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Worst job you have ever had?

Actually, have two to report. First was cutting/housing tobacco. Hot sun, sun up to sundown, back-breaking work for a very small amount of pay. Second was worked part time in a coal testing lab. Problem with the second job is that everything was timed, so you had to stare at the clock the ENTIRE time you worked, making each shift seem like it lasted years.
However, NOT as bad as the worst job I've ever seen.
7a43368e_kingpin_landlady.jpeg
 
ymmot31 said:
putting up hay for 3.50 an hour in the middle of summer.
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Oh yeah!... you got paid more-n-me.... $1.25/hr. But I got a bologna-cheese sammy and a Pepsi at lunch... For the father-in-law
Pulled tobacco plants, hoe out weeds in the watermelon patch, wouldn't let me ride the setter cause I missed one too many;)
Bailed oats so heavy that I couldn't hardly pick them up...... :) Fun times, got a good tan.
 
Bag boy at Kroger, which basically meant you were the lowest totem pole bitches at the store.
  1. Bagging groceries, which would be a big enough of a pain in the ass if not even including everything else below
  2. Corralling shopping carts all over the parking lot because got forbid the customers move a few feet to put the cart away
  3. Doing all of the janitors' work because apparently they aren't allowed to do anything except sit on their ass all day long - cleaning up trash, bathrooms, and spills along with vacuuming, sweeping, and dusting.
  4. Being consistently yelled at for not being able to take over at cashier when needed because no one ever bothered to train you, as if it was my fault others weren't doing their jobs (see point 3).
  5. Being questioned by national investigators over a massive coupon fraud case even though I never dealt with coupons because you know see point 4.

And this was actually worse than the several summers I worked on a grounds maintenance crew at a college, which meant we were the lowest totem pole bitches for the entire campus. Working on Kroger actually made me appreciate the days when I got to work outside in 90+ degree heat installing a new irrigation system on the athletic practice fields by hand. Or perhaps the most mind numbing task on the face of the planet in weeding 8 hours a day for weeks on end because no one in a leadership position ever thought to get some people a commercial spraying license. And I would still rather do that than be a bag boy at Kroger. At one point I was attacked by a swarm of yellow jackets and had to mis a couple days of work due to doctor's order, and I would still rather do that work than be a bag boy at Kroger.
 
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Worked two summers for a plumber. all i did was dig holes and lay under nasty houses getting crawled on by spiders and everything else that lives under houses, including skunks and possums

also worked one summer for a guys company cleaning rugs/carpets. that job sucked balls also. his warehouse had to be 130 degrees inside there in the summer, and then you deliver the rug and some old hag starts tearing your ass because it doesn't look good enough. both jobs minimum wage.
 
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wildcatsboston1984 said:
Bag boy at Kroger, which basically meant you were the lowest totem pole bitches at the store.
  1. Bagging groceries, which would be a big enough of a pain in the ass if not even including everything else below
  2. Corralling shopping carts all over the parking lot because got forbid the customers move a few feet to put the cart away
  3. Doing all of the janitors' work because apparently they aren't allowed to do anything except sit on their ass all day long - cleaning up trash, bathrooms, and spills along with vacuuming, sweeping, and dusting.
  4. Being consistently yelled at for not being able to take over at cashier when needed because no one ever bothered to train you, as if it was my fault others weren't doing their jobs (see point 3).
  5. Being questioned by national investigators over a massive coupon fraud case even though I never dealt with coupons because you know see point 4.

And this was actually worse than the several summers I worked on a grounds maintenance crew at a college, which meant we were the lowest totem pole bitches for the entire campus. Working on Kroger actually made me appreciate the days when I got to work outside in 90+ degree heat installing a new irrigation system on the athletic practice fields by hand. Or perhaps the most mind numbing task on the face of the planet in weeding 8 hours a day for weeks on end because no one in a leadership position ever thought to get some people a commercial spraying license. And I would still rather do that than be a bag boy at Kroger. At one point I was attacked by a swarm of yellow jackets and had to mis a couple days of work due to doctor's order, and I would still rather do that work than be a bag boy at Kroger.
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I had the bagger job when I was 17. I loved it. Not because of the job itself though.

