NationStates Jolt Archive


Whats the worst job you ever did?

Marrakech II
19-02-2005, 05:23
Alright I want to hear some worse job horror stories.If Anyone says peep show janitor. Your a sick one....
Peechland
19-02-2005, 05:38
I worked in a chicken plant. My job was to stand on an oval shaped assembly line and pull the meat off the bones. These hooks would come by, about eye level, and had cooked chicken carcasses on them. We had to pull the chickens off, pull the meat off the bones and then a conveyer belt would come by with different numbers on it. You were assigned a number and when you had a nice heaping pile of meat, youd push it off on to the conveyer belt on your corresponding number. You had to wear goggles so as not to get chicken goo in your eyes, and big knee high yellow boots, so you could wade through chicken parts. I thought I had entered the gates of hell. I worked there a total of 6 hours. I needed money for college. I decided to wait tables after that. Much less chicken goo.
Occidio Multus
19-02-2005, 05:43
i havent had a bad job. i worked at the medical examiners office, during college. theni went on to my deal. i have worked for/with some assholes, though.
Occidio Multus
19-02-2005, 05:44
and BUMPED with a pissed off circus elephant. this will be a good thread, people.
Cannot think of a name
19-02-2005, 05:46
Construction Laborer when I was 14 but looked older.

My main job-not kidding:
Walking around with a fire hose spraying the dirt so it wouldn't kick up.
110 degree Sacramento summer. Suck ass.
Occidio Multus
19-02-2005, 05:49
Construction Laborer when I was 14 but looked older.

My main job-not kidding:
Walking around with a fire hose spraying the dirt so it wouldn't kick up.
110 degree Sacramento summer. Suck ass.
thats pretty bad. i like the guys with the shovels that scrape every piece of dirt off the street.
Greedy Pig
19-02-2005, 05:52
Hm. I never had that many jobs in my life. So far 3 only. :p

Anyway, worse for me is definitely Data Entry for an outsourcing company. Long hours and continous mindless job.

Not very bad by any means compared to some others here. But worst for me anyways.
Mistress Kimberly
19-02-2005, 05:53
You know the food sample ladies at Sam's Club? And how you always think that would be the coolest job in the world?



It isn't.
Celack
19-02-2005, 05:58
Grocery store Cashier. The job I currently hold.

I would go on with several horror stories but I have to get tobed b/c I have another8 and a fuckin' half hour shift ahead of me tommorow.
Naturality
19-02-2005, 06:01
Worked in some ware house place .. somewhere.. scanning dented cans of dog food and Juicy Juice. Was hell on my back, I left after a few hours.

Many years ago and I never did find out what they did with them rescanned cans.

Edit: Just remembered that I finished out the night. After the shift told the super I wouldn't be back.
Super American VX Man
19-02-2005, 06:02
Worked at O'Hare Airport (in Chicago if you don't know). I had two jobs: pushing old/crippled/etc people in wheelchairs and took luggage from the TSA (security) guys at the X-Ray machines and put them on conveyer belts. Woke up at 2:45 AM. Got paid shit for 8.5 hour days. Getting there was utter hell. I fucking hated that place.

Interesting things I learned:

Indians and Japanese pack way too much.
People can stand right next to the place they have to get to and ask you where it is.
Working for Northwestern Airlines means sitting on your ass. If you have newspapers/magazines and/or a cell phone, it's the best part of working there.
Taking frequent bathroom breaks just to spend 15 minutes in a stall is a great way to pass the time.
Going way overtime for breaks helps fight insanity.
Never work for basic services at a busy airport because you start to daydream about random acts of explosive terrorism. :D
Cannot think of a name
19-02-2005, 06:17
thats pretty bad. i like the guys with the shovels that scrape every piece of dirt off the street.
That sucks ass as well.

I just realised that I had scared over the even worse job (because at least laboring was honest, if demeening, work)

THE WORST was the two weeks I spent as a telemarketer for SBC Long Distance. I was that guy, and for that I am deeply sorry.

