Worst job you ever had...

[chid]

I've never had a horrible job, all of highschool I worked as a cashier for a grocery store. I then went high class and was cashier for a specialty Italian grocery store, my boss there was.. obsese and she would have constant staff meetings to nag my friend and I for being sarcastic to our co-workers. They were basically Oprah/Dr.Phil/Maury episodes, I would sit there laughing at how stupid it was to be getting paid to work out 'issues' with co-workers.

I think when I started working in 2001 I made 6.25/hr. I'm sitting at work right now, its pretty funny getting drunk people calling.

[BuzzardsWife]

Being a hairdresser was disgusting. Scabby heeds, dandruff, pimples..psoriasis, yuck. 99 percent of the time it was ok, but the good did not make up for the scabby's, grouchy old ladies, bratty kids and women standing on top of you while you cut their man's hair. Second worst, my first and only fast food job. It lasted 3 months of my life.I was 15 and thought it would be good experience, yeah right.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by vicphoenix13

Please tell me this was back in the 70' or 80's? I am in my late 20's, and I never made less than $8.00 an hour.

I worked for $3.85 an hour at the Stampede for my first job and I am 32. Even after I turned 18 I worked for $6.50/7 doing landscaping.

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

Canadian minimum wage in 1987 was 4 bucks.

3.85 actually, or maybe it was lower because I was so young.

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by Eastern Girl

The system they used where I was, it was pretty straightforward, so unless your computer froze on you, you couldn't really screw up, because there was an answer for everything, a full script for people to use.

What did the script say when the guy on the other end of the line is telling you he's a consultant who charges $60/hour with an 8 minimum for all unsolicited phone calls and then asks if you want to proceed. I've never had a telemarketer yet with a pat answer for that question. If they say yes, I ask for a billing address.

I don't get too many callbacks from the same telemarketing companies for some reason. Weed-man used to call on a regular basis until I used this method.

[burn_this_city]

I worked at save on foods when I was 14.. They were in Midnapore mall but only stayed in business for a few years. I worked the grocery dept for the biggest ###### of a manager. He seriously expected me to work like a slave for $5.25. When I first started they didnt have any hours to give me so I worked 4 hours a week. We got paid every week but they also took $5 in union dues. When you only make $21/week and they take $5 now you're making less than minimum wage. I got my due though, check the confession thread to hear about my indirect compensation.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

We got paid every week but they also took $5 in union dues. When you only make $21/week and they take $5 now you're making less than minimum wage.

The UFCW has the biggest scam going when it comes to part time staff (ie students). Nothing like taking 25% of someone's paycheck and then actually pushing that person down in favor of a more "senior" member.

[burnin_vernon]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

Parts counter monkey at Crappy Tire in the mid 90's. Worst part of it was filling batteries with acid from the vaccuum pump that was supposed to turn off when it was full but never did so it'd always splash over your burning holes in your clothes. No goggles and a big box of Cow Brand baking soda we'd steal from housewares was the extent of the Health and Safety program there. One particularly bad splash left my pants looking like I took a shotgun blast to the crotch.
.

I can vouch for this in every way. Our battery station was also cramped in a dark corner of the back and you couldn't even see when the batteries weere full. The best were motorcycle batteries that we didn't even have a machine for and could not do without spilling. Also, our vaccum system was screwed and near the end, the air would get smoggy with acid and you would have that horrible taste in your mouth all day.

I loved the customers that thought that the 16 year old working there must pretty much be a mechanic. Usually the same ones who would ask, "what do i need to fix my own brakes?"

[Muta]

When I was in New Zealand I worked for a telemarketing company, which of course, advertised that it was for a market analyst position. Stupid me, I thought it was actually a better job than it was.

After laughable training - seeing if I knew how to advance through a generic computer screen asking questions that popped up on the screen, being told for four hours how to complete a survey - I had to come in the next day to begin 'work'.

