JediDefender.com Forums
Community => Watto's Junk Yard => Topic started by: BillCable on August 25, 2005, 02:23 PM
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I'm sitting here at work, waiting for something to break. Help me feel better about my lack of excitement today. What's the worst job you've ever held?
For me, I worked for a temp agency one summer during college. It was supposed to be pretty good money, and they were supposed to be able to find stuff for you to do pretty easily.
The first thing they signed me up for was a job processing ATF tax forms. A company did this 24/7, in three shifts. I was assigned the 10pm-6am shift. This job consisted of opening envelopes, pulling out a form and usually a check, stapling them together, and sorting the forms into appropriate piles. It was mind-numbing, and the hours didn't help. I stuck with it for about a month before telling them to reassign me.
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Heh, easy.
Two jobs:
1st one, when I was 16. Weekend janitor at a private club (golf, court sports, etc.). Cleaning the bathrooms had to be the most hideous thing ever and I must say, men may be pigs in general, but they've got nothing on women in private :-X I'd clean a thousand men's public washrooms before I cleaned a single female version.
Second one was actually a "plum" job. Ramp attendant with Air Canada in my early 20's. You'd call it a baggage handler which is partly correct. But aside from loading and unloading baggage, those guys also have to do the general cleaning of the aircraft. Good pay, got to work around aircraft doing some pretty cool things like driving the tractor that pushes planes back. It's pretty neat to hook-up and push back a 747 :)
But the downside was the cleaning of the washrooms and the unloading of the material flushed in the washrooms. The cleaning bit wasn't dramatically different from my first "bad" job, women are still pigs. I've picked up stuff I never, ever thought I'd be handling (thank goodness for gloves). But it gets worse.
On small planes you can't use the big "****" truck to empty the reservoirs (yep, planes contain all flushed material until they land at which point routine maintainance empties them out). But on smaller aircraft like a DASH-8 you have to use a smaller, mobile unit. That unit has to be emptied out later as well since it obviously has a more limited capacity. Well one ******, unbeknownst to me neglected to do so, something that we were absolutely mandated to do. I hooked the hose up (8 inch diameter hose) to the thing and released the valve. Fortunately it didn't blow right off, as can happen on larger aircraft, but I had to struggle amidst flowing **** to close off the valve. Nothing, I repeat nothing, is as ******* bad as that.
Needless to say I was a little steamed (literally and figuratively) and went to see my supervisor to find out who the ****wad was that left the thing full. They found out, fired the ******* on the spot and gave me the rest of the day off. They also made me go for a couple of hospital visits as well.
Could have been worse though, one of the guys I was working with reached into the garbage container on one aircraft and was poked by a hypodermic needle someone had shoved in there. He ended up being fine, but this was at the time when the AIDS fears were higher than ever.
So much for plum job. Feel better, Bill?
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Capital Telecommunications, Inc. (CTI) in York, PA. Worst company ever.
It was fine for about the first year then the owner lost his mind. When you got to work in the morning you never knew if he was going to be:
"George, the cool boss that buys a round at the bar and loans you money because he heard your mom was sick"
or
"GVK, the bipolar schitzophrenic who would yell and swear at you while hopping up and down inventing reasons to hate you."
I gutted it out for about a year and a half after everything went sideways. I used to go through a huge bottle Rolaids every month during the last year there. Then I quit and worked at Lowe's for the summer before moving back to NY. It's been 4 years since I left CTI and I haven't touched a Rolaids since then.
E...
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Yes Morgbug... that was genuinely horrific.
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Working at Family Dollar Stores incorperated. Bad buisness techniques. They said you shouldn't offer the customers any help, you should constantly re-stock the shelf, and go get coffee for the manager whenever she wanted it. Plus, they'd talk about other staff to you behind their backs, and then about you when you weren't there.
They would constantly ride your ass about the fact that they didn't get paid enough, and how hurting they were, and what ailments they had. Plus we worked with a woman who has OCD, so she'd take the last half hour (while we were doing trash out on the ice in the back) and wash her hands till they bled, each time. They also illegally worked me over 21 hours a week, to 38hrs, and schedual my days so I fell short a half hour to earn a break.
