Worst Jobs?

[Cmonster]

I've loved every single job I've ever had;

In junior high, had a job cutting bait and filleting fish on charter boats. Used to put fish heads and carcasses in 5 gallon buckets and hung them on the handlebars of my bike. Rode down the dock to the crab and lobster fisherman and would sell them fish heads for bait and made extra cash. Lived the life and ate like a king all summer long.

In high school I continued to work on fishing boats, but also worked at a grocery store with a great bunch of guys. Total blast.

First few years of college I was a lifeguard. Best job ever... Get paid to hang out on the beach and pick up chix. Yeah, that sux... Right.

After that, I got into the movie biz and have never looked back.

I've never had a job I didn't dig. I just could never do that...

SC

[Rallygirl]

Growing up out in the sticks, jobs were difficult to come by. After picking blueberries for a few summers, I moved up the wage earning ladder by loading turkeys onto semi trucks. Um so,...fifteen years old, wearing waders and big rubber gloves while cramming turkeys (with very sharp beaks and talons) into itty, bitty cages.

turkey truck on Flickr

[johnmiic]

Retail is the worst. I worked a series of retail jobs from 1988-1997 and never liked any of them. Your perspective changes on people when you have to serve them. The customer is always right? Wrong! The customer is a selfish S.O.B. is what you discover.

In every job I ever worked people would come up to me with an unmarked item and say , "This has no price. Does that mean it's free?" That joke got tired on the 2nd try. I heard it on the 30,098th telling and it never got any better. The purpose of a store is to make money. Except for a shopping bag, the air and my opinion nothing else is free ever.

I had people rip tags off merchandise and ask me if I could give them my employee discount. Someone threw a book at me at B&N when they skipped the line at X-Mas time and I told them they had to get in line. People would fill out greetings cards and then refuse to pay when they found out we didn't sell stamps. I have had customers throw hissy-fits because I could not leave the cash register to help them on the sales floor because we were understaffed. The manager would try to save money, come in under budget, by hiring less people and stretching us to our limits. I especially love it when people get angry because you won't let them use the employee bathroom. We are not a resturant, we don't open our bathroom to the public. However there is a free bathroom in the lobby of this building you can use. They would get miffed. Would you like to share your bathroom with all of Manhattan Island?

It never got better. When I go somewhere and get bad service, even a resturant, I know there are problems behind the scenes and it's usually management. The people who serve you are caught in-between. They usually work very hard and put up with crap they shouldn't have to from their employer and the public. I try to never complain about retail service because I've been there. I know how bad it can get.

[fallensaviour]

Where to start...I've had a few doozies alright.

One of the worst for sure was demolishing a couple of old pig barns(the long quonsets).
Never smelled anything worse in my life,that smell just sticks to you....

Paramedic while being awesome was very brutal at times.I've seen and done things that I'm sure only combat vets could relate to.Nothing beats picking up human parts then trying to go home and be Mr happy.The worst was geriatric calls that turned into transfers from one facility to another(16hour round trip)At the time I was making $14 an hour.usually you had to pull over a couple of times for the old people to go to the bathroom then most of them you had to help them wipe their butts.(no big deal right) well how long does it take you to wipe your butt? break it down I wiped peoples butts for for like 30 cents does that sound right to you???

Blockbuster that was pretty crappy as well.Most of the customers were idiots.
Working in the bush as a logger for a couple of years had it's ups and downs as well.

[The Toyroom]

I followed up a jobless year in '93 with a short stint job-coaching (easiest money I ever made) followed by the worse job ever, working at an air conditioner manufacturing company. It was an easy decision to go back to school and finish off my degree...

[bizzaro megomauler]

Used to make plastercraft models, needless to say a 1 day affair, with blisteded fingers in water all day...

[Hector]

I had three horrible jobs early on.

One was as a cashier at a local fast food burger joint...and I quit within 3 days...lol.

Picking strawberries during one Summer vacation in the Californian Valley...back braking job, hot as hell...from dawn to dusk, very low paid. I feel for those field workers...what a tough way to earn a living.

