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What's the worst job you've ever had?


nat whilk II

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Once you get a few years away from that really horrible, horrible job, it's good to recall either for laughs or for encouragement how you survived.

 

A lot of people I know had particularly outrageously bad jobs as teenagers or young adults. For a long time I thought hot tar roofing in Texas must have been one of the worst jobs, until one of my friends told his story - his job, all day long, all summer long in deep, dead, raging hot West Texas, was sandblasting certain huge metal containers used in the oil fields, FROM THE INSIDE.

 

I did a bunch of construction work -roofing, painting, siding, etc. during high school and college summers - one factory job, one apartment complex handyman/gardner/fixit guy, all each one had some sort of misery or other.

 

But for sheer intolerable boredom, one job stands alone. Testing these frisbee-shaped transmitters (this was about 1979) that could be tossed into utility trenches at intervals, to tell people above ground where to dig or not, depending. Pick up one frisbee, hold it over the sensor. If it beeps, toss it into this box - no beep, toss it in this other box.

 

Any questions?

 

15 minutes only for lunch, sorry, but we're on a deadline. Might be able to get you some overtime, too, but sorry, same minimum wage as regular hours. See ya.

 

Time slowed down to near zero after about 20 minutes.

 

nat whilk ii

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Easy answer.

 

In college, I took any job that would fit in between my ridiculous school schedule. So, at various times, I sold furniture, did labor work for the city, managed a Sunglass Hut in a mall, did data entry for a medical billing service, and was an IT admin for a library district.

 

But the absolute WORST job was for a few months in 1991 or so, when I did cold-call telemarketing for a construction company. Yep... I sat there all day with a list of numbers, calling people who absolutely did NOT want to hear from some jerk trying to set up appointments for texture-coating their houses. Not only did I hate every moment of it, but the office was dingy and gross, the people I worked with were even dingier and grosser, and ever since then, I've been a lot sympathetic toward telemarketers who get through to my own home.

 

It was terrible. It ills me just to think about it. Gah!

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I'd voluntarily quit my gig as moderately successful live and recording performer at the age of 30. I went to Chicago to study acoustics and audio. I graduate and land some small gigs working audio for video, etc. in Chicago, but longed to return home to California. Mistake?

 

I move back home to zero work.

Now my girlfriend's pregnant.

Now I'm... hosed.

 

I've exhausted everything. All old connections. Everybody is struggling. I answer an ad for "Plumber's Apprentice". Do you know what that means. I didn't. Plumber's Apprentice is a nice way of saying, "Toilet Clearer".

 

I needed a job. Bad.

 

I lasted 3 weeks. The last night, I was a good 60 miles from home somewhere in the desert in an old man's double wide, surprisingly stylish mobile home. My rooter work backfires and I am up {censored} creek. White carpeting. Overflowing. I tried.

 

I looked at the guy and told him I was sorry. I was quiting and would call it in to the company. But I was no longer an employee of the company he called. As of 1 minute ago.

 

The next week I got my current job working in telephony audio and have been enjoying it for the past 11 years or so.

 

Thank God!!!!

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For physical discomfort: baling hay in the Texas August inferno. All day long. Swinging 100lb bales of hay---- rife with stickerburrs---- onto a flatbed trailer. 103deg F weather.

 

For the dishonesty I was expected to evince: The Nordic Trak store at the swank San Francisco Center hired muscley boys only. We were expected to tell customers that we had ammassed our big muscles by skating along on a Nordic Trak. Flimsy floor exercisers of debatable efficacy... that started at $399 and went up to $1k. And that we had developed six-pack abs from bouncing seated on a big red plastic air-filled beach ball thingee... We were supposed to chirp, "Five minutes per day is your complete workout!!" Nordic Trak gave us printed-out scripts which we were supposed to memorize and repeat verbatim, whether "live" or over the telephone.

 

They also had VHS tapes of women doing group aerobics, playing on a big projection TV screen in the middle of the store. Each video was only 15 minutes long, and featured cheezy 70's disco selections, performed NOT by the original artistes, but by those grievous surrogates. That video would play-rewind-and-repeat ALL......DAY.........LONG.

 

Sometimes I would get a middle-aged customer who seriously had a weight problem.... And I was expected to snow her, boldfacedly, with untruths. Eventually I just left, disgusted with myself and with the Nordic Trak company.

