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What's the worst job you ever had?
  • fatchickonabikefatchickonabike
    Posts: 5,638Member

    In my case, my first job was also my worst. It was the summer of 1985. I was 15 years old. My dad's friend started up a mail packaging company and I got a summer job there.

    Always maxi pads had just come on the market and their special stay-dry top layer and wings were revolutionary at the time. Unfortunately, what the company didn't realize was that the special stay-dry layer and the exhaust from the propane-fueled forklifts in their warehouses were a poor mix. Specifically, the exhaust caused a chemical reaction that turned the pads yellow. Pee yellow, to be exact. But the company discovered that not all the pads in a box would turn yellow - only some did. Their solution was to hire a company to repackage the non-yellowed pads into free sample packs.

    My illustrious job, in a warehouse with no air conditioning, was to grab maxi pads from a chute and place them just so on a conveyor belt so they could be sealed into the sample packs. We had to wear white cotton gloves and shower bonnets. Very chic.

    It would get ultra hot in the warehouse, so the company put in fans the size of jet engines to cool things down. All this did was give people colds from standing in a stiff breeze while slick with sweat. Breaks were whenever the cantina truck showed up. Staring at the conveyor belt gave people motion sickness, so there was always at least one person puking their guts up in the bathroom, which, naturally, was adjacent to the break room where we enjoyed the slop from the cantina truck.

    It was a minimum-wage job, which at the time was something like $3.75 an hour. Everyone who worked there had been working this kind of job forever and had only three topics of conversation: sex, soap operas and winning the lottery. After three weeks there, I was about to lose my mind. I pictured myself working in a job like that for half a century until retirement age and thought, "Hell,no!"


    It was a great incentive to do well in school, though.


    What was your worst job?

    "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof bullshit detector.” - Ernest Hemingway
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    well behaved women seldom make history
  • CanadianMamaCanadianMama
    Posts: 9,655Administrator, Moderator
    My worst job was being a historical interpretor at a National Park. I had to dress up like I was from 1812. I'm talking wool socks, bloomer pants, a dress slip, a long sleeve shirt, a dress over it, an apron, a bonnet and a hat, in the summer. It was terrible! Plus as a historical interpretor you weren't acting anything out, there was no point to have us in those outfits except to torture us! 

    community-manager


  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
    well behaved women seldom make history
  • fatchickonabikefatchickonabike
    Posts: 5,638Member

    Ugh, that sounds horrible, @CanadianMama!


    LOL @mammatroll.

    "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof bullshit detector.” - Ernest Hemingway
  • OxiMOMOxiMOM
    Posts: 3,055Member
    I worked at a printing factory for about 3 months.  12 hour overnight shifts 3 nights a week every other weekend. i had to pick up stacks of magazine pages huge I'm talking 6-8 inch wide stacks of paper that were stuck together.  you then had to "jog " the papers by running your hands across them and bending them then banging them on the table to get them all even again. then you had to feed them into a machine not to bad till you get put on 3-4 pages.  by the end of the 12 hours my fingers would be swollen and blistered and i went though a pair of gloves a week because the paper would wear them down.  Not to mention my back would be rocking from standing  all night. The pay was REALLY good but just not worth it to me.

    Other worst job ever  kennel person at a vets office, that was mainly bad  because I had been working as a vet tech for 2 years, I went from being top dog to being lowest. got talked down to even though i was fully capable of dong the work the vet techs did and knew just as much as them.  only difference my tech training was hands on not at a college so i didn't have a piece of paper saying i knew my shit. 

  • lifeisgood
    Posts: 481Member
    I held a job when I was 18 for exactly two days.  It was on a crew of 3 people for cleaning houses.  The third on the crew was the 'owner', he was about 40 and a lazy sweaty slob.  I knew he was a dirty old pervy drunk on day one!!  He didn't do anything except ogle me and the other girl while we cleaned the customers house.  I walked out on day two because the customer was walking distance from my house.  I told my parents I'd press charges against him if they made me do the 'right' thing and go back to finish the day of work.  I didn't get paid and I was FINE with that.  I guess it was a day and a half and not two days on second thought.
  • fatchickonabikefatchickonabike
    Posts: 5,638Member

     

    "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof bullshit detector.” - Ernest Hemingway
  • fatchickonabikefatchickonabike
    Posts: 5,638Member
    ^^^ Okay, the tags are acting REAALLLY weird all of a sudden.
    "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof bullshit detector.” - Ernest Hemingway
  • fatchickonabikefatchickonabike
    Posts: 5,638Member
    Now everything I post is showing up in red! WTF????
    "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof bullshit detector.” - Ernest Hemingway
  • i_am_a_thunderbirdi_am_a_thunderbird
    Posts: 1,684Member
    Pizza delivery girl for Pizza Pizza when I was 16-17.

