What was the worst job you ever had?

[terrya]

Several years ago, when I was in horrible financial straits, I got a second job as a telemarketer selling legal books to law firms. I am NOT cut out to be a salestype person. We would call the same damn law firms over and over and over...and the people we would talk to would be (rightfully) pissed. After a while with this crap job, I went to lunch one day...and didn't return.

So, what was your worst job?

[BOSSHOG]

1. Bucking Hay for a nickel a Bale

in the scorching hot Arkansas Sun in the late 60's, early 70's. Stacking the bales on my 51 Chevy Pickup then driving it to a barn and unloading it. Snakes in the field, wasps in the barn.

It did however make for a great shower and I had no trouble going to sleep afterwards.

[Adsos Letter]

50. Oh I do feel for ya'...

...I too have had experience unloading double tractor-trailers of hay on hot sticky sumer days and evenings...the shower couldn't come soon enough.

How's yer knees these days....?

:hi:

[EstimatedProphet]

2. Professional biologist

Why? Because the division was taken over by an incompetent micromanaging jackass who singlehandedly destroyed morale by continually playing the employees against each other. He would only reward those who sucked up to him, and consequently they got huge egos and were holier-than-thou, while the rest of us would have the credit for work we did and things we arranged given to them, even when they weren't involved.

[last_texas_dem]

3. Grocery store cashier

In so many ways, it was simply not the job for me.

To be considered a good cashier, you need to be very fast, work well with people observing everything you do all day long, be good at small talk, and be able to do all of these things simultaneously. Pretty close to a nightmare job for me, and you only get paid minimum wage for it...?!?

I preferred rounding up the grocery carts in 100-degree heat to dealing with the register inside, even though cashiering was supposedly the more "prestigious."

[SocratesInSpirit]

22. I can completely relate

I was briefly a grocery cashier myself, and it was a nightmare.

[billyskank]

4. Perhaps not so bad but I hated it

Working nights for UPS (as a temp) matching invoices that came in through the fax with tracking documents that came off the printer. Fucking soul destroying.

[Rambis]

5. De-tasseling

Most of it was ok but when I was in college I did it for one day. We left at 5:45 am got home at 9:00pm and got paid 36$. The guy didn't pay us for the 3 round trip to the fields and the van had a hole in the floor and I puked from the fumes. I am surprised no one died. He had a pregnant woman (8 months at least) out in 100+ heat with no water. I called somebody and tried to get him shut down but never found out what happened.

[Burma Jones]

13. Me Too

[meow2u3]

6. People Greeter at Wal-Mart

All day, you just have to keep repeating, "Welcome to Wal-Mart"--I could have used a parrot to keep from straining my voice, and besides, I had to stand relatively still for 8 hours. Needless to say, I came home with extremely sore feet!

[IndianaJones]

7. raiding dank tombs...having loot stolen...almost dying. nt.

[Norwood]

8. Programming

I hate it and I cant wait to stop doing it!

[skygazer]

9. Book factory drone

I had to stand on a platform by a conveyor belt and pack books into boxes in a prescribed pattern. I was paid by the piece and it was so loud in there and we were spaced so far apart that you couldn't carry on a conversation - besides, that might screw up your piece count. :eyes:

Luckily I was young and it was the 70's so I used to go in stoned and drunk all the time. :P

[jpak]

10. worked for a fundie egg farm robber baron

14 hour days - 7 days a week

lived in a company trailer with no plumbing or electricity

after record heat wave, pulled thousands of dead rotting chickens from cages

$2 an hour

no overtime

"lost" paychecks to boot...

on edit: almost drowned in chicken shit too...

[sarge43]

18. jpak, you get my vote for most ghastly job.

How long did you endure before you walked or went postal?

[jpak]

24. It was a summer job - the only way I could pay for college at the time

and my brother and I DID walk out (sort of)...

We complained about the trailer for over a month - the company's solution was to move us into a bat shit encrusted cobweb entangled storage building (still no electricity or plumbing) and sleep on a concrete floor while they fixed up the trailer.