The manager would bitch about leaving the register bag on the counter (which none of us did.) This came back to haunt her. I eventually quit, and then a month and a half ago, I came across the police blotter. She left the bag on the counter and got over 3k stolen. I laughed so hard.
Man I hated that job.
Kevin
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Easy... Simple...
A paperboy.
My first job was delivering the "Valley News Dispatch", a newspaper that serves the Allegheny-Kiskiminetas River Valleys in the Pittsburgh area.
My route covered the beginning of my road where my brother now lives up to basically my house, and a side road that was a dead-end. I had anywhere from 50 to 80 customers at any given time, fairly spread out in some areas (closer to where I lived) but closer together down near the beginning of the road.
The job paid me about $60 every other week if I was lucky and of course I looked forward to the X-Mas season where I raked in a lot of tips (some rather nice ones in upwards of $20) and could break the $130 barrier.
When I started the job I was like 7 or 8 and shared it with my brother. I quit it when I graduated high school since i did the job usually on my way home from school since it was all on the way.
The reasons this job sucked?
-Old people... I had many elderly on my route who felt it was their American duty to bitch me out daily about the cost of the paper, the time at which the paper arrived at their house, and the manner in which they received it.
Most demanded I put it in their front door and not just on their porch as it would get wet or blow away... These same peckerheads were the people who refused a paper tube attached to their mailbox and DEMANDED it be brought to their doorstep irregardless of how hard it was to get to said doorstep (one guy with a half-mile driveway up a steep hill for instance, and this ******bag didn't tip me once, even at X-Mas).
Wet papers, blown away papers, or anything of that like was met with a rude phone call to my house where it was demanded that I get them a replacement paper and get it to their doorstep.
-My father... My father would relentlessly take his "I didn't take that managerial job offer at the mill so I'm going to **** all over your job" point of view by telling me WHEN to get up and deliver the papers, as well as bitching me out any time there was a mistake.
What's that you ask? Did my father have something to do with my job! Ooooh no, no, no... Of course not! He just liked to make sure I was miserable as piss while doing it.
If my mother offered to give me a ride on the paper route, he'd tell her no she wasn't allowed to... I recall one time I was particularly sick with pneumonia and he physically plucked the car keys from my mother's hand and told her to get supper ready... Off I went into the freezing rain/sleet we were having. Oh joy, oh joy.
-Dead Beats... It's amazing to me how big and shiney the pair of balls any given person will grow when they're dealing with a child. For instance, you wouldn't think to tell the gas man, "Hey I'll pay you next month because I just don't have it right now...", or tell the electricity guy, "Come back tomorrow for the money, I get paid then" and oddly turn off all the lights when he shows to collect the electric bill.
No, he'd shut the f'n lights off for you and you'd pay up or read by candlelight (if you could read, which half these dickweeds had literacy issues so I'm not even sure WHY they had a newspaper subscription unless it was to make sure their relatives weren't in the police blotter).
I don't get why it was koscher to tell ME to come back later for getting paid. Old, young... Fat, skinny... Toothless, more toothless... They were all ********, and ******** to a child at that.
-Non-payment came outta my pocket... This combines with the last point obviously. When I collected money, there was an account at the local bank I was to deposit all collected moneys into. There was a bill I was given by the VND every month that I was expected to meet.
This bill, ironically, was never the same twice irregardless of how many total customers I had... I mean, I'd have 60 one month and they'd want X ammount of dollars, then next month there'd be the same number of customers but they'd want $20 more, so my pay never was the same and for no real reason.
But, to make it worse, I had to deposit this money and whatever left was what I got... That's it. So I'd deposit enough to meet what they wanted as per my bill, but then my pay would definitely vary and some times it was noticeably short.
A correction too, I paid into this every 2 weeks, not monthly... Monthly was another thing wholely separate.
Anyway, as you can see, it was a screwjob.
-Lazy, sub-moronic, Bosses... The bosses I had were usually guys too lazy to work hard at a "real" job and they generally took a big huge smelly dump on their paperboys under their "Command". They were usually the scourge of the Earth, and they made their money based off the number of total customers on their total routes.