Not only are you the most hated person of the day for all the people you call, but I agreed with them when they where pissed. Still had to do my job. And the people they get to work those places....oh man. Well, they're like me-needed a quick job, didn't have the skills to look for something better (and, to be fair, I was just looking for some work while I crashed with my brother for the summer, so I couldn't invest too much time into getting a 'quality' job). The ones with a soul couldn't do it for very long and the ones without made you hate humanity.

Sucked much much ass.
Mistress Kimberly
19-02-2005, 06:27
Ah....I forgot I also telemarketed for about three months in high school.

Wanna renew your sports illustrated? If you have any questions please call us at 1-800-528-5000. I am pretty positive that is the phone number. I can't believe I remember that shit.
R00fletrain
19-02-2005, 06:27
one job...cashier at sears..enough said..
Sdaeriji
19-02-2005, 06:29
Janitor at a high school

Plastics factory worker

Overnight crew at a department store.

I wouldn't wish those jobs on my worst enemy.
Occidio Multus
19-02-2005, 07:58
Janitor at a high school

Plastics factory worker

Overnight crew at a department store.

I wouldn't wish those jobs on my worst enemy.
oh. oh. the janitor thing.oh.
Kryozerkia
19-02-2005, 08:00
Ah....I forgot I also telemarketed for about three months in high school.

Wanna renew your sports illustrated? If you have any questions please call us at 1-800-528-5000. I am pretty positive that is the phone number. I can't believe I remember that shit.
:D that's great! Sounds exactly like what I did, but instead I sold subscriptions to the Fascist Rag....eeer....I mean National Post (newspaper; fucking Right-wing BS!)
Justifidians
19-02-2005, 08:04
I worked at a golf course for 3 years. I had to get up at 3:30 A.M. to go to work. I remember the reason I quite too. I worked over half the day dragging the sand bunkers. The boss comes up to me and says that I did not drag the bunkers good enough, and that I had to do them all over again. That was the worst job I ever had.
Sdaeriji
19-02-2005, 08:04
oh. oh. the janitor thing.oh.

What about it? It sucked the donkey's balls, big time.

And I'll let you in on a little secret. High school girls...WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more disgusting than high school boys.
Ernst_Rohm
19-02-2005, 08:17
janitor at a church(actually a pretty mellow and enjoyable job, except for my virilent atheism)

grounds work at a cemetary(hard work and the drunk who got me the job kept distracting me with early morning drinking when i would stop to pick him up, that didn't keep either of us employed there long)

-burger king for a day and a half(i just walked out after the lunch rush on day two)

-5am stockboy at the now defunct jamesway store(nothing like calling in sick from the drunk tank, i wonder if they had caller id)

-dish washer at the college dinning hall(hey rich kid don't give me any attitute, or you'll be meeting up with me and the boys at some kegger and it won't be pretty)

-janitor at mr. donut(more freaky filth there than you wanna think about)

-a couple of stints as a punp jockey(no mame i can't diagnose what's wrong with you brand new 40,000 dollar car, i just pump gas and sell snacks for minimum wage, that's why mechanics make signifigantly more)

-mover/delivery guy for a used funature store(nothing like lifting and carrying other people unclean crap from one shit hole to another)
The Goa uld
19-02-2005, 08:28
I've only had one job so far being 17 and all, that was a Ride Operator at Six Flags. Working there made realize how much I hated kids. I was a ride op at Bugs Bunny world btw.
Branin
19-02-2005, 08:31
I once worked in a Pit orchestra for a chirsitmas shin-dig. Overall the job was pretty enjoyable, but there was one night of the show where I had been throwing up and having diraehaa all day. Luckily I wasn't plagued by the second one during the show, but I had a fever and was perodically having to swallow my own throw-up. I also played in a pit orchestra for The Music Man with a sinus/ear infenction, and a ruptured eardrum. Sitting in front of a 150W roland bass amp when whispers hurt sucks. Those are my two experinces in pit orchestra's. I have a curse (and I just accepted another pit job :eek: )
Other miserable stuff, cleaning up after construnction, late nite radio tech, janitor at a conference center. I have always been blessed with great co-workers though, which makes these things a lot better.
Mental Hospital
19-02-2005, 08:31
Sandblaster has to be the worst job i've done to date. Stand in the stupid bay for 10h a day blasting vessels and spooling. As well as all maintenaince of the machine, and lots and lots of shovelling sand into the recirc/recycle system. The sand alone drove me nuts after a pair of days (suffice to say no matter how hard you try sand will get into places that even hair dont grow,, and lots of it), not to mention the days with nothing to do, and days filled with soo much stress to get everything done (more or less alterenated between the 2,, would get a pair of really stressful days where lots needs to be done,, than nothing for a bit,, than some more stres.. etc.)
fun ufn fun it was
r_f
Steel Fish
19-02-2005, 08:32
Worked in the back of a pet shop, cleaning cages and washing shit down the drain.
THE LOST PLANET
19-02-2005, 11:14
Alright I want to hear some worse job horror stories.If Anyone says peep show janitor. Your a sick one....OK it wasn't a peep show. Just your average X-rated theatre.



