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hatredisnotavalue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 05:26 PM
Original message
What was your worst job ever?
In HS, I waitressed at a restaurant on the beach. Tourists would come in and use the rest rooms for all sorts of things. My job every night during the summer was cleaning those bathrooms. I still have nightmares 30 years later about cleaning the urinal in the men's room.
Any one else?
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trof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 05:28 PM
Response to Original message
1. County real estate appraiser/assessor's office.
Was ordered off of one guy's property at gunpoint.
That was it for me.
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ohiosmith Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 05:32 PM
Response to Original message
2. Pulling the tuft feathers off live turkeys at a poultry processing
Edited on Tue Sep-13-05 06:05 PM by ohiosmith
plant.
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niallmac Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:27 PM
Response to Reply #2
59. Noooooooo. Not LIVE turkeys!?
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ernstbass Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 08:48 AM
Response to Reply #2
82. I think you get the prize.
Edited on Wed Sep-14-05 08:48 AM by ernstbass
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JohnnyBoots Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 05:33 PM
Response to Original message
3. Right now I am in charge of getting crews of ex cons(armed w/
machettes, axes and chain saws) to work in the middle of the woods....where no one can hear you scream. Me I have a clip board and a thatis about it. Good money, but every day is tough. Plus the job is done in three weeks.
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SmokingJacket Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:41 PM
Response to Reply #3
38. Oooooh, good luck.
You should at least have a chainsaw too...
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JohnnyBoots Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:47 PM
Response to Reply #38
40. And I am
a 6'3"250 rugby player who has been inhis fair share or scraps...still scared to hell.
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The Night Owl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 05:39 PM
Response to Original message
4. Working in the slide archive at the university I went to.
Is there anything more annoying than the Dewey Decimal System? I don't think so!
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jane_pippin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 09:53 AM
Response to Reply #4
85. No way! I'd love that job.
All those goofy old slides, solitude, and the Dewey Decimal System--ah, nerd heaven.

Full disclosure: I used to work in a library and had the Dewey Decimal System memorized. (See "nerd heaven" comment).
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Mizmoon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 09:57 AM
Response to Reply #85
89. I work in a special library and I love it
I sometimes go for days without having to speak to anyone for more than a minute or so. I go weeks without seeing my boss. And my collection is ALPHABETIZED not arranged via Dewey! Nice!
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jane_pippin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 10:07 AM
Response to Reply #89
92. Lucky you!
I just started working in a small bookshop this month and I'm loving it. I see my co-workers every day of course, but they're all nerds too so it makes it fun in our own special way.

To library/archive work! :toast:
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WeRQ4U Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 05:40 PM
Response to Original message
5. I delivered tacos for a tiny, drive-through taco joint.
I had to clean "the beast" (meat cooker) every night, clean the bathrooms, clean the floors and the grease pits. You could slide around on the floor it was so greasy. I constantly smelled like taco seasoning, I always had burns from the grill and the grease. My skin was as shiny as a new buick and I had to deal with drunk assholes until about 2 in the morning. Yeah, that was my worst job ever.
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DeposeTheBoyKing Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 05:42 PM
Response to Original message
6. Typing invoices for a lumber company
The work was boring, and I worked with some fundie wackos.
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Meatwad Donating Member (330 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 05:42 PM
Response to Original message
7. All my jobs in retail.
Edited on Tue Sep-13-05 05:42 PM by Meatwad
I live in a somewhat conservative part of Minnesota and we have some really stupid people in this area. I kid you not, earlier this summer, I had a woman ask me "Which one is it: 2/$5 or one for $2.50?". I swear on all that is holy that she asked me that.

:argh: :grr:
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skygazer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 05:43 PM
Response to Original message
8. Chambermaid
One summer at a Maine beach town. They were understaffed so we each had to clean a ridiculous amount of rooms. Some days, we'd clean our place and then be bussed to their sister motel in the next town and clean all their rooms. You would not believe the mess some people make of a motel room. I'm so conscious of not leaving a pigsty when I stay at a motel now.
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hatredisnotavalue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 05:50 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. My worst job was in Maine too. n/t
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lpbk2713 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 05:50 PM
Response to Original message
10. Bagboy in a grocery store.