I used to find great ways to "disappear" for anywhere from five to 30 minutes at a time. I got high in my car on my breaks and when I had "lot duty," and almost everyone knew but nobody cared. I even managed to bang a 35 year-old cashier who was pretty hot in a trailer whore kind of way. She was nothing to brag about, but it was a helluva 17 year-old conquest. Lol.
 
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MegaBlue05 said:
I had the bagger job when I was 17. I loved it. Not because of the job itself though.

I used to find great ways to "disappear" for anywhere from five to 30 minutes at a time. I got high in my car on my breaks and when I had "lot duty," and almost everyone knew but nobody cared. I even managed to bang a 35 year-old cashier who was pretty hot in a trailer whore kind of way. She was nothing to brag about, but it was a helluva 17 year-old conquest. Lol.
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"Hot in a trailer whore kind of way" - Is that like Jaime Pressly's character on My Name is Earl? lol. Only hotties we had working were the high school girls, but I was over 18 when I was working there, but I didn't like the potential idea of prison. If the whole pirson thing wasn't possible I would have attempted to get my swerve on though.

I always got my disappearing time where the carts are stored just inside the doors or in the bathroom. Only places where there weren't cameras, and I could sit on the floor behind all the carts and no one would see me. I once made all my rookie/free agent draft picks for my annual fantasy basketball keeper league doing that lol. And this was before I had a real smartphone. Phone had basic internet and email access, and I carried around my draft rankings in my pockets and texted in my picks.
 
Will join the tobacco crowd. Did it when I was really young and it sucked in every way imaginable. That said, it was a little money that was a lot to me at that time and taught me what real work ethic was.
 
Customer service for Charter Communications. Basically the equivalent of getting bitched out for things totally out of your control for 8 hours a day. It was during the first summer after I graduated with a useless degree. Totally miserable, and I've done several of the other jobs listed in this thread and would gladly do them again over that. A week before the fall semester would start back, I was sitting at a pool drinking by myself and I decided I would get my act together to get a useful degree. Went straight to the registrar the next morning, re-enrolled, took out some debt, and knocked out what I should have done in the first place over a year of overloaded course loads (fall, spring & summer terms). Never went back to the Charter office. I have been pretty successful since then, so I guess Charter at least scared me straight.
 
12 Oz. Epilogue said:
Customer service for Charter Communications. Basically the equivalent of getting bitched out for things totally out of your control for 8 hours a day. It was during the first summer after I graduated with a useless degree. Totally miserable, and I've done several of the other jobs listed in this thread and would gladly do them again over that. A week before the fall semester would start back, I was sitting at a pool drinking by myself and I decided I would get my act together to get a useful degree. Went straight to the registrar the next morning, re-enrolled, took out some debt, and knocked out what I should have done in the first place over a year of overloaded course loads (fall, spring & summer terms). Never went back to the Charter office. I have been pretty successful since then, so I guess Charter at least scared me straight.
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My "scared straight" job was in the pre-mechanized coal mines back in 1961. Pick and shovel. 4 ft coal seam (no standing up). A mule hauled the coal cars in and out. A long manual auger was used to drill the holes to set the dynamite which you lit and it exploded on your way out at the end of the day. Probably did not even make minimum wage. Hard, extremely dangerous and paid hardly anything. The sad part was that you were lucky if you could even get that kind of job.
 
starchief5 said:
My "scared straight" job was in the pre-mechanized coal mines back in 1961. Pick and shovel. 4 ft coal seam (no standing up). A mule hauled the coal cars in and out. A long manual auger was used to drill the holes to set the dynamite which you lit and it exploded on your way out at the end of the day. Probably did not even make minimum wage. Hard, extremely dangerous and paid hardly anything. The sad part was that you were lucky if you could even get that kind of job.
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I think we've found a winner.
 