No I'm not joking, I was a janitor at an adult theatre.


Funny thing is, it's not the worst job I ever had.

That distinction would go to the summers I spent on the sanitation crew at a seafood processing plant.

Imagine shoveling fish guts for 8 hours a day, then cleaning a porno theatre doesn't seem that bad.
Eternal Green Rain
19-02-2005, 11:45
I'm not sure I can match some of those for length of the disgusting but for sheer filthyness the worst is cleaning the chemical toilets on a deployment of about a hundred guys when I was in the air force (royal).
The toilets were just buckets with seats really and were lined with black plastic bin bags. You had to remove the lid and one of you held a second bag open while the first lifted the full bag and carefully lowered it into the second bag. You then tie off the outter bag and very carefully carry it a couple of hundred meters to a pit for it to be burned. Repeat 10 or 15 times.
The problem was that the shit realy weighed a lot. If you dragged the bag it would burst. If you swung it over your shoulder it would burst. If you hugged it to your chest it would burst. In fact if you put it down at all it might burst. So you carried 60lb (or more) of shit at arms length for 200 meters at a dead run and hope you dont fall over. Never got so much as a splash myself but have seen bags burst in the the ways described above when carried by new boys who had worked out "an easy way to do it"
Fortunately it only took an hour a day and we took turns.
Cannot think of a name
19-02-2005, 11:55
I once worked in a Pit orchestra for a chirsitmas shin-dig. Overall the job was pretty enjoyable, but there was one night of the show where I had been throwing up and having diraehaa all day. Luckily I wasn't plagued by the second one during the show, but I had a fever and was perodically having to swallow my own throw-up. I also played in a pit orchestra for The Music Man with a sinus/ear infenction, and a ruptured eardrum. Sitting in front of a 150W roland bass amp when whispers hurt sucks. Those are my two experinces in pit orchestra's. I have a curse (and I just accepted another pit job :eek: )
Other miserable stuff, cleaning up after construnction, late nite radio tech, janitor at a conference center. I have always been blessed with great co-workers though, which makes these things a lot better.
Had to play in a combo that evening, went to the dentist. Had to have a cavity filled. The doctor brings out the big novicaine needle and I say, "Hey man, I gotta play tonight. Can't we do this another time." He's not hearin' it-says I'll be fine and it'll wear off before the gig.

Yeah, no. I'm playin' the sax outta the side of my mouth like I was Kenny G...humiliating...then I spaced, didn't realise this cat's solo was up and brought the sax up in a hurry...not in my mouth. Try again. Nope. Third, fourth time. Then it occours to me, I'm probably hitting face, not mouth. Only I can't feel it 'cause I'm all numb. Turns out, yeah. Soon as the novicaine wore off my mouth was damn sore.

Working pit sucks ass for sax players. In order to bend to the needs of the 'singers' the keys we end up in look like cartoon swearing. All symbols ########. Bastards.

Wait til you play something like Caberet where the band is on stage. So you gotta be 'in character' and costume.

