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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Worst Job Ever
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
Over on the Christian Aid thread in Purgatory, Gamaliel talked about being forced to do telemarketing while between jobs.
Some years ago, when in a similar situation, I delivered free local papers for a few months.
The work itself wasn’t bad (in good weather, at any rate), but it was appallingly paid.
It took me back to my days as a 10-12 year old when I sold newspapers on the corner (running between cars stopped at red lights to sell them through the windows to drivers, something which these days would give OHS people a fit of the vapours) and then graduating to a delivery round on my bike.
I think my worst work ever was a holiday job during my university years, which involved squirting fibre glass particles though a hose into roof cavities as insulation.
The particles got into my clothes and made me itch continuously..
I only lasted for two days.
What’s the worst thing you have ever had to do for a buck?
[ 13. May 2013, 07:54: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Wesley J
Silly Shipmate
# 6075
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
[...] I think my worst work ever was a holiday job during my university years, which involved squirting fibre glass particles though a hose into roof cavities as insulation. [...]
I read that as "squirting fibre glass particles though a horse"... ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) - still, sounds bad enough.
I'm surprised they didn't give you protective clothing. That can't be right, clearly! Grrr!
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Be it as it may: Wesley J will stay. --- Euthanasia, that sounds good. An alpine neutral neighbourhood. Then back to Britain, all dressed in wood. Things were gonna get worse. (John Cooper Clarke)
Posts: 7354 | From: The Isles of Silly | Registered: May 2004
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
A temp job on a miles out of the way industrial estate in the parts department of a maker/supplier of fork-lift trucks and industrial runabouts.
Person I was replacing laid great emphasis on how busy they were - somedays not a moment to think, hard-pressed to finish, etc, etc, etc.
Well - either they had alerted everyone to the fact of their holiday, or not a single truck needed anything doing to an unprecedented 3 weeks, or they were onto one of the cushiest jobs ever.
If I went really slowly I could spin out the job to last for about 2 hours: that left 6½ hours to kill before I could escape because, being so remote, they operated a mini-bus at the ends of the day but nothing at lunchtime (and no canteen either).
The first week was hell - manager much in evidence and v. suspicious that I seemed to have nothing to do.
Second and third weeks better only in that (a) older hand told me to always keep one order back on a clipboard and have at the ready; (b) I managed to find a cubbyhole where I could read; (c) the chaps in the yard took pity and taught me to drive a fork-lift; (d) the weather improved so I could go outside.
Having nothing to do sounds idyllic but being paid a pittance with nothing to do can be hell.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
My first ever job was as a Saturday assistant in a florist’s. As the junior, my job was to wash out and refill all the pots the flowers had been standing in during the week. This meant lugging great heavy pots full of stinking green water out to the back, tipping this down the loo and then cleaning them out and refilling them, and throwing away the unsaleable flowers. By the end of the morning my hands stank and as often as not my clothes and shoes were splashed with rotting vegetation.
In the afternoon I was allowed to join the others in the main part of the shop selling flowers. Customers would choose what flowers they wanted and I needed to keep a running tally. However, our boss expected this to be done by mental arithmetic – no calculators or writing anything down – which for someone who was in the process of failing O level maths for the nth time wasn’t ideal.
“I’ll have four of these carnations at 28p each and three of these roses at 75p each and – oh, wait a minute, make that five carnations, let’s put back one of the roses and have three gerbera and some of the gypsophila instead. Do you think that looks all right or should I add some of that pink thing over there and put the carnations back?”
The euphoria of my very own first job and actually being paid real notes and coins mostly carried me through until they transferred a permanent member of staff up from the other branch a few weeks later and there was no need for me any more. By then the joy was wearing off and I wasn’t sorry to go.
[ 13. May 2013, 11:25: Message edited by: Ariel ]
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Having nothing to do sounds idyllic but being paid a pittance with nothing to do can be hell.
Ohhhh, yes! Especially as I have high-fidget-low-boredom threshold.
I had a holiday job in a poultry packing plant. You know nothing about tide marks until you've spent your day with your arm halfway up to your elbow in a long succession of dead chickens.
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Not a job I've ever had, mark you, but given what most technology is used for if such an application can be found, I reckon one of the worst jobs imaginable is mopping the floor on the Holodeck.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Bob Two-Owls
Shipmate
# 9680
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Posted
Worst job I ever had was quality control at a Christmas Pudding factory. All deliveries had to be physically tasted which was fine when the Whisky and Brandy was being delivered but the most frequent deliveries were suet, lard or pasteurised liquid egg. My line manager was a card, he used to make delivery day fly by shouting "if you don't eat your lard you can't have any suet" in a Floydian kind of way.
