The Worst job you have ever had!!

[SoulOfTheFlame]

In highschool I cleaned the Meat deptartment at Superstore. Worst job ever. Picture cleaning up half (and sometimes totally) rotten meat. You'd have to spray down the machines with hot water, which would half-cook the rotten meat, imagine the smell of that! Despite my best efforts I would always come home with blood and meat chunks on my clothing, I remember my gf at the time wasn't a fan. One day one of the butchers lost a finger in the band saw.. cleaning the place after that was not cool at all.

[Eagle Eye]

Worked at that shinguardhole Earls for a week. I applied to be a line cook, but they make you do dishes for 2 weeks. I will never ever eat there again after seeing and smelling how disgusting their food was.

Worked for Green Drop during college. They ended up ripping the wokers off with overtime. We got paid $8/hour regular pay (which was borken up into $5/hour pay + $3/hour bonus for wearing our uniform (WTF??)) so we ended up mading the same amount for overtime as they added overtime to the $5/hour. Plus the managers were asses.

Sure glad that I finally have a real job, and make pretty good money without having to do that crap anymore.

[RedHot25]

Hmm, I've had some good ones, although not nearly as bad as what you guys have all gone through. I seem to average a CRAP job, and then a good/great job, and then a CRAP job....hmmm...my last job was a good job, so thank goodness I am going back to school!

Anyways, the crap is:

1) Working security. Which was not too bad, but imagine the graveyard shift - Thurs, Fri, Sat, and Sun. At a large construction/concrete plant, with #@$ truckers who want in. MY job was to drive around at 3 in the morning and make sure nothing had happened to the plant (it was a huge lot). Thank god nothing major bad happened. Also, my supervisor, who if I was lucky I saw once or twice, was a MAJOR ____ (well, I'll leave you to fill in the blank!).o

2) One summer I spent as a youth worker. The youth were fun, but the place I worked out of was HORRIBLE. They couldn't run things if it saved their lives. I remember sitting next to some guy who was taking TV/Radio at SAIT and he proudly proclaimed that he "...was not very good with kids, sometimes they bug me". He then proceeded to get a lot more shifts than me (I was taking a social work degree at the time)! Also, I think that it cost me more $$ to get to work than I made. Also the time Klein was cutting back on everything - to take the kid to an activity (e.g. mini-golf), I had to pay out of pocket for the two of us, and then (if I was lucky) get re-imbursed for the kid (but not me)!

3) One job I had out in Greater Vancouver, working for a large non-profit. The program was HORRIBLE - especially the manager responsible for it. (In fact, at one point I think that I posted about it on here for advice)!


YIKES! That was a long post...

[4X4]

Worked for a moving company for 6 weeks of the hottest Calgary summer I can remember (three years ago-ish).

As if its not enough that you have to move peoples shinguardty ikea furniture that breaks when you touch it, movers also get the pleasure of moving the heaviest mahogany or oak furniture.

"Don't touch the walls" they'll remind you. God forbid they offer a glass of water, let alone a can of pop.


The worst move ever, took place one fine 33 degree saturday (my friends all went to Sylvan Lake :angry: ). The customers had two or three long haired cats, and little motivation to clean up after them.
My partner & I picked up the effing hide a bed couch and started manuevering it out the door. He stumbled just a bit, and this caused me to lose my grip. We worked together enough times to know that in this situation, we both kind of lunge toward eachother to help the other guy get his grip (without dropping the furniture).

I'm sweating like a pig, wearing a muscle shirt with a low cut neck, the side of the couch is covered in long, white cat hair.
We got the fataing piece of shinguard into the fataing truck & threw it down. Both of us looked like fataing santa claus with this white cat hair stuck to our necks & chins.
The woman pretended not to notice. Didn't offer a towel, nothing.
I was p*ssed off, so I just went to the bathroom, grabbed her stupid-ass decorative towel thing & wiped my sweaty, hairy body down, & threw the towel on the floor.

She never said a word.




Another little horror story (though it still doesn't compare to the industrial waste), was this move taht involved a sectional couch with built in recliners, a big screen, and an enormous highboy made out of the heaviest wood I've ever lifted.
The reason why this was so bad, was because it was all in the basement, inside a room that was constructed after the items were in the room. The fataing door was too small to get these things out. No. Let me re-phrase, the door was located at the bottom of the stairs, and the presence of a wall-like railing hindered the escape of any piece of furniture from the room.

Ah, fata it. I don't wanna re-live it any more than you want to read it.

