s/o Worst job you ever had.

[Renee in NC]

This is spinning off the thread with the guy who didn't take the $40K job because it wasn't the level of job he wanted.

 

What is the WORST job you ever had? Maybe for some of us there was more than one!

 

I'll go first: In college, I worked on a chicken farm that produced vaccines for chickens. We also did some research, but most of the work was with vaccines. How was that done? You don't want to know (and some of the animal lovers on here might keel over) but I'll give you the end result, okay?

 

We had to remove the bursa (immune system organ) from deceased chickens. The bursa is in the rear-end of the chicken. And that is how you access it.

 

Ahem. Cutting chicken butts. Thousands.

 

Anyone else?

[dangermom]

Nothing that bad! Can you even eat chicken or eggs? (I still don't eat donuts after a job at a bakery.)

 

My high-school job was sweeping airplane hangars. It was a little custom airplane painting company, and I would sweep and clean everything up--because they were painting, it had to be pretty clean. The owner was the worst businessman ever, and sometimes my $40 paychecks bounced.

 

In college, among other things, I worked in a dorm dining hall. Dishwasher was worst.

 

After college, it was the fabric store job. I loved working in a fabric store (not a chain), the people were great, but the owner was a pattern for unprofessionalism and often screamed at employees--right where customers could hear, too. :glare:

Edited July 9, 2010 by dangermom

[Food4Thought]

Mine definitely weren't as bad as dealing with deceased chickens (although I did work as a cook for a camp for several years).

 

My worst was probably the short stint my DH and I did delivering phone books to apartments in the Seattle area. During the summer. Not fun.

 

I also spent some time in a mall gift shop during the Beanie Baby craze. I can't stand the sight of Beanie Babies to this day after the weird psychotic people who constantly stalked the store.

[gingersmom]

I had one awful job after another.

 

In high school I worked at a bakery that did not bake anything. :confused: Everything they sold was pre-made (frozen and thawed). I still have guilt about selling someone a frozen cheesecake.

 

There was the 1 month stint at Bed & Bath. To this day I hate that store. We had to straighten the towels (that no one had touched in hours) so they would be straight. Or straighter? I was never quite sure.

 

I lasted 2 weeks at a kids shoe store. Yuck! Seriously smelly socks/feet.

 

I had a job at a law firm and was reprimanded for being 1 minute late coming back from lunch. The receptionist jotted down what time you left and when you walked by her desk again. I can't imagine what would have happened if I was 2 minutes late!

 

And of course there was one job where when payday rolled around my employer thought that paychecks were optional :glare:

[Renee in NC]

Nothing that bad! Can you even eat chicken or eggs? (I still don't eat donuts after a job at a bakery.)

 

 

 

Well, yes. I also worked on a commercial chicken and swine farm. And more recently I ran a poultry slaughter plant. The vaccine farm was the "dirtiest" job by far!

[nrg]

My first job as a young teen was serving refreshments at a wedding chapel. Not bad, you say? Well, the place was also a funeral parlor with crematorium. After the wedding receptions, I swept out the crematorium while the bodies were, ummm, being prepared and then "processed."

[Harriet Vane]

Dairy Queen, for two summers. I didn't want to do it the second summer at ALL but couldn't find any other job. All the others who worked there went to school together--I was the weird, bookish, private-school girl who didn't know anyone. The hours were long, the scheduling was bad, the sweet smell of the place infected my every pore, and my co-workers were often unkind.

[Daisy]

Telemarketer for a long term care insurance. It was the most horrible job I've ever had. I felt so bad for calling these elderly people and trying to get them to set up an appointment for a rep to come by. Sometimes I'd call a family whose spouse had JUST died. I lasted 6 weeks.

[SproutMamaK]

I had a short-term gig as a busgirl at a fish restaurant. I was supposed to be a waitress. I trained to be a waitress (it was a new restaurant so all us trainees had to learn the menu, ingredients, preparing process, etc, for customer's questions, as well as how to handle difficult clients) and was the best of the lot (waitstaff manager's words, not mine). However, I wasn't willing to wear the low-cut company shirts and asked for one of the kitchen staff t-shirts instead - this was a fish place, not Hooter's :confused: - and was therefore relegated to kitchen staff/busgirl.

