Your worst job

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

When I was just out of high school I worked as a temp for a company that supplied guys for manual labour.

Did the same thing for a couple months in my 20s. It was brutal. When we set up a trade show at the Roundup Centre, I had the job of crawling around on my knees with an x-acto knife cleaning up any stray bits of thread sticking up from the carpet. For four hours with no knee pads.

The worst was when me and another guy got assigned to do grunt work for the operators of a big office building. The mechanical guys had years of dirty jobs they didn't want to deal with - hauling away hundreds of tangled together curtains and curtain rods, demoing an old bathroom, pulling junk out from crawl spaces (that was the beginning of my back issues). These guys actually snickered while their boss asked them what ####ty jobs they wanted us to do.

Our last task was hauling away exterior doors that were stored in the mechanical room at the top of the building. We had to manhandle these 8 ft tall glass and steel doors around corners and down halls to the freight elevator, and then to loading dock disposal bin. It was brutal. After two of them, we were shaking. But I had a plan for the last one.

I reasoned that disposing of the glass door would be easier if we first broke it, then hauled the pieces away in a bin. So we draped a blanket over the door (we weren't complete idiots, just mostly idiots), leaned it against a wall, and then hurled a steel pipe at it. The door absorbed the blow and buckled away from the wall. We leapt away as the door arced back at us, and then slammed the ground, shattering into thousands of pieces.

As I mentioned, we were in the mechanical room, with enormous industrial fans blasting away. The moment the glass door shattered, buddy and I were enveloped in a crystalline whorl. Tiny particles of glass got in our hair, eyes, and lungs (of course we didn't have any goggles or masks). By the time we finished sweeping up it was questionable that we had made the right call.

[FlameOn]

Fishmonger at the local superstore as my first part time job in high school. I spent the day around live fish tanks and came home smelling like fish guts after work. There were so many rude and impatient customers all the time. Other staff were pretty nice tho at the time but this was during the mid 90s.

Definitely motivated me to concentrate a lot harder on my education.

[blender]

Picking bananas in Queensland.
Bunches of bananas weighing up to 80kg.
Barefoot in calf-deep water, rats and snakes swimming around.
First day I had a spider with a body the size of my fist drop onto my shoulder and scurry away. I saw death in its eyes, but what can you do when you have a 150lb bunch of banana on your shoulder?
Oh, yeah; I was earning $64 a day.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

My last job before my current company.

Alberta company. They were a cult, I'm pretty sure. I think the CEO cried at my first Orientation. And they pretended to be so obsessed with a positive culture and mental health but it was anything but. The place was legit scary and had a terrible effect on my mental health.

In a two day 70s style path to success, mind over matter orientation, I learned that depression is a choice made by weak people.

I also learned that natural home births with no doctor and only a homeopath were good and doctor assisted C Sections with any drugs used for the mother were evil. This was backed up by some psychopath sharing her story how doctors told her that her baby was in serious jeopardy and needed a C Section. She told her story about how she used mind over matter and healing stones and #### to overcome it and gave birth safely at home and her child is totally fine.

The job was in Finance. i'm totally serious.

Then my boss told me that respect in the workplace was overrated and she was meant to bully us because she had no time for our questions.

I lasted 3 of the worst months of my life before I quit. I'm not joking when I say it ruined me as a human. Thankfully only temporarily as I now work for a great company and I've been able to undo most of the psychological damage I suffered.

Holy ####.

Okay, I think you might win this thread. That's terrifying.

Edit: It just goes to show that white collar work isn't necessarily better when you're dealing with crazy people running things.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Worst job:

Worked for a company that finished and polished massive concrete floors for warehouse stores like Costco and Home Depot. My job was to crawl along the floor and search for any divot in the floor, put a piece of green tape beside the divot, clean it out with a wire brush. Then once I was done that, go find each hole fill it with epoxy, then let that dry, then when the epoxy dried I would go back and grind down the epoxy so it was level with the floor.
On my knees leaning over with my face about 18 inches from a dusty concrete floor for days and day doing these million square foot floors that seemed to go on for eternity. Horrible horrible job. I actually live near the home depot floor that I did, and seeing it still triggers in me the odd flashback filled with horror and sadness.