SOooooooooooo, a notorious action of the boss was to FORCE on me customers who I know would not pay up every pay week. I'd work to get them axed off the list, but since my old boss, "Booker" got paid based only on the number of customers and not whether they paid or not, then old "Booker" (irony of a guy being named "Booker" when he'd likely never read one) would get these dead-beats put BACK on my route because it got him more $$$ and it lost me $$$ at the end of a pay-period.
Booker, may I find your grave so I can take a healthy, wet, dump upon it.
-Mean/violent customers... I'll never forget the day I unleashed a FURY of vulgarity (at 11 years of age) on old Mr. Loughner for him coming out and yelling at me up one side and down the other. I was at my breaking point that day, and at 11 years old I had a break down with that old codger who never tipped me and told him what I thought of him. He never got a paper from me again and after I reported what he called me/said to me (that made me snap on him in return) the GM of our area actually stepped in and refused him service of the VND, thank god.
But he wasn't the only guy to be mean... One old bitch had a dog that bit, and wouldn't leash it. I wasn't too nice to the dog then so I'd make it fear me in return. Nobody would handle the situation and I was told I had to deliver the paper to her since she paid all the time, so she caught me one day giving her dog an ass-whipping for a bite and she chewed me out... I told her if she wants a dry paper ever again, she'd better back off on that or tie the damn dog up. She tied it up but reported me. And I'm even an animal lover, but that dog was satan with 4 legs.
The irony was I learned to like it and it learned to like me and we became friends. Hah. Still hate the old woman though.
-Scary Customers... One woman, I **** you not, told me about the "stains" she found in her husband's underwear at work and how she was soooooooooooo upset... She was practically in tears.
She found "man stains" in his underwear, and said (I'm not making this up at all), "He's been havin' that gay sex up at Klugh's!" where he worked as a grease-monkey (heh).
Now, this isn't me being mean to gays of course, I'm just repeating what I swear to god was said to me at the tender age of 12 by a woman who unfortunately is still breathing.
She also didn't know what a zit was and thought I was "sick" one day...
I'm not kidding... at all.
So that's about what I'd have to say was my worst job... My first job... It was pretty bad. It paid sorta ok, I mean for a kid it was alright getting $60 or so every other week or so. At the time it fed what buying I needed to do, but it was hard work, little appreciation, and a lot of anger and anxiety for a really not a lot. Take my father out of the "managerial" equation he forced himself into there though, and it wouldn't be the traumatic event in my childhood that I label it as today.
For the bad, there was good... My dad worked with a guy down the road, Jose, who always tipped me nicely at X-Mas because he was a pain to get the $ off him all year long... Jose's a nice guy though. And Mr. Sprankle who'd give me a Silver Dollar every pay as a tip... Or the humor I found in Mr. Ziraki giving me $.10 as a tip every pay and telling me to not spend it all in one place (I have a sense of humor of course).
I also had some surrogate grandparents, the Wrights, on my paper route who lived just a few houses down from me, and they were incredibly good to me all my life and now that they've passed I'm seeing how I took them for granted and miss them every day.
The bad made the job bad though... The good people would've still been in my life.
I'm glad I don't do the job now,a s the lower end of my road's a lot of rental properties with a lot of druggies, many more poor, and a lot less older folks. The poor were always worse to deal with since it cut into my bottom line while the elderly just complained generally.
Those were the days.
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Mine was managing a Bagel Shop when I first moved to CA. It was the worst, low salary pay, 6 days a week, which worked out to lower than minimum wage, and aboslutely no authority over anyone working for me. That only lasted a few months.
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Jesse takes the cake.
Wow.
Kevin
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I worked briefly as Kennel Boy at veterinarian's office in high school.
My duties included:
Cleaning cages.
Getting attacked by demon filled cats.
Holding animals securely to keep them from biting the vets. . .no matter how bloody or mangled.
Bagging up euthanized or dead animals and hauling them to the pick up area out back.
