The worst job you ever had?

It is amazing that many folks work crappy jobs for years and stay an stay....NOTE, IMHO- go to a trade school or junior college and learn electronics, HVAC and so on, you will be much happier and stay away from office jobs,,they really are junk ,jobs, again IMHO .
 
Join the military, right out of boot camp, starting pay near 1900 a month, free food, medical and 30 days vacation,,,not bad...
 
Originally Posted by eljefino
And now, dear bobbers, a photo of your long-haired author, aproned up for $4.75/hr in the mid 90s:

[Linked Image]


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With the exception of the dishwasher that looks like my apartment from college (4 bachelors living together in the cheapest apartment we could find? yeah the sink could get piled like that).
 
Originally Posted by CourierDriver
It is amazing that many folks work crappy jobs for years and stay an stay....NOTE, IMHO- go to a trade school or junior college and learn electronics, HVAC and so on, you will be much happier and stay away from office jobs,,they really are junk ,jobs, again IMHO .

Am confused... I did electronics (electrical engineering) in a 4 year school and have an office job. Some days I resent being inside for hours on end... 'cept for the days where it's below freezing. Or raining. Or above 80. Actually most of the time I kinda like it, come to think of it. I sit at my desk and do my work.

I have a lot of respect for the trades, I fiddle with things around the house and sometimes wish I went into the trades, but that didn't happen.

Anyhow. Not sure I've had a truly bad job. At an early age I decided that I would never be yelled at a job--and somehow, I've never fallen into jobs where I could be abused as such. Lucky I guess. As a kid I just viewed "crap" work as something that to be done. Didn't even think of it as crap work, just paying work that I could make some pocket money at. Did stints as a grocery clerk, boat polisher, hotel room cleaner. Raked blueberries a few times, now that felt like hard work.
 
Two actually....while in college one summer working as a laborer for a military roofing contractor. I'm not talking laying shingles, but the flat foam type roofs that you had to pour hot, liquid asphalt over. My job was to be up on the roof, pour the asphalt into 5 gallon buckets, then carry two at a time to where ever it was needed. This was in Guam, in the summer, full sun and HOT. You had to wear long sleeves or that liquid asphalt would splatter on your skin and instantly burn you. That job lasted only ONE summer. The other I was 16 and hauled hay bails from farms in Tennessee in the summer. 2.50 an hour. These were those square bales that weighed around 100 pounds each. Load from the field onto a flat bed trailer, then unload on a conveyor type machine to the top of a tin roofed barn. Guess who was up on top? So much heat.
 
Working at The Gap during Christmas. During college I had landed an semester internship with a leading bank, "internship" meant sub minimum wage pay of course, so I got two part time jobs at the same time; overnight self serve gas station attendant on a not too busy road and working at The Gap. My Summer jobs to that point were at a local textile mill, filling in for vacations; essentially doing almost every job in facilities or shipping/receiving as folks were out....learned a lot there, but that is a different story.

Retail was not my intended field and I really did not want to do this, but afternoon/evening jobs weren't easy to come by and it was only for ~6 weeks or so. The Gap was really in at the time so it was always crazy. I folded clothes on display, hung clothes, folded clothes, folded clothes, essentially following customers around who would grab something, look at it and simply toss it on the nearest rack or whatever. Moms w/ kids that made a mess as they were wandering around, etc. Plus some people were just rude for the sake of being rude to someone. I mostly shook it off, some of the other folks couldn't...understandably. I absolutely hated it, but I was taught to never quit, and I always believed you learn from all experiences good and especially bad. Final straw was one of the new asst managers handed me a few cardboard templates for folding sweaters (different ones for different sweaters and the entire store had to be ready for opening the next morning). They reversed the templates, I folded the entire wall wrong and when the error was noticed I was told to do it all again...which I did and then I politely quit.

I'd rather have been working shipping/receiving, driving a forklift or even clean out a mill's basement...

Remember telling my Dad (Mr "never quit", and thank you for that by the way). He laughed, said "...I was waiting, and I don't blame you". I learned that I am not a retail person...and I admire those who are.
 
Originally Posted by 2015_PSD
IT Executive in healthcare was the most dissatisfying job I have ever had (from a professional aspect) and it was also the most stressful.