[Dion]

My worst job by far was flipping burgers for McDonald's in the late 70's while in HS. The work was crap and so were the managers. Push push push was all the managers did. They kept wanting you to work faster. There was this one particular dinner hour where I had the grill completely filled with quarter pounder patties with grease splattered all over my shirt and glasses. Lineups were 5 deep at the tills and my boss kept needling me about those line ups and to go faster. I snapped and turned around handing my boss the burger spatula and yelled at the top of my lungs: "You ####ing do it!!!" Tossed the apron in his face and walked out with a huge smile on my face

[CrazyCaper]

Security guard in Halifax NS back in the mid 90s. My first placement was a low rental apartment complex in a sketchy part of the city. It was an overnight shift from 11pm-7am. My first patrol involved seeing a guy shooting up in a stairwell. Later that night, had a transvestite hooker banging on the door at 230am asking to be let in because she had a "client". I barricaded myself in the office after that until my relief showed up for work. I actually lasted close to 18 months at that job but was my last posting at that location.

[Harry Lime]

I was going to post in here, and all my writing it out accomplished was getting me angry and depressed. Suffice to say, the worst job is one where you actually loved the job, but worked for a bully or sadist.

I shielded the employees as long as I could.

Eventually, being ordered to reprimand people working under me, for very minor issues or things out of their control, on condition that my employment would end if I didn't comply. I had two people quit, and made an incredible worker cry before I finally had enough and left.

[MRCboicgy]

Edit: actually forgot/repressed the month after graduating highschool that my dad got me a "job" ripping out the carpet, etc. at the "No-tell" Motel a friend of his had just bought. I'll not divulge the location of this place, but I got like 20 bucks a day doing renos on this motel (with zero experience working with my hands).


Oh yeah, no protective equipment at all, no masks, gloves or anything, so I was cut up and coughing and I'd come home grossed out because i was sure I was covered inside and out in decades of dried jizz... (which is really the story of my life, come to think of it...anyway, I digress...)

My dad was doing a friend a favour getting essentially free labour.

[AltaGuy]

Commercial bakery for a summer in undergrad was the worst for me. Inside the bakery it was about 50 degrees because of the giant commercial ovens, and my job was to stand at the end of a conveyor belt and pick packaged loaves of bread off it and place into plastic trays. The bread bags came off the conveyor belt at about 40 per minute, and if you stopped moving they piled up and some would get ruined. Ten hours a day of aerobics in 50 degree heat left me about thirty pounds lighter at the end of the summer. At 19, I definitely didn't have thirty pounds to lose. Thankfully, they automated that job soon thereafter.

[edslunch]

Busboy at a ‘fancy’ restaurant in the late ‘70s. Had to wear a monk robe and occasionally carry small ladles of flaming brandy to tables for a special dessert. Once spilled flaming brandy on a guest’s dress, luckily alcohol burns quickly

Lasted a month, left by my choice.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by edslunch

Busboy at a ‘fancy’ restaurant in the late ‘70s. Had to wear a monk robe and occasionally carry small ladles of flaming brandy to tables for a special dessert. Once spilled flaming brandy on a guest’s dress, luckily alcohol burns quickly

Lasted a month, left by my choice.

Uhh...dude...I hate to break it to you but that sounds like a Satanic Cult initiation ritual.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Locke

Uhh...dude...I hate to break it to you but that sounds like a Satanic Cult initiation ritual.

Felt like it too. Free soft drinks though....

[surferguy]

A monks robe? Did you work in the vip room of Medievel Times?

