The worst job I ever had................

[benjamming]

Working in a chicken house is pretty nasty especially when it's August in Alabama & you miss picking up a few dead chickens. After a couple days when I finally did see them, they are picked up in pieces.
Nailing tin back down on said chicken houses during the summer is not fun when my old tennis shoes started melting.
Picking up rocks out of a hay field for 10 hr/day. The 5-gal bucket gets heavy after a while.
Working in the grocery store unloading the trucks at 4 am was easy work after all that. It was air conditioned afterall!
Jobs as an engineer are easy from a physical standpoint, but can be tough in different ways - mentally but that can be dealt with easily enough so no complaints there! Well, except for a few 24 hr shifts but those pass.

 

[wander2039]

Can't say I've had any bad jobs. Although from middle school to college I helped my grandpa with his jack-of-all trades capentry work and when I wasn't doing that it was the farm. I was probably well broken in by 16. Days up on hot roofs or cleaning out sewers to birthing pigs or cattle at night. More nasty stuff than I care to mention. Any job since then really hasn't bothered me. I wouldn't mind going back to where I was at 18. Hoping to ditch this ball and chain job, even though the pay and benefits are good, and hit the road living in a rv and working odd jobs again.. I may have a mental disorder.

 

[9296D21B14]

Deckhand on a dredge one college summer keeping the warfs from below the French Quarter to past the Mississippi River bridge open to ships. I was almost killed three times. The regular crew were mostly from Pierre Part, LA. They hated me and the other college kid. My perception of Cajuns is a bit less than favorable since that summer. Money was good, though, and I loved being on the water.

 

[addyguy]

Working in the 'sales center' for a meat sales outfit - you know, one of those places that sells you a years supply of pre-packaged, meal-sized meat portions.

You did cold-calls to people to try and get them to agree to buy a package of dubious quality meats. I was absolutely lousy at it; it was so much of a scam, my heart just wasn't in it. I worked right beside a girl that was an absolute pro - she could get 10 sales a night. She admitted she got older men excited with her voice, and reeled them in. It was sickening watching her play them.

Boss was a real character, right out of a movie. I went to him after two weeks to explain this wasn't what I was meant to be doing. He said "Good you realized that, you weren't going to be here past the end of the week."

A week later, the whole place had vanished. Gone.

 

[BrianWC]

One summer I worked as a plant hand in a gas pipeline company compressor station. I was forced to do such wonderful jobs as:

-mop up basements full of oily water from the leaky compressor engines then carry each bucketful by hand for about 1/4 mile to the waste water disposal drain

-remove asbestos insulation from same engines' with nothing more than a dust mask. I was assured it was "safe."

-sandblast excavated pipelines so they could be "re-doped."

-collect rotting fish from the plant's runoff pond after periodic oxygen depletions


The place was in classic need of a beat down from OSHA and the EPA or someone. Two hands were fired for pointing out potential OSHA violations (including one who was an engineering student who'd been groomed for advancement), one was fired for slipping in the oily basement and inquiring about how to file for workman's comp, and the three black employees hired with me were assigned to dismantle a building full of engines that had used PCB-containing coolant using minimal PPE. The safety/environmental officer had a BA in art.

Aside from the asbestos, which I still fear will come back to haunt me some day, it wasn't a HORRIBLE job, but it was all I needed to make me realize I should REALLY stay in college. My GPA went waay up after that summer.

 

[StevieC]

Brian ---->

Says it all!

You need Erin Brockovich!

 

[BrianWC]

Yeah, and that was AFTER the company got sued for contaminating the adjoining lake with PCBs-thus the reason for the engine dismantling. A pipeline explosion that killed 16 people just down the road from the plant was the impetus for the passage by Congress of a pipeline safety bill championed by Ralph Nader.

 

[StevieC]

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

Originally Posted By: addyguy
Working in the 'sales center' for a meat sales outfit - you know, one of those places that sells you a years supply of pre-packaged, meal-sized meat portions.

You did cold-calls to people to try and get them to agree to buy a package of dubious quality meats. I was absolutely lousy at it; it was so much of a scam, my heart just wasn't in it. I worked right beside a girl that was an absolute pro - she could get 10 sales a night. She admitted she got older men excited with her voice, and reeled them in. It was sickening watching her play them.

Boss was a real character, right out of a movie. I went to him after two weeks to explain this wasn't what I was meant to be doing. He said "Good you realized that, you weren't going to be here past the end of the week."

A week later, the whole place had vanished. Gone.


Sounds like "GLENGARRY, GLENROSS"

 

[Warlord]

Originally Posted By: StevieC
Originally Posted By: Warlord
Originally Posted By: StevieC
Working security at construction sites overnight in your car freezing your arse off under a gazillion blankets drinking coffee by the gallon to stay awake and keep warm. Couldn't idle the car too much or you would make squat because it would be going out the tail-pipe.

I actually almost ended up in the hospital the next day after a very cold -34oC night because I think I had hypothermia. I stood in a hot shower until all the water ran out and I just couldn't get warm. I was so scared I ended up quitting the job.



Used to do the exact same thing. Glad thats over with.


Me too... I can only imagine what it must have been like in Alberta.

Actually this was before I moved to Alberta. I did sites in Whitby and Pickering Ontario. It was a blast.

 

[StevieC]

So did I... What company did you work for?

 

[IndyIan]

Worst jobs? I guess working for a farmer doing hay, small squares, he had a baler with a kicker so we got stuck in the loft all day. He'd bale, another guy would drive the full wagons over and a couple guys would unload onto the elevator. 3 or 4 of us would build the mow. Over the summer we'd do 10's of thousands of bales hay and some straw too. The barns would get very hot as you neared the roof and I remember coming down at the end of the day into 30C heat and thinking how cool it was...

Worked on a small chicken farm too, but it was relatively easy except for cleaning the barn out by hand... Breaking up and forking out tonnes of chicken manure makes you strong though!

I also treeplanted for a summer in university, tried to put in 1500+ trees a day in whatever weather. Nice scenery but it was hard on the body, but it got me in shape to get on the rowing team.

 

[BrianWC]

I had a student worker in my office whose father paid migrants to plant pine trees in East Texas. He befriended some of them one year and went with them around the country from job to job. He said they often lived in shabby barracks-type buildings, but ate well and played lots of soccer. He did things like harvesting cranberries (or some type of berries), detassling corn, and other tedious jobs. By the time he made it back home he had tons of cash, as that's what they were paid in every where they went.

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted By: BrianWC
I had a student worker in my office whose father paid migrants to plant pine trees in East Texas. He befriended some of them one year and went with them around the country from job to job. He said they often lived in shabby barracks-type buildings, but ate well and played lots of soccer. He did things like harvesting cranberries (or some type of berries), detassling corn, and other tedious jobs. By the time he made it back home he had tons of cash, as that's what they were paid in every where they went.
Yeah and we all pay income tax like schmoes!

 

[Warlord]

Originally Posted By: StevieC
So did I... What company did you work for?


It was called llewellyn. They were based out of Guelf I believe. I got on with them for their dog handling program but I never got around to it.