We "quit" on the spot (with a more than a few "Loud Oaths" uttered :evilgrin:), but relented after they told us we could have a 3-day weekend(!!) and a $0.25 an hour raise (!!!) and would be rewarded with a "good" job (!!!!) at the main farm complex for the rest of the summer.

We knew it was too good to be true...

We moved back in with our parents and told them we were going down to the coast to visit friends for the weekend - and they were *not* to tell anyone where we were...

The next day was the hottest day in the history of the State of Maine - and all we heard on the car radio that weekend was "record heat wave...millions of chickens dead..."

My brother and I just looked at each other and shook our heads...

The farm boss called my folks every half hour for three days and guess what our "good job" was for the rest of the month...

:puke:

I'm really going to write a book about that summer one day...

[sarge43]

29. You should write all that down

That near drowning in chicken shit must worth at least a chapter.

[jpak]

32. Yup

The short version...

A chicken barn has a "Shit Pit" that collects all the chicken manure.

Over time, a solid "crust" forms on the sea of liquid chicken shit.

Chickens would occasionally escape the cages and congregate in the Shit Pit - they were out of reach and lived on the millions of flies that thrived in the Shit Pit (along with any split feed that collected on the "crust").

One of our duties was to catch said wayward chickens and put them back in their cages.

There is an art to this...

We were supplied with a "bird crook" - it looks like a miniature shepard's crook - and was used to catch stray birds by quickly slipping the business-end around their legs and hauling them up before they knew what was going on.

We were told NEVER **EVER** to lose or abuse the bird crooks because the were "special made" and cost all of $10 dollars to replace.

Well one day I done dropped my valued bird crook in the Shit Pit.

and I knew I was in "big trouble" if I didn't get it back...

So I eased myself into the Shit Pit by hanging down off a stringer.

I tested the integrity of the "crust" several times before I bent down to pick up the crook.

and then it broke underneath me like thin ice on a pond.

I threw the crook up onto the floor and grabbed holt of that stringer for dear life.

I went in up to my chest in the shit and had a heck of a time extracting myself (and made a huge sucking sound on the way out).

To get cleaned up, I had to ride down to the local lake standing up on the rear bumper of our car.

Got a lot of funny looks from the townsfolk...

[sarge43]

34. Yes, you win 'the lousiest job' award hands down.

Good God, that would be like drowning in pool of vomit (yeah, yeah it takes a lot of vomit to fill a pool).

My heartfelt admiration and sympathy.

[Critters2]

64. That's right, the evil bastard is from Maine. I'd almost forgotten. nt

[Critters2]

57. Where was this?

There were a couple of places near where I lived in Iowa that would fit this description, right down to the fundie-ism.

[jpak]

59. Does the name DeCoster ring a bell???

n/t

[Critters2]

63. I KNEW IT !! I KNEW IT!! I KNEW IT!!!

I was sure it was DeCoster! There couldn't be two like him--please God!!

Well, you're going to heaven for sure....you've already been to hell, with Satan as your boss.

A friend of mine, who's an attorney in Clarion, sued him and won on a couple of occasions. Not that it did much good in the long-term.

Jack DeCoster, evil incarnate.

Just typing the name gets my ire up!!

[sarge43]

11. Cleaning monkey cages

Worked in a pet store and it was my turn. Jeebus, those creatures stink.

Did telemarketing, too. That sucked.

[Myrina]

12. ... taking inventory at an auto mechanic's parts shop ...

It was a temp job and 2 of us literally had to count hundred of grimy nuts and bolts and hoses and other "guy auto mechanic stuff" that I'll never be able to identify.


:cry:

[flamingyouth]

14. I worked at a rat-infested construction company headquarters.

Not long after I left, the building fell down while they were doing some remodeling.

[bedpanartist]

15. Washing Dishes at Duff's Smorgasboard

in West Carrollton, Ohio, where every 500-pounder in a 100 mile radius came to eat, and dirty on average about 15 plates.