 

The owners of the restaurant also owned the cheap hotel on the lot behind the restaurant. As part of my busgirl duties, they handed me rubber gloves and told me to go clean up the "hourly" rooms in the hotel and the area outside the windows. You can only imagien the stuff I found there. I quit at the end of the shift and refused to give two weeks notice - told them they could put me on shift, but I wouldn't show up.

 

I have tow regrets. The first is that I didn't quit when they decided I wasn't provocative enough to be a waitress, and the second is that I finished off the hotel cleaning shift instead of quitting right then. Don't get me wrong - I'll take a job that's not my dream job when I need money. But there are some thing I won't do. ;)

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

Housekeeper at the Red Roof Inn! GROSS!

[cathmom]

Telemarketer for a long term care insurance. It was the most horrible job I've ever had. I felt so bad for calling these elderly people and trying to get them to set up an appointment for a rep to come by. Sometimes I'd call a family whose spouse had JUST died. I lasted 6 weeks.

 

I can top that - I lasted one hour at my telemarketer job! I was 17 and making calls to get people to subscribe to a newpaper. I called one house where they already subscribed and the dh got on the phone and starting yelling at me. Then the supervisor would call out every once in a while, "So-and-so, you haven't made a sale yet!" After the hour I walked up to the supervisor and said, "This is not the job for me," and left. LOL!

 

My absolute worst job that lasted more than one hour was delivering newspapers.

[Saille]

I literally worked at a sandwich place called Hole in the Wall. The boss paid us under the table...and he grabbed my butt. I told him if he ever did it again, I'd slap the cr*p out of him. He did it again. That was the end of that job.

 

Bath and Body Works was horrendous. So many fiddly arbitrary tasks at a store full of stuff nobody really needs anyway...that was awful.

[Mrs Mungo]

A video arcade at a mall. Nothing involving animals...well, unless you count the young men who frequented the arcade.

[Lara in Colo]

By far the worst place I've worked was a food ministry. The owner was crazy, (manic depressive or bi polar, or ???) You never knew if she was going to pat you on the back or slap you upside the head. She would constantly change her mind and swear that it never was any different. ("I've NEVER had oatmeal in that bin"- while everyone else shakes their head in confusion) She would always play people against each other---not a good idea in place full of women (lets face it ladies-we can be the worst kind of back stabbers), I ended up manageing the place for all of 8 weeks before I quit. She was always accusing me of stealing. The last straw was when I accidentally left the light on in the freezer, I expected a chewing-but she used the light as "proof" that someone was stealing the chicken (I never admitted that I left the light on). She had cameras everywhere--just turn them on at night and you'd have proof--or keep inventory of the really important things!!! I quit that day and she called me several times to talk about the next day as if nothing happened, and I kept telling her I wasn't coming back--she finally called that night and gave me a real "christian" reaming--You know the "I don't know what kind of christian would walk away from their word" stuff. Crazy, crazy lady.

 

Lara

[Daisy]

I can top that - I lasted one hour at my telemarketer job! I was 17 and making calls to get people to subscribe to a newpaper. I called one house where they already subscribed and the dh got on the phone and starting yelling at me. Then the supervisor would call out every once in a while, "So-and-so, you haven't made a sale yet!" After the hour I walked up to the supervisor and said, "This is not the job for me," and left. LOL!

 

My absolute worst job that lasted more than one hour was delivering newspapers.

 

Haa. The only reason I lasted 6 weeks was because my degree was in crisis counseling. I wound up talking to these old people for too long and then would get into big trouble for not meeting my quotas. Shiver. I swear that job gave me nightmares.

[Heidi @ Mt Hope]

That's pretty bad.

 

I picked onion garlic and hoed (is that how you spell it?) in a field in the hot sun. By myself. Never wanted to do that again.

[unsinkable]

collection agency.

 

My accounts were for Carol Wright towel sets...people got like 40 towels for $9.99 plus shipping and then never paid for them.

 

I lasted about 1 week after the training.

 

When I left/quit, I got one of my fav jobs ever -- a prep chef at a gourmet pizza restaurant. I learned so much at that job!

