The worst job you ever had?

[lxskllr]

I've never had to routinely deal with the general public. If I had, you'd probably be reading this on a postcard from jail.

 

[Chaotic42]

I almost joined the Navy. I actually thought of being on a Sub, but the recruiter was very honest and straight up told me you don't want to be on a Sub.

I guess hot racking and being in a tube would suck. But I would love to be in intelligence or radio communications.

Yeah, I'd go insane on a submarine. Navy is the one branch I never really considered joining. Did you consider another branch?

As far as all of the fast food stories go, I loved working at McDonald's. The pay sucked, but for some reason I liked it.

 

[lxskllr]

I considered the army, and went as far as contacting a recruiter. I don't think I would have been a good fit. I've never had much patience for bullshit, and there's no end to it with government bureaucracy. Of course, I could also be retired now. That would be nice.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Flame Broiler. Someone from ATOT actually came and visited at the time too I forgot who.

Wasn't bad per se. It was just a mundane minimum wage job.

 

[Chaotic42]

I considered the army, and went as far as contacting a recruiter. I don't think I would have been a good fit. I've never had much patience for bullshit, and there's no end to it with government bureaucracy. Of course, I could also be retired now. That would be nice.

Retired and working at a government job, eventually collecting two retirements. I was talking with some folks today about how I regret not being able to join up. I'd be in 18 years at this point.

 

[shortylickens]

I considered the army, and went as far as contacting a recruiter. I don't think I would have been a good fit. I've never had much patience for bullshit, and there's no end to it with government bureaucracy. Of course, I could also be retired now. That would be nice.

If I had stayed with the Navy I'd be retired too, last July. The pension for 20 years aint much. Could have gone into another job and worked for supplemental income and retired for real at 55 or so. Then kick back and enjoy life.
Thats what my godfather did. Of course, he was a bank manager after he got back from Korea. Did very well for himself. Retired at 55. Bought a big house right next to the Elizabeth river at Marlboro point and lived to about 90.
He spent the majority of his adult life in retirement. Least stressed man I've ever met.
Lucky devil.

 

[Sonikku]

Yeah, I'd go insane on a submarine. Navy is the one branch I never really considered joining. Did you consider another branch?

As far as all of the fast food stories go, I loved working at McDonald's. The pay sucked, but for some reason I liked it.

I don't think I would mind a sub so much because I'm not claustrophobic and am single with few possessions so navy life could be worse. Though I imagine a huge part of the quality of life depends on just which class of sub you're assigned to. I hear you smell pretty bad when you get out three months later regardless!

 

[John Connor]

Yeah, I'd go insane on a submarine. Navy is the one branch I never really considered joining. Did you consider another branch?

Well, the Navy at the time seemed like a great branch in terms of not getting killed and I believe the food is better. I did think about being a Ranger or Green Beret and then ultimately try to get into Delta Force. I was in JROTC and to this day still know how to issue commands. I was a Sergeant 1st squad leader.

 

[Chaotic42]

I don't think I would mind a sub so much because I'm not claustrophobic and am single with few possessions so navy life could be worse. Though I imagine a huge part of the quality of life depends on just which class of sub you're assigned to. I hear you smell pretty bad when you get out three months later regardless!

I need fresh air, trees, and sun. I hate living in an apartment. A submarine would be hell.

 

[John Connor]

I considered the army, and went as far as contacting a recruiter. I don't think I would have been a good fit. I've never had much patience for bullshit, and there's no end to it with government bureaucracy. Of course, I could also be retired now. That would be nice.

I actually like a structured life. But yeah, there's a lot of bureaucracy in the military. I'm well aware of that just being in Job Corp which is run by the Department of Labor.

 

[lxskllr]

I need fresh air, trees, and sun. I hate living in an apartment. A submarine would be hell.

I could live without trees if I were on a boat every day. I've often thought Coast Guard would have been cool, but for every sweet job on a patrol boat, there's probably 1,000 doing lame shit in a non descript government office.

 

[Sonikku]

I could live without trees if I were on a boat every day. I've often thought Coast Guard would have been cool, but for every sweet job on a patrol boat, there's probably 1,000 doing lame shit in a non descript government office.

I've always had to laugh at the Air Force recruitment commercials. The fighters taking off and flying over yonder are always front and center. Yet, the air force doesn't have any trouble filling those jobs. Certainly they don't need to run ads on television to find people interested in being officers and pilots. If such propaganda gets you to join, you'd be lucky to be the guy that gets to fuel up the damn things.

 

[Svnla]

I've heard here before UPS sucked to work with.

I was only there as a temp and part-time during the summer and then a few more months after that so I would not know if it was a sucky place to work or not but the pay was very decent and if you want to work there as a career, you can have very good benefits.

Keep in mind it was more than a few years ago, not sure if the benefits and the pay are still as good now.

 

[snoopy7548]

All of my previous jobs weren't that bad. I usually worked with friends or got to know people which made them enjoyable. My first job when I was 16 was working at a supermarket. I started out pushing carts (and got sun poisoning but my boss didn't care) which kinda sucked, but this older dude I worked with was pretty cool. After a month or two of that I moved indoors to bagger, and I stayed in that position for a couple of years until I left for college. Made some great friends, didn't really have to deal with customers, and I was able to move around to different checkout lanes. Nights were the most fun when it wasn't busy and we could all screw around. The miserable cashiers wondered why I never wanted to become a cashier and get paid a whole $0.25/hour more...

Oh yeah, I was also the best bagger at that stupid place. Our manager had a few of us compete to see who could bag an order the fastest and have all bags within a certain weight range. I was the best by far, but she asked this dumb girl to go to the national bagging competition instead of me. I totally would have won.

