What is the worst job you've ever had?

Discussion Open Forum
21

Bar none, the worst job I’ve had was the first one I had back her in AR when I left the 'wan three years ago. I was a state employee who’s job it was to sign folks up for food stamps and medicaid. The job wasn’t so bad, I could have sleept through it, and most of the time I liked working with the people–but you DO get to work with some of the dregs of humanity every once in a while–but the boss was a class A peeled bitch! There were absolutly impossible expectations because budgets had to be processed on time–but you couldn’t get the damn file out of the bitch’s office, and you also HAD to answer each and every call on a phone that rang, on average (I know cause I also had to keep a log) every five minutes. And I was responsible for about 1500 cases. Simply and impossible job, but the boss dealt with this by screaming and pounding desks, and slamming doors.

The second worst was working as a manager of a fast food joint. I was hired from outside to take the job of another employee who had been demoted from the job. I was hated by everyone I was expected to work with because the folks already there thought they should have been hired as manager, and the guy who was demoted–for his explosive temper–should have just been fired in the first place, but they didn’t ever fire anyone for fear of a lawsuit. That’s right–I was universally hated and not allowed to get rid of anyone. So I fired myself.

22

Easily my first job, the ubiquitous job at Rotten Ron’s (a/k/a Mickey D’s). Greedy owners with no decency, stinking of grease from the place, lousy hours, harassment, the embarassment of other recent high school grads seeing you work there (I was 18 then, now 40ish), fourth rate polyester uniforms, and worst of all, actually seeing how they store and prepare their “food”. (So why do I still sometimes eat their s***…?)

There was one good thing about that being my first job: I didn’t know s*** about s*** yet thought I knew everthing and had that smacked out of me. Getting fired from there didn’t damage my resume (What resume?) and I learned how not to talk and act on the job. I also learned never to never again work as a wage-slaver in a no-skills “business”.

23

Worked in a pickle factory in Vernon, California for a while putting pickle brine in giant barrels. Then hand loaded the giant barrels onto pallets. It was freezing and wet inside, no windows in the factory, I stunk like a pickle, spoke Spanish all day to homesick Mexicans, read Bukowski and ate lunch in the sweltering heat with a rendering plant for a view, there were nice racks of dead animals to watch go by. I used to hose off with a bar of soap in the back yard and drink most of the night away then up at 6 A.M. for work.

Dug ditches for a sprinkler company for a summer when I was 13. Gave me muscles and a hatred for physical work, cleaned out repossed cars-that made me impervious to any disgusting smell and gave me a hatred for human beings in general, telemarketing -selling magazines to feeble minded people, I would wake up in the morning talking into my hand.
Bagging coal-that sucked.
Worked at a supermarket during a teamster’s strike cleaning meat off of the machines in the deli.

Unloading vegetables at a loading dock in the early mornings then going to my dishwashing/ food prep job before college classes. That made me study harder and hate my working class parents. :wink:

And a thousand other jobs too pointless to remember.

24

I just remembered another; receptionist at my town’s Child Protection Agency.

25

Yeah, I had jobs at McD’s and other such places, working as a janitor in a nursing home for a while while I was in undergrad school, waitressing, and that kind of thing. The best jobs have been working as a personal assistant to handicapped people (not a pc term anymore, but I hate pc) and teaching–kinda similar, no? HE HE. But I can say for dang sure that I do NOT belong in any kind of an office.

Oh, and once I worked for a while as a jr. accountant–serious joke to anyone who knows me–for Tyson. I’d applied for a job teaching English to their employees and that’s the job they offered me. Didn’t last long. That was horrible.

26

phespirit.info/derekandclive/live_01.htm

27

Cleaning the autoclave room at the health clinic.
worst
smell
ever

28

Janitor in a convent where all the old penguins went to die…I got booted after 3 days…
Day labourer for a casual employment agency, the last call I took from them I had to unload an entire semi trailer of frozen 15 pound boxes of Danish bacon and stack them on pallets, all refrigerated, of course, they were supposed to give me a freezer suit and everything, they never did, I wore my own gloves. I worked 8 to 10, nobody would say a word to me, I stopped for 10 minutes and had a smoke, went back and finished the truck at 12.
Guy gave me $20.
The next day I registered for a barman’s course.

29

First job I had, aged 16 (around 1986). I was a drinks waiter in the function suite of a local (sleezy) hotel. This function suite could hold like 2000 people and it was packed the first night I worked there. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, having never drunk alcohol at that stage.

I worked from something like 8pm to 3am, 2 nights a week, often midweek (then up for school at 7.30). A lot of really uncool customers in there. Wedding functions inevitably ended in massive physical fights and I have a vivid memory of some woman getting kicked on the arm and her bone breaking through her skin, and me getting screamed at to do something (while dozens of others continued fighting all around me).

I didn’t know who my boss was, but my superior had me up against a wall by the throat at one stage and I didn’t realise that this wasn’t acceptable at the time. My parents had got me the job through a friend, so I didn’t feel I had the right to quit or complain.

My pay was £4.50 a NIGHT (plus tips, which was £2 on my best night ever).

I stayed long enough to buy my first guitar, then quit. It certainly made me complain less about future jobs.

30

There are some shit jobs out there. I feel lucky by comparison.

Having said that, the worst jobs I ever had were not the physical labour jobs that involved extreme temperatures, weird chemicals and back-breaking work. The worst jobs for me have been in teaching because of the psychological effects.

The two worst things are not having the support of colleagues or superiors and having people who actively fuck with you. Dealing with kids who have clearly done inappropriate things and then having superiors not support you in disciplining them, or worse, reversing your decisions and completely undermining your authority. From that point on, you’re fucked.