But the absolute worse part was having to throw away the garbage cans of plate slop. Every once in awhile, you'd slip and get a waterfall of plate slop.

It was also about 120 degrees in the dishroom at all times.

[evlbstrd]

16. Counting anchor shot in a warehouse.

On Hospital Cay in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

[Ilsa]

17. Working in a bank that was working out bad loans.

The corporations did okay. The little people got hammered. I'm embarrassed to have been any part of it at all, even though those deals weren't part of my decision. And the management liked to feed on fresh corpses, employees or borrowers.

[graywarrior]

19. The one I have now.

Grrrrrrr.

[XemaSab]

20. Walking ridgelines in the Angeles National Forest

Crashing through half-burned manzanita and chemise for hours at a stretch.

Hot, filthy, miserable. :(

[momophile]

21. McDonald's

I had nightmares about it.

[MountainLaurel]

42. Ditto here

It doesn't help that it was the worst summer of my life, generally (and the last time I stayed with my parents for more than 4 days at a time).

[many a good man]

23. Second worst: cleaning out toilets in a turnpike rest stop

Worst was doing hotel AV working for a bunch of little fascist shits. 16-20 hour days with "Chinese" overtime. Time and half at 40 hrs but the rate declined for every hour over 40 you worked. At 60 hours you were back to no overtime!

[Rising Phoenix]

25. janitor at UMASS dining halls

scraping gum, killing roaches, scrubbing toilets and the meals were free....eeech

[MrScorpio]

26. Golf Caddy

Hated it

[bigwillq]

27. I've never really had a bad job

Haven't had too many


Worked at a pet store---I love animals
Worked at Caldor---I liked being at the Register..it was fast-paced and the time flew by
Worked at After-school program/summer camp---The kids made me laugh
Currently work at a newspaper as a sports writer--I like writing and it has some pretty cool perks


I also did some youth league umpiring, which was cool b/c I like sports

[hotforteacher]

28. That would either be picking strawberries...

...or selling roses at the bars in the Mall of America (The Deathstar).

How. Feckin'. Degrading. :puke:

[Lavender Brown]

30. It wasn't the job so much as the psycho boss...

but it was a heinous editorial assistant job at a news company. I'm actually kind of proud that I even lasted four months before quitting.

[cobalt1999]

31. I've bar tended at some pretty annoying places.

Going through college, I bar tended at a number of establishments. One summer I went "high-class" and bar tended at a resort yacht club. Ugh! No fun allowed period, plus we dressed in a tux pants, shirt, vest...uncomfortable.

The customers we quickly could break into three groups by their attitude. The REAL wealthy were casual and friendly to everyone. The Almost Rich were complete assholes, rude to everyone, complaints about food, drinks, temperature. The poorest ones were polite but only talked about the place, furnishings, painting and never really focused on the staff.

As most of the customers fell into the Almost Rich, it was miserable night after miserable night.

The money was good, but I stuck to the dives after that. Those were a blast.

[Monk06]

43. I worked as a bouncer in the largest nightclub in British Columbia......

Actually it was a hotel containing five night
clubs.

One night the hotel was raided by 50 soldiers
from the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry
because one of their guys was given the work
over by one of our guys.

Luckily out of 30 bouncers and bartenders I was
one of only two employees that wasn't injured.
Those PPCLI dudes kicked some serious ass that night.

Another time a drunk sailor bit my hand and I had to
break his nose to get him to let go. I took four punches
to chill him out and he was only 5'6" tall.

Next day he came in to complain about his black eyes
meanwhile my hand was a swollen mess for three days.

Still there were fun times too.

[Adsos Letter]

51. Thats interesting...

...in my 30+ years as a painter I found pretty much the same attitudes between super wealthy and "almost wealthy". We worked for clients worth several hundred million a pop...nicest people in the world. Asked about personal life, family, seldom questioned the cost of anything as long as it was what they wanted etc., remembered names, took an interest in your craft, etc.