[PsYcNeT]

I worked at the *shudder* bottle depot beside Heritage (the OG "We Sort For You") after school and on weekends for the better part of a year when I was 16.

A short list of items I was forced to interact with (with sopping wet light work gloves and no noseplugs):

• Bottles full of cigarettes
• Bottles half full of beer and cigarettes
• Bottles half full of beer and cigarettes covered in a thick slime of mold
• Dead mice
• Used condoms
• Spoiled food
• At least 1 dildo
• A spider's nest that burst open and sent hundreds of tiny scuttling arachnids across my station

[FurnaceFace]

One summer at University (UofR) I was waiting to get placed for my real summer job and ended up working for the students union. This was going to start off as a plum job as I was slated to end up as the station manager for the campus radio station. I did get that role...for about an hour...and then the student union decided they should just close the station instead. Instead of running the station, another student and I ended up doing maintenance work for the SU.

Our big job entailed taking the drop ceiling tracks down from the Lazy Owl Pub and cleaning them. This was back in 91 when people still smoked in bars. We'd take the dark brown gunk covered tracks down, toss them in our vat of industrial cleaner and then pull out these super white tracks and pop them back in. If that didn't turn you off smoking, I'm not sure anything would have. I was quite happy when I got a call back from the government job I had interviewed for. That was re-cabling wiring closest on each floor of the building and doing support calls but light years better than nicotine covered plastic.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

Holy ####.

Okay, I think you might win this thread. That's terrifying.

Edit: It just goes to show that white collar work isn't necessarily better when you're dealing with crazy people running things.

What was especially weird is it was supposed to be a training class. And I've been through those Franklin Covey courses before, I thought this would be similar. You know, covering efficiency, communication, leadership, sales etc.

Instead, like i mentioned, it was all of this copyrighted in 1970s mind over matter Golden Eagle bull####.

Then when the personal experiences and opening up stuff came about, that's when we got into the bizarre depression and birth discussions. I almost jumped out of my seat to be like "WTF IS HAPPENING" but no one else in the room looked even slightly bothered by it.

I already knew my workplace was toxic but this really sealed the deal that there was a strong cult flavour to the company. It's only been a year but to this day, when I tell people about that training course, I find they often don't believe me because it's just too damn crazy. I really wish I video taped it on my phone because then I could at least show people.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by cecil terwilliger

what was especially weird is it was supposed to be a training class. And i've been through those franklin covey courses before, i thought this would be similar. You know, covering efficiency, communication, leadership, sales etc.

Instead, like i mentioned, it was all of this copyrighted in 1970s mind over matter golden eagle bull####.

Then when the personal experiences and opening up stuff came about, that's when we got into the bizarre depression and birth discussions. I almost jumped out of my seat to be like "wtf is happening" but no one else in the room looked even slightly bothered by it.

I already knew my workplace was toxic but this really sealed the deal that there was a strong cult flavour to the company. It's only been a year but to this day, when i tell people about that training course, i find they often don't believe me because it's just too damn crazy. I really wish i video taped it on my phone because then i could at least show people.

nxivm?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Fishmonger at the local superstore as my first part time job in high school. I spent the day around live fish tanks and came home smelling like fish guts after work. There were so many rude and impatient customers all the time. Other staff were pretty nice tho at the time but this was during the mid 90s.

Definitely motivated me to concentrate a lot harder on my education.

I'm not going to lie to you. If I was ever a 'Fishmonger' that would be going on my Resume until the day I die.

The interview opportunities are endless.

"So tell me about some problems you've had to solve in the workplace."

Well there was this time I was a Fishmonger and I was getting some back-talk from a customer so I just started hacking the heads off of fish while getting more and more agitated....and then the problem seemed to resolve itself.

"I see...."

[Locke]

Originally Posted by edslunch

Felt like it too. Free soft drinks though....

Come for the Satanism....stay for the Soft Drinks!

"I was told there would be cake..."