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Working for a cheque processing company. I worked in proof operation...worst-job-ever!

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Arby's. Only lasted a couple weeks

[Incinerator]

My first job working at Harvey's when I was 16, it was connected to Swiss Chalet and they always made us go over to wash the dishes if Harvey's wasn't busy, I made $6.00 an hour, you could not convince me to do fast food ever again unless you paid me $50 an hour :P

Second worst was the 'dome, the staff break room is absolutely filthy, I've been to some pretty filthy places around the world and this one ranks right up there as top 10, also they feed you leftovers from the concessions upstairs like the hotdogs they couldn't sell 5 days ago, then they sell it to you for half the price and call it "staff benefits"...brutal.

[spydermal]

Working at the A&W when it just opened. Waking up at 6:00 am to make there onion rings was horrible and so was packing like 10 boxes of chubby chicken in there freezer at once. Im just live everbody else who expects there burger from fast food places on time, but man is a one minute too short when the line goes out past the door. Overall it wasnt really that bad except the waking up at 5 am to ride my bike there.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

This came up in an earlier thread this year.

Like many here, I also worked as a lackey at Canadian Tire Dalhousie, only I was a Parts Counter lackey - home of the slack jawed and dregs of society, and totally devoid of women.

The Infamous "Ten Foot" Rule
I'm not sure which idiot came up with this wonderful customer service revolution but by edict of the evil General Manager, staff had to ask any customer in a 10 foot range if they needed a hand. Try stocking an entire aisle under those rules of engagement. I had a better idea. Since I do accents pretty well, I always pretended to not know English and threw out a few pidgin phrases. Not being white helped too. They quickly went off to find another lackey.

Low Carb Diet
Guy comes in and customer orders a Holley Carb for his Mustang. Being a more exotic item I remember this guy. Gets it a few days later. Two weeks after that, he comes back to customer service and demands a refund. Thing is, he's clearly used it. Mounting holes are mangled as the guy didn't use washers and it's in danger of spontaneously combusting from the gasoline vapors. I get called up to CS as they needed an OK from parts, which I defer to my manager. Gets into a shouting match with the guy, but eventually relents as quite frankly, he couldn't care less either (a fellow lackey in arms)

Battery Duty
Crappy Tire used to get it's automotive batteries dry - highly corrosive acid had to be poured into the cells by us Parts Lackeys. Saftey gear consisted of decent gloves, NO apron, and a full face shield. Oh, and a big box of Cow Brand baking soda to act as neutralizer should you spill it on anything (stolen from housewares).

A fancy vacuum pump in theory shut off the flow of acid as it neared the top of the cell - however, years of neglect meant that the shut off rarely worked and usually splattered everywhere. Judicious use of the filler meant you could usually fill a cell with a minimum of spilling or underfilling it (ummmm.... which was rare? )

One day 2 skids come in and the manager asks me to fill every last freaking battery and stock the bunkers. After what felt like the fiftieth battery or so my concentration was waning. Picture Homer at the Quick-E-Mart filling Squishies when Lisa got a Pony. Anyways, I have the filler on full pressure to fill these suckers quick and neglect to yank the filler out fast enough. Sprays my crotch with acid. I mumble great...great and dust myself down with Cow Brand to neutralize it. Works great until I toss my khakis in the wash and re-hydrate the acid. I kept these pants for posterity.....



Much ado About Nothing
Big Italian dude comes to the counter. Looks like a real life Mario, from my Nintendo. Is proud as heck to have just bought a new Ford Festiva. Is worried that someone may steal his new wheels. Literally. Ordered custom McGard Lock Nuts (I didn't think they even made em for this POS) for $275. Who on earth steals 13" wheels??? Wouldn't you just tuck the Festiva under an arm and run?


Remeber kids... stay in school!

[Displaced Flames fan]

KFC my Junior year in high school. $3.35/hr back in the day. Worked my ass off too.

[Nilson_26]

No other former McDonalds employees here? That's pretty strange.

I did three years there... I think I have had every menu item thrown at me. People walk in, or pull into the drive- thru, and forget all basic manners and common sense.

If you didn't want pickles, and you didn't tell that to the person who took your order, why would whipping your burger at someone seem more logical than picking them off or asking for a new one?