The almost rich seemed to revel in demonstrating some supposed superioity, could care less about you as a person, and always thought they were being ripped off (What!!! You want $5,000 to reproduce the Sistine Chapel ceiling, in Fresco, on my Great Room ceiling!!!??? How dare you even think it...)

:shrug:

[Lil Missy]

33. Customer service at a high end hotel chain.

All the petty shit that people would complain about and expect ridiculous amount of compensation for.

Gives me flashbacks to think about the daily abuse we had to put up with. Same people that had complaints about every dam time they stayed, from finding a toe nail to not getting more towels within 5 minutes. The one who compained that people could see through both sides of the windows she requested was real interesting.

[femmocrat]

35. Waitress. I hated it. n/t

[SKKY]

36. Bearno's Pizza in Louisville, Kentucky...

...It is impossible to overstate how bad that place sucked. It was a family-owned joint, with about half of the employees being members of the family. They, because they were "made", treated everyone else like shit. I remember getting yelled by this 17 year-old kid (the grandson of the owner) because I didn't dry the pizza pan good enough, which he said made the crust soggy. He called me an idiot in front of everyone, so I told him to come outside and call me an idiot. I wanted to beat him to within an inch of his life. He of course didn't, and seemed startled that someone had stood up to him, considering he was "made". It was surreal. I didn't get fired, but I knew it was coming soon, so I made sure I nicked as much beer as I could from the place. I probably got 6-7 cases over the course of the next 2 weeks before the hammer finally fell.

[begin_within]

37. My worst was also my highest-paid job!

ISSCO (a software company that has since been bought out by Computer Associates). They produced graphics software used mainly by corporations for presentations. The software was bug-ridden and the pressure to fix it and get working versions out the door (at $40,000 a pop) to big corporations like Phillip Morris, etc. was enormous. Many people quit from the stress, one guy died at his desk of a heart attack at the age of 31. I only lasted 9 months there and I was on the verge of being fired when I quit instead.

[begin_within]

38. Not my worst job, but my worst boss ever...

This guy was a middle-aged man who moved from New York to Phoenix and opened a Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor. He was the biggest cheapskate I have ever seen, paying some of his employees only $1 per hour (in 1977). The federal minimum wage was $2.35 at that time, but he got around it by claiming he was not involved in interstate commerce. He paid me a whopping $1.75 per hour. (A single scoop of Baskin-Robbins sold in those days for 27 cents). He was extremely stingy with everything and I saw him literally shed tears because some employee forgot to charge the extra 10 cents for French Vanilla instead of Vanilla. His wife was the prototypical owner's wife from Hell, a carbon copy of the "Linda Richman" character played by Mike Myers on Saturday Night Live. Exactly like her, except meaner. They would stand and watch while whoever was the last employee of the evening mopped up the floor. I only worked there for 3 months and he was sorry to see me go, but did not offer me a raise or anything to keep me there. I don't know how I put up with him that long. The customers who came in made it all worthwhile, there were a lot of regulars including Paul Westphal, who was playing on the Phoenix Suns at that time. He came in almost every day to eat 2 scoops - he could afford the calories, because he was a huge tall muscular guy who burned off all the calories.

[The Straight Story]

39. Putting price tags on Michael Jackson Dolls all day long

For JCPenney Warehouse in Ohio.

[AlCzervik]

40. Bill Collector---worst job ever.

[Aristus]

41. I once had a job trying to sell sales training seminars to car dealerships.

I didn't conduct the training seminars, you understand. It was just my job to sell the training. The boss was a mind-gaming shitwad, the potential clients were car salesmen (enough said there) and I had to get up at O-Dark-Thirty to get to the office on time. The boss was constantly playing shitty games like "whoever arrives at work first the most times per month gets a bonus", stuff like that. I lasted two months. He fired me because his clients didn't like me. Get that? Car salesmen didn't find me personable. :silly:

I stil have nightmares about waking in the cold pre-dawn winter mornings and having to get ready to go to that awful job.