Posts: 1262 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bob Two-Owls:
Worst job I ever had was quality control at a Christmas Pudding factory. All deliveries had to be physically tasted which was fine when the Whisky and Brandy was being delivered but the most frequent deliveries were suet, lard or pasteurised liquid egg. My line manager was a card, he used to make delivery day fly by shouting "if you don't eat your lard you can't have any suet" in a Floydian kind of way.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Waiting tables. I just do not have the right personality for that sort of job, and it showed.
In second place comes doing the filing for a large insurance company. Taking folders off shelves then putting them back again for eight hours a day every day of the week. "Boring" simply isn't a strong enough word.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Lucia
Looking for light
# 15201
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Posted
As a student I once spent a summer wrapping gift boxes of toiletries to be sold in Marks and Spencer's at Christmas. Repetitive present wrapping for hours - tedious. The inane chatter of the regular staff - bitchy. The local radio station piped into the working area - soon knew every comment on every record by heart. My sanity was saved by a 'Walkman' (remember those?) and books on tape from our local library to while away the time!
Posts: 1075 | From: Nigh golden stone and spires | Registered: Oct 2009
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
An old lady of my acquaintance used to work at the Campbell's soup factory. They would be rotated around chopping up the various ingredients for the soup.
Every so often she would have to spend her entire working day chopping onions ( ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif) and made you STINK by time you got home).
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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BessLane
Shipmate
# 15176
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Posted
The worst job I ever had was office manager/personal assistant at a mom & pop interior landscape firm. The office manager bit was fine, it was the personal assistant gig that killed me. The couple were trying to have a child, doing the whole IVF thing, and one of my tasks was to help the wife keep track of things in that department... I'm no prude by any means, but I really really didn't need to know quite that much about my employers' sex life.
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It's all on me and I won't tell it.
formerly BessHiggs
Posts: 1388 | From: Yorkville, TN | Registered: Sep 2009
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
In charge of the pluck bin at an abattoir. Promotion? The creme de la creme worked in the gut room.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
. . . In second place comes doing the filing for a large insurance company. Taking folders off shelves then putting them back again for eight hours a day every day of the week. "Boring" simply isn't a strong enough word.
In a long-ago fit of economic desperation I had to do exactly this. In my case, the paralytic tedium was made infinitely worse by several much-younger colleagues who passed the god-awful clock-crawling creepage of time regaling one another with detailed descriptions of how drunk they got the night before and how much, and what, they managed to puke up in the process.
Ah, well. I lost a few pounds in the two months I stuck it out.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
Every so often she would have to spend her entire working day chopping onions ( and made you STINK by time you got home).
The Whole Foods Market salad bar usually includes peeled, sliced hard boiled eggs. I hate chopping onions, but peeling hard boiled eggs all day would be a nightmare task.
I've been pretty lucky. I had a tour guide job that required one day a week monitoring a visitor center- a nice way of saying cleaning the bathrooms all day. Unclogging someone else's toilet is about as gross as it gets. But I always took pride in taking my turn. A few of the senior tour guides used to refuse to work visitor center days, but even after six summers, I always took my shift.
Now that I am a lawyer, and sometimes work for days on the same problem, I really do miss the days when I had a concrete task to accomplish every day.
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
My first ever job was as a Saturday assistant in a florist’s. As the junior, my job was to wash out and refill all the pots the flowers had been standing in during the week. This meant lugging great heavy pots full of stinking green water out to the back, tipping this down the loo and then cleaning them out and refilling them, and throwing away the unsaleable flowers. By the end of the morning my hands stank and as often as not my clothes and shoes were splashed with rotting vegetation.
My wife is a florist. That is pretty much where you start, and if you want to stay on the good side of the store owner, you have to be willing to take on physical tasks like that no matter how senior you are. She has very impressive biceps after three years of lugging buckets around; she even laughs at the people who pay money to join cross-fit gyms, as she gets paid to do essentially the same work out.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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vw man
Shipmate
# 13951
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Posted
25 years ago I
ed as a hospital chef,my face just did not fit,and my life has hell,but the good thing is that I handed managed to get transferd to a hospital that was closing down got made redunt and a change in jobs les me to the best job I have ever had working in social services
Posts: 115 | From: Derbyshire | Registered: Jul 2008
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
The joys of working in a 1970s children's home: Work 6 days a week for £6 a week, live on-site so no real time off, no key so had to rely on goodwill of someone to let you back in again if you went out, kids got shouted at, staff got shouted at, hardly any toys or materials to do things with kids, long periods of boredom and no stimulation, nobody allowed to know what was going on or what would happen next, staff and kids had to be seen but not heard, high changeover of staff, some leaving without notice in the middle of the night.