The job itself wasn't so bad, I could have handled it under normal conditions. But the manager was a recently retired Army MP Captain and he treated the employees like they were unruly prisoners. It was my first job and I didn't really know what to expect out of a job. So it was a valuable learning experience in that regard. I left after a few months and found something better.


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RetroLounge Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 05:58 PM
Response to Original message
11. Salad Bar at Ponderosa when I was 15.
Never ate there again...

RL
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Dave Reynolds Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 05:59 PM
Response to Original message
12. Assisting with autopsies
at an ME's office.

'nuff said.
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Bullwinkle925 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 06:00 PM
Response to Original message
13. Assisting a physician with flex-sigs. I had shit hit me on the lip one
time and it was all I could do not to hop around shaking my hands and screaming 'Ooooooooooooooooooo'!!
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DeposeTheBoyKing Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 06:03 PM
Response to Reply #13
15. So it's safe to say you will not be assisting with my colonoscopy in Nov.?
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hatredisnotavalue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 06:20 PM
Response to Reply #13
16. I was a reporter after my waitress job
Came home one night after an accident and had someone's brain tissue still on my shoe
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Bullwinkle925 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 07:10 PM
Response to Reply #16
24. Did you hop around screaming "Oooooooo" and shaking your hands?
I would have.
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BikeWriter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:16 PM
Response to Reply #13
48. Flexible sigmoidoscopies, I presume?
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Shakeydave Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 06:01 PM
Response to Original message
14. Slinging Watermelons!
Fifty pound Jubilee Melons from the field up to semi-haulers. Best indoctrination to the plight of farm workers I didn't realize until five years after.
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samplegirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 06:29 PM
Response to Original message
17. Working in a Trucking Terminal
In the Trip lease Dept. My boss was an asshole
and delighted in the nasty talk I had to endure
from some of the drivers.
While i would be typing up their trip lease my
boss would be just grinning when the vulgarity
started. I was young so I felt humiliated.
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BlueIris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 06:34 PM
Response to Original message
18. All of my jobs have collectively sucked.
I can't choose the worst one because they were ALL horrible. I've had a series of extremely ineffectual, unintelligent, asshole, law-breaking employers. Not ripping all those in management or who own their own businesses, but as recent surveys have shown, the number one thing most people hate about their jobs is their employer. And I dare anyone to say that the number one danger to any company, business or organization is NOT a bad boss. Yup, I really can't choose my worst job, they were all terrible.
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usedtobesick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 06:38 PM
Response to Original message
19. I built the playgrounds in McDonalds
You might think that it was a glamour job but... it is nasty hard work and you're always behind. Plus then we cleaned them and did maintainence on them. I never allowed my kids to play in ball pit ever again. EWWWWWWWWWWW!
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BlueIris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 06:50 PM
Response to Reply #19
20. I'd always kind of wondered about those pits.
Even as a kid, I didn't trust them.
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usedtobesick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 06:59 PM
Response to Reply #20
21. you were very smart
it's not anyones fault but you get kids full of fries and junkfood and running around sreaming... they get every kind of body fluid known to humanity in them. We caught a teenage couple naked and sleeping in a outside one in Denver one time, they just fell asleep when they were done. We were all embarrased.
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BlueIris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 07:07 PM
Response to Reply #21
22. Oh. My. GOD. Seriously?
EWWWWWWW.

I'm sure you were embarrassed. Jesus Christ.
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usedtobesick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:23 PM
Response to Reply #22
27. still can't get near a MCD's or a playground.
but seems like what you went through collectively is much worse, I got paid very very well.
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Left Is Write Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 07:10 PM
Response to Original message
23. Hardee's.
The manager was a drunk who spent most nights stumbling over from the bar and restaurant next door, and the assistant manager was a power-hungry, fire-breathing demon sent straight from the depths of hell.
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Beaverhausen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 07:11 PM
Response to Original message
25. I worked at a music store with two completely psycho women
one was the most narcissistic person I have ever met, not to mention lazy and a slob. The other one was lazy, a slob and stupid - she would call the welfare office FROM WORK and loudly demand money for her child.(her brother was paying her under the table)

