What was your worst lowly job?

[fishnfool]

In High School I worked at a convalescent hospital. I did janitorial, maintenance, laundry and worked in the kitchen for a short time. I was there for 4 years. It was a very interesting job and I learned that i'd hate to ever end up in a rest home. They are very sad places to spend your last days IMHO.
Like I tell my DW...."These are our Golden years"!

[Janet H]

Hands down the crappiest job I ever had was as the director of a for profit day care center (140 kids). It was the only job I could find in a small university town (DH was in grad school) that would pay the bills. I was expected to fudge staffing ratios, sweet talk inspectors into favorable reports and cut costs to the detriment of little kids. It was a horrible, shameful job that caused me to lose sleep and hate myself. I eventually left, contacted state authorities and swore that my own kids would never spend time in such a place.

[photoguy]

My first job was as a janitor at a gas station. I was too young to pump but they still paid me the $4 and change / hour that the pumpers got. It wasn't the most enjoyable work but there was no stress at least.

[scrabbler1]

I once worked in the kitchen at the local golf course's cafeteria as a summer job after my freshman year of college. It was also connected to a catering hall so if I worked the evening shift I cleaned up the seating area in the cafeteria then in the kitchen for a party going on next door. That part was not too bad. It was the weekend shifts which were bad because I had to be there around 5 AM because the golfers were signing up to tee off then grab breakfast. What made things worse was at 1 PM when I expected to leave after an 8-hour shift they wanted me to stay longer and I was just so exhausted. It wasn't like I was going to sleep at 9 PM the night before.

When I worked the day shift during the week I had to get there at 7 AM, which was better than 5 AM on the weekends. But the same deal about not having a defined departure time (I was exhausted and ready to leave at 3 PM) irked me. Then the health department inspectors came in one day hovering over everyone and I did not see that as a good sign.

I lasted a whole 10 days there and was glad to leave.

[bjorn2bwild]

Agricultural work is pretty tough.
The worst job for me was plastic wrapping and heat sealing cauliflower off a conveyor in the full sun.
Next was hand sorting tomatoes -#'s 1, 2 & 3, again off a conveyor belt.
Finally picking cherries. They are so small it takes forever to fill a bucket. All you could eat though.

[Nemo2]

When I was 18 I skinned kangaroos, (for pet food), for half a day.....said "enough of this"......didn't get paid, (didn't expect to).

[plex]

First real job was a golf caddy when I wasn't even fully grown yet, also for awhile had very non-waterproof shoes, so most of the time my shoes would be sloshing with water within an hour from the very wet grass, and would stay like that for the rest of the day. Also often got paid nothing, especially early on, because you had to sit there for hours staring at nothing hoping to get selected.

[Walt34]

Kind of a toss-up between Janet H and donheff. I think Janet's was worse though.

My worst was unloading trucks at the underground loading dock of a large department store for a period just before Christmas right after HS and while I was deciding whether to enlist in the military or go to college. The job itself wasn't all that bad but I've never been treated worse in a work environment. In the caste system of the store the guys unloading trucks were lower than janitors. The salespeople were mean, nasty, selfish back-stabbing bloodsuckers and that was on a good day. The manager asked me to stay on after Christmas and I declined, by then having found something much better.

[HFWR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by anethum "Chicken exports" - I had to place grown chicken in crates to ship them off to a slaughterhouse, 25 chickens per crate. We had to do it in the middle of the night on the theory that chickens are less active at night. (Of course, people are too, so that made little sense to me.) We were told to push 2 chickens together, then lift them up and drop them in a crate. The chickens would pee on us, crap on us, and peck at us. We each had to gather a few hundred chickens. Toward the end when there were few chickens left to gather, we had to chase them around the coop.

Had a similar job... Chicken mover for an egg "factory". And, yes, when you reach into a cage, grab a handful of hens by the legs, and transfer them to a roll-around cage, they do indeed crap all over you. TG for orange gloves!

Lasted four days...

[donheff]

I don't think I win for the worst job since as a whole it was great. Maybe, grossest single assignment. But this thread got me thinking about the job I overall disliked the most. That was a telephone solicitation call center that a buddy of mine and I found through the paper one summer. You cold called phone numbers one after the other and read a script trying to get whoever answered to buy a subscription for something I can't remember. I lasted one morning and didn't come back after lunch. The boredom was soul killing. My buddy returned because he was hoping to get paid but he gave up after two days. Neither of us got a dime - I think that was the staffing concept.