Security guard for two years...low paid...erratic hours (like graveyard shifts), and worst of all...BORING as hell.



My best job temporary job while going to college...one Summer at the Port of Oakland...working as an entry level longshoreman...and get this...I got paid $15 an hour...and this was back in 1985...WOW...

[Captain]

Generally, I've found the worst jobs are such because of the people who run the company. I was a Shop Manager in a garage door place for 3 years. The owner and his wife were two of the cheapest damn people I've ever known...and they were at least millionaires.they owned several hotels and apartment buildings, and ...as the rumor went...used this garage door shop as a way to write off profits as losses.

I remember more than once driving with the owner to some house or apartment he owned, where we would pack out all the furniture and stuff in the place. I was told this stuff was left behind by people who had died, or in one case, by someone who disappeared. I later found out, if one of their tenants didnt pay their rent on time the old boy would watch them for a few days, and when he knew nobody was home, would go in and essentially rob the place to get his rent money. I was called by the police years after I left, and thats how I found out what the old fart was really up too. I felt horrible being an unknowing participant in that. Not sure what the police did? I told them everything I knew.

I worked 60 hours a week minimum, but the owners wife was the accountant, and everytime she worked out my paycheque, it came out as under 40 hours. She did this to everybody. I finally reported her to the labour relations board, and she quit doing it for awhile. Never did repay the back pay owed though. She had started doing the rip off thing again just before I quit.

The place was built on an alkili patch they bought cheap outside the city limits. See, the wife figured when the city expands they would have to buy them out at an exorberant price...and darn it she was right..they did. Anyways, any time it rained, or the snow would melt in the spring, the entire yard would flood out, including the shop itself. Basically you would be wading around in a foot of water. then the septic would back up. To save space, and not worry about freeze up, they built the septic under the shop floor. Guess where the ...stuff...went when it overflowed!!!

Instead of hiring more staff when it got busy, they went downtown to what is known as "cash corner" for help. Essentially, these are bums, drunks and drug addicts who are so desperate for their next fix that they prostitute themselves out to work on any job. I caught one guy stuffing this gym bag he had with them with door hinges. apparently, he thought he could pawn them? the bag was so heavy when full he could barely carry it, and when I asked him what was in it, he dropped the bag, and ran like a sonuvagun...out into a slough, where he of course got stuck...idiot.
Another guy kept trying to physically injure himself. At first he thought he could get workers comp. I told him he wasnt officially working so I doubt he could get anything, unless he tried to sue somebody. He couldnt do that because he said he had a warrant out....then somebody told him if nothing else he could get morphine when they took him to the hospital. Then he really got stupid trying to hurt himself. I went in the office and went ape stuff all over the owner, so he took him...and only him...back to cash corner.

final straw came one time we were unloading a truck. I asked one of the cash corner crew what his name was. He said "Why, you a cop?" and pulled a knife on me. I ran him out of there and then went and quit.

One place I worked had a nutty rich guy as an owner. His wife left him for a fireman, so he called a staff meeting, locked us (yep, locked the doors) in, and started bawling. Said he needed to be surrounded by friends, and went on an anti -fire fighter rant. I snuck out an emergency exit, which set off the alarm and ended his tyrannical cry fest. A bit later he bought a Russian bride (yep..bought..even admitted as much). She was pretty crafty. Refused to marry him until he brought her over here, and paid her way through university. I left before this, but later heard she married him one day, and divorced him pretty much after the honeymoon. She ended up with half of everything, and had spent so much of his cash before the marriage, that he had to declasr bankruptcy and the company was sold off by the bank. I guess now hes just a nutty guy....probably hanging out on cash corner.

[ctc]

>Worst Job = No Job

There's worse. I used to sign people up for natural gas door to door. You get paid the same as no job, (since you get paid per sign-up) but there's more walking, yelling, and dogs involved.

Don C.

[ScottA]

Of the jobs I've had since I started working at age 14 none were really bad. I did do the restaurant tour at Burger King and Pizza Hut. So I've been down that road. I've also unloaded trucks for a warehouse company. The rest I've had were all career related. Some jobs were better than others but it was usually the people involved and not the job itself.