The worst job you ever had?

[DietDrThunder]

Back in the late 1970's and early 1980's I had a job working for a plumbing company. This company had a contract to do the all the plumbing work in an old downtown building. If a toilet was clogged, you didn't use a plunger, you literally dug out the clog with your bare hands (no gloves). This was before the plumbing company I worked for figured out that supplying gloves was a good thing so that the employees weren't getting sick all of the time.

 

[John Connor]

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.

Reminds me of a job I had at a plastic injection molding company. People there were real winners and there was this one guy who dressed like a freaking Nazi.

 

[John Connor]

Back in the late 1870's and early 1880's

FTFY.

 

[DietDrThunder]

FTFY.

I'm old but I'm not that old.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Exterior house painting with my dad in the dead of summer in Northern VA. It was hot as hell, I sucked at it (whereas my dad was an absolute wizard with a paintbrush), and I hate heights. To "cure" my fear of heights, my dad thought it would be a good idea to force me to paint the fascia boards of every town house we painted. Some of those houses were 4 stories high. So there I was, shaking like a leaf, sweating my balls off while trying to climb off a 50 foot ladder onto a roof of boiling hot shingles, all to paint a couple of boards. Day after day after day.

Like a true nerd - I spent all of my earnings that summer buying components to build my very first PC - a 386SX with a turbo button that would accelerate the processor to a then blazingly fast 33 Mhz, while somehow reducing performance! Whoo! I even remember talking with the service rep at compusa and insisting that I had to have a VGA monitor with 0.28 dot pitch.

 

[highland145]

Exterior house painting with my dad in the dead of summer in Northern VA. It was hot as hell, I sucked at it (whereas my dad was an absolute wizard with a paintbrush), and I hate heights. To "cure" my fear of heights, my dad thought it would be a good idea to force me to paint the fascia boards of every town house we painted. Some of those houses were 4 stories high. So there I was, shaking like a leaf, sweating my balls off while trying to climb off a 50 foot ladder onto a roof of boiling hot shingles, all to paint a couple of boards. Day after day after day.

Like a true nerd - I spent all of my earnings that summer buying components to build my very first PC - a 386SX with a turbo button that would accelerate the processor to a then blazingly fast 33 Mhz, while somehow reducing performance! Whoo! I even remember talking with the service rep at compusa and insisting that I had to have a VGA monitor with 0.28 dot pitch.

Told my 16 y.o. last Feb that he had to get a summer job. I wasn't paying for his gas or fun. Well, he didn't so I hooked him up with my landscaping buddy. Summer, in the S.C sun .... bet he finds his own job next summer.

 

[chitwood]

I had a job at an ice packing plant. You took bags of ice off a conveyor belt, and arranged them on a skid to build a giant 7ft monolith of ice.

Usually 3 guys built a skid. I was paired up with 2 black guys who did nothing but talk about weed and pussy how they'd piss away their $90 a week paycheck. One guy didn't own a car, rode a bike to work.

The skids I built always looked like shit, and were always crooked. Quit after 4 days.

 

[kranky]

Worst was a summer job as a laborer for a sandblasting company. Guys on scaffolds had long hoses used to sandblast a building, the sand fell to the ground, my job was to shovel it back into the machine so it could go up the hose again. Mindless, noisy, hot, backbreaking work.

I had an insane owner once but it wasn't the worst job ever. He was cheap, mean, stupid and two-faced, but as long as you didn't screw up you got to keep your low-paying job. I was by far the fastest typist there (part of the job was order entry), so he liked that there was no longer regular overtime to pay to the order entry people. When I quit, he offered me a raise that he flat-out told me was more than my manager was making and I had to be sworn to secrecy, while telling me I had a great future and was next in line for that manager's job. I didn't bother to mention that he just gave me a great reason why I wouldn't want to be the manager.

I'm pretty sure he thought being the owner meant he was automatically smarter than everyone else. He once, under the guise of "mentoring me", called me in and said I could go with him to a two-day conference about 300 miles away. It would have meant leaving the next morning, in the middle of a huge snowstorm. I said I had other commitments and could not go. He felt he was upping the offer by telling me I could drive his Cadillac. Yeah, the "mentoring" was nothing more than "be my chauffeur in a terrible storm for a few hundred miles."