I showed up at 10:00 expecting a desk and stuff, and they sat me in this room with row after row of computers (from the 1980's), and they made me and about 20 other people sit down at the computers and 'commence' surveying. There was a 'supervisor' up front that watched over the group; she just stood in one place at the front the entire time. If anyone so much as looked out the window or started chatting with the person next to them, she went ballistic, slammed her fists on her desk, publically embarassed you for being out of line and screamed at them to get back to work. We were allowed 10 minutes break on an 8-hour shift, and we were only allowed to do three things - go to the washroom, have a SMALL cup of tea or have a SMALL cup of hot chocolate.

There was a quota of surveys we had to meet, for which I never did. You weren't allowed to look up, or do anything to could have possibly meant you weren't focused at this computer 100% of the time. I was saying I was calling from Scranton, New Jersey and doing a survey for some other research firm, which was a complete farce. Calling people in the southern states were the worst... I got so many death threats from them and insults from them that it was just too bizarre.

Eventually I re-wired my headset when the supervisor wasn't looking to disconnect myself from talking to people over the phone; even though it would look like I was completing surveys on her screen. I once asked a question and starting stretching when I did, and she told me this isn't rugby practice, sit back in my chair. I laughed at that, for which I got in trouble.

I promptly never came back after the halfway into the second shift. They called me and told me I HAD to work, and I needed to book shifts; I politely told them where to stick it, and their company practices would never fly back in Canada, and that no one would ever work for them there. Thank God that was the end of that; I'd rather put myself in debt for a while than have to work at a telemarketing company again.

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by Muta

I promptly never came back after the halfway into the second shift. They called me and told me I HAD to work, and I needed to book shifts; I politely told them where to stick it, and their company practices would never fly back in Canada, and that no one would ever work for them there.

Why didn't you just book shifts and never show up. Or better yet, show up and see how mad you could make the 'supervisor'. Bring a case of beer to share with your fellow workers while making lewd insinuations toward the 'supervisor' or just asking her VERY personal questions would have been my plan of attack.

[4X4]

Originally Posted by Superflyer

Selling vacuums door to door.

Ugh. I did that for one day. Did the stupid training course and they sent me out on my first call. It was a little old couple that totally wanted to buy the vacuum. At the last minute, I felt so awful about scamming these poor old fogies into buying a $2,000 vacuum that I told them that I had to go and that I'd come back the next day to finalize the deal.
Instead, I went back to the office and gave them their stupid machine back and quit. What a scam.

But my worst job was moving. Did that for about 6 weeks during one of the worst heat waves I can remember. That sucked. People are so disgusting. I couldn't believe the things that I'd find in couch cushions. Everything from petrified cat crap to dildos.

[nickerjones]

welp my worst job ever is i sold Timeshare.. it was actually good pay and i thought timeshare was a good thing. I even sold one to my parents. For my first 8 months or so i was selling in what was called front line and podium sales. Front line i did the whole spill+ resort tour , then showed them a price and then a manager came over to do a price drop and get them to buy. In podiums, i had a tour a speaker gave the spill and i walked them around the resort and then came back showed them a price and the manager would come over as well.. i made 6% percent when i did it myself and 3% when i did the podium. Ill admit i loved the money and was one of the top salesman for the 8 or so months.

Not til i got my "promotion" did i realize how bad timeshare was. I got a promotion to doing road shows . My original job was 8 months of selling to people who didnt have or understand timeshare. The promotion had me going to different cities and putting on a dinner with owners and then trying to upgrade their package.... i made 10% of what i upgraded them for but the managers were alot more hardcore. They trained me by saying all these people have problems and the only solution is more of this. I listened to these problems and then tried to get them to buy more.... they would say no then a manager would come over and lie and lie and lie til they upgraded.... my concious got the best of me after 2 road shows i quit .......

the problems were the original sales person lied and the package wasnt working and now they were getting lied to spend more money.....Now i see the problems my parents have with the timeshare i sold them and i feel really really bad....