A few reasons for this:

-- Everything is an emergency even when it is not--Dr. X's iPad not working is more important than a whole nurses station losing the network connection. The teams suffer long term from "priority fatigue" because when everything is a priority, then nothing is and the levels of stress that are induced are not sustainable.
-- Politics and "fifedoms" are rampant--I have been in very large organizations that did not have as much "tree marking" and kingdom building as in healthcare with all of its "chiefs" and "in-chiefs".
-- Progress is incredibly slow and can best be described as: a team rotates the wheels of a train a two revolutions, the next team welds them to the tracks, the next team grinds them free, the next team rotates them backwards one revolution.
-- Despite the external façade that healthcare has technological advancements, they are typically referring to the medical side of the house and not technology as a whole. I know of two major healthcare organizations who are running Windows 7 on 20,000+ machines today with no clear path to upgrade. Another example is fax machines are a critical workflow component and instead of centralizing into a SaaS solution (which could create digital copies), they have hundreds of them scattered with dozens of people sorting and scanning faxes.

I did it for about 2 years and I can easily see why healthcare costs so much in the US (not trying to make a political statement here). The day I left, it felt like I could fly due to the weight lifted off my shoulders. The mission in healthcare is a good one, but there far too many negative aspects from a professional point of view that supersede that mission.


Same when I was working as an IT contractor for the VA. There were miles and miles of red tape, doctors and nurses that didn't know how to spell (Wyoming does not start with a Y), and full-time employees that didn't do anything but was protected because they were FTEs. I'm certain they're still on Win7 also.
 
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There is very little money left in hospitals after the doctors, pharmaceuticals and device leases are paid. At budget time it's always a battle with the IT department; can you afford to replace the computers, or do annual pay inflation. Pay inflation wins usually as you need the nurses and support services to deliver care.

If you want to work for an organization flush with money, choose health insurance, not health provider.
 
Originally Posted by Alfred_B
There is very little money left in hospitals after the doctors, pharmaceuticals and device leases are paid. At budget time it's always a battle with the IT department; can you afford to replace the computers, or do annual pay inflation. Pay inflation wins usually as you need the nurses and support services to deliver care. If you want to work for an organization flush with money, choose health insurance, not health provider.
It depends on their priorities. The system I worked in was a $5B (billion) a year organization. They had plenty of money; but how and what they spent it on was decidedly random and the squeaky wheel would get the grease. I learned a great deal more about what NOT to do versus what I should do. It was an experience that made me better despite the dysfunctional system and "chiefs", but it is not one that I would ever repeat.
 
First year out of HS..Dishwasher. It was ok. 2nd and 3rd year out of college a quarry driller's helper..dangerous, 65 hours/week. In 1966 and 1967 I made over $2000 each smmer. I paid my college a couple times over. What a job....you do what you are paid to do. I got like $2.70/ hour and time and a half over 40 hours. Almost no one could do that kind of job today. I was a skinny 120 pound weakling. Noone wanted the job. I developed serious muscles those summers.
 
Originally Posted by eljefino
prep cook at this "members only" tea shoppe lunch restaurant.

All the clientele had this hive mentality and would show up at the same time. The first would order a burger, or a salad, or a sandwich, then the rest would say, oh that sounds lovely. Could you make me a cucumber sandwich, on one slice of white toast, and one rye, not toasted, and put the mayo on the side, and thousand island dressing in my clam chowder?

We'd have some out of towners over for a tennis tournament and they'd line up for the ice cream window. My man-hating thesbian boss told me to ask them if they were members, so I did, so they said no, so she over-ruled me in front of them and made me serve them anyway.

I was the dishwasher so I stayed late so I could wash all the cutting boards etc from the other stations as they closed down and left for the day.

The restaurant itself was like something out of a movie, with flourescent lighting and linoleum in the kitchen, flypaper hanging everywhere, a screen door in the back that closed with a satisfying undampened "thwaaap" when the witchy waitresses would go smoke on the back stairs and complain about the customers.

At least as teenagers we all hung out together outside of work. And we had a "staff party" that went from 6-7pm that mysteriously turned into a kegger at 7 when the adults all left.
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And now, dear bobbers, a photo of your long-haired author, aproned up for $4.75/hr in the mid 90s:

[Linked Image]



You somewhat look like Kylo Ren from Star Wars. Lol.
 