Beats EVERY OTHER JOB I've had though. I mean, they call it playing....
Vynnland
19-02-2005, 12:57
Cook at the Waffle House. It's $8 per hour, but it is not worth it! I was a store manager in training, making $32,000 per year, and it still wasn't worth it to be a cook for one shift out of the day on top of managerial duties. Even without the managerial duties it wouldn't have been worth it.
Monkeypimp
19-02-2005, 13:02
Working at a pizza place. When I started last year, it was great, pretty cruisy, good people resonable pay considering I was a bum student. It's still all of those things except that I'm no longer a student, and the newer people who work there are complete dipshits, while the more likeable people seem to be leaving.
Legless Pirates
19-02-2005, 14:11
Cleaning the ladies' room :(

YUK!

That was way worse than the men's room or the horse stable
Zeppistan
19-02-2005, 14:19
I've had lots of crappy jobs in my career.

But the worst moment in a job was probably when I was 17 and working on the rescue boat out of a local yacht club and had to fish a dead body out of the river. Fortunately it hadn't been there long enough to have bloated up, but it was still a pretty grim moment.
Zooke
19-02-2005, 14:30
I was plant accountant for a major sausage maker. In other words, a slaughter house accountant. The job was interesting and challenging as I did various production analysis and projections. But, my job required that I spend several hours a day in the plant observing and collecting data. The kill floor and the boning section were scenes from hell. There was a danger factor involved, too. Once in a while one of those 600 pound sows would get out of the chute and go on a rampage. Note: hogs are not nice...they're vicious, big, and stinky.
ProMonkians
19-02-2005, 14:52
My worst job was when I worked as a janny for the local council. I had to look after a community center from 7:30am to 10:00pm - meaning I would get up, go straight to work (an hours journey btw), do my work then go straight to bed. Also I had to work Satturday mornings. Local kids would vandalise the toilets (one time flooding place) and run about on the roof destorying the drains. Factor in that it was the hottest summer on record and I had to spend all day indoors and you'll quickly realise that this job was the very definition of soul-destroying.
Drunk commies
19-02-2005, 15:22
Telemarketing. The shifts were only four hours long, because most people couldn't hack 8 hours of repeating the same script, getting yelled at, and being cursed out by the people we called. After working 8 hour shifts for a few days straight you start to go a little crazy.

I also used to build, repair and maintain swimming pools. It was a pretty lousy job because in the spring we would often have to fish rotting, dead squirrels and groundhogs out of stagnant pools. Many people don't clean up their dog's droppings and expect you to work in their back yard. Also the cold and wet in early spring and in November and December are a pain in the ass. Plus in the summer in NJ it can get over 100 degrees farenheit, and the humidity hovers between 90 and 100%.
Demented Hamsters
19-02-2005, 16:52
One of the worst jobs I've had was because it was one of the most boring. At Uni, I took a week-long job at a small printing company. When I got there, I found out that their sorting machine had crapped out and they had a big order of several thousand booklets due that had been printed page by page but now needed to be collated.
So my job for the week was to first stack piles of each page around a table (20' by 6' - the booklet was 80 odd pages I think) and then walk clockwise around the table picking each page up in turn, sticking it in the binder and starting again.
For 9 hours a day. For a week.
I only kept at it 'cause I desperately needed the money.
But I ended up with a massive pain in my neck and back because I was only walking one way and leaning towards my right the whole day. Took a couple of weeks before it left.

