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

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Looking back, from time to time I've had to do some pretty horrible things to make a living. I even worked in a sweat shop Truck tire retreading plant, Heck, that place was dangerous! Rims and Tire moulds would blow on a weekly basis.
But the worst, was working in the Menswear dept of Sears over Christmas. To explain, I had been in Canada one week, I had difficulty understanding what people wanted (What's a Took?) plus, I did not know the currency, I had to look at the coins to see the numbers to know how many Cents they were. That doesn't go down well when you have 6 or 7 people waiting at your checkout!
Even worse, between Christmas and New year, the store was empty, But, I was expected to LOOK Busy! That meant doing things like taking all the men's pants off a rack, then putting them back arranged by colour and size, even if they were in order in the first place.
Anyone else have stories?
 
I wouldn't call this a terrible job, but I've detassled corn during my teenage years. It just happened to be an incredibly hot stretch during the detassling. We had a couple kids suffer heat exhaustion that had to go to the ER for fluids.
 
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.
 
Working at Baskin Robbins Ice Cream parlor for high school summer job. Owner was cheap and for most part I was there by myself during 100 degree F days. Long lines, sloppy milk shakes, sweat and pressure to please the guests. My finger got frostbite too and it took months to heal. Oh.. and no AC in the parlor. Those freezers are heaters on the exterior!
 
Mowing grass and weeding gardens was prolly the worst job of my life, but as a High School Student, it kept my wheels fed.

Single worst job I ever had to do was one Monday morning at the service station that I worked at.

Monday was clean the toilet day.

This Monday, the boss apologised as he handed me the key.

Men's toilet (a urinal, single toilet, and hand basin) as I unlocked it.

Basin was full of vomit, the S bend being choked with solids. In the urinal were two syringes, and 4 pieces of foil. Toilet lid was down, and covered in white crusty deposits, and a couple of used prophylactics in the corner.

Jamming chicks around the S bend with a piece of wire, I was struggling not to add to the morning myself.

Still, a couple weeks later, I had to dispose of a few hundred flourescent tubes at the land fill....that took me about the same time as cleaning to toilet that day.
 
I spent winter a couple of years ago in our motorcycle shop - being rural that means quads and farmbikes,but we did mowers and chainsaws too.The quads would come in covered in mud from the cowshed....and that means the mud was 50% cowpoo.We would spend half an hour waterblasting the bike,then when you got it up on your stand you would wonder what you just wasted 30 minutes on...it would be still covered in mud.Some of the mud was much more smelly than cowpoo....and sometimes an afterbirth would be wrapped around an axle.Worst definitely was sharpening the chain on a saw that had cut up a beast.

Love my motorcycles....but there is a limit.
 
shannow has the winner.

Stevie, at the moment security is my kind of my dream job. sure! at least it does not get (that) cold here.
 
For me it was the year and a half that I spent working the midnight shift, for that entire time I was always tired, always had a headache and felt like a zombie. Man was not meant to work that kind of crazy shift and I'll never do it again (even though I'm currently jobless, I would turn down a new job if they only offered me a midnight shift, I hated it that much and fear it would most certainly affect my health in the long run)
 
Unloading semis for a temp agency. Five guys were supposed to show up and only me and one other guy did. We had to unload more than 200 steel garage doors for a mini-storage facility under construction. Each one weight 230 lbs, and we had to hand carry them to their assigned spots over extremely rough, clodded, ground. I was too sore to show up the next day.
 
Working summers in a packing plant to support myself during the rest of the year in college. Once summer I threw chuck rolls into a machine that put the little net over them-10 to 12 hour days. It was then that I decided I'd take my education as far as possible so I'd never have to set foot in a place like that again.

I worked there for 3 summers in a row.
 
Running a blowmolding machine - 1 gallon jugs. By myself, basically from loading the plastic from totes to inspecting the jugs AND boxing them. Holy carp - there is no way a single human could do this......all summer, then they canned me. I was happy!

I worked in the large USA Yamaha warehouse one summer. It was fairly modern, but we needed to make sure the orders were correct, so little time was expected to match part #'s.

My first job was a busboy at the Knott's Berry Farm Steakhouse. Pretty much slave labor. $1.65/hour and NO tips.
 
The hardest I ever worked was as a dishwasher at a local restaurant. The dish washer was a gas fired monster. I used to work 40 hrs a weeknd, Friday nights to Sunday evenings. $1.25 an hour.
 
Stock clerk in a supermarket was bad for me cause our trucks arrived at 4 AM and it was all heavy duty lifting for most of the day.

Pet shop was also bad cause five ferrets would attack me all at once when I tried to clean their cage and feed them. They are feisty aggressive critter with very sharp teeth and claws, not to mention their poo smells like ammonia.
 
I, too, was a dishwasher. I guess I'm showing my youth when I say I was payed $3.35/hr.

I would come home covered head to toe in grease.

My hands quickly became like leather from handling the hot plates and silverware. I once scalded myself in the shower because water that felt luke warm on my hands was actually about 180 degrees.

I was never so happy as the day I quit.
 
Originally Posted By: crinkles
Stevie, at the moment security is my kind of my dream job. sure! at least it does not get (that) cold here.


After I quit I went on to another company and worked night-shift security for Fedex up here. I had the whole corporate head-quarters to myself! Was fantastic. I used to blare the music, sleep on the leather couches upstairs, watch TV in the cafeteria's surf the internet. You name it! Pay sucked, but it wasn't like working so I didn't care.
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Landscaping at this mean old lady's house. Her yard was huge, and maintaining it was a full time job. I worked there year-round for about three years in high school. Some of my duties included sitting in dirt in the blazing hot sun pulling weeds out of gardens, raking tons and tons of leaves in the fall (only to have the area just cleaned totally covered in leaves again the next day), scrubbing the basement floor in the winter, scrubbing mildew off the bedroom walls, and cleaning gutters. Oh yeah, and there was that time I came across a bee's nest, got stung about 10 times, had an allergic reaction and went to the emergency room.
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I cropped tobacco on my aunt's farm when I was 12. That pretty much sucked.
Other than that, my jobs have been pretty good.
I worked at a fish market from the time I was 13 until I was 16, and at first it was kinda nasty, but I soon got used to it. After hours I used to clean fish for guys who went charter fishing, for a quarter a pound. Spent many nights cleaning many fishies and it took a while to save enough money to buy my first guitar, which at the time cost $550.
 
Landscaping was by far the worst summer job I ever had. 10 hours a day of back braking labor in the hot sun, working with a bunch of meth addicts. Those guys could lift Pablo's rock when they were high. Oh yea, I broke my wrist at that job as well. Was so exhausted after a day of work, I tried jumping out the bed of a work truck that had a fence around the bed. My feet caught and I went wrist first into the ground. That sucked! My boss wanted to reset my wrist right there on the spot (my hand was basically bent up at a 45 degree angle. OUCH!). I told him I'd sue him so bad if he touched me. It did take a call from my Dad's lawyer to get him to use his workman's comp. Thank god he had insurance.
 
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If day labor counts I worked for two days for this crazy "contractor" putting a rubber roof on his Mom's house. (this was on an tiny island I was working on for the summer so qualified "day labor" was hard to find.)

Crazy dude wanted to pay for unqualified help but of course expected a master carpenter not a college kid. Tied some hemp rope he found on the beach to my belt loop for "fall protection" 35 feet up. We had these 5 gallon vats of smelly nasty glue that had to be mopped around.

Paid well and I lived through it.
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