[RitaR551]

My worst job is a toss-up between working the counter at a fast food joint (.75/hr.) or being a pharmacy tech. at mega mart. My first day (and only) they started me at the busiest time. I wasn't trained on how to work a cash register, yet it was immediately part of my job. Never been yelled at so much in my life. I still have "cash register phobia). Being a pharmacy tech in its self wasn't bad. It was pretty interesting. The bad part was the irritable pharmacist in charge and having THREE cash registers to work with, each with a different code to remember. I have bad flashbacks just walking in mega mart. Oh.....and what you learn in their store training and policies has very little to do with reality.

[pb4uski]

First job was as a dishwasher at our college cafeteria. Grossest thing was plates that came back on the conveyor belt that had mashed potatoes with cigarette butts in them.

Later worked pumping gas and that job included cleaning the restroom toilets.

[MichaelB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pb4uski First job was as a dishwasher at our college cafeteria. Grossest thing was plates that came back on the conveyor belt that had mashed potatoes with cigarette butts in them.

Potatoes with gravy were pretty bad, but butter was worse. They didn't serve individually wrapped pats of butter back then, just pre-sliced pats that were kept chilled. Students would take lots more than needed, and it would come back melted and often all messed with as the idle college minds often thought that spreading melted butter around a tray was in some way fun.

[Idnar7]

Summer job in a garden nursery shoveling wet sand up onto a shoulder-high planting table in a greenhouse. I only lasted a few days. Absolutely back-breaking labor in a hot, humid environment.

[Sarah in SC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RitaR551 My worst job is a toss-up between working the counter at a fast food joint (.75/hr.) or being a pharmacy tech. at mega mart. My first day (and only) they started me at the busiest time. I wasn't trained on how to work a cash register, yet it was immediately part of my job. Never been yelled at so much in my life. I still have "cash register phobia). Being a pharmacy tech in its self wasn't bad. It was pretty interesting. The bad part was the irritable pharmacist in charge and having THREE cash registers to work with, each with a different code to remember. I have bad flashbacks just walking in mega mart. Oh.....and what you learn in their store training and policies has very little to do with reality.

Oh, that brought back memories of my brief career as a pharmacy clerk at the "midnight Eckerd's" which was the only pharmacy open after hours in our area. The pharmacist was a snobby elitist and I worked only weekend, 11 hours at a stretch. I only worked there about a month, because I was trying to earn extra money to pay my landlord after a roommate skipped out owing 2 months of back rent. It was a financial catastrophe at the time, I was only 18, and determined I'd do the right thing by my contract. I recall it was $400 she left me owing, and I thought I'd never get it paid back.

[ShokWaveRider]

I had a paper route when I was at school, but that was trumped by stacking shelves in a supermarket in the UK. Lasted 1 month on the Par Route (Like Sleep) and about 2 weeks at the Tesco. All before I went to college. These were VERY good incentives to do something with my life. I would highly recommend sending one's kid to do a menial mindless job at some point before college for this very reason.

[HFWR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShokWaveRider I would highly recommend sending one's kid to do a menial mindless job at some point before college for this very reason.

Excellent point. It's easy to say that folks should "do something with themselves", but the fact is that some folks will be more or less permanently employed in these jobs. Perhaps only a small percentage are worthy of sympathy, but most at least deserve some empathy...

[RitaR551]

My DH wanted me to add his worst job ever. He bagged 100% rotten potatoes in a potato sorting warehouse. The bags were big canvas bags. He was just 17 and would be covered in rotten potato by days end. It didn't help that the sorters on the upper floor thought it was hilarious to throw rotten potatoes at the workers on the lower floor. He stayed with it for two weeks. He got paid $1.00/hr.

[MasterBlaster]

Worst job:...

[Arifriekinel]

I've also always loved the temporary jobs. I take promotional jobs when big events and festivals come through town, usually handing out free samples. Just two weeks ago I got to run around town handing out all the free ice cream I wanted (And of course eating it too!). I usually been the people for 3 to 5 days, then they leave town and continue their sampling tour, I take my money and don't see them again. Lots of fun and you meet lots of interesting people.

Worst job by far was telephone-based customer service. I'm surprised the terrible things people would say to a teenage girl because they were behind a phone. I couldn't handle the abuse, so I ran as fast as I could.