My high-school English teacher set me up with a job at a fabric store. Old ladies would come in, tell you what fabric they wanted to buy, you'd grab the role
starchief5 said:
My "scared straight" job was in the pre-mechanized coal mines back in 1961. Pick and shovel. 4 ft coal seam (no standing up). A mule hauled the coal cars in and out. A long manual auger was used to drill the holes to set the dynamite which you lit and it exploded on your way out at the end of the day. Probably did not even make minimum wage. Hard, extremely dangerous and paid hardly anything. The sad part was that you were lucky if you could even get that kind of job.
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^ I think this guy's the winner. Low pay, dynamite, farm animals, danger. Makes the story I was going to tell about pulling heavy fabric rolls for fat hens all day seem like a visit to the Ritz.
 
There is honestly nothing more liberating then not giving a shat about your job performance like you see in Office Space. I had an experience like that about a decade ago. It's a lot easier to have that feeling though without a family.

Anybody have any terrible bosses?
 
Vehicle mechanic in the Army, especially horrible while I was stationed in Korea. During the winter, my day went something like this...

1. Wake up at 5:30, check the weather to see it is -3 outside. Go outside and wait in formation while freezing your sack off before going on a 3-5 mile run. You would literally have ice accumulating on your face.

2. Go to work at 9am and work on military vehicles all day. Replace a transmission in the same humvee for the 3rd time in 3 months.

3. Go to formation at 5pm and watch all of the tank operator guys get off work only to find out that your being sent back to the motorpool because "we just received 02 parts".

4. Work until as late as 10-11pm before being sent home to do it all again the next day.

This was almost a daily thing during the winter, because it was so cold that shit would stay broken down. Being only 13 miles from the DMZ we had to have everything working before we could go home.

Still not as bad as the coal mine guy though.
 
starchief5 said:
My "scared straight" job was in the pre-mechanized coal mines back in 1961. Pick and shovel. 4 ft coal seam (no standing up). A mule hauled the coal cars in and out. A long manual auger was used to drill the holes to set the dynamite which you lit and it exploded on your way out at the end of the day. Probably did not even make minimum wage. Hard, extremely dangerous and paid hardly anything. The sad part was that you were lucky if you could even get that kind of job.
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You win.
 
My brother loaned me his chainsaw one summer. I was going to cut up sawmill slabs into cords (4x4x8) and sell them to a local charcoal plant. Took longer to cut a cord than I had anticipated, I quit after one cord.

Worked on a coal auger one summer swinging steel, made great money, thought about not going back to college, but mom was having none of that. Easy job, but very boring, I could tell the time by how many holes we had bored.

Pumped gas a few summers during the full service years, good opportunity to meet chicks.
 
I've worked in the polymers industry for 30+ years. Everything from resin compounding & pelletizing to sheet and film extrusion. Hot, humid, and you can always tell people who work in the plastics industry by the burn scars on their forearms and maybe a missing or deformed finger or two.
 
starchief5 said:
My "scared straight" job was in the pre-mechanized coal mines back in 1961. Pick and shovel. 4 ft coal seam (no standing up). A mule hauled the coal cars in and out. A long manual auger was used to drill the holes to set the dynamite which you lit and it exploded on your way out at the end of the day. Probably did not even make minimum wage. Hard, extremely dangerous and paid hardly anything. The sad part was that you were lucky if you could even get that kind of job.
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Life for thousands of east Ky people in that time. That's why so many moved to other states back then. It was a hard way to earn a living.
 
JDHoss said:
I've worked in the polymers industry for 30+ years. Everything from resin compounding & pelletizing to sheet and film extrusion. Hot, humid, and you can always tell people who work in the plastics industry by the burn scars on their forearms and maybe a missing or deformed finger or two.
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Eastman Chemical Co.?
 
I think I got you all beat. While in college I worked as a certified nursing assistant. I worked home health care. I had a paraplegic patient that due to his injury could not take a duce naturally. I had to manually clean this dude our everyday. that was bad enough but dude was lonely and would talk to me about all sorts of shit while I had my finger up dudes arse. Needless to say I quit this job after two days.
 
