Worst job or job experience?

[zx10guy]

Worst job/experience:

1) I had a job where I had to work with chemical surety agents. For those that are not into DoD speak, chemical surety agents are what everyone knows as chemical warfare agents. Yes, I was near all the ones you see in the movies: Sarin, Tabin, Mustard, VX, Lewisite, tec. Nice that I had to do a monthly blood test to check my cholinesterase levels to make sure I wasn't being slowly poisoned by nerve agent.

2) Worked on a program that had a history of IG audits and then Congress came down and slammed the door shut when leaks were made about how the program was being mismanaged. Oh and some jerk consultant and I butted heads with each other and he came up with some fake accusations of me violating security protocols. He tried to get my clearance pulled but failed as he couldn't prove $hit.

[JP10]

I've had some shit jobs, but can't say I hated them or they didn't teach me anything.

1) First job at 13 was at a local mennonite butcher shop. I cleaned everything, including the kill room. Lots of blood and lard, but it was my first job (outside of helping my dad). Everyone was quite pleasant, but as I mentioned, lots of blood. Taught me a solid work ethic at a young age. At the time I didn't want to work, but I'm happy my dad pushed (forced) me to get that job haha.

2) Farm hand. Did everything from cleaning shit out of the barn (50+ cows) to running 1/2 million dollar combines. It was just my boss, his son, and my brothers for close to 3000 acres of land. Worked 7 days a week for 12+ hrs a day for 2 summers (junior yr highschool - senior year). My boss was the biggest hot head I have ever met. His way or the highway. The job taught me two things. The first being to listen and digest everything the first time. He hated repeating himself, and honestly this has benefitted me greatly throughout my career. The second is that engineers are worthless sacks of sh*t, yes I'm an engineer lol. If a piece of equipment failed during harvest he would rip those engineers to pieces, and although he was a hot head he was far from an idiot. Within his berating of those engineers he would mention how he would have designed it different. Again this has benefitted me greatly, understanding the practical implications of the design should be the forefront of an engineers thought process.

[3.0L]

I hesitate to label any of the jobs I had as "worst." Instead, I would have to label them "most difficult."

My most difficult job was the 2 years and 8 months I spent in the US Army, culminating with a 12 month tour in Vietnam with the 25th Infantry Division.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by JP10

.

1) First job at 13 was at a local mennonite butcher shop. I cleaned everything, including the kill room. Lots of blood and lard, but it was my first job (outside of helping my dad). Everyone was quite pleasant, but as I mentioned, lots of blood. Taught me a solid work ethic at a young age. At the time I didn't want to work, but I'm happy my dad pushed (forced) me to get that job haha.

One of my first jobs was also at a butcher shop doing odd jobs. We got the sides of beef and so on directly from the slaughter houses, so not so much blood. But cleaning the "meat sawdust" off the band saws was always a shit job.

[JP10]

Originally Posted by M_Six

One of my first jobs was also at a butcher shop doing odd jobs. We got the sides of beef and so on directly from the slaughter houses, so not so much blood. But cleaning the "meat sawdust" off the band saws was always a shit job.

Haha yeah I've been there. Hated disassembling the entire saw and making sure you got ever nook and cranny. I'll tell you what those mennonites are an OCD bunch. If it wasn't perfect it wasn't done haha.

[9M71]

Worst job - Working at a consulting firm focusing on M&A advisory straight out of college. Man, those hours were brutal and definitely took a toll on my health, which is eventually why i left. Overnighters or going home at 4am just to shower, nap for a hour, and head back to work was the norm. Weekends did not exist either. There was one morning (after having done multiple back to back 15+ hour days) while commuting via subway, all i recall was the person standing closest to me go "are you ok" before blacking out. Woke up a few stops later surround by a nurse and some other kind strap hangers who had sat me onto a bench and even offered to take me to the ER. Politely declined and went straight to the office mainly in fear of not being able to finish my work if i had to take a detour to the hospital. GF then (wife now) had a talk on how this is not worth it, so a month later, put in my notice and couldn't be happier working at a firm that actually cares about work/life balance.

Best job... working retail in highschool at brookstone. Did "product research" by demo-ing the massage chairs all day while getting paid minimum wage. Money went straight into ricing out the car.

[erickonphoenix]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Since we have a thread about what you do now for a living, how about one for the worst job experience or job in general?

I've done a bunch of different jobs in my life, but asbestos abatement was by far the worst. Nasty, dirty, hot as hell, and dangerous. There were many nasty and dangerous situations, but the one that still makes me cringe to this day was an abatement job we did at a hospital in Boston.

We were there to strip asbestos insulation off live steam pipes so that the re-insulators could come in and replace the asbestos with fiberglass. These pipes were in a crawlspace about 4ft high. The pipes ran across the concrete floor about 2-1/2 feet off the floor. We were using mechanics crawlers to scoot around under the pipes. There were rows of 6 pipes running zigzag across the floor. The crawlspace had windows to the outside that had been open in the distant past, but were now sealed. But there were piles of leaves and other debris that had previously blown in through the windows.