Edited July 9, 2010 by unsinkable

[VBoulden]

I am almost embarrassed to admit my worst job now that I've read the previous posts. It's actually pretty cushy compared to some of those. :) It was in the registrar's office at my college one summer. I filed schedule change request forms for hours and hours a day, thousands and thousands of them. That's all I did. I got REALLY good at alphabetizing. I could look two similar last names and tell, down to the third of forth letter, which came first. MINDLESS and it would have been okay if I had been allowed to wear headphones and listen to music or books on tape... but no. :glare:

[bookfiend]

There used to be a children's arcade/pizza joint similar to Chucky Cheeses, called Showbiz Pizza. It had a huge arcade and stage with bigger-than-life, animated, stuffed bears in a band. In addition to slinging pizza, I also got to wear the Showbiz Bear costume for kid's birthday parties. It was so big and heavy there was a little fan in the head, but I could hardly see or hear in there. I stuck it out all summer - haven't ever taken my children to the equivalent.

[Annie]

I worked for an inbound call center during college. I have a lot of stories, but one of our clients was a health savings acct company that went through a very poorly planned software update. People were still getting money taken out of their checks, but claims weren't getting paid. There was zero I could do but apologize, so my job was basically to sit there and get yelled at for eight hours every day until they got it fixed. It was really quite draining...

 

I also filed real estate records, alone, in a basement, for eight hours a day, one summer. I would go days without seeing anyone at work.

[LibraryLover]

The worst? I was a server in a club that hosted wedding receptions. Once , I had to clean the bathrooms. Here is a fact: A lot of people vomit.

Edited July 14, 2010 by LibraryLover

[Denisemomof4]

the best job I ever had was also the worst job I ever had. I'm a caretaker at heart. I was 16 when I got a job at a nursing home. I absolutely LOVED my job! I even had two of my patients come to my high school graduation party. I'd go visit them on my days off and bring them GOOD food and treats.

 

It was my BEST job because I loved helping the elderly and disabled. It was so fulfilling. I felt so good about myself.

 

It was the WORST job also. The smells that came out of sick people..... :svengo: I also witnessed abuse, severe, which ended in the death of a patient. I didn't say anything because two women, about 300 pounds each, told me they'd come after me if I did. I feared for my life. I said nothing and think about it to this day. I also witnessed the death of my vice principal's fil due to a mix up in pills. He and his wife shared a room.

 

So although taking care of people was the best job I ever had, having to witness such horror, and carrying the guilt of it to this day, also makes it the worse job I ever had.

 

Please don't bash me about not doing anything about what I saw. I feel horrible about it, but I also cut myself some slack because I know I was just a kid filled with fear.

[Melinda S in TX]

During high school, I worked on a pig farm. The mans grown up son fed the pigs during the week, but that was all he did. I spent all weekend feeding, cleaning, digging ditches, etc for fifty sows and their litters, and the boars he kept. That place stunk. My dad wouldn't even let me ride in the truck when he picked me up. I had to ride in the back.

 

When I was first married I worked in a bar-b-que place as a busboy/dishwasher. It was run by a young couple and the wife hated me. She did everything she could to make me miserable and make me look bad.

 

I had a job at a pet grooming place washing dogs for $1ea plus tips. The groomers got tips, but noone thinks of the dog washer.

 

I had a job at an aviary. The owner owned a pet store and raised her own birds. She had a little building out behind her house that was wall to wall parakeets, cockatiels, canaries, parrots, finches, cockatoos, and more. Feathers and bird dander dust everywhere. Birds kicking seed out on the floor. Changing tons of water bowls, filling seed cups, changing poopy papers. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

 

I've had several other jobs. Don't know which was the yuckiest. They did make money though, and at that point that was all that mattered.

 

Melinda

[lllll]

..

[Truscifi]

My worst job was cleaning bathrooms in a greasy spoon type restaurant. You would not believe the things people will smear on walls.

 

Not too far behind that was working as a secretary/receptionist for a tiny little Vietnamese woman who ran a seamstress shop. She was bats**t crazy. At first I thought it was cultural differences, but her Vietnamese family said no, she's just nuts. Plus she had a tendency to leave the HOT iron in random places. :glare:

[MeanestMomInMidwest]

field work. Back-breaking, mindless, hot, never-ending, under-appreciated, underpaid, no respect, only one day off, had to squat down between the rows to pee.