The worst experiences there were cleaning up after Parvo puppies. Parvo is a virus that puppies get which pretty much causes them to explode from both ends. It's highly contageous, and usually fatal, for pups so they get quarantined away from the rest of the Kennel. Imagine, if you will, having to clean with a 50% bleach solution the inside of travel crate where a puppy has been blowing Flyin' Haiwaiin style . No way to do it other than to stick your whole body into the crate and scrub. Disgusting. Then I would get to wash the poo/snot/vomit off of the trembling, sick, frightened puppy and dry him off and tuck right back into the crate to go at it again.
Worst animal hold I ever had to do was for a cat with an obstructed bladder. I had to hold it on it's back while the vet plunged a needle the size of my arm straight into it's bladder and extract the urine that had built up.
Saddest dead animal. . .gigantic Rotweiller with some kind of critical condition that we were going to put to sleep. I had to stand by while his gigantic, flannel clad, bushy bearded, lumberjack owner SOBBED and held him and said goodbye. Awful.
It always made me nervouse holding the animals for euthenasia. . .on wrong move with that needle. . . .and I hated having to hold an animal while the medicine took effect. Nothing like having a dog die in your arms every week or so at 15 years old.
Funniest case I can remember was a lady who broght in her turtle. . her pet for nearly 20 years. . that had gotten flipped on its back. He had struggled so hard to right himself that he prolapsed his rectum. Nothing like a turtle with a big red flap of intestine hanging out the back. I had to assist the vet in tucking everything back in. Wahoo.
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Long John Silver's.
I was one of the cooks. I only worked there a total of two weeks, but by the time I was done, I had blisters all over my hands and forearms, plus more zits then I've ever had before or since.
Nothing will make you stop eating deep-fried food quicker than cleaning the vats of cooking oil. Your arteries will clog just by looking at the grease traps.
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Im currently a line cook in a mexican resturaunt. It doesnt get much worse than that. ;D Not that I havent held some strange jobs in my day. I was at one time or another, The Green Power Ranger at kids birthday parties, a straight D.J. in a gay biker bar, and Ive worked in a mall toy store at christmas time. I'm not sure Ive ever held a decent job. ???
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Green Power Ranger at kids birthday parties,
Which version? Mighty Morphin? Turbo?
If it's the former, I'll pay good money for the costume, if it's accurate and complete.
Kevin
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mine was doing milk, and other variuos dairy, deliveries. 11:00pm thru whenever you're done in the bitter cold, rain, dogs driving around in 1967 truck that constantly broke down with no radio and no heater in the driving space and the constant cold from freezer blowing on me.
one saving grace I walked up to drop off a delivery on someones doorstep right when a girl was screaming from an orgasm from that house, never happened again but I'll never forget that house.
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Customer Service from Schwan's sucked - Should have known that I should have gotten a different job when my first day there the girl training me tells me that her first call of the started off "I'm calling to let Schwans know that my driver is ******* my wife!" These were common calls; at least 1 a week. At least you knew the drivers were living up to the Schwan's moto of "Fullfilling the needs of the time concious consumer!"
Best Buy No Lemon Call Center - I took all sorts of abuse from people that I rejected. I have been called every name in the book for every race, creed, and sexual origntation. The calls started at 8 AM and the light letting us know that we had calls on the line never stopped blinking till 6 PM. If it wasn't for Nate popping the line to get rid of the calls we would have been at it till 7 PM. It is a wonder I drank as heavily as I did at that job. Constant abuse from 8 to 6 is a horrible way to work. Luckily that job only lasted 9 months.
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Along the lines of your milk delivery story, I used to deliver newspapers. I usually delivered the Sunday ads on Saturday evening when the arrived at my house, which was against the rules but everyone tipped me better to do it. One of my customers, a very cute girl in her 20s (I'm around 14 at the time) lived in a duplex with her entry door in the back of the house. On the left was the door into the kitchen, and on the right was a large glass pane that looked into the living room. There was a steep hillside at the back of the home and high fences on either side, so the porch was very private. Well one evening I'm delivering the Sunday ads. I walk around the back of the house, pass the window, drop the paper on the doorstep, start walking back and glance in the window. She's walking around. Topless. Tiny string bikini panties. She walked back and forth two or three times and then sat on the couch and started watching TV. And I was frozen like a deer in the headlights. She didn't even notice me. It was the longest and happiest 15 seconds of my young life.