One day on the job I had to get under a rack of these pipes and there was a pile of leaves and crap in the way at the midpoint. I figured I'd just blast through the pile and be done with it. But when I hit the pile, my crawler got jammed. And the pile was a giant cockroach nest. When I hit the pile, I was suddenly covered in scrambling cockroaches. They were all over my face, so I had to close my eyes. I was under the pipes, so I couldn't stand up. My crawler was stuck so I couldn't move forward or backward. And then I felt cockroaches crawling in my ears. The only thing that kept them out of my nose and mouth was my respirator. I nearly lost my mind. I finally managed to crawl out from under the pipes and brush them all off. In the end, I was fine. Cockroaches don't bite and none of them got into my ear canals, so once they were off me I was ok. But that horrible feeling of cockroaches crawling all over my face is something I'll never forget.

Damn, this is so funny because a few years ago I got this job diagraming some valve assemblies in Louisiana. To get an idea of how they worked I did a tour of the drainage passages where they were installed in. To get to it we had to drop down into a drainage passage and walk a few dozen feet and take some picture. When they suited me up they gave me a mask and some ear plugs. I looked at the ear plugs and I asked "is it noisy down there?" and they said "No, those are for the bugs"

[ASAP]

Originally Posted by 9M71

Worst job - Working at a consulting firm focusing on M&A advisory straight out of college. Man, those hours were brutal and definitely took a toll on my health, which is eventually why i left. Overnighters or going home at 4am just to shower, nap for a hour, and head back to work was the norm. Weekends did not exist either. There was one morning (after having done multiple back to back 15+ hour days) while commuting via subway, all i recall was the person standing closest to me go "are you ok" before blacking out. Woke up a few stops later surround by a nurse and some other kind strap hangers who had sat me onto a bench and even offered to take me to the ER. Politely declined and went straight to the office mainly in fear of not being able to finish my work if i had to take a detour to the hospital. GF then (wife now) had a talk on how this is not worth it, so a month later, put in my notice and couldn't be happier working at a firm that actually cares about work/life balance.

Best job... working retail in highschool at brookstone. Did "product research" by demo-ing the massage chairs all day while getting paid minimum wage. Money went straight into ricing out the car.

You should never ever work in a way that describes the first paragraph.

[CTinline-six]

Originally Posted by ASAP

You should never ever work in a way that describes the first paragraph.

It's crazy how many companies will do this to entry level people out of college. They realize the position is just a stepping stone with high turn over so they get as many hours of work as they can.

[Colodano]

Worst job experience was actually one of the jobs that I liked the most overall, working at a shop where we bought/ sold/ serviced/ restored classic European cars.

The original plan was to manually remove all of the old undercoating from a 1958 Porsche Speedster, using a wire wheel basically. Most of the job was on a creeper under the car, and the rest was hunched over the engine bay. I was wearing a mask, goggles, earplugs etc, but I was still blowing black dusty undercoating out of my nose for days after I was done with the job.

The worst part about it, the owner of the shop convinced the guy that bought the car to do a full restoration, so we ended up sending it to the blasters on a rotisserie about 8 months later.

Most mentally draining job was working at casinos, I did both security and valet, the worst part was just dealing with miserable people throwing all of their money away day after day, and then being mad at us about it.

[Pvt_D]

Originally Posted by JP10

I've had some shit jobs, but can't say I hated them or they didn't teach me anything.

1) First job at 13 was at a local mennonite butcher shop. I cleaned everything, including the kill room. Lots of blood and lard, but it was my first job (outside of helping my dad). Everyone was quite pleasant, but as I mentioned, lots of blood. Taught me a solid work ethic at a young age. At the time I didn't want to work, but I'm happy my dad pushed (forced) me to get that job haha.

2) Farm hand. Did everything from cleaning shit out of the barn (50+ cows) to running 1/2 million dollar combines. It was just my boss, his son, and my brothers for close to 3000 acres of land. Worked 7 days a week for 12+ hrs a day for 2 summers (junior yr highschool - senior year). My boss was the biggest hot head I have ever met. His way or the highway. The job taught me two things. The first being to listen and digest everything the first time. He hated repeating himself, and honestly this has benefitted me greatly throughout my career. The second is that engineers are worthless sacks of sh*t, yes I'm an engineer lol. If a piece of equipment failed during harvest he would rip those engineers to pieces, and although he was a hot head he was far from an idiot. Within his berating of those engineers he would mention how he would have designed it different. Again this has benefitted me greatly, understanding the practical implications of the design should be the forefront of an engineers thought process.

As I like to say.... cool features cause cool problems. Has helped me greatly over the years.

[bigrum]

Not a job I've done but I've always thought servicing Honey Buckets has to be one of the worst jobs ever.

I know these aren't THAT bad but being a dishwasher sucked and working in a saw mill was the hardest labor I ever did. Oh, eating shit from customers as a cashier at Walgreens wasn't exactly fun either. I remember my Christmas bonus at Walgreens was $20 .

[9M71]

Originally Posted by ASAP

You should never ever work in a way that describes the first paragraph.