I had a job like that in England where one of the co-ordinators was weak as piss. My classroom was next to the student lounge, and kids who were cutting class would come in ten minutes or more before the end of the lesson and turn the stereo on. Despite me asking them not to do that because my students (in their final year) had exams soon, they didn’t care. One day, it came to a head, and I told them I was confiscating the stereo during class time. They went over my head to the pissweak co-ordinator and he let them have the stereo back. From that point on, everything was a complete joke.

Another bad job was in a country school in Australia, in a town full of redneck, low-rent, white trash shit. At least 50% of the students were feral, and their parents were worse. The assistant principal would routinely side with kids who had antagonised everyone else and made the place a complete non-learning environment. There was absolutely no staff morale there and there was a huge staff turnover. There was a quiet, reserved Chinese science teacher there whom the kids rode like a mule, and who got absolutely no support from management. My only ally in the whole place was the lab. tech, who was also plotting his escape. It was during my time at that school that I realised I wanted to get out of education in the West for good, and began my search for jobs in Asia in earnest.

Then, of course, there’s working for Hess Evil Organization and the constant belittlement, inanity and pandering to dickhead parents.

Yet, in some perverse Nietzschean “that which does not kill me makes me stronger” way, as I look back on these jobs, I also cherish them because I largely stayed true to my own ideals, rather than becoming one of the many jaded hacks I worked with, and they also made me consider how I would ever treat sub-ordinates or employees if I ever had them. Working for Hess was the best job I’ve ever had in that respect.

31

My sister works for them now in our hometown, which is like Cracktown, USA. I can’t believe some of the stories she tells me.

I would say one of my worst jobs was working at Wendy’s during my last year in high school with arrogant, bitter crack addicts twice my age. The bitch boss was later arrested for embezzling from the restaurant and at one point had to live in her car. The second worst place would be a certain government office here in Taiwan, just for your “information”, where I came in to pick up something from the office one Saturday and walked in on a colleague masturbating at his desk. It is actually kind of funny now that I think about it–a nerdy, unattractive, skinny guy looking at something along the likes of “Hotmusclehunks.com”. One can dream I guess. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg at that f-ed up place.

32

A lot of farm jobs are awful; baling hay, and chicken wrangling are bad. Rock pickin’ is much worse.

I had a summer job "crack fillin’ for the highway department. That sounds cooler than it really is.

To be honest, I was always happy to have work.

33

I worked as a dishpig for two years starting when I was 14. It’s the lowest of the low as far as I’m concerned. However, the position taught me to work hard in nasty environments and to fight back when someone insults your position.

As I’ve moved up the educational and professional ladders, I’ve always been very thankful of this job and I often mention at restaurants of the world that I specifically want to leave part of my tip to the dishwasher, much to the anger of the service staff at many establishments. It was the worst job but one of the most important ones.

34

[quote=“Chewycorns”]I worked as a dishpig for two years starting when I was 14. It’s the lowest of the low as far as I’m concerned. However, the position taught me to work hard in nasty environments and to fight back when someone insults your position.

As I’ve moved up the educational and professional ladders, I’ve always been very thankful of this job and I often mention at restaurants of the world that I specifically want to leave part of my tip to the dishwasher, much to the anger of the service staff at many establishments. It was the worst job but one of the most important ones.[/quote]

Yeah, waiting to go back to grad school I had some time to kill and worked for my sister as a bus boy. On rough nights I had to help out the dishwasher and I learned how important it was to be friends with the bar tender. Tough and dirty job that requires hands of leather.

In general was amazed though by the thoughless and rude behavior of the patrons in what was a relatively high-end establishment. I would never be able to work in that industry full time without stabbing someone with a steak knife. I think it has made me a better patron

35
  1. Selling sand to the Arabs
  2. Selling coal to Newcastle
    Both shite and a waste of time.
36

Hmmm… after what ppl posted here I can consider myself lucky I guess :slight_smile:

Shittiest ever was a bit over a year compulsory community service in a Kindergarten. Sure, I occasionally had fun with some of the cute, young, hot kindergarten teachers - but apart from that it was almost no pay, nothing to do, and not being allowed to actually do nothing.

Similar at a HR department for a rather big international corporate group: Nothing to do, best thing was catching mice. The strangest thing was being given a Excel paper printout (!) of ~1000 addresses plus a word document, and being asked to write this letter to everyone on the list, then to hand pack the stuff in letters, put stamps on, and get them posted. Well, I cheated a bit by digging up the address list as an Excel file, and getting to work the packaging and stamping machine at the post office :bow:

But apart from that, I always was extremely lucky… even working at a gas station as a youth was more or less fun most of the time…

37

A tie between concreter’s labourer and brushing knots out of sheepskin carseat covers. I did it through a temping agency. Two of the concreting bosses were complete assholes and the work sucked for a skinny weakling. Thankfully they never lasted more than a week. Brushing knots out of sheepskin rugs was as exciting as it sounds.

38

[quote=“Matchstick_man”]Brushing knots out of sheepskin rugs was as exciting as it sounds.[/quote] :laughing:That’s something you could do for 10-20 minutes at the time. But a day job doing that… Oh hell no. :hand: :laughing:

marboulette

39

Hard to pick an absolute worst one, but i agree that the worst ones are when working for the worst bosses. Cleaning latrines by hand with a great crew might be tolerated.

In high school I mowed school lawns for the local school district, plus other general labor when they needed it.
Right after high school I worked on a flat tar roofing crew. 500 degree tar burns!
I also drove a sulfuric acid truck for a while. Dangerous job with a horses rear end as a supervisor.