Another boring job I had I was forced to take or else lose my dole (this was several years ago when I was fresh out of Uni). It was meant to be data entry and various outdoor duties for a forestry company. But I almost never got to go into the forest. And I finished the data entry and updated their data base by the first week. Unfortunately it was a 6 month contract, and I had to stay or else I wouldn't be allowed back on the dole.
The company was getting $360 p/week from the Government to employ me there (and paying me only $400 - I found in the manager's private files a letter to head office saying he wanted to offer me $300 p/week so they could make money from it but HO replied back telling him not to be so parsimonius), so they weren't willing to let me go work elsewhere. Nor could (or rather would) they find any other work for me to do. I taught myself Unix, so I could use their other computer that had a forestry program on it (working out yields and had 3-D mapping of topography etc) and played around with that. But the guy in charge wouldn't let me use it - mainly becasue he didn't have a fecking clue and didn't want to be shown up in front of the manager.
Anyway, I had 25 weeks of trying to look busy at the computer when I had literally nothing to do. It sounds great - getting paid to sit and do nothing - but it's actually very stressful when you're in that situation. As I said, I knew if I lost this job, I wouldn't be able to get the unemployment benefit, so I always had to look busy whenever the manager came in (and it was open plan office so I couldn't hide in the corner either).
I turned the computer so I was facing the manager's office and used to have an old data file open and just play solitaire (the only game on the PC - no internet connection on my comp.) over and over again. I'd ALT-TAB to the file if he came in and pretend to be entering data. I got so good at solitaire I was able to finish it in under 60 seconds. Other than that, if the manager wasn't there, I used to do the assigments for the Uni papers I was doing extramurally or tried to learn how to do cryptic crosswords in the daily paper.
Took them 4 month to realise I had no work to do (I had told them on several occassions that I had finished but was told to check back over the work again) and wasn't doing anything. So they then had me clean out the back room and sort through a couple of hundred old maps. Which wasn't so bad as no-one was around to watch me. And they finally sent me out into the forest with a sub-contractor to help measure trees, which was great - and ended up me getting a p/t cash-in-hand job with him after my contract finished.
So the last 6 weeks were bearable. But the first 20 were so mind-numbingly boring, I was literally close to tears some days. Honestly - you can cry out of sheer boredom.
Alien Born
19-02-2005, 17:31
Nothing like Demented Hamsters trial by boredom.

I used to work for MAFF. (The Ministry for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries). I was a lab techie. Washing test tubes, that kind of boring, but not totally minfd numbing stuff. The worst part of the job was that where I worked they kept some caows, that had contracted various diseases. (It was a vet lab) These cows were kept in little pens so as to prevent cross infection etc. This meant that they could not walk around very much, and as a consequence their hooves would grow too much and have to be trimmed.

The bad job, cutting a cows toenails, with a bolt cutter, while the cow inevitably shits on you.
Nadkor
19-02-2005, 17:35
sorting parcels for the Royal Mail

wasnt difficult, just so unbelievebly, mind-numbingly boring
Daistallia 2104
19-02-2005, 17:37
Wosrt I ever had was mowing lawns in south east Texas in the summer. 30-40 deg heat (90-100+F), high humidity, mosquitos, push mower....

Alright I want to hear some worse job horror stories.If Anyone says peep show janitor. Your a sick one....

A friend of mine did almost that - attendant at a porn video booth shop...
Demented Hamsters
19-02-2005, 17:50
Nothing like Demented Hamsters trial by boredom.
Yep. Worst thing about mind-numbingly boring jobs is that you don't save money. You think "Ok awful job, but it's more than the dole so I'll be able to pay off my VISA" but all that happens is that you spend a lot more as a way of coping with the shit job. I ended the 6 months owing more on my VISA than when I started (though I did have a reasonably impressive wine and PS1 game collection).
Marrakech II
19-02-2005, 19:51
OK it wasn't a peep show. Just your average X-rated theatre.



No I'm not joking, I was a janitor at an adult theatre.


Funny thing is, it's not the worst job I ever had.

That distinction would go to the summers I spent on the sanitation crew at a seafood processing plant.

Imagine shoveling fish guts for 8 hours a day, then cleaning a porno theatre doesn't seem that bad.


You truly are a very sick person
Mt-Tau
20-02-2005, 06:32
Worst job I had was working at a Trader Joe's. I worked as a cashier, what a boring job. :p
CelebrityFrogs
20-02-2005, 06:35
My worst ever job was working in a factory testing sky digi-boxes, about every third one gave me electric shocks!!!

Working in a call centre selling health insurance wasn't much fun either!!!
Cats Keep
20-02-2005, 06:45
I worked for the local looting and plunder for over 5 years - yes I was the voice on the other end of the line when your power went out or was DNP ( disconnect for non payment ) -

we were far more hated than any telemarketers, or so it seemed.