I loved the job but couldn't stand those women.
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Gregorian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 07:23 PM
Response to Original message
26. Chipping mortar off old used bricks.
The weirdest part was, I was doing it for a blind machinist. Go figure.
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LisaL Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:26 PM
Response to Original message
28. Working at the gas station.
We also had to clean the restroom.
How nasty is that?
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sniffa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:27 PM
Response to Original message
29. shoe saLesman just beats out garbage man
and grave digger.

you'd think i'd Love working with feet, but my coworkers were brutaL, and the majority of customers seemed to Lack any care for hygeine.
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anarch Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:29 PM
Response to Original message
30. "Unskilled Laborer"
Just a couple highlights:

Painted the whole ceiling of this house once, trying to stay on this rickety scaffolding. It was about 120 degrees in this house we were renovating.

Another time, I had to rip up the old, smelly, pissy carpet in some former crack-house. I found somebody's tooth in the corner. :puke:
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AlCzervik Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:30 PM
Response to Original message
31. weight loss counseler at Jenny Craig
i liked the people but it was really about selling the food, thats the part i hated,
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xmas74 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:31 PM
Response to Original message
32. 90 percent of my jobs have been pretty bad.
Where do I begin? Fast food, cleaning rooms, CNA, waitress, convenience store?
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democracyindanger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:32 PM
Response to Original message
33. Giant bird costume in 90 degree heat.
Messed me up for life.
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TroubleMan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:32 PM
Response to Original message
34. One time in the Marine Corps, they made us pick up trash at a landfill
Edited on Tue Sep-13-05 08:33 PM by TroubleMan
We had to "police call" the landfill. If you've ever been in the military you know that police call means to pick up trash.

We had to pick up some trash around the edges of the landfill, but still "in" the landfill.

That's about the stupidest thing I've ever done. That's like trying to mop up water on the beach.
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Ksec Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:34 PM
Response to Original message
35. Coal washing plant laborer
Yes, coal does get washed and I cleaned machines on the midnight shift. I had to get inside a tiny machine and scrape wet coal from the insides of this machine while a belt whizzed by at 35 miles an hour inches from my feet. You had to wedge yourself in there to keep from falling into the speeding conveyor belt and then scrape coal dust which dropped in your eyes and hair etc. And to top it off, the only other guy that worked midnight with me was absolutely nuts.

It was literally Hell on Earth.
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seemunkee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:37 PM
Response to Original message
36. Laying Sod
Hot, dirty, back straining. Then I sprained my ankle and had to quit.
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SmokingJacket Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:40 PM
Response to Original message
37. Aide in a nursing home.
Every day was a freaking heartbreak. People dying every day, loneliness, pain, dementia, terminal illness.

I had to quit when I started fantasizing about killing people just to get them OUT of there.
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Ksec Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:44 PM
Response to Original message
39. Oh another one was busting iron with a ten pound sledgehammer
Edited on Tue Sep-13-05 08:46 PM by Ksec
It was a small plant that produced iron parts for steel mills.

Anyway you had to bust recycled iron objects into small pieces and then load the pieces in 5 gallon buckets. You generally did about fifty buckets, then carried them by hand down a ramp into the plant. Once you lined these up then you began laboring on the dry floor which is black dust which the molds are buried inside before the molten pour. Hot, filthy, back busting labor.
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thebaghwan Donating Member (998 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 08:56 PM
Response to Original message
41. I was a dog catcher for L.A. City
n/t
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freethought Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:01 PM
Response to Original message
42. Salad bar at super market and asphalt paving
Edited on Tue Sep-13-05 10:17 PM by freethought
The salad bar was when I was a college student and needed cash. The only thing real bad about it was the the other people you worked with. Most of them were unhireable anywhere else and they knew it. The slightest notion that you might be after them in some way. Watch out!

The asphalt paving simply sucked because of its brutallity. You would hall around heavy wheelbarrows of smoking hot asphalt, in July and August heat and humidity. By the time you were home you were nearly crippled from exhaustion. One time, for about a week, they handed me sledge hammer and said "Turn those beig rocks into little ones". My hands were hamburger after a week of that.
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chaska Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:05 PM
Response to Original message
43. This isn't even the worst one. I cleaned a headstart school in college...
Ten bathrooms. Little boys have terrible aim. There'd be an inch of pee on the floor everyday, and not just the floor, pretty much every square inch.
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Floogeldy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:07 PM
Response to Original message
44. Hot tar roofing.
I must say, however, the hard day's work did me good.