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Chino1176 said:
I think I got you all beat. While in college I worked as a certified nursing assistant. I worked home health care. I had a paraplegic patient that due to his injury could not take a duce naturally. I had to manually clean this dude our everyday. that was bad enough but dude was lonely and would talk to me about all sorts of shit while I had my finger up dudes arse. Needless to say I quit this job after two days.
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Sounds like you needed a shop vac, just insert the hose and suck that crap right out of there.
 
The worst job I ever had came from a chick named Beth. It was awful and I pity whoever she is with today.

As for a working job, lawn care door to door. Omg I hated it you got a decent base and obviously could make extra with the more sales you have. I could always bs with the best of them so I did ok not great. I hate doing that though, and making some people make a decision in less than 5 minutes
 
Cleaning out a chicken house where the chickens were caged, using a scoop and wheel barrow. Nice runny, with an odor you can't believe.
 
BeaveUKGT said:
Eastman Chemical Co.?
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...

Yep....I've worked in pretty much every phase of making plastic, starting out in packaging by stacking 55 lb bags of resin all day to compounding & pelletizing to extruding film & sheet. I work in R&D and tech service now as a planner, and do a little traveling to our customers to help on projects.
 
Hauling hay - I have walked in the field loading the trailer and I have been on the trailer stacking the bales. I have worked for he 2nd largest alf alpha producer in the state of Kentucky. He used to have semis come from all over the South. We would load the flat beds with bales. One time we packed a 53 foot covered trailer. Uh, that sucked. First started when I was 16.

Tobacco is hard work also. I have planted it, sprayed it, suckered it, cut and spiked it , loaded the sticks on the wagon and hung it in the barn. I actually would like to have a acre or so one day. I have heard of folks getting tobacco poisoning. I never did but I guess I could see how it could happen. I have worked with Mexicans doing this and they are fast. They will def lap you in the rows cutting the stalks.

Those two were hard physical work. But it is work I enjoy doing.

The worst though is when I worked at Goodyear loading tires.

I loaded tires by hand into semi trailers. Tires were stacked on wooden pallets and you jack the pallet up with a pilot jack and pushed it up the ramp into the trailer. You then walked around to the front of the pallet and bent down and picked up each tire by hand and stacked it in the trailer. You stack the tires by criss crossing them 4 or 5 across depending on the size of each tire. Each stack was called a rick. If it was a mixed load with big and little tires you just filled up the trailer. If it was a set load then you had to have a certain amount of tires on each rick to ensure all the tires would fit. We had set loads of 700 ( Wranglar AT-S and MTR ) Once had a 1844 load which was all little doughnut like tires. The heaviest ones were a set load of 574. They were humvee tires for the war in IRAQ. They weighed around 50lbs each. In the summer it would be 95-100 degrees with 95% humidity. But inside the trailers there is no air moving at all. I have seen it as hot as 130 F inside. In the winter it would not be much better. You would be sweating but you could see your breath inside the trailer. Snow/rain would fall on you if the trailer did not back up right. It would make the ramp very slippery. I used to take 3-4 t shirts to change into everyday. I have seen guys throw up many times. Guys would walk out every week. 98% of the workers were ex convicts and that was the only job they could find that would hire them. ( I was one of the 2% ). But just bout every one of them was good guys. I worked both 8 and 12 hour shifts doing this crap, for 3 years before I joined the army.
 
Stonewall12 said:
Hauling hay - I have walked in the field loading the trailer and I have been on the trailer stacking the bales. I have worked for he 2nd largest alf alpha producer in the state of Kentucky. He used to have semis come from all over the South. We would load the flat beds with bales. One time we packed a 53 foot covered trailer. Uh, that sucked. First started when I was 16.

Tobacco is hard work also. I have planted it, sprayed it, suckered it, cut and spiked it , loaded the sticks on the wagon and hung it in the barn. I actually would like to have a acre or so one day. I have heard of folks getting tobacco poisoning. I never did but I guess I could see how it could happen. I have worked with Mexicans doing this and they are fast. They will def lap you in the rows cutting the stalks.

