What was the worst job you ever had?

[mmntech]

I got fired from a job at a satellite equipment without warning or cause after three days, then the store closed down a couple weeks later. Definitely the worst time I had since I felt jacked around by the guy. Did it on Thanksgiving to boot, by email. To cowardly to say it to my face, especially after saying he'd see me after the long weekend when I left at the end of the week. I tore the guy apart in my reply for that. I'm not surprised his business failed. I think all of three people bought something during the whole time I was there.


Second worse was at a warehouse through the employment (read "day labour") firm. Probably the most mind numbing job in the world. Take box from truck, put on conveyor belt for it to be logged, put box in another truck. I quit the employment firm after one day of doing that For starters, they told me I'd be packing stuff and it would be for two weeks. It was only a day thing so they lied. They had only found me two short stints in as many months month totally two weeks worth of work. I was a student at the time trying to make money over summer. I apparently attract dishonest people.

I currently work part time at a car rental place while finishing up my graduate certificate. Pay's not great and most of our customers are dumb as a bag of hammers, but it's not a bad job.

 

[Brainonska511]

Worst job - probably working as a cashier at a grocery store.

 

[lokiju]

I worked in the peak of summer for 1 day laying turning arrow lines in a gated community.

That was horrible. The smell the heat of the product and the heat of the summer. That stuff is basically melted plastic that you spray out on the ground. This was in Miami FL and in the upper 90's outside.

1 day was enough for me to know better than to ever agree to do it again (was helping out a family friend).

 

[DarkWarrior2]

There were two jobs that just about tie for the worst jobs I've ever had.

1) Installing/configuring computers in public schools. The worst part was that they didn't tell me (or anyone else) that part of the job was to actually unload the equipment from the trucks. Also, most public schools don't have elevators. Some guys quit on the first day after finding this out, lol. Lugging boxes of PC's, monitors, printers, and CRT eMacs up four-five flights of stairs is not fun.

2) Desktop Support position that really wasn't a desktop support position. It was great for the first few months, but then got more responsibility on the non-technical side. I also got less tech responsibility. What the employer really wanted was a technical person to order tech equipment and do non-tech stuff around the office. The workload also increased exponentially. A bait and switch position, of all things.

At the very least, I learned a lot at those jobs. But the most important lesson I learned was this:

If you let an employer take advantage of you, they will happily oblige you. As a matter of fact, they will see just how wide your exit can be stretched before it rips. D:

 

[DrPizza]

I once got a temp job at a cement plant lifting the 30-40 lb. boulders that fell off a conveyor belt over the last year and putting them back on the conveyor belt that was 6 ft. plus off the ground. This was outside in a drizzle on a 90F day. They did this once a year when they shut down the plant for 2 weeks for maintenance. I never made it until first break. After 2 hours I walked off the job.

Try haying in the summertime. Hours in the hot sun, then it's time to throw the bales into the loft & stack them. I don't have an elevator (yet.) Early summer is the worst - bales can easily be 60 pounds. Toss a couple hundred of those things up 10 feet, then up another 10 feet, while sweating profusely, and having hay stick to all your sweat. Those are the best days ever for cold beer.

My worst job wasn't because it was labor intensive, or because it was dirty/gross (llama poop doesn't bother me - I've wrestled a llama in it, while wearing shorts and momentarily, flip flops. I won. I also spent 45 minutes in the shower) My worst job was as a DJ at a couple of radio stations. For the first week, it was the coolest job in the world. But it meant not seeing another human for 24 hours while working weekend shifts. Playing music gets boring pretty quickly.

 

[Engineer]

Picking rock out of coal as it was dumped off of the conveyor (because they don't want rock in the coal...it won't burn, lol). It fell from a hopper onto a large, steel shaker and was shaken down to see the large slag rocks. It was obnoxiously dusty (coal dust) and very hot work. 3 people picked up to 50 tons of rock per week out of the coal.

 

[vi edit]

I did a summer internship for a civil engineering company the summer between high school and college. For some reason the owner hated me...I work smarter...not harder and it annoyed him.

So for punishment they'd make me suit up in rain gear and make me crawl into the service pit. They'd then drive the big rigs over that they used for doing core samples and I'd have to pressure wash the bottom of them off. Sucked.

But at least it's not a nursing job where I'm dodging puke and a host of other bodily fluids on a daily basis from patients that hate the fact that you have to care for them.

 

[ModerateRepZero]

eh, of the few jobs I've had, the "worst" would probably be my first one at a supermarket, where I spent 2 summers being both a cashier and also for a week or two while the regular lady was on vacation, cleaning bakery at night...ie rinsing dishes, brooming & mopping the floor...

 

[Leros]

I worked in a small manufacturing plant. 40 welders, 1 paint guy. That was about it. They outsourced most of the machining and all of the laser cutting. My job was to get parts onto a flatbed truck, transport them where the needed to go, and transport stuff back.

The worst part about the job was feeling excluded for not being Hispanic and not speaking Spanish.

Good experience though considering I'll be in an office job the rest of my life. Not to mention, I sorta learned how to weld during breaks and I gained a lot of muscle (went from 130 to 145 in 3 months).

 

[child of wonder]

Worst job in my professional career was my last one. Brought on as a Sys Admin and had strong experience with VMware. The new job was an all MS shop while I had never worked with AD, Exchange, etc. only Linux products and basic MS server administration.

New job said that was fine and that they would train me.

"Train me" meant giving me tasks I had no clue how to complete and then I had to go around asking others to show me how to do it. Not a big deal, but annoying.