The one that haunts me is kind of a one-off.
My first few jobs of any real earnings were mowing and landscape stuff, eventually working summers on a crew with some other kids. Around that time just before or after netting the crew job, I got word of a job to go do around some apartments on my own and not connected with the other accounts.
I got some details over the phone, went to the site and it was a job that looked like it would never end. I don't recall how big the property was but the grass was more than knee high and the mower would barely take a bite out it then stall. It was taking on a job I agreed to do over the phone that wasn't considering the negligent reality of what was I faced with.

My memory is a bit foggy but I assume there was no way I wanted that job for any amount of money and I just walked away from it as if I was never there. I wasn't entirely proud of handling it that way but I learned from my mistake. I just don't as vividly recall if I later called the guy to explain, or if he called me or if it was completely dropped on both of our ends.

It's just not the kind of thing I could ever see myself doing, walking away from a job and leaving things hanging. Still blows me away.
 
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Originally Posted by bachman
The one that haunts me is kind of a one-off.
My first few jobs of any real earnings were mowing and landscape stuff, eventually working summers on a crew with some other kids. Around that time just before or after netting the crew job, I got word of a job to go do around some apartments on my own and not connected with the other accounts.
I got some details over the phone, went to the site and it was a job that looked like it would never end. I don't recall how big the property was but the grass was more than knee high and the mower would barely take a bite out it then stall. It was taking on a job I agreed to do over the phone that wasn't considering the negligent reality of what was I faced with.

My memory is a bit foggy but I assume there was no way I wanted that job for any amount of money and I just walked away from it as if I was never there. I wasn't entirely proud of handling it that way but I learned from my mistake. I just don't as vividly recall if I later called the guy to explain, or if he called me or if it was completely dropped on both of our ends.

It's just not the kind of thing I could ever see myself doing, walking away from a job and leaving things hanging. Still blows me away.



Sometimes some of the worst jobs can be those that we agree to for family members or friends without ever seeing it. I know your situation is different, but I was in a similar scenario when I went to help a friend "mow someone's lawn" once. He said it was a bigger yard that he needed help mowing. We were in high school, were 17 or so and had our licenses and trailers. He had a 42" lawn tractor and I had a 30" Gravely walkbehind with a brush hog. I brought the Gravely because he told me "some spots were a bit taller".

I got there and it wasn't a yard, it was a field, and the grass was about waist high. His 42" lawn tractor didn't stand a chance and just kept clogging up. We ended up doing 70% of it that day with my Gravely, and he did the rest with a weed wacker. I think we spent 9 hours total there, and it was about 98 degrees.
 
One summer I worked maintenance at Conneaut Lake Park amusement park. I like being up high but sometimes it is scary. One of my jobs was to grease the main bearings of the Ferris Wheel. Both sides had to be greased once every week. I would climb the tower and latch on and then hold the grease gun, put the flexible hose on the Zerk fitting, and then pump the grease gun while keeping it close enough to the Zerk fitting so the hose so it did not fall off, while holding onto the tower, and continue to pump the gun until grease came out of the bearing. I only did one side a day, and would do the other side the next day. Kinda could of used an extra hand for that job. But that was not as bad as checking out the mouse ride and the mouse had to be checked every day. The mouse is a small rollercoaster type ride with small steel tracks that are about 50 feet up in the air and it makes a lot of sharp turns. There were wood planks only about one foot wide and only supported on each end, that the inspector walked on to walk the entire length of the ride to inspect it. The boards were old and bowed. You do not clip on to anything but you can bend down and over some and put a hand on the track if you have to. When you first start that job they tell you that if you loose your balance be sure to fall onto the track. There were also other rides I inspected every day where no height was involved.

One day two of the other inspectors came into the room we all stayed in when the park was open to the public, before the public was allowed in, and one of them is carrying a broken piece of wood with old white paint on it. They explain that they were up on the big rollercoaster when one of them was standing on that board and it broke and he went through up to his waist. Some rides were a little dangerous to inspect.
 
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While going to college I worked in the J&L Pittsburgh Steel mill during the summers to pay for school. One summer I was working the 3rd helper job on a blastfurnace and the molten iron and slag came out of the furnace way too fast when it was tapped. During a cast my job was to pull the gates on the slag troughs to direct which ladle the slag was going into. This time we had to pull all the gates at once and the iron and slag was still overflowing the troughs. It was normal to have to step over troughs with molten slag in them but the troughs were only about 18 inches wide, but this time I found myself standing on a brick island surrounded by slag troughs that were overflowing and getting wider and wider causing the brick island I was standing on to get smaller and smaller. I had to take a leap over 4 feet of red hot flowing liquid molten slag to a brick section that would not be overrun by the molten slag, and it did not help that I had the extra weight of a silver fireproof suit including hood jacket and pants and was wearing high steel toe leather boots. I took the leap and make it, and a short while later the brick island I had been standing on was covered completely with molten slag.

