The worst job you ever had?

[Imp4]

Various iterations of washing dishes as a teenager were pretty terrible.

The worst by far was the summer on a roofing crew.
I had three tasks for the entire summer:
-Tear off the old shingles and prep for new
-Carry bundles of shingles up the ladder because the owner was too cheap for rooftop delivery
-Clean up the yard from tear off debris and errant nails

If anything, it did force me to come to appreciate working with my brain, so there's that.

 

[02SE]

Starting my own business. I went years with no days off. Hard physical labor in sometimes brutal heat, or bitter cold, balanced by keeping the books straight. Not to mention the stress. Often sleeping at the office because I was too tired to go home. The pay off was eventually making the business a success, selling the business, and retiring early.

 

[GrtArtiste]

Worked in a gas station for several years after HS. Was robbed at gunpoint three times...the last time was by a guy who had already committed two murders. He was tried and convicted for the second one and later executed. When the gas station changed ownership I was laid off, then hired by the owner of a materials-handling company. He knew I needed a job and was trying to do me a favor...I worked as a clerk in the service dept. I was terrible with customers and not much better with co-workers. I was hospitalized with an ulcer within six months. I stuck it out for three years but it was wholly unsatisfying.

Then I worked for a guy who was starting up his own mail-order sports equipment company. It was an okay job for 10 years picking orders and shipping pkgs, but this guy wasn't happy with being the boss...he wanted to be THE GODFATHER. He referred to himself as Darth Vader. That got old real quick, and when he realized I wasn't happy and he couldn't have an ingrate like me working for him I was let go. That led to my current job doing marketing research (mostly automotive) for a local company. Except for an 8-month layoff (didn't know at the time I would be called back) it has lasted almost 22 years and I've been able to work from home for the last 13 years. Sometimes the hours are short but so far I've not had a better opportunity that would induce me to leave. Not having to deal with customers-supervisors-co-workers suits me just fine.

 

[A_Harman]

Originally Posted by 02SE
Starting my own business. I went years with no days off. Hard physical labor in sometimes brutal heat, or bitter cold, balanced by keeping the books straight. Not to mention the stress. Often sleeping at the office because I was too tired to go home. The pay off was eventually making the business a success, selling the business, and retiring early.


I think what you did there is called The American Dream.

 

[jurko]

Absolutely worst but best paying job I ever had was in early 80's where I dreaded to get up each morning and go to work.
It was hanging acoustical ceiling in several stories buildings in San Jose Intel Corp. campus.
Teamster union job paying $19 an hour ( in today's money about $63/hr).
I eventually quit after 6 months fed up with job and CA and left for NV where I live since.

Subsequent 2 long term jobs I held in NV till my retirement in 2015 were absolute delight.
I always looked forward to get up each morning and go to work (both jobs were about 10 min drive).
Those two jobs never felt like work to me but more like a hobby.
I got paid well but not even close to what I made in CA in today's money, maybe half of that, but still good.

I always felt as far as job, money is not everything.
If you really love what you do, get alone with everyone and are compensated fairly, your work life becomes pleasant affair which leads to happier life.

 

[nomas]

The worst job had to be when I was first hired at an Electric CoOp during the summer of 1977 . I was a "grunt" ( Helper) on a line crew . Digging post holes by hand with a set of diggers with 8 foot handles , pulling transformers up a pole with a set of rope blocks , etc. in the brutal Louisiana heat and humidity . All for the sum of $4.25 / hr plus benefits . Went on to make a career out of power company work and retired after 40 years in the business .

 

[Barkleymut]

Working in B2B outside sales is the most stressful thing I have ever done. I hated it.

 

[DBMaster]

The one I have right now - that I may be stuck at until retirement seven years from now. It also pays the best. That only helps a little.

 

[Passport1]

Junior seaman on the deck of a Coast Guard buoy tender. Even Mike Rowe said it was a terrible, dirty, dangerous job. Yep, even got $64/week for that. Got to live aboard and three meals so it wasn't so bad.

 

[Skippy722]

My first job, cashier at a craft store. People are incredibly rude, even the [censored] hole that was my first machine shop job was better.

The machine shop wasn't much better. They allowed smoking in the building, and it was a combined machine shop/millwright/weld shop. In the winter there was a haze of god knows what down to about chest level, we had 30ft ceilings. The welders would only use smoke suckers if they were welding something zinc plated. I'd get multiple bad sinus infections each year, and whatever was growing in the machine coolant would give me instant acne wherever it landed.