But at least at that place, as far as I know, no sexual child abuse. Which was fortunate as it was by no means rare.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
I painted spots on ladybirds - yes, really!
It was a summer job when I lived in Birmingham and was home from university, in a jewelry factory. We were given 1000 charms and had to paint them. The first 20 or so were OK, after that it was impossibly tedious.
To relieve the tedium I would paint the occasional multi-coloured one, then run through to quality control and packing to let them through. The canaries in cages were the worst - so tiny it strained the eyes!
The only diversion was a boy in the polishing room who fancied me desperately.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
He looked at you and saw how you painted a dot on a ladybird. His heart missed a beat...
My worst job was doing quality check on tulip bulbs (yes, very Dutch). The bulbs would pass by me on a conveyer belt and I had to pick the bad ones out. After a couple of days, even my friend's head started to look like a tulip bulb!
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I also once helped out with a mailshot.
This meant turning up to spend the entire working day in a small airless room by myself 1) collating papers to put in envelope, 2) stuffing envelope, 3) sealing envelope, 4) sticking on pre-printed address label.
Repeat continously for the next 7 hours and carry on doing that for 2 weeks (it was a massive mailshot), with nobody to help you, or talk to.
Sometimes I shifted the piles of envelopes around or arranged them in different ways. Some of the papers went in upside down for a change. I experimented with sticking labels on vertically instead of horizontally, then with using the address label to seal the envelope. Periodically I changed chairs so as to have a different view of wall to look at. There is only so much you can do, though.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Edith
Shipmate
# 16978
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Posted
Sewing buttons on Pinky and Perky pyjamas at a factory when I was a student. And then I did six dozen back to front and nearly got the sack. But the overlooker discovered that I was the only person who could spell Directoire Knickers so I was put to labelling the boxes instead.
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Edith
Posts: 256 | From: UK | Registered: Mar 2012
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Repeat continously for the next 7 hours and carry on doing that for 2 weeks (it was a massive mailshot), with nobody to help you, or talk to.
Ouch. Worst mass mailing I was ever involved with involved 1400 recipients, but had to be done in one day. The small town post office was not happy with us when we showed up near closing time with all of those envelopes to go through the system. Given that it was just one day of hell, we were able to laugh about it throughout. Two weeks of that would be terrible.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
There haven't been anything like enough mentions of physical hard work, which is bloody unpleasant even if you are young and fit.
Back in the summmer of '76 I worked on a building site and the labour was incessant during that scorching hot July and August. Nine-and-a-quarter working hours of serious labour every day and mixing 'mud' for the brickies was the least-worst task, though demolition using a power-hammer had its thrills. Still the cash was welcome, which is why any of this did these jobs.
(incidentally, I can't be the only one who thought "Derek and Clive"?)
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I also once helped out with a mailshot.
This meant turning up to spend the entire working day in a small airless room by myself 1) collating papers to put in envelope, 2) stuffing envelope, 3) sealing envelope, 4) sticking on pre-printed address label.
Repeat continously for the next 7 hours and carry on doing that for 2 weeks (it was a massive mailshot), with nobody to help you, or talk to.
Sometimes I shifted the piles of envelopes around or arranged them in different ways. Some of the papers went in upside down for a change. I experimented with sticking labels on vertically instead of horizontally, then with using the address label to seal the envelope. Periodically I changed chairs so as to have a different view of wall to look at. There is only so much you can do, though.
Funnily enough, I'd love a job like that!
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
I worked in the local chrysanthemum fields for a while. Most of what I did was to prepare cuttings for propagation. They would set our team loose on a field with instructions to take cuttings using one of the measuring devices that we were required to buy. Tedious, back breaking work, since we had to bend over to cut as quickly and accurately as possible.
On occasion we got to plant fields, taking those same cuttings, dipping them in rooting powder and sticking them in the dirt. This was done while squatting, even more uncomfortable after a few hours than bending over.
It was a bit of a relief to be let go at the end of the season. Although I did really miss my little paycheck.
I can't believe I remember all those details. It was close to forty years ago that I had that job!!
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Sod farm, 1975. Growing grass, manually moving 40 ft lengths of irrigation pipe about 100 yards every, 1 section at a time, 3 parallel lines. Push pipe, twist, pull out, carry, hook together, walk back for second length. There were 34, 40 ft sections.