:)
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BikeWriter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:08 PM
Response to Reply #44
46. Aw fuck, roofing sucks!
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Floogeldy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:17 PM
Response to Reply #46
50. Yes, but I love the smell of hot tar in the morning.
;)
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BikeWriter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:19 PM
Response to Reply #50
54. Just don't fall in the tar pot. I've seen it happen.
Edited on Tue Sep-13-05 10:19 PM by BikeWriter
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Floogeldy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:25 PM
Response to Reply #54
57. That would be terribly ugly.
I'm sorry you had to see that.
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BikeWriter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:29 PM
Response to Reply #57
60. It was bad. I've seen worse.
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Gregorian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:20 PM
Response to Reply #44
55. I used to be a roofing contractor.
I guess some of us are just masochists.

No. Actually it was the money. :)
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BikeWriter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:07 PM
Response to Original message
45. The military. I got shot at and missed and shit at and hit.
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enigami Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:16 PM
Response to Reply #45
49. HAAA
Me too. You beat me to it.
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BikeWriter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:17 PM
Response to Reply #49
51. ROFL!
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Floogeldy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:18 PM
Response to Reply #45
53. You, sir, should be my idol.
;)
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BikeWriter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:22 PM
Response to Reply #53
56. Thank you, Pard, but a lot of us got shot at.
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enigami Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 01:14 AM
Response to Reply #56
76. unfortunately, ...a lot of us got hit too, Eh BikeWriter?
Edited on Wed Sep-14-05 01:16 AM by enigami
heres to them.
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Aristus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:08 PM
Response to Original message
47. I used to work for a small company that offered sales training
to car salesmen.

My job was to sell the sales training program to the car guys and the dealers they worked for.

The job was tedious, demeaning, and a little sleazy, the boss was a grandstanding, pretentious asshole, and the pay sucked.

So did I, apparently. I lasted three months until I was fired. It was the first time I had ever been fired from any job, and I was devastated. It didn't take long to realize I was much, MUCH better off out of there.

To this day, I look back at that three month period as one long nightmare.
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Kire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:18 PM
Response to Original message
52. Hunted, despised!
Harassed, Defamed, Attacked

that was my last job in April, my Psychiatrist has advised me against looking for another job - I think it's going to take a long time
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hyphenate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:26 PM
Response to Original message
58. The week I worked for Sears
in their big warehouse, fulfilling mail orders. It was horrible, and right from the beginning I knew I wouldn't last--after 6+ hours on my feet, I was plainly ready to drop dead.
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niallmac Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:40 PM
Response to Original message
61. OK then. Can you boys and girls spell U.N.I.O.N.?
They served a purpose despite their short comings.
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HEyHEY Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 10:48 PM
Response to Original message
62. The one that paid the most
I was selling advertising and on track to make roughly $75,000 a year. But the stress wasn't aided by the dick boss I had... I mean DICK boss.
I quite, took a job as a reporter for about $9.00 an hour... now, I make more than that and am doing okay (mentally)
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enigami Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 11:59 PM
Response to Original message
63. Director of FEMA
Ha got ya
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deadparrot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 12:02 AM
Response to Original message
64. One word: Wendy's. nt
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enigami Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 12:03 AM
Response to Reply #64
65. Do they really use half eaten hamburgers in Chili ?
I gotta know.
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deadparrot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 12:15 AM
Response to Reply #65
71. Not at my location...
At least not that I saw. ;)

I'll just say that it's an all-around hellish experience.
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CanuckAmok Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 12:05 AM
Response to Original message
66. H/S job working "housekeeping" in a geriatric lock-down.
This was in the early eighties.

The residents were all elderly, and their conditions ranged from mild dementia to full-on psychosis and worse. About half were "lifers" from the prison system, who had become to infirm to be cared for in a conventional facility. One really kindly old fellow apparently ate his family, including the dog, back in the 1950s.

I cannot begin to tell you what sort of things I had to clean up, and what kinds of people I met...
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CanuckAmok Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 12:05 AM
Response to Original message
67. H/S job working "housekeeping" in a geriatric lock-down.
This was in the early eighties.