My first summer job in college was working at a marina. That was pretty sweet, although it was menial. We made the most of it, though. Getting drunk and smoking on the gas dock, getting $20 tips from doctors. Probably the best summer of my adult life.

The summer after that I did data entry at two places. The staffing woman said I was the best typist she ever saw. Easy money. This was probably the worst, though, since the place was full of older people and I never talked to anyone else. First one was a night shift at some youth baseball card place, and the second was a day shift at a drug/alcohol rehab place. That was pretty much just typing patient and court/arrest information into forms.

After that I started doing co-ops related to my major. Office work has its perks, but sometimes I wish I was back in the menial supermarket/marina jobs.

 

[Svnla]

I've always had to laugh at the Air Force recruitment commercials. The fighters taking off and flying over yonder are always front and center. Yet, the air force doesn't have any trouble filling those jobs. Certainly they don't need to run ads on television to find people interested in being officers and pilots. If such propaganda gets you to join, you'd be lucky to be the guy that gets to fuel up the damn things.

The AF is short about 1,000 pilots - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ed-pilots-address-serious-shortage/785344001/

 

[PliotronX]

Physically? When I moved to a new location I was temping and a job involved a hotel kitchen with a ruptured drain (or water supply I cant recall) and the doors deep into the belly of this hotel couldn't accomodate one of those miniature caterpillars so it was between myself and two guys with shovels to dig a 12 foot by 20 foot trench. My shoulders were effing dead but it was still rewarding.

Mentally, working at target mostly because the corporate goons don't care how awesome you are at handling guests but how many credit cards you sell. That and the shitty pay particularly after the holidays.

 

[Darwin333]

Ugh I can't even imagine doing that type of work. If there is one horrible thing it's having to work in crazy heat. My grandpa went to the Dominican Republic for a contract job for a few weeks. Surface mining I think, in the sun. +40C if hotter. I don't know how he did it, he's tougher than I am. Super good money though, so it's a nice gig if you go in for a short contract but man that would murder me. Not only the heat but the sun burn omg. I can't even imagine.

That's one thing that kinda sucks it seems mining is moving more towards open pit now. If I was to do mining I'd rather go underground.

Flat roofing is even worse. It's generally at least 20 degrees hotter on the roof than on the ground. You either have a metal roof deck reflecting the sun back at you or you are working near/leaning over almost 500 degree asphalt radiating heat up at you, along with the normal hot as balls temp and so humid that you have to chew your air before you breathe it.

 

[Darwin333]

I almost joined the Navy. I actually thought of being on a Sub, but the recruiter was very honest and straight up told me you don't want to be on a Sub.

I guess hot racking and being in a tube would suck. But I would love to be in intelligence or radio communications.

Not to mention that it's hard to get in a decent fap because of the absurdly close quarters.

 

[John Connor]

I've always had to laugh at the Air Force recruitment commercials. The fighters taking off and flying over yonder are always front and center. Yet, the air force doesn't have any trouble filling those jobs. Certainly they don't need to run ads on television to find people interested in being officers and pilots. If such propaganda gets you to join, you'd be lucky to be the guy that gets to fuel up the damn things.

You gotta be really smart to join the air force and fly a plane.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Flat roofing is even worse. It's generally at least 20 degrees hotter on the roof than on the ground. You either have a metal roof deck reflecting the sun back at you or you are working near/leaning over almost 500 degree asphalt radiating heat up at you, along with the normal hot as balls temp and so humid that you have to chew your air before you breathe it.

Yeah I can imagine. I've been on my roof in hot temps and after almost burning my palms on the shingles I decided to go down. I think I was cleaning my gutters or something. Ya I picked another day for that lol.

 

[Darwin333]

Yeah I can imagine. I've been on my roof in hot temps and after almost burning my palms on the shingles I decided to go down. I think I was cleaning my gutters or something. Ya I picked another day for that lol.

And that's just a shingle roof absorbing heat from the sun, which can be a friggen lot!

 

[Carson Dyle]

Hey Big John... What was the LAST job you had? When was the last time an employer wrote you a check?

 

[nakedfrog]

I considered the army, and went as far as contacting a recruiter. I don't think I would have been a good fit. I've never had much patience for bullshit, and there's no end to it with government bureaucracy. Of course, I could also be retired now. That would be nice.

I was definitely not a good fit for the Air Force, so reenlisting wasn't even an option. The actual doing my job part was pretty decent, it was everything else that was not.

 

[John Connor]

it was everything else that was not.

Details.

 

[Thump553]

Flat roofing laborer... during the summer... in New Orleans.

It would still be my worst job even if it didn't end with me getting 3rd degree burns over 1/4-1/3 of my body from molten roofing asphalt that landed me in the burn unit for 3 months.

Now that's a bad job. Roofing work in the north is bad enough, I can't imagine it in the sun and humidity of New Orleans.

When I was in school and my wife was a teacher we were going to take a belated honeymoon over the summer. I got out of school about two weeks before her teaching ended so I got a factory job with a temp service. It was in an ancient foundry building where they made hard rubber wheels. My job was to dip metal spindles in a vat full of some very foul smelling hot fluid in a machine that was like a giant fryolater. The heat and fumes were unbelievable and there was absolutely no safety equipment or clothing, not even glasses or gloves-we all worked in our street clothes.

At the lunch break I talked with my coworkers. All were temps and I was the only employee there that wasn't on parole or probation. If any of them didn't show up for work a phone call sent them back to prison.

I've done plenty of hard physical work before but both the known and unknown dangers of this job were off the scale. I never went back after the first day.