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lillycoyote's avatar

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

Asked by lillycoyote (24865points) November 8th, 2011

This question was asked 3 times between April 29 and May 22, 2008 but not since, as far as I can tell, so perhaps it’s O.K., perhaps it’s time to ask it again. :-)

I’ve had a few pretty bad jobs, the worst one I’ve ever had, I had for so long, and was so complexly and peculiarly, uniquely bad that it would be difficult to describe.

But the first job I got, when I first moved to Austin, TX and just needed a job, any job, was at a bookstore on Guadalupe St. that sold text books and U.T. paraphernalia; everywhere you looked, it was a sea of big blocky text books and burnt orange. I like my co-workers, we had fun commiserating, but the job itself, and management, were pretty bad.

I don’t remember exactly what time the store opened, I think it was 9:00 a.m., but all the employees had to walk through the alley in back of the store, enter through the loading dock and clock in. At exactly 9:00 a.m., the floor manager would shut the loading dock doors, so if you were even a minute late, it wasn’t enough that it would show on your timecard, with the loading dock closed, if you were late, you had to go around to the front of the store, enter through the front doors and make the walk off shame across the store, where the floor manager was always standing, always with his arms crossed and his steely eyes staring right through you, to the back, where the time clock was. That business seemed kind of unnecessary

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24 Answers

WestRiverrat's avatar

Gravedigger in an old cemetery where we couldn’t bring in the backhoe. It was all pick, shovel and wheelbarrow work.

HungryGuy's avatar

Back in the recession of 2000, I got laid off my programming job from Megatelco and got a job as a car pusher, er, salesman. Didn’t sell a single car in 6 months and got shown the door. Most of the salespeople there could sell air conditioners to Eskimos. But If I were asked to sell air conditioners to desert dwellers that didn’t need any electricity to run, I still wouldn’t be able to sell any.

FutureMemory's avatar

I worked at a mom and pop copy shop in Manhattan for 1 weekend. I had to go through 3 interviews for a shitty part time position where the average worker was still in high school. As I stood there waiting to be told what to do for the first hour of my first day, the “boss” was told to go fuck himself by an employee and didn’t bat an eye – I should have walked out then. Luckily it only took 2 shifts for me to come to my senses and quit.

Neizvestnaya's avatar

Proofreading aloud for a pervert attorney when I was a teenager. In retrospect, I can see now why he was paying $15.00hr in 1984.

Blackberry's avatar

Scullery duty on the ship. I was on a small ship, the ones that get tossed around when there’s a bad storm. So imagine trying to wash dishes while sliding back and forth and trying to balance. It’s hot, steamy, dishes you just washed are falling….....God I just became angry and depressed thinking about it lol.

lillycoyote's avatar

@Neizvestnaya One of my bad jobs was working for a small company owned by a pervert attorney. He was little squirrelly little guy; one of those guys who’s so clean and well groomed it’s actually kind of creepy and always smelled like soap.

Neizvestnaya's avatar

@lillycoyote: Had my pervert attorney been meticulously scrubbed and soap smelly then I would have been tempted to keep letting him sit so close to me while I collected some sheckels.~

Blackberry's avatar

@lillycoyote Patrick Bateman clean?

lillycoyote's avatar

@Blackberry I can imagine. My dad served on an Evarts Class Destroyer Escort during WWII. He always told me that that class of DE was built for the British as part of the Lend Lease program but the British wouldn’t take them because they were top heavy. He had quite few stories about getting pretty tossed around in that thing. I remember this from growing up: for about 30 years after he got out of the Navy, he slept with his arm wrapped around the bed post, a habit he picked up in the Navy. He slept in the upper “bunk” and kept his arm wrapped around the chain so he wouldn’t fall on the floor in his sleep.

lillycoyote's avatar

@Neizvestnaya That level of grooming and cleanliness just seems creepy to me. I don’t know why. Like maybe those guys are perpetually having to clean off the slime that’s oozing from their pours.

@Blackberry Patrick Bateman. I had to look that one up. :-) American Psycho right? I haven’t read the book or seen the movie.

Blackberry's avatar

@lillycoyote Ouch, I forgot I’m in the “new navy”. It’s not as hardcore. We had straps to keep us in. It was a cloth strap that went from the bottom frame to the top frame so when we rolled we would just hit that.

And you should check out American Psycho. One of the few book-to-movies that was good.

Coloma's avatar

At 17 in a crab processing factory. Cracking crab legs with a mallet from a tub of them pocked in ice.

OMG! If the legs did not slide out whole and were broken, they were deemed “inferior” and we were docked pay.

I lasted about 3 weeks…and had a new found respect for lowly labor. :-/

Neizvestnaya's avatar

@Coloma: A friend of mine once took a job on a fish boat that would also process the catch, they’d be out for 2–3 months at a time and she said it was like slave labor except the pay was high. I’d be terrified if I didn’t do a good job that I’d end up “accidentally” overboard and lost.

Seaofclouds's avatar

Deboner at a chicken processing plant in DE. Worst job ever!!

Blackberry's avatar

@Neizvestnaya They certainly do make some decent money if they make catches, though. I know a couple, and they both do this. Needless to say, they’re “ballin’ outta control”.

lillycoyote's avatar

@Seaofclouds That is a bad one!

jazmina88's avatar

I have 2 : setting appts. for vinyl siding where I had to say surveyors were gifting them.

The second, a cheesecake factory with a fast line, made me look like Lucille Ball. only 2 days there.

Judi's avatar

My very first job at Taco Bell. I was a highschool kid earning money for clothes and everyone else there was totally supporting themselves. There was a lot of resentment towards me. I think the only people more miserable than me were my co workers who worked their asses off for pennies and had to pay rent and utilities with it.

Response moderated (Writing Standards)
ucme's avatar

Right out of school, I was thrust into this fish processing plant by my head of a dick careers advisor.
It was all of a week before I packed that shit in.
I mean, who wants to come home smelling of fish?
Be like climbing into bed next to a naked Barbara Bush :¬(

wilma's avatar

I’m not even going to flag that answer up there above @ucme . It’s too much like something janets would say.
You folks have all had much worse jobs than I have. I’m feeling lucky.

OpryLeigh's avatar

I hated both waitressing (in a hotel when I was about 15 years old) and bar work (when I was about 18 years old). Late nights mixed with being constantly on my feet is not my idea of enjoyable work especially as, when I was a bar maid, I already had a full time day job and was trying to earn some extra money. I also don’t like being around really drunk people so it was never going to be a calling for me!!!

Neizvestnaya's avatar

@Blackberry: The girl I know was making $30.hr back in 1985 which made even guts seem ok, for sure.

Paradox25's avatar

Working as a maintenance technician in an egg processing facilty. The Christmas tree farm as a kid was no fun either though.

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