The residents were all elderly, and their conditions ranged from mild dementia to full-on psychosis and worse. About half were "lifers" from the prison system, who had become too infirm to be cared for in a conventional facility. One really kindly old fellow apparently ate his family, including the dog, back in the 1950s.

I cannot begin to tell you what sort of things I had to clean up, and what kinds of people I met...
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Greyhound Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 12:09 AM
Response to Original message
68. Worked for National Jewish Hospital(now the NCRI in Denver) euthanizing
research rats, and cleaning the cages. ugh. :puke:
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Greyhound Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 12:10 AM
Response to Original message
69. Oh yeah, I was also the Worst. Waiter. Ever. n/t
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CanuckAmok Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 12:13 AM
Response to Reply #69
70. No, I was the worst waiter ever.
One waiting job. Once.

On my first day I dropped a tray of beer bottles on a vomiting toddler, and later pulled down a chandelier with a chair while moving it, over my head, from one table to another.
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Neshanic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 12:17 AM
Response to Original message
72. Survey boat in sewage lagoon in middle of Gila Bend summer.
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XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 12:25 AM
Response to Original message
73. Wow....
this is putting all my lame jobs in the shade.

All my lame jobs involve walking and walking and walking and walking.

Walking in the sun. Walking in the rain. Walking in the dark. Walking up mountains. Walking down mountains. Walking through/crawling under thick brush. Walking over newly plowed fields full of monster clods. Walking/climbing over slash piles. Walking across endless gravel bars carrying a heavy tripod and scope. Walking with wet feet. Walking with itchy ITCHY feet. Walking in 105 degree weather for 6 hours. Walking in 40 degree weather for 10 hours.

One job involved so much walking that I thought about every failed relationship I've ever had, and I figured out what went wrong in each and every one of them. Seriously. All day, every day, for three months with an asshole co-worker outside Merced during the summer.

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fizzgig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 12:42 AM
Response to Original message
74. cleaning up the butcher's mess
at a grocery store in a little town close to where i grew up...blood everywhere...and then i had to clean the chicken rotissere...grease everywhere

i love my mother, but she got me this job...at 16, $6.25 an hour was a fortune, but not enough for what i had to do...i quit after a month
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madrchsod Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 01:09 AM
Response to Original message
75. the one i just got home from ,
in my 40 some years of working i have never worked in such an awful place. hell, i`ve worked in the freezing cold and in places where the people in hell offered us a glass of cold water..but never have i hated a job as much as this one i have now...
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aint_no_life_nowhere Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 01:21 AM
Response to Original message
77. Graveyard shift in a 24-hour market in a rough neighborhood
I must have been insane to work there. Nearly every night there was trouble in the neighborhood, with shootings and drug overdoses and police helicopters buzzing overhead. There were always people coming into the market to report crimes and ask me to call the police. One guy came in acting very weird and very high, with red burns all over his body and it looked like his meth lab had blown up. He very casually asked me to call 911. I also called the cops when a husband started punching his wife out in the parking lot and nearly killed her. Another guy entered into an argument with his wife in the market and chose that moment to try kidnapping their son. Fortunately, my register never got robbed but there was nightly theft of goods from the shelves.

After that, I took a job as a janitor, cleaning office complexes at night. The work didn't bother me and I actually looked forward to continuous physical activity without human contact. Unfortunately, the Supervisor had an extremely bad attitude and a vile mouth, which she demonstrated during our three employee meetings every night (one before starting work, one during a mid-shift 15 minute break, one before clocking out). I couldn't stand the constant shouting, screaming, and obscenties so I quit after about three weeks.

After I became a lawyer, I took a temporary job to handle the caseload of another lawyer who was on a 60 day suspension from practice for an ethical violation. The two law partners in the office spent the entire day screaming at each other...the ENTIRE day. That job lasted a little over one month before I quit.

I took another temporary job after that, working for a criminal defense lawyer involved in a major federal drug trial. The federal judge in his case ordered him not to handle any other matter during the trial and so I was hired to handle his other cases during that time. A federal judge doesn't have the right to do that, but he did it anyway, as federal judges are among the biggest pricks in the world and feel they can do anything they please. The law office entirely occupied a large two story building that had open areas of space between the two floors. The upper floor housed a huge hospital lien practice that the criminal defense lawyer handled on the side. The employees up above blasted (I mean BLASTED) Rush Limbaugh's program every morning through more than one radio. They were all addicted to the pig. I quit that job as well after a few months, as I could barely hear myself think.