    Having to deal with disgusting perverts trying to get me to come in to their homes, etc. Ew.
  • lifeisgood
    Posts: 481Member

    @fatchickonabike   lmao....my parents and I laugh about it now.  My mom wanted me to honor my word and finish the day.  She thought I was being dramatic...which...I admit..I had a flair for back then.  My Father quietly informed her he'd never seen me walk away from ANYWHERE without calling one of them for a ride...so it must have been bad.  Mom had to agree....hahahaha

    @Oximom  ..my hands ache just thinking about that!

  • kmetz44kmetz44
    Posts: 2,569Member
    my first job was as a bus-person for a restaurant called Mama's.  It had awesome food, seemed classy, ect.  do yourself a favor...NEVER think that just because a place is expensive, its classy back there in the kitchen...

    all the washers got high (so did I though) from the aresol whipped cream can, 

    when the waitstaff would take your food to box it up if some fell, it just got scooped back into the takeout container, 

    people had massive amounts of sex in the fridge and even the freezer, 

    the guy making the garlic bread had pink eye ALL the time, 

    I cut my finger REALLY bad and bled all over this HUGE block of butter, instead of throwing it away, they rinsed it off...

    I started there at the age of 14 and the bosses son who was in his thirties tried to get me to give him a bj in the freezer

    uggg from the day I stated working there I have never eaten there and tell others not to either


    Im pretty extraordinary in an ordinary way
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    well behaved women seldom make history
  • fatchickonabikefatchickonabike
    Posts: 5,638Member
    Now all the entries that were in red have gone back to black. Me not understand.
    "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof bullshit detector.” - Ernest Hemingway
  • OnmylastnerveOnmylastnerve
    Posts: 1,648Member
    I worked one 8 hour shift at a telemarking place selling tanning lotion to salons. I couldn't even get
    not my chair, not my problem
  • OnmylastnerveOnmylastnerve
    Posts: 1,648Member
    One Person to take free samples. I sucked so I just never showed up again
    not my chair, not my problem
  • CrashCrash
    Posts: 8,541Member
    Haha, @kmetz44, if you think that restaurant was special in it's 'classiness', you should read some Anthony Bourdain. All kitchens are drug and sex fuelled pits of doom. Lol.
    See ya in another life, sister!
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    well behaved women seldom make history
  • TypoFaeryTypoFaery
    Posts: 1,940Member
    Worst job I ever had was at a kiosk at a mall.  I was 22 at the time. It was on the ones that sold lotion and a nail buffer all in a little gift set. It was commission only and we had to do free demonstrations. Which meant I spent all day buffing other peoples nails and rubbing lotion into their hands and giving it a slight massage.. the guys were the worst part would always get a skeevy look on their face when I was rubbing in the lotion eck! Worst part was the owner stole some of my commissions. Luckily it was only for a few months until I got a job at Claire's. Still a retail slave but at least there was no more lotion demos.
  • collegemommy
    Posts: 426Member
    My first job after quitting college was my worst work experience ever.  I worked at a small tax firm as a data entry clerk.  The office that I worked in with the other clerk was so small that we couldn't both back up at the same time or we'd run into each other...and it was located in the basement of the building among the rows of files.  After working there for a week I also learned that we had several "other duties", one of which was taking out the trash. This meant piling the trash bags from all of the offices up in the basement (in a small room adjacent to our office) until one of the owners brought his truck to take it to the dump because they were too cheap to have a dumpster. Sometimes it took months for him to get around the emptying it so we sat next to decaying garbage in a basement with no windows. We also had to make coffee, make sure the bathrooms were properly stocked and do all of the shopping for the supplies like tp, coffee, soap, paper towels, etc. On top of this, their nickname for us was the 'trashy girls' because we took out the trash.  I finally had enough when it came to my birthday and instead of the normal breakfast pizza or gourmet bagels that they brought in for the office birthday parties they brought me cheap-ass pre-packaged donuts from the grocery store.  I quit shortly there after for a job that paid me twice what they did and asked me to do half the work and didn't give me degrading nicknames!
  • AnonUser23
    Posts: 2,278Guest