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Hands down being an LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse). For everything that it entailed and the fact that I was working nights and weekends cuz those were the only hours I could get. The fact that I was taking home $1100 a week didn't even begin to make up for it...I only lasted 3 years, since then I've taken much lower paying jobs with no benefits just to keep from killing myself (I'm not kidding, while I was working as an LPN I litterally got to the point that I went out and bought the cheapest shotgun with the shortest barrel I could find along with 5 shells of .00 buckshot only because I couldn't buy just one shell.)

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Making gun barrels for M16s during the Vietnam war. Business was booming. I worked the graveyard shift, with plenty of overtime.

 

You put the new piece in the lathe, closed the doors and started the machine, which sprayed copious amounts of cutting oil as the piece was ground. It was piece work, so you didn't wait until the oil had settled down; as soon as the piece was done, you yanked open the doors. I left every morning covered with oil from the overspray.

 

But the pay was great for an 18-year-old kid in 1969.

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Physically I've had some very stressful jobs but I've learned I prefer physical stress over psychological.

 

With that in mind, my present job is the worst I've ever had. The company I work for is a nest of dishonest, amoral snakes and it degrades me every day I continue to work there.

 

Terry D.

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Back in the late seventies, I was a dispatcher (i.e., someone who delivers parts to various departments) for Sikorsky Aircraft. The main factory was about as close to hell as I could imagine. There were gigantic, bubbling, fuming, hydrochloric acid vats that they used for dipping the copter blades, heat treat areas with temps of over 120 degrees (no AC, of course). There was noise like you wouldn't believe from machines cutting metal and the metal particles flying all over the place. Then there were the many sad sack, trailer trash types I had the displeasure of interacting with.

I lasted there about 6 months, wised up and decided to go to college instead. I once told my younger brother to avoid factory work at all costs, unless you're starving and have no alternative. I'm glad he took my advice.

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My first job at 16 was working at a military mess hall on an Air Force base... mopping floors, washing huge pots and pans, and dishes piled up to the ceiling. It never ended. We were never done... it just kept coming since the mess hall was open all day and military personnel just kept filing in. Sometimes it was slower than other times, but no real breaks. It was the stuff of nightmares. :eek:

 

To this day I wouldn't work in food service of any kind if it were the last job on earth.

 

I'd wear a loincloth, hunt my food with a spear and live in a grass hut.

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So, there's not a single redeeming factor to ANY job you've ever had? I refuse to believe that. You never made any friends at work? Never enjoyed any task you did, or never took any pride at any work success at all?

 

 

No work friends stayed around after any of us left a job.

 

2003 Walmart cashier

- no tasks enjoyed

- no successes to speak of

 

2006 Menards cashier

- no tasks enjoyed

- no successes to speak of

 

2008 wire harness factory

- though I was able to use my skills of attention to detail, and didn't really have complaints... it's nothing I enjoyed

- no successes to speak of

 

2009 door to door canvassing to set appointments

- no tasks enjoyed

- success ratio is very small, it's a given of this kind of job

 

Now what I have been doing for 8 years and am pursuing for a career, graphic design - I love it. But it's not my day to day job, I am not qualified to be hired on yet.

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Telemarketer, hands down. Cold Calling people selling upgrades to a mac database called Double Helix. The highlight of this job was that one of the people I called was gal named Marisa Ong, who worked for Spectrum Holobyte, maker of my fave flight sim at the time, F-16 Falcon. I talked to her for 20 minutes about games, hung up, and quit that afternoon. And, the dude that owned the place was actually really cool, but the work was mind numbing.

 

2nd place was a job as a security guard. I took it after my step father ragged on me for not having a job ( for 10 days, while I generally had 2), and was hired, told to show up and I would be patrolling an 1/8 mile road, back and forth, for 16 hours at minimum wage. I got home, put the uniform on, put the hat on, took that off, called them and said 'no thanks'.

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Valero cashier. I think I took a few years off my life, and that was only working 25 hours a week. It's not that the job was difficult or unexpectedly strenuous.. It's that they gave you no breaks and no lunch.

 

How can you ethically employ people and not give them some respite during a full 8-hour+ day? How does that work? Does Satan do your bookkeeping or something?

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Worse job I've ever had for more than a day?