[Zomby Woof]

44. Furniture warehouse worker

20 years ago, in Norfolk, VA. It was a weekend clearance-only offshoot of the main store, and did large volume business - no delivery, it was all pick-it-up-yourself.

Worked there on weekends during the school year and full time in the summer, spending the week unloading the trucks, putting pieces out on the floor, and when we were open Fridays and Saturdays, loading people's vehicles (sensible people brought rental trucks or their own, but we had people who wanted us to tie down sleeper sofas on top of VW Beetles).

The pure hell came mainly during the week. The owner was too cheap to use the A/C except when open on the weekends (this was a former food storage warehouse and no longer had its A/C system, so the owner installed a new one) so imagine in the sweltering heat and humidity of the south working in a suffocating warehouse, unloading trucks hotter than ovens, and then dealing with impatient bargain-hunters at the loading dock for 6 hours Friday night and 12 hours Saturday, sometimes more than 13.

The pay was okay for a college student in a town with few prospects, and we made tips, but it was hell.

[texanwitch]

45. Working at a small but busy shop and go type store.

That job did led to a better job so it was worth it.

[JTG of the PRB]

46. My current job is both the best AND worst I've ever had.

It's the best because I work with some great people, and I actually have a minute amount of supervisory authority - being a cashier supervisor isn't much, but it's something. I also get a regular paycheck, I have medical and dental insurance, and I recently started up a 401K.

However...

It's also the WORST job I've ever had because, as a cashier, I deal with ALL the customers that walk into the store - greeting them, directing them, answering questions, occasionally helping them find the right product, ringing them up, making small talk, being friendly and receptive, answering the phones, and sometimes doing 4 or 5 of those things at the same time. Also, as a supervisor, if there's a hole that needs to be filled at the register, guess who has to fill it?

Why, it's me! Tomorrow will be my 6th day worked this week, and the 16th day worked out of 18 days. Sometimes this job can be so stressful and unrewarding. I don't think I get paid what I'm worth (but, then again, who does?), and I don't feel I get some of the help/respect I've earned after being a faithful, diligent, downright great employee for 14 1/2 months.

Come tomorrow afternoon, my first stop on the way home will be at the liquor store. :beer:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

47. I was a telemarketer for the Baltimore Sun for 3 days...

I didn't even collect my check. I just wanted to get as far away from there as possible.

[opiate69]

48. Egg farm...

Eastern Connecticut, middle of summer, 1986.. I worked in one of the coops.. stiflingly hot, unbearable stench, and thousands upon thousands of chickens constantly squawking.. oh.. did I mention the "dead pick"? My job was mainly to walk up and down the massive aisles making sure that all the eggs dropped out of the cage onto the conveyor belts, and that the belts kept moving.. naturally, with that many birds, in that kind of heat, some would die.. when I found any dead ones, I had to open the cage, pull the carcass out and throw it into the large crate of dead chickens which would be dealt with later by someone else.. when my mom picked me up at the end of my first day, I told her I was never going back.. hell, I don't even think I ever picked up my pay for the day.

[Adsos Letter]

49. Usher in a movie theatre...

...if I had had to suffer my way through one more showing of "The Bad News Bears" I would have seriously hurt someone...

:D

[LibDemAlways]

52. I once worked in a travel agency for a nosy asshole who

hovered around me constantly, especially when I was on the phone helping someone make travel arrangements. When I'd hang up he'd ask, "Who was that? What did they want?" This went on after every call, all day long. It was all I could do from grabbing him by the throat and putting him out of his misery.

Another time, when I was teaching (before travel), I was forced to share classroom space with a wack-o who threw my books and papers all over the floor because he didn't want to let me use part of "his" desk. He reminded me of Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

It isn't generally the job that especially sucks. It's the people.