    I have moved more times than I can even remember and have lived all over the country so I have had many jobs. I have had many CRAZY jobs! I had been a stripper on and off for 12 years, a swimsuit/lingerie model in my early 20's even a dominatrix once in a dungeon when I lived in Seattle. But NOTHING compares to the HORRORS of the job I had back in 2001. I worked in a bridal shop as a consultant. I applied right after I married my 1st husband. I was trying my hardest to be a good girl and get a seemingly normal job and besides we were living in Maine at the time and there weren't many strip clubs near us lol Why I got hired is still a mystery to me! I was awful at it!! Basically what I had to do was sit down with bride to be and let her tell me her price range and style of dress. Then I would pull a bunch of dresses from the back, shove said women into them then try and lie my ass off and tell them how stunning they were. I know it doesn't sound too awful but I just could not do it. On top of that dealing with their friends, mothers. mil's etc was a nightmare. I figured after a couple of weeks they would fire me but they didn't. It was so weird, it wasn't like I was selling dresses or anything. I sold ONE in 2 months...and I worked there 40 hrs a week! WTF?! lol I finally had to tell THEM that I sucked and had to leave lol


    I suppose I'm just fucked that way though...I prefer a dark, dirty, loud club anyday over the nightmare of bridal dresses :)

  • AnonUser23
    Posts: 2,278Guest
    Oh and a (dis) honorable mention to my very 1st job at KFC where the manager asked me to come into his office so he could show me a video of a women fucking a horse :)
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    well behaved women seldom make history
  • singlemomlongx
    Posts: 250Member
    In the front office of a dog food manufacturer. They couldn't keep any office help the stench was overwhelming...it permeated the air heavily...and it never went away. I ran from there gagging after a day and a half too! Lol
  • Ok, @mammatroll... I love you even more. Sadly, I can say stripping sucked LESS than the light bulb factory...
  • singlemomlongx
    Posts: 250Member
    @reginaphilange. Wow...can anyone say chicken strip flipper three times fast? After a couple glasses of chardonnay? Lmao
  • ^^^^YES.
  • silken
    Posts: 205Member
    My worst job was the one I retired from in July 2010 after over 25 years. I was a sales rep for Merck, a major drug company. For a second, even at this time I was afraid to post the actual name of the company--what the fuck can they do to me now?

    The fact is that I had a horrible manager during my last years with the company--he did not like me and he was truly evil. He tried to break me--and in fact I had a couple of nervous breakdowns. The last one I was seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist. I ended up taking off six weeks due to stress. My daughter had been hospitalized six times in one year. It turned out that the medicine they had put her on for her seizures was causing the problem. Her blood pressure was dropping and they kept having to give her bag after bag of saline to bring it up.

    Dig this--I was in intensive care with my daughter and some asshole fellow how long had she had metabloic assicodis--I did not even know what the fuck that was. I had my laptop with me and did a search and there was a link to the drug she was on Topamax showing that metablic accidosis had been reported.

    I went up to the fifteen floor where I was able to print out the report and the prescribing info of the drug. The doctors looked embrassed.

    The ironic thing is that for the most part the doctors were okay to deal with. If I found a doctor just to be a pure asshole--I would not call on the doctor. What my problem was with the company.