For me, work is work. I don't mind cleaning toilets or preparing cases for trial. But I cannot take workplace stress from other people, especially when I'm just there trying to earn a living and minding my own business.
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LiveWire Donating Member (372 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 03:26 AM
Response to Original message
78. Cleaning grease dumpsters at McDonald's
For minimum wage...
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MrScorpio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 03:30 AM
Response to Original message
79. Caddy
Didn't know shit about golf and the bag bruised my shoulders like all fuck.

The golfer was a goddamned Republican asshole and Grossy Pointee doesn't like black people.

No fucking car, had to take a several buses.

Didn't pay for shit.

Worse fucking idea EVER.

Four years laters, I joined the Air Force :bounce:
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Starbucks Anarchist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 03:53 AM
Response to Original message
80. Telemarketer.
Enough said.
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ernstbass Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 08:47 AM
Response to Original message
81. Long John Silver's
Had to clean bathroom and mop the floor each night. Always left stinking like grease and fish!!
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TK421 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 09:01 AM
Response to Original message
83. Working in a warehouse for a tire supply company
the sweatiest,nastiest job you could imagine
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tonkatoy57 Donating Member (443 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 09:27 AM
Response to Original message
84. Priming Tobacco
I grew up in North Carolina and worked in the tobacco fields from the time I was about 7 or 8. It was my introduction to real work and convinced me at a very early age that education was a good thing.
When you're just a kid they start you at the barn "handing". When you "hand" tobacco you take 4 leafs from a sled full of tobacco and stick your hand out, holding the the very top of the stems and wait for the person who is tying the "hands" onto the stick to take it from you. (the sticks are then hung in the tobacco barn to cure) You work blind and fast. You're always getting a new "hand" together while waiting for the person tying on to the stick to take your "hand". Usually it was Black women who did the tying. They worked fast because they, in part, got paid by the number of sticks they strung. They didn't put up with any nonsence and expected you to do your job correctly, not whine, and not slow down. As an aside, even as a kid, I never understood White people who said Blacks were lazy. Had they never worked tobacco?

Working at the barn was bad enough, but when I got older I had the privlidge of going to the field and priming tobacco all day. It is, without a doubt, the worst job I've ever had in my life. To this day it's still the touchstone I use for bad jobs. Every time I think my job sucks I ask myself, "would you rather be out in the field priming tobacco"? When I was in college and was avoiding doing a project I'd ask myself, "would you rather be priming tobacco"?

For those who are not familiar with the farming of tobacco priming is the word used for picking tobacco. After the plant has achieved the desired height you begin priming. You prime from bottom to top because the lower the leaf is on the plant the higher it's value. First and second primings are the best and are segregated out at the market. So, to prime you start at the bottom of the plant. You have to be careful not to tear the leaf and you have to work fast. You walk bent over, from one end of the row to the other, carrying the tobacco under your arm with the occasional chance to stand up and put the tobacco in a sled being pulled by a tractor. Now here's the good part. You start at first light before it gets too hot. This is a good thing you think, but no....early means the tobacco is wet and cold so you're soaked for the first part of the day. But that's not really even the worst part. That would be that the dew and condensation gets in your eyes and it burns like hell. You get the added fun of trying to go as fast as you can, not damage the leaf, and you get to do this while you're blind and you're eyes sting like hell. After a while the sun burns off the dew and you don't have this problem any longer....you have a whole new set of problems. When the leaf drys it becomes gummy and for the rest of the day you are being covered with black tobacco gum. It gets all over your hands and all down your side and arm where you're carrying the leaf under your arm. Also, if you have any sensitivity to the nicotine in the tobacco after a while you start feeling a little strung out and queasy.

After you're done with the days priming you go back to the barn to hang the sticks for curing. This, I always thought, was the perfect cap to a truly shitty day. Tobacco barns are narrow and tall with levels of rafters going from about 8 feet from the floor to the top of the barn. You had your choice of either throwing the full sticks up to someone who was hanging them on the rafters or being the catcher. By the way, the full stick weighs about 25-30 lbs. and the farmer didn't like it when you dropped one.