[TheCommodoreAfro]

Originally posted by Flames Draft Watcher@May 28 2005, 01:09 AM
Arby's. Only lasted a couple weeks

Me too. But I was heading to Germany & Austria with school so I toughed it out for my entire Grade 12. The funnest part of that was that when I worked at Arby's we got all of the drunks from the then Longhorns on Friday and Saturday night. I don't know how many beef and cheddar sandwiches I fed to drunken cowboys angling for a scrap during that time.

But that was some time ago. Some of you have had some truly crappy jobs...

[RougeUnderoos]

http://www.history.ca/microsites/worstjobs/

Sounds like a good show if anyone is interested. The Globe TV critic was pumping it up today in the paper.

[Agamemnon]

Cribbing.

Wouldn't do it for less than $40ish an hour. I'm sure for that rate, I'd have to own the company.

[JiriHrdina]

What the heck is cribbing?

[Agamemnon]

Originally posted by JiriHrdina@May 30 2005, 08:49 PM
What the heck is cribbing?

It's like pre-Framing.

Basically, there's a hole in the ground. The cribbers get there after excavation, and begin measuring/laying down lines and such to create the wooden structure, or 'crib', to pour the concrete foundation into.

I guess the big difference between cribbing and framing is that we were more basement/foundation oriented, while framers built the actual wooden 'frame' of the house, through to the roof. We never did much beyond the basement.

Can't tell you much more though, I was poorly trained and injured quickly on the site. Those rebar infested holes are injuries just waiting to happen.

[Buff]

I worked at Canadian Tire. It wasn't a bad job, there were aspects that I didn't like, but the worst job I had at Canadian Tire was the reno crew. We had to renovate our store to look more like the new stores. They picked 5-10 regular staff and I was one of them to work on the night-time reno crew with about 30 people hired just for renovations (actually more like 150 if you count the turnover). We started at 7:00 at night and worked until 3:00 if we were allowed to go home. They hired some hard-ass slave driver to oversee the renovations and if we didn't get done by 3:00 what he figured should've been done, then everybody had to stay until everything was done to his satisfaction and we weren't paid OT.

I was pretty much told that if I wanted a job I had to work under these conditions. It was horrible. Couldn't see/talk to family or my girfriend (now wife, who was going to school 5 hours away at the time) I'd be sleeping or working while they were not working and vice versa. This only lasted for 6 weeks until my manager kicked me off the night crew because she saw how it was affecting me and she needed somebody who knew what they were doing to run the garden center and give the rest of the seasonal staff a kick in the pants. I worked there for two or three years after all of this but I'd have to consider being on the reno crew the worst job I ever had.

(it was even worse than loading and unloading hogs from trucks at a livestock plant. Man, you go home and shower for 1/2hour trying to remove that stench from your body)

[RougeUnderoos]

I worked as a busboy at Quincy's for one Stampede Week. What a bloody nightmare. The manager is all "you'll be working as a bartender, making good tips, can you start tomorrow" so I said yes. Then for the next weekI was a busboy. I kept haranguing him saying "I thought I was supposed to be a bartender..." and he's like "next week next week we need experienced bartenders during Stampede...."

So I suffered through the lying and filth, thinking it would be a decent summer job. After a couple days of busboying and clearing maybe 20 bucks a day while the waitresses raked in hundreds I decided to let the clear their own damn tables. That was not a popular decision with the staff or the manager but they couldn't dump me in the middle of Stampede week. I don't know why they couldn't dump me, cuz I wasn't doing anything. 3 days in I knew the restaurant business wasn't for me but I finished out the week cuz I needed the money, paltry as it was, for drinking.

[8 Ball]

Originally posted by Agamemnon@May 30 2005, 02:47 PM
Cribbing.

Wouldn't do it for less than $40ish an hour. I'm sure for that rate, I'd have to own the company.

That would be the worst job I have had also. It amased me at the time how they couldn't come up with another way of doing it.
Pulling up 4 by 8 sheets of 3/4" plywood crusted with concrete and soaked with oil in hot summer weather sucked big time.
They also work you from 7 AM to 9 PM and try and screw you out of stopping for 10 minutes to eat a sandwich. Brutal.

[RatherDashing]

Originally posted by spydermal@May 27 2005, 10:24 AM
Working at the A&W when it just opened. Waking up at 6:00 am to make there onion rings was horrible and so was packing like 10 boxes of chubby chicken in there freezer at once. Im just live everbody else who expects there burger from fast food places on time, but man is a one minute too short when the line goes out past the door. Overall it wasnt really that bad except the waking up at 5 am to ride my bike there.

Which A&W did you work at? I worked at south trail crossing, and did the exact same job as this.