    I am still recovering, I even have dreams about that fucking company. I am back in therapy to deal with that issue.
  • JessJess
    Posts: 135Member
    The worst and best job I ever had was as a Certified Nurse Assistant. It was the worst because of all the shit I had to clean up. My coworkers and I used to call ourselves the Bed Pan Patrol. And after doing it for 2 years I just couldn't emotionally handle taking care of sick people. it was the best because I met the most amazing nurses and patients, people that made a huge difference in my life. I learned sooo much about the human body and I love knowing how it all works.
    But I couldn't handle the shit. Having wee ones was nothing compared to some of the messes I was elbow deep in at the hospital!!
  • AnonUser37
    Posts: 1,765Member
    Wow....suddenly my worst job isn't sounding so bad!! When I was 18 I got a job in a small package store where several of the "old school" troopers and cops used to come in, grab a beer, go out back with it and some scratch tickets, drink it, after calling me baby, cutie or some other obnoxious name, occasionally pinching or patting my bum and then leave. All while in uniform.
    Don't miss that job...at all.
  • DemandaDemanda
    Posts: 4,638Member
    I've worked in a ton of restaurants and @Curious is right.  You'd be appalled at what goes on.  The worst though was at this supposedly upscale bakery.  You know the kind... artisan breads and cappucinos, little bistro tables.  I'd worked in enough kitchens to not be under any delusions about how clean a kitchen would be, but this place took the cake for disgusting, some of which I contributed to.  Serious rodent problem, which is not unheard of in a restaurant, although most places will at least have some kind of pest control in place.  This place had cats.  Cats on the prep surfaces, cats on the chopping boards...  Also a serious maggot problem because the dishwashers were paid a pittance and didn't deal with the garbage right.  Many, many times food was dropped on the floor, stepped on or whatnot, dusted off and served to the customer - although this is common at most restaurants, I'd argue.  One time the mayor had a huge cake ordered for election day, I didn't like the mayor and thought her congratulations cake was presumptuous so I licked all around the edges of it.  What made this place even worse is that they would hire immigrants and pay them far less than what they paid any of us who knew better.  When I left, someone was in the process of labour board negotiations with them, don't know what ever happened with that but I hope they stuck it to 'em.  On any given day, probably around 80% of the kitchen staff was high or drunk (yours truly included)
    The worst thing that happened involving me is when I accidentally sliced off the end of my left thumb when I was helping the salad girls cut their romaine (they cut about 3 cases a shift)  Anyway, I sliced the end off my thumb, screamed in pain, got help, went to the hospital, got taken care of... and then I remembered that my thumb chunk was never picked out of the lettuce.  No one ever complained, but no one picked it out either so I can only assume that someone ate it without knowing.  We all had a mighty chuckle about that one and hoped that a vegetarian was the lucky recipient.  Chefs are a sick and twisted bunch.
    About 2 years ago, all 3 of their locations were closed down, rumours flew that it was health violations and I wouldn't be surprised at all.  I thought it was great they were closed down.  Last Christmas one of their locations reopened, much to my chagrin, and I think another has since reopened.  I always laugh because people think it's such a fancy shmancy place and it really is filthy and disgusting - the kitchen and the family who own it.
    "The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off." ~ Gloria SteinemPhotobucket
  • SaraSara
    Posts: 1,037Member


    Worst job, working as a receptionist
    for a dental office. The work was easy, the hours were good...the ethics were
    atrocious. They would lie to patients telling them they needed work they
    didn't. They scammed the insurance companies. The sanitizing machine broke so
    they just washed the instruments with soap and water and continued business as
    usual. The office manager had everyone running scared. She was a total bitch
    and had people afraid of losing their job if they complained. I made it two
    months.
    <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />



    Think of your problems as challenges to overcome not obstacles to be avoided.
  • Anonymous
    Posts: 29,314
    dairy queen, enough said.
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
    well behaved women seldom make history
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
    well behaved women seldom make history
  • crazygirl83crazygirl83
    Posts: 102Member
    I worked as a house keeper for a cotton factory. Lets just say NASTY! The factory was male dominated. I will never will forget when I had to clean the men bathroom. I will never understand how a man can shit where another man shit and couldn't flush the toilet so they just placed toilet paper over again, again, and again. Yeah, I had to clean it out. Plus add the perv shift managers that saw a young hot thing and wanted to get in my pant. No I don't want your worm in my mouth!...lol...After 3 months of dealing with nastiness I quit and never looked back.
  • alien_love
    Posts: 5Member
    worst job - Hardee's I couldn't get the hang of trying to speak on the drive thru mike and fill orders plus deal with the people at the window. guess I had been spoiled at my first job where we had face to face ordering. lol if only that were my biggest obstacles in my job now !!
  • breezybreezy
    Posts: 3,483Member
    My mom sold vitamins over the phone... buy a years worth and get a free grave plot?! Weird right!? She said the worst was when you got someone on the phone that had a sick or recently deceased loved one.

    Mine was probably a waitress at Dennys. I was a terrible waitress and I also will never eat there again. lol.
  • PsychomommaPsychomomma
    Posts: 143Member
    HAHA!!! My worst job??? How about being a DOG BATHER??? Yep, picture that!!!
  • mommaomommao
    Posts: 174Member
    worst job= cocktail waitress at Hooters.  Sucky hours, awful food, ok money (at the time, I was in my early 20s) but the grab assing I had to put up with was awful).  I would go home and take a shower every night just to get the funk off of me.  It was creepy.  I had to go in full makeup and hair even on days that I felt awful or was just not in to it.  A dog bather sounds more fun to me than this was
    :O
  • Anonymous
    Posts: 29,314
    While I was at college, I worked at a chocolate packing place. It was freezing cold, so much so that my skin would stick to the metal trays!

    For our break we would go to an old condemned mobile building with no windows or door, just spaces were they should have been! That was the 'smoking shed' and we had to use a candle to light it. The snow would go right through that building, from one window space and out the other! At least Scrooge provided one candle a year - we had to provide our own.