Then stand on frame built around tractor which undercut 4 ft by 18 inch sections of grass turf and sent them up a conveyor belt. 66 pieces on each wood pallet, every second piece was your's. Had to grab the grass from the top, which wore the skin off knuckles.
Then stacking 2x2x4 ft bales of peat moss in a quonset. Ride up on the forklift with a pallet of peat moss and lift them over your head while standing on other bales, 30 ft above the cement floor. No health and safety thoughts in those days.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
Just waiting for someone to respond, "Luxury! I had a job years ago...........And when you tell that to young people today...."
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Wesley J
Silly Shipmate
# 6075
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Posted
Luxury! I had a job years ago! And when you tell that to young people today!
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Be it as it may: Wesley J will stay. --- Euthanasia, that sounds good. An alpine neutral neighbourhood. Then back to Britain, all dressed in wood. Things were gonna get worse. (John Cooper Clarke)
Posts: 7354 | From: The Isles of Silly | Registered: May 2004
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Bob Two-Owls
Shipmate
# 9680
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
There haven't been anything like enough mentions of physical hard work, which is bloody unpleasant even if you are young and fit.
I have worked as a manual railway track-layer (for railway preservation societies), a gravedigger, an apprentice blacksmith and a stonemason's mate (the guy who carries the stone around and does the rough dressing). They were the best jobs I ever had, far better than being stuck in this hell-hole of an office. Getting a degree was probably the worst career move I ever made.
Posts: 1262 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I also once helped out with a mailshot.
This meant turning up to spend the entire working day in a small airless room by myself 1) collating papers to put in envelope, 2) stuffing envelope, 3) sealing envelope, 4) sticking on pre-printed address label.
As a kid I used to do that most summers to help my mother with conferences she was organising. I got to do it at home with some music or the Test Match on in the background though, so it really wasn't too bad. And when you're 14 three quid an hour is worth working for!
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
I worked for a year in the offices of a metal-bashing firm during the early 90s recession, in an inner-city (remember that?) location in Northern England.
On day 1 I took a 10% pay cut. Budgetary constraints meant I was given a disciplinary for using too much of the milk the firm bought for tea breaks - I lived in insecure accomodation where not only most of my posessions but also my food were stolen, and I had to eat cornflakes at work.
I had to keep transport running to get to work, despite nearly zero disposable income. Every time a kid smashed my van window or I had to buy more cheap oil, another week's effort at work dissappeared.
I got something like shell-shock from the fear of crime - loud noises made me jump, and I've never slept heavily since.
And I was there because I had been offered a year placement in Copenhagen, but couldn't bear to be parted from my love for that long. She who out-manouevered me, and found a placement for herself in Holland, regardless.
Actually, it was all deeply character-building ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
The worst job I ever had was a cleaner at a fish factory. Truly horrible. I used to go home every day, strip into a bin bag, tie it up til the next day and have a bath but I still stank.
The second worst job I had was putting model aeroplanes into boxes. The boss was a bitch, the supervisor was a bitch and the only good point was that you could smoke in the loo. About a week after I left a disgruntled employee burned the place down. The police came and interviewed me as an ex employee and all I could say was that I hadn't done it but I could understand why someone did.
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
Posts: 3542 | From: the cupboard under the stairs | Registered: May 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chive:
The worst job I ever had was a cleaner at a fish factory. Truly horrible. I used to go home every day, strip into a bin bag, tie it up til the next day and have a bath but I still stank.
Ohhh - foul!
The second worst job I ever had was at university. I used to get up at 7am every morning to clean the loos in the students union bar. I can not begin to describe how foul that was - and yes, the mens loos were far, far worse - the aim gets worse with every pint! (see the toilet thread!)
I was very well paid for an hour a day, more than those who worked behind the bar for hours each evening, this because no-one would do my job. I also learned to block my nose without touching it and still breathe, a very useful skill!
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Mr Clingford
Shipmate
# 7961
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I also learned to block my nose without touching it and still breathe, a very useful skill!
This intrigues me - how did you do it?
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Ne'er cast a clout till May be out.
If only.
Posts: 1660 | From: A Fleeting moment | Registered: Jul 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
By not blowing it either?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mr Clingford:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I also learned to block my nose without touching it and still breathe, a very useful skill!
This intrigues me - how did you do it?
I use a muscle (somewhere in the top of my mouth/palate - I think) which I push upwards and it blocks any air from entering the nasal passage.
