What was your worst job?

[hatredisnotavalue]

I have two tied for first place.

One was delivering 120 Sunday papers on a Sting Ray bike for three years in JH and HS. Hot in the summer, snow and cold in the winter (New England). I had two baskets on the back of the bike, one on the front and a knapsack filled to the brim. Had to make multiple stops home to pick up more papers. All 120 had to be delivered before 8 a.m.

Equally as awful (well in retrospect, probably much worse) was working as a waitress at a summer restaurant just two buildings up from our state's most popular beach. We served literally a thousand people each day. The restaurant was owned by a family and I was the only non-family member...so it was my job to clean the latrine and men's room ever night. I still have nightmares about the stuff I saw and had to touch, even with Playtex gloves, in that room.

Yours?

[eleonora]

1. All waitressing jobs

I *hate* waitressing and restaurant jobs. People seem to look at you like you're a loser, and there's always a bitch in the crew.

[flamingyouth]

7. I've spent 20 years in retail

Believe me, I always tip well. I have the utmost respect for restaurant workers. That's a job I don't envy.

[Kurovski]

2. Cleaning a gin-mill in Chicago.

Did'ja ever clean vomit out of a urinal?

[Warpy]

5. No, but I did have to take up lighting cables from a dirt floored arena

back in the vomitous days of Quaaludes and Boone's Farm Apple Wine.

After 20 years of surgical and trauma nursing, that experience still stands out in its sheer awfulness.

[AverageJoe]

3. Macdonalds

I have nothing but respect for the fast food workers of the world. That's a tough way to make a living.

[htuttle]

4. Bending rebar

If I never have to touch another rebar rod, it will be too soon.

[flamingyouth]

6. Working in a rat-infested construction company HQ

The first day, I was told not to leave food around because the rats would get it. Oh, and don't leave any books around your desk, because rats might chew at them. Any important papers should be put away off my desk ... because rats might eat them.

By the way, they asked, "You don't have a problem with large rats, do you?" :scared:

[ronnykmarshall]

30. Did you name any of the rats?

Sounds like they were long time employees.

[flamingyouth]

33. I never saw them personally

Just ... what they left behind. :puke: (I stayed there barely two months... it was right after I graduated from college and I needed $)

[B Calm]

8. Driving a semi for the largest auto parts chain in America.

The pay was good, but they treated you like shit.

[ixion]

9. managing a guest house

24/7, well, 24/6.5... I got a half day off per week.

It sucked royale.

[patrice]

10. Loading trucks for UPS.

Huge un-air-conditioned facility filled with miles of conveyor belts bringing packages to your tractor-trailor-size truck by zip code. Your supposed to stack the packages, larger heavier ones low and lighter stuff higher up, they are to be placed like bricks in a wall to make them stable during transport, all while you proof the zips, and set the errors aside, as this eternal stream of packages over which you have no control flows to your dock. It was INSANE! I lasted only a couple of months, and got repetetive motion stress injuries in my wrists.

[Merrick]

27. Loading Trucks For Roadway Express

See Patrice's account above. I didn't mind the work so much as the fact that I worked the last night shift, which meant your shift ended when the last box was loaded. Sometimes that meant 11pm, sometimes as late as 3am which sucked because I was in college at the time and had morning classes.

[patrice]

45. Oh yeah! You reminded me of the worst thing!

Your shift didn't always end when it was supposed to. If they were short-handed somewhere, you had to stay. I hated that the most.

[DS1]

32. I took those packages from the truck to the doors during an Xmas season

once. By the time it was over I was hopped up on about 2000 mg of Motrin, and on really bad occassion, some Vicodin another driver would slip me to help with the pain. Did I mention we had an engine-block rebuilder on our route? :eyes:

[Up2Late]

63. But did you ever have to Un-Load those Inter-module from China?

Actually, I think they were from Korea.

My first Temp job was Un-loading those "Evergreen" Inter-modal trailers Packed TIGHT with Hardwood Furniture (packed in cardboard boxes) for the New (1986) Coke building. Then (with only Furniture Dollies) packing them into a Massive warehouse.

I you ever wondered why the people bitch about Temp jobs so much, it's because Temp jobs SUCK:puke:

[jonolover]

11. none

With much respect for everyone, I have never had a job that I hated. I didn't have to work until college (my parents provided us with everything). I worked a few retail jobs during college and now I have a full-time job that I absolutely love at an excellent non-profit health organization. But every one of those jobs taught me about people, work ethic, self-responsibility, and self-esteem. I appreciate all of that.

Just wanted to share. Thanks.

[hatredisnotavalue]

39. gee. you are in the minority here

You must have been the product of parents that were well off.

[Wickerman]

12. Locked in a KMart overnight to clean

I took off a semester of college and became a janitor cleaning a KMart. They locked us in at 10 and let us out at 7. We got an hour for lunch (off the clock) but we had to stay in the tiny breakroom.

Man, let me tell you, a KMart gets mighty filthy in a midwest winter. Was really glad to get back to college.

[Lautremont]

13. I worked on the bun divider

at an industrial bakery. Sure, it smelled nice in there, like baking bread, but I had to work with a guy named "Phill," a redneck type who boasted about how badly he treated his wife and how he and his buddy enjoyed poaching deer at a city park.

Not to mention that the machine was called the bun divider.

[Up2Late]

51. LMAO

Oh god that's funny, and the avatar makes it even more so. I worked with some guys like that too:toast:

[Up2Late]

14. After College, I was a temp...

I have to say, of all the horrible temp jobs I did, screwing the caps onto the tops of powder ROACH Killer, all day, was THE worst.

This may not sound that bad, except for the lack of "safety gear" and the fact that this type of Roach Killer, is the type that, when one tiny speck of powder gets on the roach, it sucks all the moisture out of the Roach.

Now just imagine, that powder + NO Face Mask = Very Dry throat:freak:

[eyepaddle]

38. That sounds like diatomaceous earth

and oooooohhh boy, no doubt about it, you should've been wearing a dust mask. Not chemically toxic--but pretty high in silica. I've done a lot of work with pesticides--getting rid of waste pesticides for a few different states, and it's a little hard to explain to people, but it truly sucked. Blazing hot, wearing the Personal Protective Equipment (Tyvek Suit and repirator) loading semi trailers by hand lots of dust plus who knows what.

And I hate to say it, that isn't my worst job. (See post below.)

[Up2Late]

53. Yeh, and for some reason

they had a VERY high "I ain't goin' back to that place" rate. :shrug:

Go figure.:freak:

[Lautremont]

59. Your post reminded me of when I was a stripper

Yes, a stripper. I had to strip furniture all day by submersing it a large bath of the most vile chemical ever, while wearing asbestos gloves and a full-on Darth Vader rig. At the end of my first day the grinning brain-damaged morons who worked there told me the mask had no filter in it. I quit immediately.

Anyway, :toast: back at ya. I'm actually drinking a beer now, so I'll hold it up in a southerly direction.

[Up2Late]

66. LMAO

Your descriptions of your "co-workers" are AWESOME! Spot on!.:yourock:

[likesmountains 52]

15. I worked for a year on an assembly line in a check printing plant.

putting checks in the little boxes you get in the mail...yawn.

[Menshevik]

16. office depot

I worked there for a few months after graduating from college (was saving up $ for grad school) and hated it. The customers treat you like shit and so do the managers...

After working there, I have so much respect for anyone that works in retail. RETAIL WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! ;)

[vixengrl]

37. I am with you--I worked at Staples.

I was there three years just out of college, and that job put some *age* on me. It's like some people feel they have a right to be snotty or just plain evil when they deal with someone in retail, because they feel it's your job to put up with it. And they don't seem to realize that behind the nametag, there really is a *person* that they're abusing.

[TlalocW]

17. Tech Support

This was less than a year ago when I was out of work looking for another computer programming job after I was laid off. It was tech support for Sprint cell phones.

Here's what made it so bad.

1. Training was a joke. We were supposed to be there by 7:00 a.m., but things never got "going" until 9:00 a.m., and the trainer constantly had to stop to ask other trainers questions or to get the equipment to work.
2. The building is right across from Oral Roberts University (in fact, the buildings used to be owned and may still be owned (all or in part) by ORU. So we had a lot of religious nutjobs working there (including my manager, who was an ass).
3. Sprint tech support is supposed to make offers of different services available to the people calling in to tech support while we help them. It's their way of getting around the do not call list. We were supposed to have a 74% offer rate. They kept insisting it wasn't selling but informing, but no one believed them.
4. I was promised a different shift - in writing - than what I was given (up until 2:00 a.m. every night), and I was basically told tough luck. I know that tech support does this all the time, but it really burns me.

So because they didn't feel any need to keep their promises to me, I didn't feel the need to make offers to the people calling in, and when I sat down with my manager (who had been the one to tell me tough luck) during our bi-weekly look at your stats, I told him that if the company wasn't going to have the integrity to keep its promises to me then I didn't see any reason for me to sell. He told me that I needed to reconsider my position, and I said, I'll reconsider it as soon as the company proves it has ethics and keeps its signed promises. He said that it happens to everyone, even him. I said I don't give a damn because now it's happening to me. He sent me away and told me to consider it again.

Next day I went in, handed him a copy of the sheet that had my shift that was signed by me and the company, gave him my badge, and resigned. I honestly hated going into work - dealing with rude people on the phone, the relatively few but incredibly annoying stupid co-workers, the religious nutjobs, and it was making me a mean person.

Eventually, I found another programming job, Thank God.

TlalocW

[GoddessOfGuinness]

18. I was a telemarketer for 3 days

Couldn't take it any longer than that.

[Sandpiper]

19. Dish Washer in an all you can eat restaurant

That job sucked royally.

It was always hot, always steamy, and since it was a buffet restaurant, there was a never ending stream of dishes.

[andyhappy]

20. 15 years in the food service industry

I dont think people should be allowed to eat in a restaurant unless they have worked in one!

...ironically enough, I finally got out of school and have a 'real' job in an office and I miss those days.

[Red State Rebel]

21. Social Director at a retirement community

You haven't lived until you have tried to please 500 people over the age of 70.

People getting your face because they don't like the time you scheduled the bus to go to Walmart. I even had a death thread on that job!

It was the job that caused me to realize that some people just loved being miserable and hateful, but it was a choice they made to be that way.

I determined that I would choose to be happy and have done my best to do that ever since.

[Starlight]

73. "some people just loved being miserable and hateful,

but it was a choice they made to be that way."

I came to the same conclusion when I was a mental health counselor. Some people absolutely love to bitch & complain & feel sorry for themselves and they don't want to lose that cuz it's their only source of pleasure and reason to live. :nopity:

[Hobarticus]

22. Summer job at a pig farm

Cut tails, castrations, euthanized deformed piglets...even helped perform a C-section.

[rug]

25. you win

[Hobarticus]

26. Yay! What'd I win? A year's supply of pork sausage? (ulp)

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

23. Elephant circumciser

The pay was lousy but the tips were big.

[yurbud]

24. removing shit from under an outhouse

with a garden trowel and a 5 gallon bucket.

but it was in Alaska, so at least the scenery was nice.

[ronnykmarshall]

28. Mc Donald's

followed up with a bus boy job at Happy Steak.

[greendog]

29. All my bad jobs were good jobs with bad bosses...

...really bad bosses.

[DS1]

31. Heh, I was considering posting this again, I've been given an assigment

to write exactly this. I'm not going to plagarize of course, but I LOVE these stories!

[guitar man]

34. cleaning out livestock trailers

there's nothing like taking a hose and big shovel into a 50 ft. double-deck trailer that just unloaded a full load of hogs after they had crapped the thing full on the way to the auction. I quit my $2.85/hr dishwashing job, which was min. wage back in my HS days to take the shit-shoveling job at $5.50/hr, which was good money for a HS kid back then. I never complained then, but looking back now, it sure was a suck-ass job. I guess I just had a cast-iron constitution back then.

[hatredisnotavalue]

35. Do you think that these are the jobs * is building his new economy on?

n/t

[LanternWaste]

36. Graveyard shift at convenience store.

Graveyard shift at a convenience store during my college days. Was held up nine times (Believe me, I counted...): five at gun point, two at alleged gun-point (hand in coat pocket and all that) and two at knife point.

One April Fool's Day, two close friends decided to "get" me and drove up in the early morning hours with stockings over their heads. They rushed in and lunged at the counter.

Dumb-asses! My guardian-angel cop-friend was in the store office when it happened and rushed out, weapon drawn. Both guys went dead still and put their hands up. There was a LOT of explaining to do on their part.

[barackmyworld]

40. I am taking note of all of these things

for when I apply for summer jobs...

[eyepaddle]

41. Mudlogger,

This is a flunky geologist who looks at samples of drill cuttings at takes shit from rednecks who can't stand college boys. I was offshore (in the gulf of Mexico) for weeks or months at a stretch, almost constantly sleep deprived, you work 12 on and 12 off until you go in. You can work more than 12 hours if there are problems, or you are rigging up or down. I once went more than fifty hours without sleep, plus got a big hunk of rust in my eye. And don't even get me started about the abandon ship drills. ;)

You people are gonna think I'm making this up, but when you are in training to be a mudlogger (or maybe a permanent assisstant) your job title is "sample catcher."

That's right, the sample catcher does the bidding of the mudlogger!

[kodi]

42. 3rd shift, dyehouse machine operator at ages 17-20

worked like a dog 11pm to 7:30am, washed up then went to college classes for my freshman thru junior years.

i worked my way thru college that way and i have to say that i resented the hell of my fuck-off classmates who had their daddies pay for their education while they screwed around and acted like their shit did not stink.

a bunch of shiftless, lazy, fucking parasites that's what i considered them.

class warfare? you bet. when the revolution comes i want only one job .. guillotine operator.

[hatredisnotavalue]

43. my friend I am so with you :) n/t

[VOX]

44. Busboy and plate-scraper for a Swedish Smorgasboard...

Nothing like being elbow-deep in tepid water with bits of macaroni floating on top, all on a Sunday morning at 7:00 a.m. And those, cold, grey cups of coffee with the lone, lipstick-stained cigarette butt floating in them...

I was 16 -- I went three times, and that was all I could take.

[deadparrot]

46. Wendy's...summer job.

Working in fast food sucks.

[HEyHEY]

47. Cleaning Wat Tyler's apartment

There's some things the health bureau SHOULD know about.

[AVID]

48. Drug Rep

Three years of marching around with Pfizer blue stamped on my forehead, spinning tall tales form dubious studies, spewing erectile dysfunction pens and gadgets, and meeting once a month with raging brown nose corporate whores. The free car was nice, but no money, car, salary, or bonus is worth my dignity.

[NoodleBoy]

49. Taco Bell

that job made me hate... everything.

[solinvictus]

50. Customer Service Rep for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Tennessee

I had to listen to people literally cry when they were left with thousands of $$ in bills due to a slip of network rules. The worst were Wal Mart employees, who'd paid high premiums for really poor coverage with high deductibles.

[clovis29]

52. Gas Station attendant - at 14 and my Dad owned it *yeach*

[Haole316]

54. I spent the summer of 88 roofing....

didn't take me too long to realize that it was not a career for me.

[PartyPooper]

55. I dug ditches for a day in 1968. I felt like a prisoner in a chain gang.

It was awful.

:-(

[Hillary08]

75. I don't know which is worse

Digging in the summer when it's so hot, or in the winter when it's so cold and the ground is so hard!

[CO Liberal]

56. Selling Subscriptions to the Newark Star-Ledger Back in the '70s

A very high-pressure organization - sell - sell - sell - don't take "no" for an answer.

The pitch was that for each subscription, a generous contribution would be made to an organization called "Cancer Care". I started hearing horror stories about how Cancer Care refused to help many families, and I later found out that the "generous contribution" for each subscription was 25 cents. And the woman who called to verify each subscription tried to sell them insurance.

I quit after a week.

[Revillusion1]

57. The F'ing Easter Bunny at the mall...

I lasted about 2 hours...

[mtnsnake]

58. Worked a couple weeks of road construction a long time ago

The work wasn't that hard, but we had the worst assholes to work with including the foreman, who to this day ranks as one of the biggest alltime asswipe jerkoffs I've ever met. It's the only job I ever quit with no notice. 14 days of sheer misery.

[Sgent]

60. Waiting tables...

Worked in a sit down restaurant as a waiter, bartender, and cook (at different times), and at Outback.

To be honest, I had a freakin' blast, but it was hard work and terrible hours. As a single guy with no responsibilities, the lower pay didn't really bother me, and being young the lack of benefits wasn't an issue.

I would recommend it to anyone, but MAKE SURE you have a good management team, or it will suck bad.

[Rabrrrrrr]

61. Orson Welles' anal bead cleaner

[PartyPooper]

62. Was that a real job?

Or, did you think it up?

In any case, it would be a pretty dreadful one.

:D

:hi:

[Rabrrrrrr]

64. Did that for 6 months. In summer, no less.

it was awful!

:P

[Lydia Leftcoast]

65. Several jobs during my temp days (the Reagan recession)

1) Hospital laundry: sorting bedding and clothing stained with shit, piss, blood, snot, and some unidentifiable body fluids. The smell of the blood bothered me more than anything.

2) Packaging tapes for a well-known mail order music vendor. We had to stand (not sit) around a counter on a hard floor, folding boxes and putting cassette tapes in them while an evil-tempered late teenage girl walked around the table yelling "Faster! Faster!"

3) Quality control in a metal-plating factory: Looking at samples of copper-plated widgets through a microscope to detect blistering or incomplete coverage. The job itself was merely boring, but we were on compulsory overtime, ten hour days, six days a week. The regular workers, including the guys who did the actual plating and worked with vats of chemicals, were so worn out that they slept instead of ate during their 30-minute lunch break. I quit after they told us that we could have 4th of July off only if we came in on Sunday.

4) A rubber products factory that made typewriter platens (remember those?) and similar things. We worked without protective gear, grinding the rough edges off the platens, and at the end of the day, I had black particles embedded in my face. If I ever get some nasty lung disease, I'll know why.

5) Packing commercially baked melba toast by hand. Again, we had to stand on a concrete floor, and instead of an evil-tempered late teen-age girl, we had an evil-tempered middle-aged man walking up and down the line yelling, "Faster! Faster!" and "No talking!" The melba toast itself was nasty, and I went home at the end of the day with the smell of preservatives clinging to my clothes. I was amazed when some of my co-workers swiped pieces of toast off the line to eat during their coffee breaks.

6) Arriving at a company one February to work as a file clerk, only to find that they had filed nothing since September. They literally had three-foot stacks of unorganized papers along the walls. Come to find out that nobody had filed anything because everyone's job description contained the phrase "occasional filing." First I sorted everything, and then I started trying to file, only to discover that all the customers were alphabetized by first name. When I asked about this, the office manager just shrugged and said, "That's how the labels came out of the computer." :crazy:

7) A small company made plastic sheets that my co-workers told me were "something for computers." It was simple, yet boring work, covering for someone who was out for the day. However, at about nine A.M., the owner disappeared into his office with a paper bag full of bottles. At noon, one of the other two workers peeked into the office and said, "He's passed out." So the other two left the building, telling me that they were going to go out for lunch. I had brought a brown bag, so I just ate my sandwich, expecting the others to be back in half an hour. They didn't come back till two. At about three, half an hour short of the scheduled quitting time, the owner emerged from his office, looking like, well, someone with a hangover. The other two workers told him that they were nowhere near finishing their daily quota and would have to do overtime.

This was the only case in three years of temping where I thought the workers were shirking or trying to scam the employers. In most of the rest of the jobs, the employees were under constant pressure.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

72. Boy, I sure am hungry for some melba toast right about now.

LOL.

[scarlet_owl]

67. Pharmacy technician.

[Rockerdem]

68. Summer job on a highway litter patrol

People do a lot of ugly things in their cars and discard the crap out the window.

[Bok_Tukalo]

69. Catching chickens

Not running around a barnyard like an idiot straight out of Green Acres but the first cog in the whole chicken processing operation. Down on your knees at 3:00 am in the shit and fecal dust (God, if it rained the ammonia smell was awful) in a long rectagular chicken house full of 15,000 birds moving your arms like pistons grabbing them by the legs till you have four in one hand and three in the other to throw them into a coup to be transported to the plant where live squawking animals enter and nice, packaged poultry emerged.

[Minimus]

70. Collections for Sears credit. Only lasted a couple weeks

I couldn't be mean for the ones like this:

I really hated when I would call a senior citizen on social security and her spouse had the credit card but he was deceased. Sears still expected you to try to get the family to pay, something, anything, get a five dollar payment commitment, make them promise they would go pay at the nearest Sears store as soon as the SS check came in the mail. I would feel so bad for the elderly ladies who were trying their best. They were not obligated to pay that bill, but Sears intimidated them.

And the ones like this just pissed me off:

I would get some cocky smart ass who says something dumb like I can't make a payment, I have to buy my kids christmas presents. My kids aren't going without presents just so I can make a payment to yall.Followed by phone slammed in your ear.

Suckiest job ever!

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

71. Working as a customer service rep at Blockbuster.

What made the job really depressing was that I spent a whole month looking for work before I landed that "sweet" job (only part time), and I had just graduated from college with a degree in computer engineering. Oh, and I was also pregnant. Oh, and my hourly wage was less than the hourly wages I made at most of the part time jobs I had worked in college too.

Also, Blockbuster is evil. It never closes, unless there's a hurricane or some other natural disaster. The one I worked at got robbed more than once while I was working there, but they were all after hours burglaries. The only good thing about the job was the measly paycheck and the free movie rentals.

Customer service reps are supposed to clean toilets too. I did it maybe once or twice, but after that I got out of doing it because I was pregnant.

[Starlight]

74. I've had more awful jobs than I can count.

Here's a few samples off the top of my head:

1. Nursing home aide. There's nothing like changing a shitty diaper on a screaming, fighting, spitting, biting 90 year old with advanced Alzheimer's.

2. Counselor in a facility for mentally ill, developmentally disabled adults with severe behavior problems. Some of these clients were EXTREMELY dangerous, but the owners got paid more for them so they didn't care if staff & other clients were in danger. One of my coworkers had her arm broken when she was attacked by a client with a tire iron.

3. Counselor in a bed & care facility for mentally ill women. The clients were fine. Each & every one of the other staff had severe mental health/drug abuse problems and did little or no work. I quit after 3 weeks.

[mwdem]

76. Working in retail, in the rich, white, a__hole dept.

telling them ladies that they couldn't look any cuter in their furred-up outfits!!! This was in the 70's.