So thankful for my current job... you can eat off the floor here, and it's climate controlled at a comfortable 72F year round. We always have the correct tooling, and if we don't they'll order it and have it next day instead of "just make due with what we've got!"

 

[walterjay]

As a teenager working on a sod farm. Back then you had to pick up huge rolls of sod and stack it on a pallet. What a back breaker.

Working as a painter on a tank farm. On top of a massive storage tank in July chipping off rust and priming it. You really could cook an egg on top of the tanks.

Working as a car salesman. The owner was a total A** I did it for a year and got out of it. But I did learn some valuable life lessons from it. I think the owner eventually wound up in prison for underhanded dealings.

 

[IndyIan]

Tree planting was the toughest job overall, I think another summer of that would've been too hard on my knees. I stacked hay and straw small square bales for a few summers in high school and cleaned out chicken barns by hand in the summer and winter. The chicken barn was pretty bad and (un)surprisingly that barn burned down, and got replaced by one you could clean out with a skid steer! I'm getting a bit tired of an office job but I can't complain too much really.

 

[eljefino]

prep cook at this "members only" tea shoppe lunch restaurant.

All the clientele had this hive mentality and would show up at the same time. The first would order a burger, or a salad, or a sandwich, then the rest would say, oh that sounds lovely. Could you make me a cucumber sandwich, on one slice of white toast, and one rye, not toasted, and put the mayo on the side, and thousand island dressing in my clam chowder?

We'd have some out of towners over for a tennis tournament and they'd line up for the ice cream window. My man-hating thesbian boss told me to ask them if they were members, so I did, so they said no, so she over-ruled me in front of them and made me serve them anyway.

I was the dishwasher so I stayed late so I could wash all the cutting boards etc from the other stations as they closed down and left for the day.

The restaurant itself was like something out of a movie, with flourescent lighting and linoleum in the kitchen, flypaper hanging everywhere, a screen door in the back that closed with a satisfying undampened "thwaaap" when the witchy waitresses would go smoke on the back stairs and complain about the customers.

At least as teenagers we all hung out together outside of work. And we had a "staff party" that went from 6-7pm that mysteriously turned into a kegger at 7 when the adults all left.

And now, dear bobbers, a photo of your long-haired author, aproned up for $4.75/hr in the mid 90s:

 

[Bud]

Hand picking tomatoes in the summer while in high school. Next worst was working in a cannery while also in high school.

 

[02SE]

Originally Posted by A_Harman
Originally Posted by 02SE
Starting my own business. I went years with no days off. Hard physical labor in sometimes brutal heat, or bitter cold, balanced by keeping the books straight. Not to mention the stress. Often sleeping at the office because I was too tired to go home. The pay off was eventually making the business a success, selling the business, and retiring early.


I think what you did there is called The American Dream.


Absolutely.

The opportunity is still there, but it's by no means easy. It would have been far easier to continue in my first career, while working for others.

 

[Oildudeny]

Terminix

 

[JustinH]

Worked at a quick service restaurant.

Dishes and dining room cleanup mostly. Then cleaning up of hood vents, grease traps, and charcoal grills. Also restrooms.

After that I was promoted to fry master, then grill master.

During the grill master routine, I determined that I should enroll in college.

$5.05 per hour.

 

[EA82]

First job during summer months in high school i was working at an airplane light bulb plant without air conditioning in Florida, my job was to stamp the label on them by the thousands on a machine like a robot with somebody breathing down your neck, time just would not pass by.....minutes felt like hours, my arms and shoulders were numb by the end of the day and that was considered an easy station.
That job was so terrible that my next high school job washing dishes at my own pace felt like a dream job compared to that factory crap.

 

[wag123]

I worked in a foundry for a month in the summer when I was in college. Anyone who has ever been in a foundry will tell you that it is the closest place to HellOnEarth that you will ever see/experience. The pay was excellent but the work was hard and dangerous. The place was very hot, very dirty, smelly, noisy, and extremely nasty. I would gain and lose 10 lbs a day. When I quit that job I swore that I would never enter another foundry again unless I owned it.

 

[CourierDriver]

Originally Posted by 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.

I have heard similar stories like yours, its best to move on...there are A.H. in every business, just move on, you did the right thing.