Mine was at an egg farm cleaning the machines after hours when I was a teenager.
or maybe it was when I was 12 babysitting the five Williamson kids, one of whom was a wannabee runaway.
Stripping tobacco, when I was 12. My parents loaned me out to a local farmer for the last two weeks of the summer. They saw it as a character building exercise, but I saw it for what it truly was, slave labor.
Eighteen years old, working construction, in 95-degree heat, building a toxic waste pond.
The pond had to be lined in thick, shiny black plastic. I stood for weeks in the middle of a couple of acres of the stuff, lugging heavy crap around.
Miserable.
Definitely working for a research firm on property at Universal Studios.
Stand just inside the front turnstiles, in the USF Admissions uniform (short sleeve pastel green buttondown, khaki pants) with one of those extended PalmIIIs. Stop every third guest (or parent of, if third guest appears younger than 10).
Ask a bunch of questions about where they’re from, what kinda ticket they bought, how long they’re staying, etc.
It doesn’t sound so bad, except when you consider that
-it was hot as hell, and there’s no shade
-these people had stood in line for up to an hour already and were anxious to get to the rides/bathrooms/restaurants
-people get extremely cranky when you ask them personal questions (like household income)
-pay sucked.
[complete hijack]
Hey Really Not All That Bright, even though I’ve been coming to these boards for quite a while, I just now realized who you are. I was a Phi Delt pledge for a short time last fall semester.
- Jason C. [/complete hijack]
Picking strawberries.
I was twelve and it sounded like an easy way to make money. It was at a fruit farm 4 miles from my house & my friend’s grandparents owned it. How bad could it be??? I now know they were evil & the proud leaders of a child slave labor ring (not really). I agreed to work for a month of my precious summer vacation. I got up at 5:30 to ride my bike out there for a 6am start time. I wore the same clothes every day so I didn’t ruin another pair of jeans. Kneeling in manure, dirt & rotted fruit to stick your hands in a prickly plant to search out the one non-smooshed, un-rotted berry was not fun. Getting paid $.25 a quart to do it was even less fun. Having to pick 4 flats (40 quarts) before I could go home was the worst. Realizing that I wasted most of my day for 20 bucks sucked. Knowing I couldn’t quit because they were my friend’s grandparents & my grandparent’s friends… priceless.
Yeah. And I can’t add. It was 10 bucks.
$.25 x 10 quarts = $2.50 x 4 flats = $10.00
I know I didn’t make $400 bucks in a month when I was 12.
When I was about 17 (1986 or so) I couldn’t find a regular job so I was going to this “labor pool” place, you showed up about 04:30 and it was first come - first served on the jobs. The “regulars” knew to pass on certain jobs but being a dumb kid I took anything that came my way.
Memorable low points:
I mixed drywall mud in a large pool/vat thing, it was about 3 1/2" deep and 25" across, I put on a set of hip waders and waded to the center of the pool/vat and beat the lumps out with a canoe paddle (in a warehouse, summertime, Houston, Texas).
I got sent out to a place that ran tanker trucks to steam clean the inside of tankers that had been transporting some thick, sticky crapola (corn syrup, molasses, misc. bizarro chemicals).
Bear in mind that for this I was grossing the incredible sum of $3.35 an hour.
Thanks, I have been thinking that my present job sucked, but maybe it’s not so bad after all.
Unclviny
Last summer working at a state campground. Cleaning crappers from 7am-1pm then mowing lawns from 1-3. Now I work in a library… Inside with books (and the internet, as I’m posting on a break at the moment). Yay.
Suddenly my summer of data entry on a computer in an old researcher’s basement doesn’t sound so bad…but hey, he smoked very stinky cigars! That has got to count for something.
Detasseling corn at age 14. I’ve blocked it from my memory, but I’m sure that it sucked.
Must have been a really short time, because I don’t remember you.
On the other hand, I’m getting old, and I’m not around that much, so I barely remember the guys who were actually initiated. Don’t feel bad.
Small town in Illinois, mowed grass for the city for four summers.
Once a guy stopped his car, came over with a big grin and said, “gee, I wish I had your job - outdoors all day, smell of cut grass, get a tan…”
Yeah, right.
Humid to the point of passing out, mowing over wasp nests, mowing over a gas line and breaking it, picking up crap people threw in the parks, poison ivy, snakes, sunburns, every couple of years a guy would lose all or part of a finger with the crappy old mowers we had, always enough rain to keep that grass growing faster than you could keep it mowed, mowing the middle island on busy four lane streets with people driving 50 miles an hour, three inches from your butt, and did I mention it was humid…dripping, wet, sopping wet, stinky filthy humid?
Got paid $5.00 an hour.
Oh, and when it rained during the day? They had us paint the ceiling pipes in the sewage plant…and I thought it was humid outside…
Yes, detasseling corn. A midwest rite of passage. For the town/non-farm kids who weren’t doing real farm work, anyway. I think I got $1.82 an hour to walk through cornfields from 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM for 3-4 weeks. We had a lot of fun because it was all teenage girls and we were a little rambunctious, but man…the sunburns I got. Blistering sunburns. My friend would sit on the porch step above me and peel the skin off my neck & upper back with the tweezers. If I get skin cancer I’m blaming it on DeKalb Corp.
That was the only real summer job (2 seasons) I ever had though. I was more of a freelancer. I’d wash & wax my mom’s friend’s car, help someone paint, babysit, do a little yard work. On the other hand, maybe babysitting was the worst. I learned early that I would not make a good parent.
Note to self: job at Subway in the mall = not a bad job.
Hijack-ish: What, exactly, is detassaling?
Detasseling is pulling the tassel of the corn off the stalk. The tassel is this part. I can’t remember the exact reason why you have to do this (probably blocked from memory due to sef-preservation instincts), but it’s something to do with preventing self-pollenization of the corn.
Sunup to sundown in the blazing heat and humidity (detasseling is done in July/August - the hottest part of year), covered in pollen and insects, with the occasional snake/rat/other critter scampering about. All this and a paycheck too, in the amount of approximately $1.50/hr.
Though, as AllShookDown mentions, the scantily clad girls just about evened things out. Especially when they doused themselves with water to cool off.
I hear there is a machine that does most detasseling now, and I’m sure that will bring about the collapse of the American way of life. Bunch of weak-kneed kids!
bah
I used to sell ADT security systems door to door. In the ghetto. No hourly pay, just commission, some weeks I didn’t get paid at all. I tried to quit because I couldn’t pay my rent, my boss just loaned me the money. I was in debt for the next few sales.
The worst part was, even if you were a good salesman, they still had to pass the credit check.
Nothing like standing in a hot, humid, stanky-ass house in the worst neighborhood imaginable, (feces on the floor of course) for 3 hours ,trying to close a deal, and finding out they didn’t qualify.:mad:
Age 18 - housekeeping at a local hotel. I spent the first week attempting to convince myself that every person who stayed at the hotel had short, dark, curly hair, despite all evidence to the contrary. By the time I was done, I had dealt with most of the major human secretions at one point or another.
On the plus side, it takes a lot to gross me out now.
Almost 18, had just graduated from high school, and had a summer job at…my old high school. I was doing book inventory, textbook repair, removing old locks from lockers and having to clean out the damn things–old sandwiches, bugs, slime, you name it. Yeeesh!