Mine too was THREE HOURS (that was the length of my first shift) at MacDonalds back in 1977. Three lousy hours of cooking fries, splattering burning oil all over myself, and severely basting my forearms.
And I couldn’t handle the uniform either.
Mind-you, in the intervening years I have done FAR worse jobs, but at least for a better remuneration. 
1 evening at a coffee shop. I claimed my paycheck a year later…
At age 15 I worked at McDonalds for 1.4 hours.
Long enough to fill out the paperwork and watch a video. Then I left and didn’t come back.
Yes, I went back the next week for my $5.32 paycheck. I earned every penny of it.
I once got a job and they agreed to pay me $7 a hour back in 1980. Then when I got there for the first day, the owner said he’s checked my references, and didn’t think I should be paid above minimum wage.
I left before I could kill the jerk.
Well, I was employed officially for two weeks at the local movie theater, but I only worked for a total of three days.
Now this movie theater is a theater about 90% of the students at the high school have worked at. I got into it because my friend worked there. “Well, she works there,” I thought. “How bad could it be?” It was bad (not to mention the fact that that friend quit a few days after I started).
One horribly busy Friday night one of my customers was the sister of one of my other friends. I told her how I hated this job, blah blah blah, and she told me to quit. She told me that I was eighteen and that I deserved more than a fourteen year old kid bossing me around. I knew she was right, so I quit without sending in my two week notice.
A job as a Domino’s pizza driver lasted one four hour shift. The Warming oven burned a hole in my car’s seat, the stopping and starting killed my battery, the manager was a screamer, and two pizzas were stolen out of my car while I was up at someone’s door delivering another. I quit at the end of the shift.
At day one of a temp job for John Deere Credit, about 2 PM, a stack of work arrived at my desk. I said to my supervisor, “I better get my lunch now, before I start, or I’ll never get one”. I went to lunch and finished the work by the end of the day, which was what had been specified to me as the goal. But they called the temp agency that night and fired me, claiming I was swearing aloud in the office, which was absurd. It’s the only job I was ever fired from. Stupid rat bastards, they expect a TEMP to forego lunch?
My father had got me a job as a landscaper when I was 17.
I absolutely hated it. But I couldn’t quit.
I was fired after a week. I was so relieved.
This one didn’t last a week; it lasted almost four hours.
I had just moved back to Cali from my short stay in Arizona and I was looking for employment. Now in May of last year there were no promising jobs in my little area of town. I wanted to stay close to home so I went looking locally for jobs.
I have a lot of experience in a lot of different areas, but the highest paid job I ever had been in was an Inside Sales position. I started looking in the “Classified Ads” for anything and everything.
I went on this one interview in an accounting department of this wholesale porn company. I have no problem with porn and or nakedness that I would see if I worked there. So I interview with the owner, (total loser), and he saw that I had sales experience. He totally blew off the accounting position and offered me a job on the spot doing Inside Sales. I told him how much money I wanted and he still was fine with it.
I started on the following Monday after the Friday interview and he then introduced me to my Sales team. I swear to god that I was the only female there with all of my teeth. They looked like they had been up all night snorting or slamming some kind of drug. They were tweekers from hell.
So my Sales Manager, who weighed approximately 97 pounds, sat me down and told me the scoop. I don’t think she made eye contact with me once. She was bouncing off the walls. Anyways…she gives me like 100 DEAD files to try and sell to. No new leads, and no fucking computer. I was not happy.
There was no training, and the bitch put me on the phones a half an hour into the workday. I was terrified. I didn’t mind saying the titles of the new releases, I minded that I didn’t know what the hell to say to these video stores.
I then went to the crack whore and said can you please give me some tips on what to say to these people. She said weren’t you listening to us. I then said, NO you guys haven’t been on the freaking phone since I got here. She got all huffy and puffy with me, and said don’t you know what you are doing. I said yes, but I am not familiar with the product yet. She says, so what, are you one of those prudes that have never seen a porn before. I said no, I watch, but I don’t know what to say to these owners that are buying this product.