Many skilled people would leave after a couple years and land much better jobs with our customers. Funny how he would bad-mouth everyone who left, implying that they were fired for not being able to cut it, then when they came in as customers he would fawn all over them. Just a 4-star idiot.

 

[Darwin333]

Back in the late 1970's and early 1980's I had a job working for a plumbing company. This company had a contract to do the all the plumbing work in an old downtown building. If a toilet was clogged, you didn't use a plunger, you literally dug out the clog with your bare hands (no gloves). This was before the plumbing company I worked for figured out that supplying gloves was a good thing so that the employees weren't getting sick all of the time.

And no one bought their own gloves???

 

[DietDrThunder]

And no one bought their own gloves???

I'll admit, I was a stupid teenager at the time and I did what my boss told me to do. You just dug the clog out and then washed your hands in the sink. Besides, this was before the internet and you didn't hear about all the diseases that were around.

 

[JulesMaximus]

We had a CIO who was great in the interview process and got hired. 6 months later she was walked out. she was a total total total bitch. upper management got a ear full daily about this person and finally the CEO had enough to justify a firing and did it (pretty sure it was the outright lies she got caught in on many occasions). god damn that was a happy day, 4pm that day the IT dept met at the volleyball court the company had on the property and did shots and poured a few on the ground for the 6 AWESOME TALENTED people who quit because of her.

I don't know why they kept this woman around at the company I worked for. She had no experience in accounting and did everything manually. I automated a very tedious process she trained me on, we had one hiccup with it so rather than fix that she told me to scrap the entire thing and go back to doing it manually. It literally took hours to do this process manually and it wasn't any less prone to mistakes either. She was a fucking idiot. God I hated her.

 

[Darwin333]

I'll admit, I was a stupid teenager at the time and I did what my boss told me to do. You just dug the clog out and then washed your hands in the sink. Besides, this was before the internet and you didn't hear about all the diseases that were around.

To hell with diseases, I learned at a very young age that you don't dig around in poo, regardless of the species, with your bare hands.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's nasty.

There's a doctor at my hospital that is known to do prostate checks with no gloves. I heard so many stories I don't know if that's an urban legend or if it's true but it's pretty nasty if true lol.

 

[KeithTalent]

Telemarketer for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. Only job I was ever fired from; it really felt like when Michael Scott on the office had his second job except I was 16 years old. Vowed to never do cold-calling again.

KT

 

[mindless1]

Back in the late 1970's and early 1980's I had a job working for a plumbing company. This company had a contract to do the all the plumbing work in an old downtown building. If a toilet was clogged, you didn't use a plunger, you literally dug out the clog with your bare hands (no gloves). This was before the plumbing company I worked for figured out that supplying gloves was a good thing so that the employees weren't getting sick all of the time.

I'd call that a new guy initiation prank. They were probably laughing their asses off that you bought that advice instead of grabbing a green tree limb if plungers were that scarce at the time.

 

[OutHouse]

Telemarketer for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. Only job I was ever fired from; it really felt like when Michael Scott on the office had his second job except I was 16 years old. Vowed to never do cold-calling again.

KT

damn flash back. i had one of those for the Denver Post. cold calling people to sign up for paper delivery. the 500sf office was packed with desk with a phone and a clipboard and a ashtray. that place sucked, the room was so smoky i coughed for 2 day. i did one night shift and walked.

 

[John Connor]

I'm old but I'm not that old.

It's just that I can't imagine a basic plunger not existing in the 70's. LOL

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

My worst job was all of them. I hated them all equally. But they all paid the billz yo, so.... yeah....

 

[zinfamous]

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.

ah, that was you? I recall this post with a US flag avatar in that thread which I will likely never forgot. Holy shit man, I still think about that story from time to time.

 

[zinfamous]

I'll admit, I was a stupid teenager at the time and I did what my boss told me to do. You just dug the clog out and then washed your hands in the sink. Besides, this was before the internet and you didn't hear about all the diseases that were around.

pretty sure that general knowledge of shit-born diseases was rather common prior to ~1992