[otohara]

53. 2 of My Radio Jobs

One as promotions/marketing director, then the last one. I did like the 2nd one, until the HR hag tried to pin something on me to satisfy any upcoming legal problem concerning a black receptionist and her positive drug test. I quit within a week out of principal.

Radio is a brutal business and Clinton's Telecommunications Act of 96 made it completely corporate and dreadful.

[angrycarpenter]

54. take your pick

Shoveling chicken crap out of A large chicken house or turning socks inside-out for 12 hour shifts at A sock factory. It's terrible what life forces you into to keep food on the table

[FloridaJudy]

55. I had one of those jobs

Selling magazines over the phone. Sucked swamp water. People would get pissed and yell at me, and I couldn't blame them a bit.

The absolute worst job I ever had was in college. I ran a blue-print machine for an architectural firm. For those not familiar with blue-print machines, they're clanking contraptions the size of upright pianos, and they run on ammonia. You feed the large architectural drawings in one end, and the other spits out blue-prints. This particular machine was enthroned in a room the size of a small bathroom or a walk-in closet.



The ammonia fumes were so horrendous they frequently made me dizzy. When I got home, I'd immediately toss my clothes in the wash, and shower, washing twice with the strongest soap I could find. People still edged away from me.

I expect most blue-prints are produced by computers these days. That's what I call progress.

[Nikia]

56. Candy Grinding

The worst job that I had was probably grinding candy. It was a temp assignment. The company where I worked was a warehouse that sold a variety of products. Grinding the candy was really the only production type job there. The ground candy was sold to places that make ice cream Flurries/Blizzrds/(whatever else they are called). The temp assignment was during the summer. The warehouse where the 50# boxes of candy was stored was close to 100 degrees. The cooler where we were grinding the candy was a cooler. The temperature difference made it difficult to decide what to wear and made me feel ill. The candy was malformed (because it melted in the warehouse) but cold because we put the candy to be ground in the cooler the day before. The cooler was a small enough room to make me feel claustrophobic. Everything was lined with cardboard because the chocolate got everywhere when the candy was put through the grinder because there were parts broken on both grinders. Being covered in chocolate, including chocolate that forcefully hit my face, and seeing chocolate on dirty cardboard made me not want to eat chocolate for a while.
Unemployment in the area was high at the time. I was working there as my second temp assignment the summer between my high school and college, having about a month left before I went to college. My coworker was once year out of high school. She was married and had had a baby. She and her husband both had been foster children with no support from either their birth families or foster families. He had lost his job because he called in sick one day and did not have enough money to go to a doctor and get the absence excused. Her (and my) job paid $1/hour more than the minimum wage. I was supposed to work at the job for three days. I was offered a chance to stay on until I went bcak to school because the person who had the job before had a much more serious injury than previously thought (from slipping and falling on the chocolate cardboard). I turned it down because I had enough money to pay my share of tuition and couldn't stand working there any longer. I feel bad that I turned it down because upon hearing the young woman's situation my father said that he could have gotten the woman (or her husband) a job paying $2/hour more in a safe clean environment where he worked (I couldn't have gotten the poistion because they wanted permanent workers and were anti nepotism). They did not have that oppurtunity because I did not go back there to tell her about it and give my dad her name. Sometimes, I wonder what happened to her and her family.

[mitchum]

58. Clothing model...seriously, it is not a dream job...

unless one enjoys being surrounded by stupid, banal, empty-headed twits

[zanne]

60. I tested eggs for fertilization.

I worked on a chicken farm for one week. It was huge. There was this conveyer belt the eggs would come in on, and I worked in a little booth with a special light that told me whether or not the eggs were fertilized. The one advantage of this job is that I learned to clean up a smashed egg with one paper towel.

[Arkansas Granny]

61. I once worked debeaking and vaccinating baby chickens.

[smitty]

62. Working one summer for a company that painted the traffic

control stripes on roads and highways. The job wasn't that bad (except on hot days), it was the asshole car drivers who shouted insults at us and occasionally tried to run us over.