Sorry for the long post but there are a lot of shitty jobs but for me this one has always been the Valhalla of shittiness.
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Mizmoon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 10:02 AM
Response to Reply #84
91. That is very interesting
I never knew that stuff. Thank you for sharing it.
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LynneSin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 09:54 AM
Response to Original message
86. Selling Dating Services
Seriously, they put no consideration into their matches. It lasted about 2 weeks
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no name no slogan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 09:55 AM
Response to Original message
87. Managing a fast-food place
all the same crappy work, with the same snot-nosed teen-age help, but on a salary. Which meant that I earned LESS per hour than most of my employees.

Oh, but on the plus side, at least I came home smelling like a hamburger and fries every night.
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progmom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 09:56 AM
Response to Original message
88. i spent a summer interning for a terribly disorganized artist manager
I think that was worse than the year I spent at Denny's.

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mainegreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 09:58 AM
Response to Original message
90. Cashier at Wal-Fart
Warning: :rant:

Wal-Fart the company was very nice to me. I showed up every day neatly shaved, in khakis with a white shirt and tie, neatly tucked in with a leather belt. Everyone else at this particular wal-mart except the store managers were scary hill folk. Stupid as hell and slobs to boot. So needless to say I got raises quickly and whatever schedule I wanted. The bad part about this job was the customers though. Never in my life have I seen such a vast mob of stinky, inbred, stupid, retarded, mean, cantankerous, cheap, fat, ugly, sweaty, scary and down right bizarre group of low life welfare-lifers. I know, I know, I sound almost like a freeper here, but at this wal-mart nested in the mountains of western Maine its TRUE!!
I still remember some of the regulars they scared me so. One particular fat, sweaty bald woman came in every week and bought $100 of wet cat food. She always chose my line, probably because she'd figured out I was the only cashier with the technical skill to scan goods AND apply coupons (ooh how technical). One week I asked this woman how many cats she had. "Caths? I don't have no peths" (no upper teeth so she sorta lisped everything). NOOOOO! THE WET CAT FOOD WAS FOR HER! Because it was CHEAP! Then there were the normal customers: fat, sweaty and sans-hygene. Most of these people did not bathe. In fact, based on the smell most did not wipe. It was an effort every day not to puke all over them. And cheap too! They'd come through with an entire carts of lovingly strechy spandex plus size flower print pants, the total on this giant pile of clothing would come to the enourmous price of $40.11 or something like that, and then these idiots, who couldn't tie their own shoes, would argue that I must have mis-scanned something or that the systems price must be wrong (it almost never was) because they thought the total should come to 40.09. I'm not exagerrating here: these people would argue over 2 FRIGGIN CENTS! So I would spend the next 15 minutes price-checking every one of their items, re-scan everything, shooting dirty looks the whole time, only to have the price come out to $40.11. :nuke: And then as I packed up their clothes, I'd take out the hangers (wal-mart property you know), and these people would get mad! They'd complain that they thought they were buying the hangers too, and that they should get a discount if they didn't get to keep the hangers! The nerve of these people was that they would try this week after week after week. I recognized them! By smell, dammit, by smell alone!
Not to pick on the poor alone, oh no. Those cheap pricks who ran the summer camps in our area (there are a TON of them in western Maine) would all shop at Wal-Mart. They'd come in every week to stock up on beef-jerky, water and what-not and then they'd anounce that they were something or other and were entitled by Maine state law no to pay taxes because they resold their goods, or were a non-profit or whatever. So every time I'm tell them I need their paper work. They always, always reply that they don't need it, they shop here every week, don't I recognize them, there is no such thing and I must be stupid or some other lame excuse to replace the reality that its sitting back on their office desk back at camp. Some how these people actually thought that me, a cashier, had the power to magically lift the sales tax laws for little old them without proper paperwork. Oh yes, saving you 5% is worth my job mister, its not like I need it.

ARRRRRGRGGGGRGGRGRGRGRGRGRRGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAGRGXAKSJ!

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:
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trackfan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 10:11 AM
Response to Original message
93. P.A. on a movie set
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