Most stressful job you had?

[Denly]

I just realize how "average Joe" and how unsuccessful I am.

 

[sdifox]

Subcontractor for a software vendor migrating old db to new db. Prepped all my scripts off site, arrive on migration night, find out they told me the wrong db version so had to validate all my scripts again.

It was my city's building permit system with billions of records....

 

[skyking]

stacking full bins of apples in a Controlled Atmosphere storage. See those nice strong plastic bins with built in stacking features?

This was in 1980 and that is not what I was working with.
I had a mix of these

and these

"Stack these 12 high , sort the strongest ones out for the bottom of the stack, leave this exact spacing down each side, put the really crappy ones on top, oh and hurry up, but be careful. No, there are no stacking features."
I think I made it 4 days.

 

[brianmanahan]

my current job is getting close to the most stressful one i had

high-level managers are dead set on us finishing 12 months of work in 6 months

every time i hint that it might not be done by then, they say that is not an option

they hired contractors to help, but the work is so complicated i'm spending 20 hours babysitting and 40 hours on my own work

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Hi! The most difficult thing for me was working in a logistics company.

How stressful is it signing up for websites and posting near spam all day, then coming back later to add the spam links?

 

[Fenixgoon]

previous job - senior engineer in my lab was toxic. he was fired, which left the lab entirely under my purview. while the toxic person was gone, my responsibilities increased, since i was now running the entire lab and supporting all our product development engineers. i asked my manager for a promotion and it got brushed off. i left shortly after.

 

[AdamK47]

Been in software development for 21 years. Always resisted going into management. That will change tomorrow. I suspect it will be the most stressful part of my career. 42 years old now. It'll pay off as I'll reach FIRE in 4 years and double that to actually retire in 8. That is if things line up and work out to how I've calculated.

 

[brianmanahan]

Been in software development for 21 years. Always resisted going into management. That will change tomorrow. I suspect it will be the most stressful part of my career. 42 years old now. It'll pay off as I'll reach FIRE in 4 years and double that to actually retire in 8. That is if things line up and work out to how I've calculated.

my goal was to retire at around 45 and i should have enough saved to retire by then - probably %50-75 more than i thought i would

but now i'm not sure if i'll be able to pull the trigger, because i realize how much more money i COULD have from working another 20 years

the difference is crazy - it would easily be enough to make every since one of nieces and nephews rich, and probably their kids too

 

[Red Squirrel]

Subcontractor for a software vendor migrating old db to new db. Prepped all my scripts off site, arrive on migration night, find out they told me the wrong db version so had to validate all my scripts again.

It was my city's building permit system with billions of records....

Meh, just run it and see what happens. Make sure you insert an entry to give yourself a permit to build a 3 storey garage at the same time.

 

[Red Squirrel]

my goal was to retire at around 45 and i should have enough saved to retire by then - probably %50-75 more than i thought i would

but now i'm not sure if i'll be able to pull the trigger, because i realize how much more money i COULD have from working another 20 years

the difference is crazy - it would easily be enough to make every since one of nieces and nephews rich, and probably their kids too

Have you accounted for inflation? Ex: will you have enough cash left over at 80 when everything is like 2x or more what it costs now? Probably going to cost like $20 for a loaf of bread at that point and a typical hydro bill is probably going to be like $500/mo.

 

[ponyo]

hola, como estas?

Thought I see how you guys were doing. I'm greatly enjoying my retirement.

Wish y'all the best!

Now back to my retirement.

 

[brianmanahan]

nice stache man! 👌

 

[nutxo]

My current job, when I started. My predecessor had managed to hide 130,000 of pounds of work. I had 11 months to get through it and keep up with anything else that came in.

 

[skyking]

my goal was to retire at around 45 and i should have enough saved to retire by then - probably %50-75 more than i thought i would

but now i'm not sure if i'll be able to pull the trigger, because i realize how much more money i COULD have from working another 20 years

the difference is crazy - it would easily be enough to make every since one of nieces and nephews rich, and probably their kids too

They need to go out and make their own way and you need to live your own life Brian.

 

[Captante]

Most "stressful" job I've ever had was my old NYC courier-gig during the dawn of computer bond-trading.

