The worst job you ever had?

[Chris142]

Right out of HS I got a job at a locally owned muffler shop. The owner was just a jerk. No other way to put it. He knew every muffler and tailpipe number to every car in his head.

He would rattle off numbers then send me up stairs to get them. His storage room up stairs was not organized. He knew what the part looked like and where he had put them weeks or months ago. I had to read every tag on every part until I found it.

He kept calling me names and telling me to hurry up they were waiting for me to bring the part to them.


I lasted about 6 weeks there.

 

[Kira]

That is as coincidental as heck.

I worked in the parts department of a Dodge dealership for a friend's father.
ALL the parts managers were savants. Like your guy they knew the part numbers in their heads.
In my case the manager was a meth-head (before that $#!* was invented) on speed with too much coffee.
A true joy to be around.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

Emissions testing valves in refineries/chemical plants located in Texas City/Pasadena Texas (SE Houston). Who doesn't like climbing a distillation tower when it's over 85 degrees and 80 percent humidity?

Anyone want to guess the number of valves in these places?

My Equipment:

Sniffer : Hand held wand w/gauge reading ppm which was attached via hose to a propane powered analyzer about the size of a double thick laptop bag.
Number punch set w/hammer: Every valve in the facility was tagged with a number. Sometimes the tags would fall off and disappear so I had to punch the replacement tag.
Notebook: Record the reading off every valve.


Close seconds:
-Working as a roofer in the summer of my senior year in college was possibly the worst. 5.30am-230pm schedule.
-Working as a mover summer of my junior year in college.
-Working on an assembly line (Truck Axles) summer of my sophomore year in college.

 

[joekingcorvette]

I worked in a local business in collections. The actual organization and pay as well as benefits were great. I had a real jerk for a supervisor and he knew that I didn't care for his attitude. His boss was a jerk too. As a matter of fact the entire collection office was cold due to upper management's behavior but it paid well and nobody had any guts to change it as far as not being in upper management. I would come in with a good mood and everything and everybody else was unfriendly. I worked there for two years and finally got fired. I have been in the same business for 30 years and know what I am doing. My boss never liked it that I had a brand new Corvette and a Ford Expedition that was like new. I had a better life than he did and he resented it. Most of my bosses in previous years have been awesome. I am not lazy and have a very good personality. I even worked in a meat packing house (John Morrell's) for a year until they went on strike. That job was better than the cold atmosphere in the collections office. What a bunch of jerk upper management which consisted mainly of 3 people. Idiots. That was about several years ago.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Summer Jpb out of HS working as a Material Handler at a Foam Factory - General Service Foam in Wilmington, MA.

Had to lift Giant 'Buns" of foam just out of the mold - hot and outgassing FREON - and bring them to the
cure room to cool off an further outgas.

These thing were like 10' long and 5' high and 4' deep. weight was about 75 LBS per person and about 6 - 8 persons on them.

had to carry them OVERHEAD about 100' to the back cure room and get them to a crane operator that would pick them.

This was just really tiring. At break you would just about collapse and nap.

Then there were fight as and guys pulling knives and arguing oin teh mens room and other stuff.

It paid 2 dollars and 40 cents and hour though!

Then My last Job at Bell Labs and Lucent was covering 10's of engineering jobs as they were downsizing and laying engineers off.
Very frustrating and overburdened, I ended up mostly putting out fires and waiting for the layoff to come.
I hate not having my hands fully around a process. Then the sadness of sending these jobs off shore.
Thanks Carly Fiorina and the Golden Parachute Executive Management.
-Ken

 

[CT8]

I have been blessed with all my jobs being great. Now retired it seems at times I work harder than ever..

 

[pandus13]

Emptying the outhouse content!

The smell of chilly, and other foods and cigarettes while dishwashing in a restaurant.

The smell of old clothes thrown into garbage mixed in with whatever chicken condiments she used.

Hearing a hyper-hyper-hyper boss having a "civilized" conversation through 3 closed doors.
Same energizer bunny expecting quick reports out of my cheap $200 bucks Acer computer, while he was travelling with a $4k+ laptop...

 

[dadto2]

It's a toss-up. In college, I worked in a local bread bakery as seasonal help. I worked at the end of the line on the slicer and bagging machines. There were a half dozen Chilean guys who usually did that job, and they resented the summer help. (Because of us, they could only get about 75 hours per week.) I didn't know how to repair the equipment when it jammed or broke down, and they would refuse to speak English to us. VERY frustrating.

First job after college was as a manager of a Domino's Pizza store. The owner was a completely selfish jerk. After about a year, I quit as manager, and started delivering pizzas. Worked half the hours, made double the money.

 

[WyrTwister]

Digging ditches and such .