[LibraryLover]

One boss I had - a Jewish guy from New York City, whom I actually liked -

.

 

 

????????

[lllll]

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Edited January 2, 2013 by ksva

[Audrey]

I played Aunt Eller for 6 months at a certain Discoveryland. 2 shows a day, 3 on Sundays (Mondays off, it was a union show). Opening scene... Curly shows up. Staging had Aunt Eller on a porch churning butter. Curly starts singing the infernal song. Every. single. Curly we had held that first note as long as he possibly could (so as to better show off his most awesome and talented chops:glare:). I got so sick of the buggers, I made it a point to let each new one know that if he held that note more than 4 beats, I would add an impromptu castration to the opening scene.

 

I hate that show. I hate that song. If I'm ever forced to sit through that song again, you'll find me in the news under the headline "Serial Killer Rampage: 100s of Cowboy Carcasses Found in Basement."

[LibraryLover]

I don't mean to bite off your head. :) Maybe think about it htis way: Subsitute Black guy, Muslim guy, Christian Guy, etc and see if it feels right.

[lllll]

..

[Scarlett]

Haven't read all the replies but I will. I get a real kick out of these real life stories..

 

My worst job was when I was a Sr. in high school...I worked two days a week in the laundry at a nursing home. It REALLY made me realize I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life.

[texasmama]

Telemarketer and selling Hickory Farms products at a mall kiosk during the Christmas season. Both were college jobs. (I've waited tables at a low end pizza joint and been a nurses' aide in a nursing home, so that's saying something. :tongue_smilie:)

[Tap]

I have had some odd jobs, like taking care of 5 men who were outed from a mental institution when it closed down. I worked in a 'group home' for them. 2 were bi-polar, psychotic, autistic. They would go into full blow psychotic rages where they tried to pretty much kill us (not kidding). I was 18 and 112lbs. A lot of my job was protecting the other 3 from these two. My other favorite part of the job was cleaning the diapers of grown men....an 18yo shouldn't be cleaning dingle berries from grown men's pubes. EWWWWW.

 

 

 

 

MY worst job by far though was actually a very highly sought after job. It was as a staff assistant for the school district, in the homeschool hybrid program. My kids went to classes and I could homeschool my kids on my off time. What made it the worst...my boss. She had been a secretary for tooo many years and when she got a promotion, she went completely power crazy. She had never had an assistant before and it showed. She would tell me to do things, then yell at me for doing them. She would scream at me for things she imagined I did (that I didn't do) and then the next day apologize and blame it on PMS. I couldn't live on her crazy train, so I quit at the end of the year, even though they asked me to come back. I only stayed for the 9mths because I had Invisalign put on, and needed the insurance and $$ to pay for them. My mantra that year, was that I could do anything for 9mths. I absolutely dreaded going to work each day, AT a School. LOL

[Paintedlady]

Driving a truck in the Army. Not the most fun I've ever had. :gnorsi:

[Cammie]

Telemarketer for a long term care insurance. It was the most horrible job I've ever had. I felt so bad for calling these elderly people and trying to get them to set up an appointment for a rep to come by. Sometimes I'd call a family whose spouse had JUST died. I lasted 6 weeks.

 

 

:iagree: I was a telemarketer for a gym. They purchased lists of people who had memberships at gyms that had closed. It is amazing what people will tell a telemarketer. I talked to a guy whose wife had just left him...it was horrible. I prayed and prayed for a sign I could just quit - then the power went out. I lasted all of a day!

[WTMCassandra]

Telemarketing for a Christian organization. (I'm an introvert and horrible at sales to boot.) And the worst call: Calling a lady who had just gotten back from her husband's funeral. :leaving: :svengo:

 

(To my credit, I apologized profusely and got the heck off the phone. And then took a potty break.)

[Cammie]

Oh wait, just remembered a few more "worsts!"

 

Just out of college I got a job doing "document review" for a law firm. There were about 15 college students in a windowless room in a basement of a copy shop. The client was a hospital that was merging with another hospital and for some reason boxes and boxes of documents had to be copied. Our job - to check each original against its copy to make sure the copy copied everything, to check for post-it notes that might not have been copied, copies that were too light. Hour after hour, day after day. It was horrible.