Those two were hard physical work. But it is work I enjoy doing.

The worst though is when I worked at Goodyear loading tires.

I loaded tires by hand into semi trailers. Tires were stacked on wooden pallets and you jack the pallet up with a pilot jack and pushed it up the ramp into the trailer. You then walked around to the front of the pallet and bent down and picked up each tire by hand and stacked it in the trailer. You stack the tires by criss crossing them 4 or 5 across depending on the size of each tire. Each stack was called a rick. If it was a mixed load with big and little tires you just filled up the trailer. If it was a set load then you had to have a certain amount of tires on each rick to ensure all the tires would fit. We had set loads of 700 ( Wranglar AT-S and MTR ) Once had a 1844 load which was all little doughnut like tires. The heaviest ones were a set load of 574. They were humvee tires for the war in IRAQ. They weighed around 50lbs each. In the summer it would be 95-100 degrees with 95% humidity. But inside the trailers there is no air moving at all. I have seen it as hot as 130 F inside. In the winter it would not be much better. You would be sweating but you could see your breath inside the trailer. Snow/rain would fall on you if the trailer did not back up right. It would make the ramp very slippery. I used to take 3-4 t shirts to change into everyday. I have seen guys throw up many times. Guys would walk out every week. 98% of the workers were ex convicts and that was the only job they could find that would hire them. ( I was one of the 2% ). But just bout every one of them was good guys. I worked both 8 and 12 hour shifts doing this crap, for 3 years before I joined the army.
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Boot camp was a break I bet.

Only 1st generation Mexicans are hard workers. Second generation are just as lazy as the rest of us. I worked alongside of them for 20 years in CA.
 
starchief5 said:
My "scared straight" job was in the pre-mechanized coal mines back in 1961. Pick and shovel. 4 ft coal seam (no standing up). A mule hauled the coal cars in and out. A long manual auger was used to drill the holes to set the dynamite which you lit and it exploded on your way out at the end of the day. Probably did not even make minimum wage. Hard, extremely dangerous and paid hardly anything. The sad part was that you were lucky if you could even get that kind of job.
Click to expand...
Chief, were you working in Bell County or out in Harlan back in those days? I heard stories from the old-timers and also know that the coal industry automated much more during the late 70s and late 80s during my very brief stints. Hated the roof bolting stuff. You probably also know about feeding rats out of your lunch pale while working the seams.
 
AustinTXCat said:
Chief, were you working in Bell County or out in Harlan back in those days? I heard stories from the old-timers and also know that the coal industry automated much more during the late 70s and late 80s during my very brief stints. Hated the roof bolting stuff. You probably also know about feeding rats out of your lunch pale while working the seams.
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I was born and raised in Noetown (a poor suburb of Middlesboro for the non locals). My Dad worked all the big mines in E Ky and a lot of those little "truck" mines. Out of work quite often. We were poor but I was never conscious of it. All your neighbors were in the same boat. My Mom could really stretch a penny. My Dad would not even accept the "commodities" that almost all poor people got. Those commodities were the only thing you could call welfare back then. Only when I got into my 30s and 40s did I realize how hard he had to work. He could put me to shame working when I was a teenager and he was in his 50s. Black lung finally killed him. Roof supporting in those days consisted of setting up a timber and driving wedges in to fill the gap. A mine inspector was a rare sight back then. Going to a mine site to watch them bring out the body of someone who had gotten blown up or crushed under a slate fall was a community event.
 
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We called them "dog mines". It was really tough. More mine inspectors began appearing in the late 70s on up. All were federal employees. I heard lots of scary stories from some of the old boys.
 
Started working in the dietary department of a nursing home when I was about 15 years old. Cleaning each try as it came back with God only knows on it. Had a lady that bossed us around. She got her kicks by making minimum wage and bossing a bunch of high school kids around. She was 45 and worked in the department.

Being it was my first job, I never really knew how bad it was until I left. I worked there for like 3 plus years.

What was even worse is the residence would die for various reasons.
 
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