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Jeez, Jesse, I want to buy the 11 year old you a beer in the worst way.
My worst job was when I was 16 or so. My big brother had gotten a streak of ambition and applied for about a thousand jobs. About that same time my mom and dad were strongly hinting it was time for me to find a part time job as well since it was the school year and I was only working at the mall during the holidays and summer (that was at a record store, and that job kicked ass).
My brother got offered a job that he accepted, but about a day later another one of the places he applied called and offered him a job. I was sitting in the room and heard the phone conversation, "I'm sorry, I've accepted another job, but I've got a little brother who's looking for work and he'd be perfect!"
It was a bad sign when they hired me without ever seeing me.
It was at this weird outlet grocery store called "Foods Etc." Basically, it would buy salvaged groceries from trucks that had crashed or whatever and sell them at a discount. My job was to go in at night after the store closed, root through the boxes of demolished groceries, clean off the not-quite-so-destroyed items, price them, and put them on the shelf.
I wanted to make a good impression on my first day, so I rushed home from track practice to shower and change and get ready. I got to the place and they led me into a back room that smelled like the dirty diapers of Satan's offspring. A truck carrying a bunch of catfood had crashed, and the "Foods Etc." team had bought it. I unloaded the first box, opened it up, and was overcome with the stench of moldy, rotten, disgusting cat food and rot. The gushing muck was crawling with maggots, and I had to reach into the box, feel around for cans, pull the cans out and wipe them off to see if they were damaged. Of the hundred or so cans that were in the first crate, I salvaged about five.
For five hours I dug through similar boxes. You'd think that eventually you'd get used to the smell, but you didn't. Every time I dug into the filthy vomitous mush, I'd release a cacophony of putrid aromas.
Needless to say, my post workout shower was in vain.
The next day, as the time to go back got closer, my guts tightened up and I just couldn't bear to go back in. I called the guy and said I wouldn't be back and that I was sorry for the inconvenience. He told me he wouldn't pay me for the night before if I quit on him, and I said I didn't care, wished him luck, and said goodbye.
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Thanks... Yeah, I re-read my post and laughed at my own words because it's all true and makes me sort of depressed the **** that I dealt with. Sounds like everyone has had some pretty crummy jobs... Working retail is a distinctly close 2nd for me though, to working that paper route.
Retailing was always thankless, paid ****, and I could've killed various customers with my bare hands because of how they behaved. Lots of thefts too, despite being in a very nice area. Go figure.
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This is hard to post since you guys have all had "real" jobs...so my "worst" job will not sound near as bad in comparison...
In College and During Grad School I worked summers and any break possible (Christmas/winter etc)... at the Frito-Lay plant here in town.
I was responsible for putting bags of potato chips in boxes, then putting the boxes on skids. That part of the job...not so bad..
Whenever we would change flavors, we would climb the 3 story machine that conveys the chips to the bagging machine. It was noticiably WARM..like 100 + degrees. What made it worse was if we were switching from regular chips to Sour Cream and Onion, Bar B Que or the all time worst...Salt and Vinegar..it would sting everything it or its vapors came in contact with.
Also as part of the job we got to cut taters that were too big into smaller parts (once saw a potato as big as a human head), but this job was about 10 feet from the frier..so it was great on the skin..
Another great day was when the semi truck full of potatos was accidentally dropped off the giant lift that would normally "dump" them into the hopper. So I got to spend a nice Texas summer afternoon shovelling potato.
The other deal is that the Potato Chip factory runs NON-stop from April till September, no days off.
Plus I worked 2nd Shift...2:30pm to 10:30..meaning I didn't get to do a darn thing all summer.
The grease ate through several pairs of shoes as well.
In retrospect it was not that bad...I made a ton of money, cuz I was too tired to spend it and had mandatory overtime and to this day (13 years later) my watch alarm is set to beep when I was suppossed to get ready to go in... reminds me that no matter how bad the current gig might be (and it doesn't suck per se) it's not the Chip Job. It was about 3 years ago before I ate Potato Chips though...and I'll never eat a cheeto again.
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I've been thinking about this one, and I really don't think I've had a job that I absolutely hated. Sure there's been positives and negatives about the ones I've had, but overall they were fun:
Age 14-15 -- Paper route...easy first job.