I had to pick up a bundle of numbered transaction-receipts from all the overnight trades and hand-deliver them from a brokerage in CT to a window in the basement of the former 130 Liberty street in lower Manhattan by 655a sharp. (destroyed on 9/11)

Then I had to make several scheduled deliveries around the financial district, head back to 130 Liberty to pick up my clients numbered receipts and be back in Greenwich by 1015a at the latest. (not easy)

My GF at the time used to tell me my complexion was "grey-green" like a freaking zombie by the end of the work-week!

 

[AdamK47]

my goal was to retire at around 45 and i should have enough saved to retire by then - probably %50-75 more than i thought i would

but now i'm not sure if i'll be able to pull the trigger, because i realize how much more money i COULD have from working another 20 years

the difference is crazy - it would easily be enough to make every since one of nieces and nephews rich, and probably their kids too

Whatever money I die with is going directly to my SO. My family will have to make do without leeching off my success.

 

[NuclearNed]

The last couple of months of my current job have been some of my worst work time ever.

I'm a software admin, and most of the software that I administer is HR / Finance related. The work my company does requires a lot of security, so we have few hundred security personnel, all of whom are contractors. A couple of months ago our president dropped a huge bomb: our company is going to hire all these security folks. They are going to be converted from contractors to actual employees, except that we are going to honor all their old employment terms and agreements (union contracts, etc.) - and all these are completely different from the employment terms and agreements of existing employees. The president gave the implementation team, of which I am a major part, approximately 2 months to make that happen. To the best of my knowledge, 2 months is a completely arbitrary timespan that our president pulled out of his posterior. This is an incredibly convoluted task, and I think that everyone on the team would agree that we need way more time than that to make it go down smoothly. As it is, we are going to be going live with vital systems that have been almost totally reconfigured, but only lightly tested due to lack of time.

So while I and others have been working furiously to make the president's impossible dream a reality, another bomb was set to explode. For about a year, we've had a contractor onsite. He's been creating a purchasing requisition approval process in SAP... In addition to my other duties, I'm my site's only SAP Basis Admin. So in the middle of August, right at the exact time when the other project began crushing my soul and robbing me of my will to live, this contractor's project went live. Literally every item purchased by my organization now has to go through this contractor's process... and the process has been a raging dumpster fire. Practically nobody who uses this process has had the right software permissions, and the process itself is buggy all day long. It's been a nightmare from day 1.

A week after the contractor's project went live, he found out that he has pancreatic cancer.

To the contractor's credit, he's been as helpful as he can possibly be, considering that the majority of his time is now spent in hospitals. Obviously, he's no longer on site, naturally he didn't document anything, and I have no idea how to fix the problems that have ground our requisition process to a standstill. For weeks my phone has been ringing almost nonstop, I'm getting tons of IMs and emails, I have no idea how to help these folks (who are becoming increasingly irate)... and all at a time when I need to focus on nothing but the other project. I can't even gripe about this situation much because the poor guy who is responsible for all this is literally dying (and he is an incredibly likable guy).

What's really bad is that none of this seems all that unusual for where I work... it's par for the course. I have to survive other similar perfect storms way too often. It really seriously doesn't help that I know I'm way underpaid.

The "security personnel" project goes live on 9/25. A week after that I'm going on vacation. I've promised Mrs. Ned that as soon as we get back, I'm going to find another job. Life is too short for this crap.

 

[skyking]

F*** a duck Ned!
My wife is the capital purchaser. Someone sold upper management a bill of goods on this software product that will not work, but they're trying to cram a square peg in a round hole.
All the input from the user and is being ignored, and the dumpster fire that is coming will be epic.
The GoLive date on that one is next April, and I think my wife will give 30 days at that time. Best of luck!

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Dang Ned that sucks. Could be worse. Could be that guy who'll probably be dead by the holidays.

Damn if that's not a sign we shouldn't work ourselves to death, nothing is.

 

[skyking]

That sums it up. Time is worth more than money. We set a target of May 1 2023. I have waffled a little bit and now looking at the fall of 23. I could just as easily waffle right back to April or May