 

I guess that would have been working in an eyeglass frame warehouse back in the 70s (upside: I got to see what a business with a 1000%-2000% markup was like -- it was {censored}ty and sleazy). I've had other warehouse/shipping jobs that wasn't the problem. The problem was the sleazy smart ass boss with an MBA from UCLA who seemed so impressed with himself it had escaped his attention that he was spending at least half his week lording it over three minimum wage plus workers in a warehouse in Compton.

 

The tear point was his sleazy smart ass frat bro pal coming in most weeks on Thursday with a small padded envelope and a handwritten address on a separate slip of paper that I was expected to address up (in my handwriting), enter into the UPS book and send off to wherever. I asked him a couple times point blank what was in the packages and when he said "none of your business" I pointed out to him that it was my signature in the UPS book and my handwriting and if whatever was in the envelopes just happened to be in contravention of some rule or law somewhere, I didn't want to be the one to pay. He gave me a scornful look and huffed off -- but not before my boss gave me a point blank order to send it out.

 

I gave him notice the next day and he was gracious enough to tell me not to bother.

 

And, of course, I never found out what was in those packages. Thank heaven.

 

 

My second worst job was flipping burgers in the Student Union at my own university in a clown suit. Not a cool circus clown suit but some polyester design diva's idea of what a "chef" should wear, red 101% poly shirt, checkered, cuffed slacks and complete with a mushroom cloud chef's hat. But you have to imagine that coated in burger grease.

 

Worst moment: working the back under the head chef who was preparing the 'upscale' dining room's entres and I dropped ~5 pounds of gristly ground round on the floor instead of into the cooking container. The head chef saw me heading toward the trash with the glob of meat, grabbed it out of my hands before I could say anything and threw it in the pot. "If I ever see you wasting food in my kitchen again, I'll have your job," he hissed.

 

Best moment: telling the officious, half-drunk, lazy-ass ex-Navy cook (all the 'adults' were ex-Navy guys) who was 'senior' to me only because he worked a few more hours and was, of course, ex-Navy) to get his ass back on his grill because I was tired of taking over for him every 15 minutes while he spent 7 minutes milking a smoke, while I was cooking the 48 burgers every 3 minutes and he would typically have about 3 burgers at a time on his "upscale" grill.

 

Second best moment: coming in the very next day and looking for my timecard, not finding it, jokingly asking the secretary if they'd fired me and having her say -- after a really long wait -- "Uh... you better talk to one of the Bobs." The "Bobs" were the two bosses, both of whom appeared very much to be hiding. I finally ended up back at the secretary's desk who admitted that I was being fired, that my time card had already been processed and she guessed I ought to come back later to get officially fire. It was a fine performance from a great organization. I never felt quite so free walking out of any place in my life.

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I worked in a beef packing plant in Dakota City Nebraska for 6 months. The first 2 days they trained us about our safety equipment and how to sharpen and keep a knife sharp. I wore a long metal apron, steel toed boots, a helmet, a hairnet, earplugs, 2 kevlar sleeves that went from my shoulder to my wrists, a kevlar glove on one hand, a small link metal glove on the other and a plastic wrist guard on my non knife hand. Then a white frock over my clothes. I had a large knive and hook to use in my other hand. We used a chain belt to hold our knives and steel. I coulda went to war wearing all this {censored}.

 

Anyway this is how the job went. A side of beef would come in from the cooler on a hook. A guy with a band saw would cut it into a couple of pieces and it would come to us on a long metal conveyor belt. Guys would continue cutting it into smaller pieces by doing specific jobs. By the time it got to me, I did the job called trimming navels. I would get a piece about 2 feet long by about 15" wide and about 2 to 3 inches thick. I would cut a triangle of tough skin like material off the corner, make a cut underneath this, cut a triangle of meat out, remove any bone ships still on the big part of the meat, then cut the rest into 4 pieces and stuff it down a hole next to me. To be qualified on this job, you had to be able to do it in 18 seconds. By the time i quit I could do it in 12-13 seconds.