Age 15-17 -- I had a summer job working at a camp ground. I liked the group I worked with and we did a lot of various maintenance stuff...the worst part of that was cleaning out septic tanks on various trailers...but it didn't take too long and the pump did most of the work.
Age 17-22 -- I worked at a bowling alley doing pinchaser/maintenance. Long hours and stuff, but I got to bowl for free and the people I worked with were great.
Age 19-22 -- I had a summer job working as a teacher's aid with multiply-handicapped children. It would wipe me out, but it was extremely rewarding work.
Age 20-21 -- I worked as night security for the dorms at UCF. It gave me time to study and I was a bit of a nightowl at the time.
Age 22-present -- US Air Force. Starting out as an A!C and working my way up to Captain I've had several jobs and assignments:
'93-99 -- After basic training and tech school, I worked as an Autotracking radar journeyman. It was a neat job because we maintained and operated radars that simulated AAA and SAMs. We would lock up on the fighters and give them a realistic training environment by "shooting them down". To be truly effective at the job we had to learn enemy weapons and tactics. Not something I thought I'd be doing in an electronics career field. Plus we were stationed on the outer banks of North Carolina. I plan on possibly retiring there someday.
'99-02 -- I was reassigned to Eielson AFB, Alaska! Since my Autotrack job was being contracted out, my primary duty there was Quality Assurance Evaluator (QAE). I wasn't too fond of watching contractors do my job, but luckily, we had additional duties of range improvement and various other engineering projects, plus we hosted COPE THUNDER -- PACAF's premier inter-service exercise. I got to be involved in planning and executing an air war from beginning to end, plus I got to work with various different units and even foreign services! Add to that I got to ride around the Alaska interior on track vehicles, 4-wheelers, snow machines, and even by helicopter! I was in heaven! I also would love to move back there someday!
'02-03 -- After getting my BS degree from University of Alaska Fairbanks, I went to OTS and spent a year training as a space and missile officer at Vandenberg AFB, California. It's a great area, and the surfing's better than the East Coast, but I was eager to get back to the operational world. Still, I had a lot of fun there.
'03-07 -- I was a missile officer at FE Warren AFB, WY. I loved the first two years as part of the 400th Missile Squadron. I pulled combat alert duty with the Peacekeeper weapon system. We also deactivated that weapon system as part of a treaty with the Russians. I worked with some of the most team-oriented people ever, plus it was my third, small-unique unit I've been in and loved how everyone took care of eachother. After the deactivation, I went to the Minuteman II weapon system. The teamwork aspect just wasn't as prevalent as it was in PK, add to that I worked for a commander that I did not really like or respect, it made the second half of my tour there a lot tougher. I still worked with some great people, and it was probably one of the most important jobs I've had, so I still liked it overall. Plus, I lived in Ft Collins, Co where I met my wife and got to meet a couple of Forum Members! ;D
'07 -- present -- After a 4 month stint at Vandenberg, I am now a Mission Commander for the 2nd Space Operations Squadron at Schriever AFB, Co. We do all the command and control of the GPS constellation. The crew life is better than missiles, and I work with a great team of enlisted and officers, plus the location is awesome! We have a great house, with an awesome view of the Rockies (Pike's Peak in particular), plus a shorter commute than I had from Ft Collins to Cheyenne. My only regret is I am trading off a technical role for a leadership one. I'm learning all I can about what these satellites do as well as the systems that control them, but being the crew leader is also fun.
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Seeing as I only had two jobs, I would say my worst job would be working as a Courtesy Clerk at Vons grocery store. I loved most of the people I work with but there were times when I couldn't stand it because of sick people who figure they could do whatever they wanted to do since they didn't have to clean up the mess. For an example some lady had her young son pee on the floor of one of the food asile. Luckly I didn't have to clean up one of my other coworkers had to.
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When I was 15 I sold concessions at college football stadiums. I had to wear a silly paper hat (which came off the second I was out of sight of the concession stand) and yell "Coke Here!" for a good three hours. Totally thankless job and hardly paid anything - we made $2 for every flat of 20 cokes we sold.