 

[UncleDave]

High school - I was a cook at a sizzler type steakhouse called " Erics Great Steaks" in Peoria Ill

This place was busy- Im talking busloads of senior citizens coming in for the all you can eat fries on Friday and Sat night

I burned myself every night on something.
We'd run out of things like baked potatoes and people would scream at me.
Clean up took hours every night Id be soaked to the knees in grease leaving at 2 AM The grease was so bad my shoes would come apart.

Every now and then it'd get busy and the owner would push the closing time from 10-11 and you'd end up leaving at 3.

Every now and then someone would return something saying it was over cooked and the owner would make a big scene shouting how he was going to make me pay for that guys dinner-apparently a stunt he pulled with some frequency.
After Eric lost his mind I with me the third time in 2 months Id had it and came right back at him shouting just as loud - " there is no way to cook a 1/4 inch thick steak medium rare 200 times a night - and that for 3.10 an hour I wasn't going to buy squat I took my smock wadding it up in ball and pitched it in his face and walked out.

I'd been a bus boy, waiter, painter, furniture mover and wood working apprentice. Nothing was harder or crappier than this.

The upside was I learned to identify and cook steak by feel with good accuracy as the new guy Id get the late shift and have to take over a full grill/ griddle with a wheel full of tickets and decipher what was the meat and how it was cooked.

UD

 

[slo town]

My first job (after mowing yards as a kid) was making Filet of Fish at McDonalds. I was 16. You could work at that age back then. The job sucked bad enough, but the co-worker in my immediate area was Karl F. Werner. Look him up. He was a serial killer.

Scott

 

[SevenBizzos]

First "real" job after college at a pharmaceutical company. The most effort I've ever put into a job and just got nowhere. Supervisor never supervised anyone before and never did after that. Thankfully, they let me go, which was the best thing to ever happen to me in my career. Changed trades and have done very well since then.

 

[Kestas]

Worst job? Mine have all been white collar jobs, chiefly working in laboratories. It really didn't matter where I worked or what I did. I could work in the dirtiest place with a desk in a garage. What makes it or breaks it is if you have an ogre of a boss or the coworkers are jerks.

 

[Mr Nice]

Unloading 4 AM Publix produce trucks during summer Florida thunder and rain storms.

Not fun considering it paid 10 cents above minimum wage.

 

[joekingcorvette]

Originally Posted by SLO_Town
My first job (after mowing yards as a kid) was making Filet of Fish at McDonalds. I was 16. You could work at that age back then. The job sucked bad enough, but the co-worker in my immediate area was Karl F. Werner. Look him up. He was a serial killer.

Scott


You win so far as having the best story. Good thing he wasn't mad at you!

 

[Andrew1972]

Mine was dishwasher at seafood restaurant age 14.When we were idle they made us clean and peel potatoes for $3.35/hr. It was gross and I always was wet.

My mom ruined me as I never worked again till college as as UNIX admin and math tutor

She forced me to do that horrid job for a summer.

 

[ragtoplvr]

I worked for 2 summers for BF Goodrich tire plant. Hot is when you walk under a fan pulling air off a black tar roof and get goosebumps. It did improve my college grades quite a bit. Carbon Black does not come off well. It was good education though.

Rod

 

[JTK]

Summer job just out of HS was as a general laborer for a construction company that was building low income apartments. Absolutely horrible conditions, work and management.

Another temporary summer job through an agency: Taking the old mattresses out of a Holiday Inn, loading them into an empty tractor-trailer, then replacing them with new. I had to put my mind in a special place for that one.

 

[jstert]

as a college student on vacation, making doughnuts 11pm-7am shift. nice place, nice boss but absolutely couldn't get acclimated to the hours. i had to quit before new semester started when work was supposed to switch to weekends only. extra national guard drills took up the slack. toughest job was at 15 when my dad found a job for me on his friend's farm as a field hand. never again, though i learned alot including utmost respect for those who feed us. next summer and always thereafter i found my own job. working in a restaurant as a weekend dishwasher for the rest of high school was heaven compared to the farm.

 

[jeepman3071]

Most labor intensive was working on a farm in high school, but it was with good people and enjoyable.

I'd say overall worst is a tie between Dunkin donuts in high school and auto insurance claims after college. Dunkin had decent management and awesome coworkers, but some of the customers were just awful to deal with. One of my coworkers had coffee thrown in her face through the drive through because she put 1 cream instead of 3 in a guy's coffee. The insurance company was terrible management-wise (run like Nazi Germany) and the customers were terrible. We were threatened on a daily basis for not giving people the $30,000 they thought their totaled 2002 Kia was worth, and most of our insureds were AARP customers who never read their policy, answered their phone, or knew how to drive. I have great respect for my elders, but trying to get a recorded statement of an accident that happened a week ago from someone who is 85 with dementia was not ideal. I got a better job 3 months later, and apparently so did several others, since that position had a 50% turnover rate every year.