One night I was working the 3rd helper job and the 1st helper came in to work drunk, and they were short men so he had to work anyway. After a cast the railroad removed the full slag ladles before I finished cleaning and relining the troughs with new sand and I ended up with a full wheelbarrow of used sand to dump and no used slag ladle to dump it on top of. So being only a summer employee and low man on the totem pole not knowing what to do, I asked the full time person who had more rank and experience what should I do with the full wheelbarrow of sand. That was the 1st helper who was drunk. He said to dump it in the new (empty) ladle after the railroad put it in place. {After each cast we hose the troughs down with fire hoses to cool them enough to be able to work with them to remove the sand and put the gates back in place and pack the gates with special clay, and line the troughs with new sand (the troughs were made of cement and the sand protected the cement from the molten iron or slag). (What I did not know was that even though the used sand had stopped steaming after it cooled, now because it had been hit with a fie hose there was still moisture in it even though it was hot and looked dry.)} So I dumped the used sand into the bottom of the new empty slag ladle. The next cast when the molten slag poured into that ladle the moisture in the sand in the bottom of the ladle exploded into steam and the molten slag flew about 50 feet up into the air and rained down on everything and everyone. Fortunately we all had fire-proof silver suits on including hoods jackets and pants and we all had to get out of the way. It was a giant continuing boiling explosion of red hot molten slag way up into the air and down on everything. After it was over with, the railroad tried to remove the partly filled slag ladle and there was so much slag on the RR tracks that the engine could not move it. They had to use two engines together to get it out and when they did its wheels cut groves several inches deep in the slag on top of the tracks.

I will never forget all that red hot slag flying up and raining down on everything.
 
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Originally Posted by jeepman3071
Originally Posted by bachman
The one that haunts me is kind of a one-off.
My first few jobs of any real earnings were mowing and landscape stuff, eventually working summers on a crew with some other kids. Around that time just before or after netting the crew job, I got word of a job to go do around some apartments on my own and not connected with the other accounts.
I got some details over the phone, went to the site and it was a job that looked like it would never end. I don't recall how big the property was but the grass was more than knee high and the mower would barely take a bite out it then stall. It was taking on a job I agreed to do over the phone that wasn't considering the negligent reality of what was I faced with.

My memory is a bit foggy but I assume there was no way I wanted that job for any amount of money and I just walked away from it as if I was never there. I wasn't entirely proud of handling it that way but I learned from my mistake. I just don't as vividly recall if I later called the guy to explain, or if he called me or if it was completely dropped on both of our ends.

It's just not the kind of thing I could ever see myself doing, walking away from a job and leaving things hanging. Still blows me away.



Sometimes some of the worst jobs can be those that we agree to for family members or friends without ever seeing it. I know your situation is different, but I was in a similar scenario when I went to help a friend "mow someone's lawn" once. He said it was a bigger yard that he needed help mowing. We were in high school, were 17 or so and had our licenses and trailers. He had a 42" lawn tractor and I had a 30" Gravely walkbehind with a brush hog. I brought the Gravely because he told me "some spots were a bit taller".

I got there and it wasn't a yard, it was a field, and the grass was about waist high. His 42" lawn tractor didn't stand a chance and just kept clogging up. We ended up doing 70% of it that day with my Gravely, and he did the rest with a weed wacker. I think we spent 9 hours total there, and it was about 98 degrees.


Sounds like your story is how mine might have ended had I stuck it out and figured a plan to complete the job. It was also a very hot summer day in mid Michigan. I was around 15 - 16 years old.
I thought of those gang mowers pulled behinds tractors. They are designed for those situations a heck of a lot more so than 15 year old kid and $49 push mower.
Not long after, my first 'real' job was working at a golf course where I ended up doing the all that stuff with the right equipment, trimming trees, raking sand traps, cutting greens and fairways etc... In '76 - '79 , it was a $4.95 /hr job.
 
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