Soon I realized how unemotional, cold, and mentally unstable my boss was. He never made any attempt to get to know me, wouldn't joke around with me, and wouldn't even stand still for 10 seconds so I could talk to him. This is no exaggeration, but when I would talk to him he would turn around and walk away while I was in mid sentence. If I continued to talk, he would get about 5 feet away, stop, and turn around. Then after another 10 seconds he would again walk away while I was talking.

Knowing VMware really well I wanted to help in that area. Noticing I wasn't getting any tasks or projects in that area I asked my boss what his plans were for me down the road and my desire to do more work with VMware and the SANs. "You were hired to do the crap no one else wants to do," he said. Later he made the comment "I want employees who have no ambition. They should just do what they're told and smile."

If I made any attempt to help with VMware, two more senior Admins would get into pissing matches with me because they considered VMware "theirs" even though I had the VCP and 2 more years experience with it than they did.

Eventually I was laid off and now I have job offers from two companies and will be making 20% more than I was before.

 

[GT1999]

Cleaning the puke off the play balls at Burger King. I quit that day.

 

[lxskllr]

I had to do a lot of shit work surveying, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a shit job. The pay was low, especially for the responsibility involved, but it had it's benefits too. Also, I'd physically end up in shitty situations that made life difficult.

 

[Pantlegz]

Mine was an inbound call center for AT&T Wireless. It was shitty, sit and listen to people bitch about how much they hate you and your company. In a way it was nice, eventually I got off the phones and was able to walk around and get paid unlimited OT... Luckily when I started school I got out of there.

 

[SandEagle]

heh, pansies. when i studied abroad in sri lanka, i worked in a zoo cleaning cages and feeding wild animals. came close to getting my ass handed to me by a bengal tiger. what's funny is that some sri lankan zoos actually cage humans.as part of the show. yeaj, cleaning their cages was awkward as hell. i got paid 77000 rupees a month with tuition and dorm expenses covered though.

 

[MotionMan]

The worst one I had would be as a temp in a lawyer's firm. That's about it.

Beats being a perm in a lawyer's office.




I worked a summer stripping and refinishing wood railings and decks on boats and yachts. Not only was it tough physical work, I worked by myself and was not allowed a radio or walkman. That was a lonely summer.

Also, if I get cancer, it will certainly be from the chemicals I had to use on that job

MotionMan

 

[MotionMan]

heh, pansies. when i studied abroad in sri lanka, i worked in a zoo cleaning cages and feeding wild animals. came close to getting my ass handed to me by a bengal tiger. what's funny is that some sri lankan zoos actually cage humans.as part of the show. yeaj, cleaning their cages was awkward as hell. i got paid 77000 rupees a month with tuition and dorm expenses covered though.

Which one are you?

MotionMan

 

[shortylickens]

Cleaning the puke off the play balls at Burger King. I quit that day.

I'd say any job where you have to clean up after other peoples kids is pretty bad. Whether it be toys scattered around, vomit, shit, or just listening to them screaming, I could never deal with it. I imagine fast food is one of the worst, followed by family restaurants like Dennys and such. Public schools would be horrible.
Parents are shit these days, they expect expect everyone else to do their parenting for them, including clean up after their kids.

 

[ichy]

I worked for these guys (http://investigativevoice.com/index...:tax-lien-deal&catid=25:the-project&Itemid=44) for several months one summer. The work itself was boring but not really awful, however now that I've learned what they were up to I'm not exactly proud of having been employed by them.

Other than that the worst job I had was doing phone support for Apple. Call center work is hell.

 

[ivan2]

getting ppl to sign up for long distance plans... ON THE STREET

 

[Kirby]

I worked in a meat dept at a grocery store. The actual job, cutting and packaging meat wasn't bad, but the cleanup was horrible. Everything had to be completely sterile and clean, and smell of hot water and chemicals slightly cooking a ton of meat really turned my stomach. Everyday I went home wet and smelling like half cooked hamburger.

 

[drum]

I worked in a meat dept at a grocery store. The actual job, cutting and packaging meat wasn't bad, but the cleanup was horrible. Everything had to be completely sterile and clean, and smell of hot water and chemicals slightly cooking a ton of meat really turned my stomach. Everyday I went home wet and smelling like half cooked hamburger.

But the worst part was people asking you for battery and alternator sized beefs D:

 

[CaptainGoodnight]

Working at a tannery.

 

[Wyndru]

When I was 13, a neighbor owned an Ice Cream Truck Company, and I had to stock the walk-in freezer. The middle of summer and I'm in a freezer for 2 hours when the weekly shipment came in. It sucked going in and out of that freezer on 90 degree days with winter clothing on.

Oh, and I worked for Wendy's for a week, that was pretty bad too, I smelled like grease every day.

 

[Kirby]

When I was 13, a neighbor owned an Ice Cream Truck Company, and I had to stock the walk-in freezer. The middle of summer and I'm in a freezer for 2 hours when the weekly shipment came in. It sucked going in and out of that freezer on 90 degree days with winter clothing on.

lol, when i was working at the grocery store, one dumbass got locked in the freezer while getting ice. they found him later, curled up in the fetal position on the floor. i guess he was too stupid to press the door release.

 

[Phoenix86]

Running cat-5 under a 100+ year old pier and beam house in the middle of the summer in Texas. There was about 8-10" of crawl space, several dead animals, and the ground was basically silt/sand infested with fleas.

God that sucked.