Great skill for use when nappy changing, I discovered much later!
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
I've done cleaning, in houses which involved cleaning a toilet, but not simply toilet cleaning which I think must be pretty awful. I hate cleaning at the best of times so it wasn't good.
The most difficult job I've ever done was my return to work after having the children, when I worked in a payroll office. I'm a meticulous attender-to-detail but almost innumerate so while I seldom made mistakes everything took me three times longer than it took anyone else. Plus the boss was horrible, one of the other workers was sharp-tongued and bitchy, and in certain weather conditions the place stank because it had a septic tank.
Nen - fan of the mains sewage system.
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
Posts: 1289 | Registered: May 2011
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
The second worst job I ever had was at university. I used to get up at 7am every morning to clean the loos in the students union bar. I can not begin to describe how foul that was - and yes, the mens loos were far, far worse - the aim gets worse with every pint! (see the toilet thread!)
Yes, I suppose if alcohol was an issue, the men's room would be worse. If that's not an issue, I maintain from my experience that keeping the women's bathroom clean throughout the day is far more work, since it gets used more frequently.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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The5thMary
Shipmate
# 12953
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Posted
I had a temp. job at a seafood processing plant in South Seattle. I had to be in this giant room with a concrete floor and drains... for the fish blood, guts, gills, heads, and scales to flow into. I worked on the canning machine. It was boiling hot, loud, smelly, and dangerous. A little Chinese girl who spoke not a jot of English dropped a knife and it fell down and embedded itself in my hand... I slipped on soapy water and fish guts and nearly broke my ankle. All of us caught the bus going back to downtown Seattle and we reeked of salmon guts! I usually had fish guts and blood on my hiking boots... all this for a piddly $6.50 per hour! Ugh! I believe that place is still in Seattle...
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God gave me my face but She let me pick my nose.
Posts: 3451 | From: Tacoma, WA USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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norfolkadam
Apprentice
# 17674
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Posted
For me it would be a similar job to the one mentioned in the OP. In the depths of my desperation about a year and a half ago I took a job at an outsourcing company which did cold-calling on behalf of charities.
Cue eight hours of rejection, repetition and self-loathing. I hated myself and found one morning I would be physically sick if I had to repeat the script once more, I left and got a much more palatable temp job that afternoon.
If not that then the three weeks I spent working for the electoral commission answering calls about the PCC elections, it was a game of 'send a leaflet to everyone in England and Wales with a freephone number on and see who rings'. The answer being the disgruntled masses (and masses and masses). Call volumes were much higher than they expected since the Home Office didn't offer any information about the candidates (which we couldn't provide) I had to take one call after another, trying to keep each one under 30 seconds until I had enough, spoke to The Guardian about it and quit when they published the story.
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http://commonorgarden.tumblr.com/
Posts: 8 | From: Southampton | Registered: May 2013
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
Welcome to the Ship, norfolkadam! I hope you enjoy your voyage with us.
The welcome thread in All Saints is another friendly place to dip your toes in. Feel free to poke around the other decks and be sure to read the descriptions of each board to get an idea of what goes on there!
jedijudy
Heaven Host
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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Crazy Cat Lady
Shipmate
# 17616
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Posted
I got expelled from school so the next day I got a job in Chelsea Girl. It was my job to pick up the clothes people had knocked on the floor - that was it! I always rehang clothes in shops today, 28 yrs later!
For the next 7 yrs I did a dearth of boring jobs, the lowest paid clerical work, which was either answering the phone all day, filing all day or data entry all day. I got sacked a lot.
Everyone told me I was not academic and frankly a bit thick - would so love to travel back in time and shove my newly acquired Masters in their faces lol
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'They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me!"
Nathaniel Lee
Posts: 52 | From: Suffolk | Registered: Mar 2013
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
I can remember that when I was a young child I was horrified to hear that a night cart collector called at our house each night to collect the dunny can. I can't imagine a nastier job than that. After we moved into our new house we had a flushing toilet which seemed like a miracle.
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"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
norfolkadam has reminded me of a rant from a friend who works for our local council and is in charge of making sure all the democratic services run smoothly. At the recent council elections, help and advice were advertised for people who couldn't make it to the local polling station. It was meant to be for the bed-ridden, the elderly, the infirm ... not for people with sudden massive diarrhoea attacks who phone you up at the council offices, give you all the details and expect you to do something about it.
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by bib:
I can remember that when I was a young child I was horrified to hear that a night cart collector called at our house each night to collect the dunny can.
It might have been shit to you, but it was his bread and butter.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
You don't say!
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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