[Reggie Dunlop]

When Cheese started working, he was paid in farthings...

[mykalberta]

I havent had near the bad jobs as some of you. Working as a contractor for Fujitsu Consulting for a summer between 2nd and 3rd year was as bad as I have had it. Great money, but the client and employees were pricks.

[FurnaceFace]

I worked at Safeway back in the day when they didn't have quarter carts and specific areas for carts so they were all over hells half acre in the parking lot. Collecting carts at Southland Mall in Regina when it's the prairie trifecta of -30, snowy, and windy, does not make for a fun evening.

I also had a stint one summer where I worked at The Student Union at the U of R. Again, this was back in the day of the old Lazy Owl pub in the "temporary" building. Another guy and I were tasked with cleaning the drop ceiling supports, which were identical to what many people have in their basement. Imagine a lifetime of smoke wafting up to your basement ceiling, those white supports end up very much caked in yellow brown tar. It would make any smoker stop.

More interesting was the bucket of "chemicals" we had. You put half the supports in for a few seconds and then pulled them out and had half a support covered in tar and half white as snow. Impressive, and scary at the same time. After our first couple of supports we didn't go near the stuff without gloves and eye protection. Thankfully that only lasted for a week or two and I ended up getting a better job.

[Nancy]

Originally Posted by Muta

I promptly never came back after the halfway into the second shift. They called me and told me I HAD to work, and I needed to book shifts; I politely told them where to stick it, and their company practices would never fly back in Canada, and that no one would ever work for them there. Thank God that was the end of that; I'd rather put myself in debt for a while than have to work at a telemarketing company again.

Meh, I knew people who had pretty much identical jobs in Vancouver in the 1990s.

These days, Montreal is the main hotbead for sleazy telemarketing operations in Canada.

[enthused]

Cleaning up garbage at the Warped Tour. I think I got paid something like $5 an hour to pick up bottles covered in puke, and have guys slap my ass when I bent over. It was just all around dirty.

[HPLovecraft]

I've passed out pamphlets in downtown Toronto, stood on the side of the street chugging people for charities, was the clean up guy for a carpentry studio that failed every safety standard and every old guy there hated me for my youth... I was a lobster fisherman for a bit, potato grader, worked a number of call-center types (although the marketing survey one was the worst), and worked for a very lame moving company. Take yer pick.

Yeah, I'm still deciding what I want to do with my life, haha.

[HPLovecraft]

Oh, I want to add a story about my time chugging here in downtown Toronto.

Now, as many people know, there are some strange folks here who roam the streets. My job was to stand there, say hey to everyone, get them to stop, and then try to convince them to donate to the charity. It actually felt half-way decent to do the job, as it wasn't commission or any such nonsense, but the majority of the passersby HATE you for it.

Anyways, I had never actually been scared by a crazy like I was this one time. It was a freezing, pouring raining day outside near College Park (for those familiar with the city), and this huge, bearded, crack-head of a man kept stomping up and down the street, stopping to yell at some terrified college student every once in awhile when, I can only guess, the fancy hit his fried, empty brain.

He spotted me in my little potato sack looking outfit with binder in hand and IMMEDIATELY made a bee line across the street toward me in full traffic. I seen him coming and done my usual routine when I would see an insane person approach: look away, curse softly to myself, and pretend I was busy looking at something off in the distance. Needless to say, this didn't work.

He closed rapidly, getting DIRECTLY in front of me (breaching personal space quite easily), and starting screaming at the top of his lungs about the charity I was working for having stolen him as a baby and planting government technology inside of him. I kid you not. Stereotypes of insane, crack-addicted people are quite true, they ALL think the government is after them. After about 5 minutes of this, and my refusing to make eye contact, he finished with by stating he was the effing Messiah.

I thought for sure I was going to either get pummeled, or stabbed by a used needle.

Man, I have some stories to tell about that job... It was the first one I got after moving to Toronto on my own from small town PEI.