    We could not leave the work line to go t o the toilet or for any other reason, and the men ruled the women. I would spend 6hours pushing the holes into the boxes for three Cadburys Creme Eggs to go into. My hands would be frozen into hooks by the end of the shift.
  • Mommy7878
    Posts: 5Member

    I was a bank teller in a VERY small bank in a VERY small town. There were three tellers, including me, who worked there full time (this was two too many), and a loan officer came in one day a week. One of the tellers was a 3 times divorced bitter BITCH. The other was married, but hated her husband, and was a neurotic, insecure, habitual liar with a myriad of eating disorders.


    The Bitter Bitch would leave for lunch and lock her workstation, which happened to be the ONLY computer we could use to open up new accounts or research anyone's existing accounts. She would then tell the Loan Officer that the other two of us were incompetent at these tasks, and that we were telling customers to come back when she was there. Also, her fat, ugly, bratty kid would come in after school EVERY DAY and stay there until we closed at 5.


    The Neurotic, Eating-Disorder liar would spend all day, every day spouting about how much better she was than us, because she was married to her "first love", she was Catholic, blah blah blah.


    I always kept a candy dish on my teller station with Snickers, Reeses, etc in it. When I would come back from my lunch break, it would be empty, and the wrappers would be shoved down in the bottom of the bathroom trash.


    She is now divorced from her Perfect Husband after having a much publicized affair, during which she disclosed the account information of her new boyfriends ex-wife! Oooops! Not so perfect after all!


    Also, some one stole $500 cash from the vault and all I know is, it sure as hell wasn't me!


    I quit after 3 months, and both of them have since been fired from several other jobs! Yay Karma!!

  • Anonymous
    Posts: 29,314
    Worked as a waitress in an Italian restaurant in Pittsburgh.  The owner...who was a fat, balding, old man who looked like he was in the mafia...would grab my butt...and talk about my boobs to customers!  I was 18.  Ew!
  • PurpleFlowersPurpleFlowers
    Posts: 5,786Member
    I'd have to say doing telephone surveys. It was right out of high school and not bad money, but getting yelled at over the phone and getting phones slammed in your ear sucks!
    Stay away from my chocolate and nobody gets hurt!

    I think I like who I am becoming...
  • mommaomommao
    Posts: 174Member
    @7878- too funny! Did the snickers' snatcher steal the $??
  • nerdymamanerdymama
    Posts: 18Member
    I've worked many awful jobs over the years, but the worse was at a really grungy hotel that housed the students of a truck driving school nearby (I am not saying anything bad about truck drivers, most of the people that stayed there were great and I honestly contemplated going that route myself) . Anywho, in addition to the decent people we always got a bunch of creepy wierdos as well, and since I worked 2nd & occasionally 3rd shift alone I was always scared, not to mention we were right next to a gas station that got robbed constantly. One time we had a student who really disliked me for no apparent reason. He would go out of his way to make my shifts extra shitty and would complain about me under his breath if he saw me.One night he waited until I turned my back and then stole the lobby phone and refused to give it back. Then there was the woman who tried to set me up with her son who lived 20 hours away and was in prison. For murder. The one cool thing about that job is that I got to have sex on the job while punched in, which took some work on my part (hello, fake reservation) and was something I had always wanted to do (yes, I am a classy lady with some pretty stellar goals and aspirations...) In retrospect, maybe it wasn't that bad of a job.
  • seamstressJ
    Posts: 724Member
    Taking in the dirty stuff at a laundry/uniform facility was definitely my worst job! Bags of stink towels, uniforms, etc, complete with mold & maggots! Lol!
  • PsychomommaPsychomomma
    Posts: 143Member
    @Jess-bless your heart! It takes a special person to be a CNA. I could not do it. Shit rolls downhill right onto their heads and that is not fair.
  • mommalambmommalamb
    Posts: 16Member
    HA!  I worked at a "clinic" the promised hair growth! (Ah the 80's) tee hee....I had forgotten about this.....We had different "formulas" depending upon your course of treatment.  Coming in for your treatment required me to check you into your appointment, sit you in a comfy chair, "whip up" your daily/weekly concoction, and then apply it to your scalp.  Without gloves, while your head nestled between my breasts, I would massage your scalp for a few minutes and then put a warming pad on your head.   i don't believe I ever saw results and you would be shocked at how many people (men mostly) came in on a regular basis and shelled out a TON of money for this snake oil!  I finally couldn't stand the scam and had to leave.  I still remember some of our patients.
  • fatchickonabikefatchickonabike
    Posts: 5,638Member
    Bumping this because I want to hear all the new ladies' stories.
    "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof bullshit detector.” - Ernest Hemingway