 

After passing the bar I went to work for a law firm I had interned with during school. I thought I was going back to the same boss but instead I was assigned to one of the partners. She was the biggest, evilest woman I have EVER met. My first day was a steady stream of co-workers advising me to buy waterproof mascara since she always made people cry and to just take her cr*p because that was part of the job. I did a little introspection and realized there was no reason for me to take her abuse for even one minute. I left a letter with her secretary, asked the secretary to hold onto the letter for 5 minutes to let me get out of the building and I walked out - didn't even last 24 hours. DH was furious but I knew what I had to do.

[Pippen]

Gasket factory.

 

The summer before I went off to college I worked my regular job at Swiss Colony (which I liked) and then worked third shift in a factory that made gaskets. My job usually was to punch the gaskets out after they came off the presses, and then to load them into boxes.

 

It was hot, dirty, boring work and I'm an early to bed, early to rise type so the wee morning hours were sooooooo long.

 

It paid well, but it was definitely a job that inspired me to work hard in college because I sure wouldn't want to be stuck doing that job.

[Joanne]

My first marriage. :lol::lol::lol::lol: Ok, maybe that's not what you meant. ;)

 

Last summer, cleaning the office building. The work was "ok", actually, but the building tenants were the worst/most picky my boss had ever seen in her 20+ years of experience and my own pride made it difficult for me to find zen. I did try, though, 6 times a week, to think of it as "blessing a person's workday", "providing for my family", "a time to think, usually alone". I failed.

 

But it was the final straw that lead to me going back to school. :001_smile:

[Renee in NC]

I am almost embarrassed to admit my worst job now that I've read the previous posts. It's actually pretty cushy compared to some of those. :) It was in the registrar's office at my college one summer. I filed schedule change request forms for hours and hours a day, thousands and thousands of them. That's all I did. I got REALLY good at alphabetizing. I could look two similar last names and tell, down to the third of forth letter, which came first. MINDLESS and it would have been okay if I had been allowed to wear headphones and listen to music or books on tape... but no. :glare:

 

I'd rather cut chickens!:lol: I can't stand mindless work.

[Rich with Kids]

I was the Easter Bunny at a mall when I was 16. The costume was hot and smelly. The kids were too...:glare:

[Scarlett]

Please don't bash me about not doing anything about what I saw. I feel horrible about it, but I also cut myself some slack because I know I was just a kid filled with fear.

 

No bashing here....:grouphug:

[2cents]

Worked as a name taker for the stenographers pool at a Boilermakers Convention. I had to run up and get the spellings of the names (from their tags) of the guys talking. Many of those guys were just plain disgusting and very disrespectful! They acted like I was 'interested' in them. I had to field advances all day just to get names. I got so angry that I told a few off and got reported for my 'attitude'. I felt sorry for their wives back home. It was awful and I quit after I was reprimanded for my 'attitude'. I was only a temp and there were other jobs that didn't entail being disrespected by convention-going boilermakers. Horrible job.

[Wheres Toto]

My first ever job was working the grill at Burger King. Only lasted two days.

 

I've delivered newspapers at 2am, driving around in all kinds of weather throwing them out the open window of the car. I drove a manual transmission which made this an exercise in coordination but it was creepy driving around slowly in the middle of the night. Worst part of this job was that it was EVERY DAY - 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Yuck.

 

I also did stock work for Sam's club on a 3 am to 11 am shift. Lots of heavy lifting but I did lose 40 pounds while working there. I was put in charge of books which was bad for my wallet.

 

I worked at a very low-grade nursing home as a CNA. They put the younger (relatively speaking - I was in my 30's) cna's who spoke English in the psych wards so the patients were often young and physically strong and healthy but had psychiatric problems. Many of them also had AIDS or hepatitis - which as CNA's we weren't told specifics, just to be careful.:confused: They bussed in a lot of women from the inner cities who didn't speak a lot of English to work. I was threatened by a few of them because I reported a patient abuse situation. This was also another job with lousy hours - 11pm to 7am. During training I was in class from 8am to 4pm, went home had dinner with my oldest dd and returned to work at 11pm. I was in a fog from lack of sleep for weeks.