 

When I started there we 2 qualified guys and me doing this specific job. I qualified in about 2 weeks so they moved one of the guys somewhere else. It was just me and a vietnamese guy named Foo. Foo could work like a dog and was a very nice guy ans spoke pretty good English. They would crank the line up pretty fast, but we could keep up. Then disaster struck. Foo quit to work at onother packing plant. They brought in a new guy to train. This guy just couldn't {censored}ing do it. There were 3 of use working trimming navels for 3 or 4 days and then they took the other guy away , even though the new guy wasn't qualified. What a {censored}ing disaster. tHe new guy couldn't keep a knife sharp and he couldn't keep up. Here is what would happen. We would start the shift. because there were 2 of us, as the meat would come past us on the conveyor belt you would pull off every other piece and do your job. Well you can't just let the meat go by. If you do a supervisor would drag it back to the front and throw it on the belt and yell at you to keep up. So i'm doing my pieces and some of the other guys pieces too and the meat would still stack up on my table cause I would pull it off and not let it go by. eventually a floater would come and help us catch up, but 15 minutes later it would be back to the same. It's like 36 degrees in there and I'm sweating like a mother, it's running down my nose and falling on the meat. it was like that 8 {censored}ing hours a day.

 

If the line would break down for some reason some of the idiots working there would start flicking blood clots at you with their knives or build phalluses out of fat and blood. After a couple of months my hands started to get really screwed up. I could barely move them when I woke up in the morning. finally one day the guy next to me slipped and stabbed me in the {censored}ing elbow. I didn't get hurt, it just bled a little bit, but if I hadn't had that kevlar sleeve on he would have cut me half way to my shoulder. I quit on the spot and the stupid supervisor ran after me asking what was wrong. BY FAR THE WORST JOB I"VE EVER HAD. Oh and by the way, this was in 1986 and i made a whopping $6.38 with night differential pay.:cry:

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Man, listening to these stories is a sure cure for self-pity.

 

Blue's tale about the secretary saying "come back later to get officially fired" is classic - as funny as anything on The Office.

 

What gets me is that I know from the factory and construction jobs that I suffered through, is that a LOT of people spend their entire careers in such jobs - rooting out the toilets or working a lathe or "guarding" something or flipping burgers or taking money at the register.

 

I did learn some of the pleasures of routine, physical work in some of those old jobs - I liked that part of it. Shingling houses - the old real wood shingles - just using a shingler's hatchet and knife was actually enjoyable most of the time, and a real skill - the rhythm, the guys talking all sorts of crap, the rainy days off, the breeze up on the roofs, always a good nights sleep.

 

But most of the time, what made any job really intolerable was usually not the work itself however hard or hot or boring, but the people - the weird or obnoxious or stupid or never-shut-up or evil people you get stuck with in some jobs. WHERE do they get some of these people? Beyond any fiction I've read....

 

nat whilk ii

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But the absolute WORST job was for a few months in 1991 or so, when I did cold-call telemarketing for a construction company. Yep... I sat there all day with a list of numbers, calling people who absolutely did NOT want to hear from some jerk trying to set up appointments for texture-coating their houses.

 

 

 

Jeff, what percentage of your calls were indeed met with success or interest?

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Jeff, what percentage of your calls
were indeed
met with success or interest?

 

 

Hmm. I'd say out of every 500 calls, I'd get one person who would be interested enough to get a free estimate -- and I was one of the more successful callers there. Compounding the matter was the fact that the lists we were provided were horrible; many (for example) ended up going to apartment dwellers who were in no position to purchase improvements to the property.

 

For the most part, picture being hung up on hundreds times a day, and yelled at and then hung up on the rest of the time. I ended up leaving the place even though I needed the job at the time; I just could not bear it.

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But most of the time, what made any job really intolerable was usually not the work itself however hard or hot or boring, but the people - the weird or obnoxious or stupid or never-shut-up or evil people you get stuck with in some jobs. WHERE do they get some of these people? Beyond any fiction I've read....


nat whilk ii

 

 

Nat, I worked at an Erewhon Health Foods store on Newbury Street in Boston, MA. For a boss, I had this really coarse, stupid, ugly and bitter young woman. She was always on my case about the most trivial things. She totally abused her position of power, constantly carping on me. She would gainsay every single thing I'd say, for no especial reason... If I'd say "black", she'd say "white".

 

I do not usually judge people too quickly, I give "difficult" folks the benefit of the doubt, and I am the most steadfast and loyal friend a person could want if they do me right. I tried so hard to get along with her, honestly, but over a couple of months she never even gave me an inch of friendliness or praise or whatnot. She would even blame me for cash register shortfalls, saying I'd stolen from the till, which I most certainly did not.

 

Finally, I decided to up and quit.

 

I walked out on her during a store busy period.

 

In full earshot of all her customers, my parting shot, well-earned, was: "I'm outta here... You meaningless guttersnipe of a {censored}." :evil:

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