the WORST job you ever had?!
 

Mine was when I was about 19....in west Texas. I helped a buddy sandblast the inside of oilfield scrubbers. You had to crawl inside these things that were about 60 ft long....and only about 48" around. It was summertime.....hotter than a SUMBITCH and you had to be in full sandblasting gear laying on your back...worming your way thru the scrubber. These things were on pipe rollers and they would rotate them from the outside. It was absolutely MISERABLE!

In the summer of 1973 I took a job (as an in-betweener) for a 55 gallon drum recycling company, what we call 44 gallon drums, now 200 litre.

We used to get half used drums of avtur, jet fuel, which worked really well in kerosene lamps and heaters.

The bad stuff was drums of rancid tallow which were rolled through a hot caustic bath, then flushed with steam and water.

It stank like vomit, eight hours a day.

In the summer of 1992, I worked for a whole week as a telemarketer, selling death insurance to little old ladies and men using scare tactics. I quit over principle and went back to being a waitress.

I don't think either was as bad as those ^^ two.

There was this job where I was required to wrangle things that screamed, punched, kicked, urinated, vomited, defecated, threw things like chairs, cursed and spewed racial epithets, all while not being given a break to eat or pee for as many as 10 hours a day. I was required to do this while collecting data at 30 minute intervals and completing legal paperwork. Can't wait til summer is over to start back :D

Used to work in a produce warehouse for a bunch of fucking exploitative bastards.

The worse day was in the middle of a then 10-hour shift, where I came around the corner, and found a diabetic friend of mine passed out on the floor. They wouldn't let him take a break for necessary personal maintenance. He did get to go home after that. The rest of us had to work four more hours.

:rofl:

Oh god - too many awful jobs to mention. Most of them because of working with horrible people, rather than what I was actually doing. Having said that, working 13 hour shifts 7 days a week on my feet in a shop with a 1 hour break for lunch where we were not allowed to speak to our colleagues, even if the shop had no customers wasn't much fun, and I suspect not entirely legal.

Most of my bad jobs were like Lou's, not so much inhumane conditions as just total assholes for bosses, esp. the one where everyone in management inherited their positions. That said, I was reminded the other day by making a delivery to my last place of employment that working in any print shop is a miserable environment...you don't even realize how you come how you come home every day smelling of the petrochemical solvents in the blanket wash used on all presses until you get away from it for awhile.

Its a toss up between sacking feed in a feed mill in 95+ weather,or working on a dairy having to get up at 4am to milk 120 cows.

My worst job....well, the people were nice, but the job....Let see, I worked at a contract packaging house. I had to screw tops on bottles (that hurt at 8 hours a day) and among other things, I had to manage a machine that packaged powdered easter egg dye. I would sneeze different colors for a day or so after I worked there (that and the first time washing your hands after the shift started was interesting...what color would hands become?).

Production Assistant
 

Thought it would be the best job ever... was lucky enough to be assigned to a lingerie catalog company. I had been the photographer's assistant for a hat and glove catalog company previously, so I was extremely excited. As it turned out, I only printed addresses on envelopes and stuffed them with thank you letters for orders placed. After seeing how many thousands of guys ordered and what they ordered, I'll never look at a lingerie catalog the same way again.

I always look at lingerie catalogs this way.

Not so much as the jobs as the people. I'm stuck in the middle of a bitch fight right now and it has me sooo stressed that I wanna hand in my keys. I would rather be stressed out from no job then the bullshit I have now.

hmmmm, maybe telemarketing security systems.

Or picking strawberries.

Or maybe when I did heavy equipment pressure washing for about 2 weeks. It was winter and we'd have to go to the equipment yard in the middle of the night. That's a recipe for cold, wet, and miserable.

Working at k-b toys for me. I work 4 days in two weeks (it was after school part time, but damn that sucks). I like the assistant manager, but the store manager was a bitch. Add that to the fact that I had to call THEM to find out if I was working because instead of actually scheduling me, they put me on call five days a week. I could deal with the customers and the work itself, but that having to call in was bullshit. If they hadn't fired me, I would've quit after the third week.

My worst would have to be working in housekeeping for a local nursing home while I was in college. I had to collect dirty (read: smelly, piss-stained, crapped in) laundry and run it through the cycle and was also on bathroom cleaning duty for a while. I thought that job would never end. I know you're thinking that they can't help it, but I swear some of them pissed themselves on purpose just to get their jollies from annoying the staff.

However....my uncle and I were having this conversation last weekend and he was telling me about a job where he worked the night shift doing sercurity at the county mourge. he was in charge of collecting bodies recieved, tagging toes, removing and catalouging personal items and jewlry from the bodies and assisting on emergency autopsies. That just might be the most awful job I've ever heard of.

Restaurant work is Special
The people who work there are special (attracts all kinds)
The bosses are Special
(will say anything, to get you to work, can you say empty promises boys and girls? I knew you could...)
(work you like a slave)
(oh, and some are real scum...)
The Hours and scheduling is Special
The wages are a joke (I'm the one sweating in the kitchen, not making the tips)

The one thing you have going for you is a high stress environment

Sometimes you get a really good/fun/team oriented group to work with

On the plus side, anything seems easy after you've work in a kitchen

Yet Still when I go to Job interviews, people who work in the restaurant industry, will sometimes ask me...
You have a great CV worked in a lot of good restos, but you seem to move around a lot
-Oh, ... yeah ! right...

work my way though college as a garbage man that was a time before those one arm bandit things hated it when it rained and people would leave the lids off the can and then the cans would leak

Passing out samples of bar-b-que beef in this awful dump of a grocery store in Texas. That job lasted for exactly 8 hideous hours.

The other terrible job was working in a dinky plumbing store where I was expected to hold up the counter for 8 hours all while staring at mounds of PVC pipe. That job also lasted for 8 hours.

I've had so many...

Burger King (my 1st job) - Never mix people and food....it's a BAD combination.
Grocery store - not too bad....just had to pick up the slack for lazy coworkers.
Research lab - Started off fun but then got boring and repetitive pretty fast.
College Teaching Assistant - Best job I've ever had...loved teaching.
Garden Ridge - lil old ladies and special sales events....crazy.
Dorm Receptionist - always worked the late shift....saw some interesting things...
Animal Hospitals (2) - the first one, one of the vets was a son of a *beep*...the one where I am at now...it has its moments...
Kennel Assistant - really lazy coworkers (and dishonest ones at that)...SUCKED
Factory - moving heavy parts to their storage racks and assembly lines in a metal building with no air...lost 30 pounds that summer...that was the only thing I liked about it.

prison guard ...had urine thrown at me, and alot of people threaten to kill me

I guess I blocked it out, I did do a few months in a mall food court (before they were known as food courts)...& yeh, restaurant work is lower pay, because tips are supposed make up the difference...anybody ever tip the kids in the food court? Thought so...

Still, not sure if that was worse than 11-7 cashier duty at the local Stop n Rob...the low pay is offset by the risk of being shot & killed on any given night :yikes: