What's the worst job you've ever had?

I've never had a terrible job. Nothing physically strenuous or messy or run by jerks. The most dirty/uncomfortable job was probably a 1-day job helping with stocktaking in a factory's machine shop, where it was rather hot inside.

So my current job might be the worst. There's a nasty commute involved and it pays peanuts even though it's a highly skilled tech job, and there's virtually no room for a promotion or raise.

Oh wait, one time I rented my tent to a guy who didn't say up front that he expected me to handle setup and removal (some of his guys helped, but I thought he'd be doing it, since he had a similar tent and all, and we were talking about TENT RENTAL the whole time), and then I had to work in the dark with deafening speakers blasting in my ears until I convinced him to quiet them down for a few minutes. If that counts, that's the worst.

KatieSuddard wrote: I haven't had that many jobs, but Panera was the worst so far. A woman accidentally threw away her fake tooth. I had to dig through the trash to find it. There's nothing quite like digging through a can of half eaten bread bowls and rotting soup to find a filthy false tooth. I found it, and needless to say I can't eat cheddar broccoli anymore.

I worked there too. Some dirtbag juggalette stuffed the women's toilet with two rolls of paper after I called her out over the intercom for stealing soda...

Cooper farms turkey processing plant. I operated a lung gun. Its a big metal handle vacuum and the line moved at 60 birds a minute and you had 8 per person. 8-10 hours of slamming a peice of metal into bone. I woke up numb from hands to elbows every day.

I quit after 30 days and went too work as general labor for a lady cleaning up a 5 acre plot she sold. Laying in half frozen mud servicing equipment or loading concrete chunks she saved was better then cooper farms.

I put out the milk @ college cafeteria. All things considered it wasn't that bad of a job, but my uniform smelled horrible from all the milk drops that spilled or whatever.

Mall kiosk. I lasted one day.

Department of social services, child protection services, specializing in sex abuse. I lasted a year before I was arrested for assault. Best day of work ever.

Or possibly the time I was day labor digging up ruptured septic systems by hand.

The summer before I started college I had a job on the ground crew for a painting company re-painting a water tower. We hauled 100 pound bags of "Black Beauty" sand from a skid to a sand blasting pot, cut them open and dumped them in. Sun up to sun down every day it didn't rain. Just me and another guy.

Those guys were nuts.

The painters up top thought it was funny to drop stuff to see how close to us it would land. One day a paint roller stuck in the ground about three feet from where I was standing. I didn't go back after that.

I used to have a job crawling through the mangrove mud swamps of Nigeria where, if the locals were not threatening to kill you, the local fauna and/or diseases were.

Man I miss that job.

Municipal waste water treatment operator. I lasted eight weeks. Never again.

Kudos to those who can do that job but it ain't me.

Dusterbd13 wrote: Department of social services, child protection services, specializing in sex abuse. I lasted a year before I was arrested for assault. Best day of work ever.

I don't have kids, but that is one job I could not do. I don't know how you lasted a year. I can't even stand to watch Law & Order SVU...

Two weeks running a 90 pound jackhammer is memorable, but I've never had one that was so bad that I quit.

Toyman01 wrote: Two weeks running a 90 pound jackhammer is memorable, but I've never had one that was so bad that I quit.

Gotta agree with Toyman...only time I quit a job was after lining up a better one. Never quit or threatened to do so after an hour or a day on the job.

I am currently the manager of engineering and maintenance where I work.

I herd cats all day.....

wvumtnbkr wrote: I am currently the manager of engineering and maintenance where I work. I herd cats all day.....

Can you provide herding advise? I have 6 "cats" that need herding...

Dusterbd13 wrote: Department of social services, child protection services, specializing in sex abuse. I lasted a year before I was arrested for assault. Best day of work ever. Or possibly the time I was day labor digging up ruptured septic systems by hand.

Sounds like how i got out of the field. Caught a discrimination case because a biller didnt like what i said, and mn is very affirmative action

Cleaning toilets at a summer camp. It's true, women's rooms are nastier than men's rooms.

fasted58 wrote: Municipal waste water treatment operator. I lasted eight weeks. Never again.

These days, I design wastewater treatment plants...modern ones that are tuned up and running well really aren't that bad, but I've been in some older facilities that were awful. The worst was at a cheese processing plant, I about dropped to my knees when I first walked in that place. The operator told me he couldn't smell a thing, I assume his nose was burned out.

secretariata wrote:

wvumtnbkr wrote: I am currently the manager of engineering and maintenance where I work. I herd cats all day.....

Can you provide herding advise? I have 6 "cats" that need herding...

You need a Cat-L-Prod.

My last job was in a toxicology lab doing urinalysis. The background general smelliness you get used to pretty quick, but test tubes full of urine incubated at 75C then uncapped on the bench are a whole 'nother world of stink.

In reply to Woody: Close interval pipeline survey. Walking miles of pipeline right of way, twice.

I'm still trying to figure out what makes a job bad or if it's just bullE36 M3 I need to learn to get used to. Apparently my history, even dumping the organics from Walmart's produce section, isn't that bad. So far my worst has been that night I spent 12 hours unloading boxes/bottles off a truck with no heat at a detergent factory in January. Compared of some of these I think I'm just soft.

same country club as first job.... this time worked the laundry...

went through about a gallon of water per day... average temp in laundry room was 115... AND 95% humidity..... minimum wage

Toyman01 wrote:

secretariata wrote:

wvumtnbkr wrote: I am currently the manager of engineering and maintenance where I work. I herd cats all day.....

Can you provide herding advise? I have 6 "cats" that need herding...

You need a Cat-L-Prod.

I work for your state, that isn't permitted (but I'd love to be able to adjust some attitudes).

Heck, we're lucky to even get qualified job applicants due to the low salary we are allowed to offer. Say a bad word about performance or imply an employee isn't performing up to snuff and a lawsuit might break out.

The state supreme court just negated the official appointment of my agency head within the last week. So another layer of gov't officials approved her to make her job "official"...

Storz wrote: In reply to Woody: Close interval pipeline survey. Walking miles of pipeline right of way, twice.

Enquiring minds want to know, "What does that pay?"

I could do that all day long if I could afford to live on the salary. Outdoors, walking (generally good exercise), nobody to harass you, no phone/email to respond to. Oh how I miss the simple times...

I was a manager at a Fazolis once, my clothes were thick with the smell of garlic butter. While you would think that's a good thing; it is not. They Would not wash out. This was twenty years ago and when my parents moved five or six years ago my mom was throwing some of my stuff away and she said there was a pair of pants there that STILL smelled like that. Yech

Chadeux wrote: I'm still trying to figure out what makes a job bad or if it's just bullE36 M3 I need to learn to get used to. Apparently my history, even dumping the organics from Walmart's produce section, isn't that bad. So far my worst has been that night I spent 12 hours unloading boxes/bottles off a truck with no heat at a detergent factory in January. Compared of some of these I think I'm just soft.

Its all dependent on environment. My last job was at a brewery. 100 year old building. No ac. When youre boiling 450 gal of water, it gets hot as berkeley on the brew floor. The chemicals were intense. We didnt have an elevator so i was stuck dragging 170lb kegs up and down stairs by hand. The stairs were rickety (built sometime before ww2) and shook like a motherberkeleyer. I was literally the only one producing bottles and growlers. For the entire region. Glass regularly exploded. I was always wet, and covered in beer or beer ingredients. I made 9 bucks an hour. Everything was heavy and sharp. We had to wssh every singlr piece of glass by hand, including the returned growlers. Those things stank something terrible. paper it was a berkeleying terrible job.

Best job i ever had. The people and the culture made it amazing.