Long Story longer, it was lunch break and I grabbed my purse and my keys and got in my car, drove away and I didn’t look back.
Well I lasted four hours. I deserve a metal for that. They didn’t even give me a computer, WTF?
I worked about a week in a fiberglass-molding plant when I was 17 or so.
It’s still one of my visions of a lesser hell.
Throwing newspapers is the worst job I ever had. Seven days a week. Sunday papers are the worst. You get everything except the headlines on Saturday evening. You spend a minimum of 3 hours “slitting”. Then when you get the headlines @ 2:00 or 3:00am you bag em then throw your route. What a nightmare! I had 800 papers to throw. Then, you go home and wait for your supervisor to call in your complaints. These are people that either had their paper stolen, didn’t get their paper, or …on Sundays, wanted two papers for the coupons. I was robbed once and that was about it for me. Then… you have collections. Go knock on the doors of people that don’t pay and ask for money…or you don’t get paid. All papers are supposed to be out by 5:30am. This is almonst impossible when they have a big story and hold the paper til the last minute. I once ended up about 10 papers short so I put 50 cents in a machine and stole all of the papers so I could finish my route. I also broke a window. That is a sick feeling at 3:00 in the morning. It was the worst. I did this for about 5 weeks. UGH!
Dow Chemical - 3 days
Best Western - 5 days
Spartan’s Liquor - 1 day
Some Donut Shop - 1 hour and 15 minutes
I worked at Target for half a day last year. I was looking for something part time in the mornings to make some extea cash. I went in, filled out the paperwork, and never went back. I decided one job was all I could handle at the time after all. They called me 3 weeks later looking to get the nametag back.
I still have it.
I sold windows door-to-door (well, actually just talked people into setting up an appointment with the “real” salespeople) for less than a week as a summer job in high school. Uggh, talk about unfulfilling work, annoying people in their own homes to boot. I couldn’t get out of there quickly enough…
I got a job at a Party City store, and worked there for a day. We just unloaded boxes, and put stuff on the racks, and sale shelves. I was one of the few who came with her own box cutter.
I had listened to James, sniggering for a week, about my new job, I guess it was the juxtaposition of my temperament, with the name of the store, that was so very amusing to him. It was November, and of course all of the doors were open, and most of us were cold. It was a Friday, and i had needed to go pick up my paycheck from my current job, so i could go to the bank, prior to going into work, Evidently they were piecing together a schedule, as i was leaviing, I did not call to get the schedule, and thereby quit!
All good stories.
[ul][li]I, too, delivered newspapers for one night. Went in at some God-awful hour of the morning, bagged 'em, loaded 'em in my mother’s car, and delivered the route. The next day my car actually broke down (alternator or somesuch), took a day to fix. Went in the following day and they said I was unreliable, so I hiked.[/li]
[li]I’ve worked as a temp off and on for about 14 years or so, so one-day gigs were frequent. Most of them were fine - either drudgery that was quickly dispensed or just filling in for someone sick or on vacation. Usually I’m treated like a God - “Wow, someone’s coming in to help us!” But sometimes folks aren’t so generous. Just recently I’d been working at the same firm for over two years in various temp capacities - the temp agency loved me, the company loved me, I loved both, etc. However, I got transferred to a new assignment and within a day realized I needed to get out of there, as the manager, The Bitch, seemed to have lost her soul to some sort of wager with Satan himself. Highlights of this week-long engagement include: I was referred to as “the temp,” never my own name; even after asking everyone in the department if there was anything for me to do, including The Bitch, I wasn’t allowed to actually do anything to pass the time (and we’re talking 3-4 hours at a time here) - no checking my (already existing) company e-mail account, no surfing the web (which was actually encouraged in that particularly company), no reading a book, etc. - I was to sit and twiddle my thumbs (I found out much later that no one in the department wanted to give me work to do because they knew upon meeting me that I was actually competent, and therefore wouldn’t last, so why bother wasting the time to teach me how to do things); I was told one day at 3:00 that the department was closing early (it was a holiday weekend) and they “couldn’t trust a temp to stay alone,” so I had to leave - this knowing that I carpooled, but what choice did I have? (I swung a ride home from Dad, who happened to be in the area that day); and so forth. Finally I called the temp agency and explained that, as an exemplary employee, and as someone with 12 years experience, I was not about to be treated this way, and they agreed, chagrined (“We were kind of wondering how long you’d last there - sorry about that…”) Turns out The Bitch had been through 14 temps in six months! :eek: Out of professional courtesy to the temp agency I stayed on a few extra days until they got me an interview one afternoon in another department, which I went to and they were much impressed and offered me the job (which I said I could take at 9:00 am the following morning if they’d have me). I went back to work, and at 5:00 went to The Bitch and said, “Could I have a minute?” She looked at me like a Nazi looked at a Jew and said, “Is it important?” I said, “I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t.” “Fine,” and we head into her office. I said, “I need you to sign my timecard, because I won’t be back tomorrow.” She said, “Fine,” took it and signed it, and handed it back. I said, “Did you want to know why I won’t be back?” She said, “Nah, I’m good.” I turned heel and left.[/ul][/li]
Probably more, but those stuck out.