Originally Posted by CTinline-six

It's crazy how many companies will do this to entry level people out of college. They realize the position is just a stepping stone with high turn over so they get as many hours of work as they can.

1000% agreed with the both of you. This was close to a decade ago, and now the priorities in life are much more different, but coming out of a competitive university, it was drilled into our heads that this is what was expected... to go into consulting/banking and work those hours for the first few years. Unfortunately this applies to a lot of non-business jobs as well... e.g. those who have to grind it out in the medical field.

Looking back... the money wasn't even good! Maybe if i had gone into PE/IBD instead of consulting, it would have been. Either way, my focus now and the past few years is work/life balance. Why pull in the 100+ hour workweeks, when you won't even be able to enjoy what you make, not see your families, and wreck your health while you're at it. Some people are addicted to the grind, but i'm not willing to give up my life for any company.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by JP10

Haha yeah I've been there. Hated disassembling the entire saw and making sure you got ever nook and cranny. I'll tell you what those mennonites are an OCD bunch. If it wasn't perfect it wasn't done haha.

I also had to keep the big dill pickle barrel clean. Such things wouldn't be allowed these days, but our pickle barrel just had a hinged plastic lid on it. As it was an old-time butcher shop, there was sawdust on the floor. Perfect for the brat kids to scoop up and toss in the pickle barrel. Cleaning that crap out with hands that were covered in nicks from the saw blades was always fun. Same with retrieving the corned beef from the brine barrel. Ouch.

[pennsiveguy]

Originally Posted by M_Six

My first white collar job was at an environmental engineering firm. I loved the field work and building systems, but the regulatory reports sucked. It was made worse by the owner's insistence that we literally had to cut and paste the reports. We weren't allowed to use Word or any other word processing app to write reports. We had to actually cut out, with scissors, the parts of the previous reports we wanted to keep and then paste them, with glue, onto yellow legal pads and then write in, by hand, the new data and info. Then we'd give that mess to the secretaries to type up. It was a total joke. My handwriting is and was so bad, that they'd bug me for days asking what I had written. Had I been allowed to use Word, I could have written reports in hours instead of the days it took to clarify stuff for the secretaries.

Plus the nutcase owner would insist that your desk was set up exactly like his desk, with your files in the exact same place, your pencils and pens in the same place as on his desk, and your Autocad tools arranged just as his were. It was the ultimate control freak job.

Wow. I've worked for some control freaks. And 20 years ago just to make sure I'd never lack for someone to tell me what to do 24/7, I married one. But none of them were that bad.

[pennsiveguy]

Originally Posted by 3.0L

I hesitate to label any of the jobs I had as "worst." Instead, I would have to label them "most difficult."

My most difficult job was the 2 years and 8 months I spent in the US Army, culminating with a 12 month tour in Vietnam with the 25th Infantry Division.

Thank you for serving. We're grateful.

[pennsiveguy]

Originally Posted by CTinline-six

It's crazy how many companies will do this to entry level people out of college. They realize the position is just a stepping stone with high turn over so they get as many hours of work as they can.

Yeah, it's de rigueur in big firms in several white-collar service industries - law, banking, accounting. You do your time and then update your resume and move on.

[King Rudi]

Fresh out of high school. Road construction....on the interstate, from October to February. Winter months are not pleasant work conditions with OTR trucks flying by you all day. Rain or snow, we were out there hanging guardrail from 5 am to somewhere between 6-8 pm. It taught me how to be a man though.

[longm1985]

Man... Worst job? I'd have to say security at a paper mill. I was expected to sit and stare at monitors for 8-12 hours. Couldn't listen to the radio. Couldn't bring a magazine. I might have snuck DVDs in when I was in the guard shack lol.... But yeah that didn't last long.

[3.0L]

After additional thought, my most difficult job was picking fly crap out of a pepper shaker while wearing boxing gloves.

[Captain Blood]

Manager at On the Border in Plano Tx. My 1st location w/ this company out of training. The kitchen was the size of an aircraft hanger, and I didn't have enough employees to clean it properly when we closed. Add the fact the GM only opened, and would bitch about the closing job, AND the pm labor cost. I was there on many days 3pm to 3am. And I had newborn twins at home.

[Tommy-G]

I have to do this in a list otherwise it will be too long:
-Collision center manager, I was recruited out of NJ and paid all expenses to move to FL
-Given a task to recruit 10 technicians to open 2nd facility, I hired 22
-Given a goal to hit $750k in sales per month, we did $892k my best month
-Made a shit ton of money but stressed out like a mo fo.
-Pressure cooker job, thankless position, someone always upset (customers/employees)
-Terminated b/c our goals were not aligned (BS excuse to not get sued) really let go b/c I wasnt a yes man to the supervisor of 38yrs still stuck in the 80's way of business
-Got a great position down the road and my old employees all wanted to come work for me
-Got sued for breach of "non-solicitiation" by old employer b/c employees sought me out and they were going to teach me a lesson

All in all, never been happier in my 25 yr career. Things happen for a reason but it was a stressful 2 years of legal battles and BS. Thankfully my new company believed in me and stood behind me. I hope to last 20 years here until I retire or whatever