddy's first gig at FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey plants him in the laundry room ... washing and drying dirty clothes.

Manual labor may come as a shock to Diddy ... during his criminal trial, federal prosecutors claimed he couldn't even charge his own phone or fetch a bottle of water, and would send his army of personal assistants to basically do everything for him.

We broke the story ... Diddy was transferred to FCI Fort Dix early Thursday morning to begin the check-in process.

The federal prison is low security and conditions there are much better than MDC Brooklyn, where he'd been locked up since September 2024, when he was arrested and held without bail pending his criminal trial.

Diddy's serving a 50-month sentence and the Bureau of Prisons estimates he'll be released by May 8, 2028 ... though it's not set in stone, and his attorney Marc Agnifilo told us Thursday he expects Diddy to be a free man before that date.