Esprix
Funny you should mention it.
I just left a job today. It was marketing position for a well-known national charity. I stayed three and a half days.
I took the job because my independent contract was eliminated in December, and I decided that there would be more security in a more corporate setting. It didn’t work. I did in fact find this setting to be rife with insecurity, unfortunately. I’m really not sure what happened, but I learned this: never do a better job than your older, heavier, less educated manager. Yikes. :eek:
One time my sister got offered a job at some small little investment firm, but she already had two jobs and so offered it to me. I already had another job and didn’t really have time to take another one, but I was pretty desparate for money, so I decided to go in anyway.
I was under the impression that the job would be a secretarial type thing, but I got there and the guy had me order some presonal stuff (clothes, etc.) out of a catalog. Then he had me vacuum and tidy up (which I didn’t mind at all). When I was done he told me that it didn’t look like I was going to work out (I can’t figure out why) but that if he ever needed a babysitter he would give me a call. ??? I still can’t figure out if he really need an assistant or if he was just recruiting babysitters.
Oh well, it was no skin off my back. I didn’t really have time for the job anyway.
I did three four-hour shifts at a blow moulding plant, once in my misspent youth. Sat at a huge clanking machine which spat out shampoo bottles, picked up bottles, said “Yow! These are hot, why can’t I have some sodding gloves or something?”, put bottles in box. Not exactly demanding.
The machine worked by, basically, taking in plastic chips from a huge hopper thing overhead, melting them down, then using compressed air to blast the molten plastic into a mould. Obviously, with all those little chips of plastic rubbing together, you got a massive buildup of static electricity - so much, in fact, that the chips would often stick together into clumps that were too big to go down the tubes - so the machine would stop until you went up to the hopper and jiggled the tubes around to break up the clumps.
However, while you did that, the air compressor was still going at full blast… which meant pressure was continually building up inside the machine.
On the third day, I found out you had roughly three minutes to unclog the tubes until the compressed air forced its way out along the path of least resistance. You would think the phrase “safety valve” would come into the conversation at this point, wouldn’t you? And you would be right: it turned up in the sentence “These machines don’t have a safety valve.”
And it was at this point that I decided a change of career was in order.
My first week in college, I worked in the kitchen scrubbing dishes. My main job was to scrape off whatever food the automatic Monstro-Wash didn’t take care of. Dirty as hell, hot as hell and paid shit. Left it to start a library job that suited me perfectly.
But I’m still always considerate to restaurant and dining hall staff.
I also worked for about four days doing door-to-door fundraising for a political action group in Louisiana. Absolutely miserable. I’m not a salesperson to begin with, and this was a truly uphill battle, getting people in conservative Louisiana to care about environmental issues. There was a quota you were supposed to make to stay there and I didn’t make it, so I took off. I don’t know if they’re still around in Louisiana.
I remember one guy I talked to who said, “This whole country’s gone down the crapper since they gave rights to women, whales, and criminals.”