Not crappy, but qualify for the poll (I actually enjoyed the jobs):
Lumberyard worker, emptying boxcars of lumber one board at a time. I’d start by shimmying on my belly into the space on top and wedging out boards. I would slide the boards out to my partner who was stationed on the ground sorting the boards into skids by length. It usually took about a day and a half to empty a boxcar. When it was done I would find out the tonnage of how much lumber I moved, just for a sense of accomplishment.
Busboy in a 24 hour restaurant working the midnight to 6 am shift. Had a good time with that one.
Crappy-ish:
Janitor at the state mental hospital, in the criminally insane wing. Met the most interesting people. Most were not a problem, but one guy went off and gouged his eyes out one day. Did I mention I was the janitor?
I worked as a nurses aide for awhile, so human waste was a daily thing and I worked the overnight shift for a little while, so I got those two. Then as office manager, 60 hour weeks were not uncommon, so I got that one too.
I once had a job that went from around 8pm until 2-3am that involved lifting things, many of which were over 50lbs.
Another job was 2pm - 2am, sitting on a stool watching a machine that wrapped boxes of beer in plastic. Every few hours the roll of plastic would need changing. I had to watch it and change it at the right time to stop the production line coming to a halt. Yeah, it was fucking dull, really hard to stay awake, and I missed my cue half the time anyway.
And I spent a bit of time as a porter in a hospital that was more of a hospice in many respects. Twice a day I had to empty the bins. That meant the ordinary black bags, and the dreaded yellow bags. The medical waste bags. All the patients were bedridden elderly people, so unfortunately every bag contained varying amounts of piss, shit and vomit. One or two times I did that thing where you accidentally blow a whole sackful of stinking air right in your face when I was tying up the bags. I almost created some medical waste of my own right there.
I hated the night shift with a passion, but it was one of my first jobs in my youth, and did it for five years working at the newspaper in the mailroom, which, if you’ve been paying attention to movies and comedies, is often the butt of many jokes.
The worst part, was adjusting over during your two days off trying to get back in the groove of day hours, then just a short time later, having to adjust back over to nights again.
I basically did the TV show “Dirty Jobs” long before it was a TV show. In one year I did everything from working clean-out on a blast furnace, to being a honey-dipper, to night clerk at a 7-11 that got robbed a lot. And I wouldn’t really call any of them bad jobs. I actually enjoyed and would do them again as my age and physical condition would allow. (I would be slower and more methodical now and use less brute force. Ain’t got a lot of that left.)
Worse job I ever had? Quit and still trying to forget? Teaching in an affluent school district. Most of the students had higher allowances than I did salary. And how do you tell millionaire parents Little Johnny is a freakazoid when mommy has a Masters she’s never used and Pops has over 1000 employees? I would go back to shoveling shit in a second rather than back there and eating shit.
I worked mids for about a year when I was first in the Navy. I was young, single, totally unencumbered, and apart from the hassle of trying to sleep during the day when the rest of the world wasn’t very considerate, it wasn’t bad.
Some years later in a different assignment, they had us on rotating shifts - 2X 12-hr mids, 2X 12-hr days, then 96 hours off. It was a terrible schedule - there was no way to get your body adjusted to the time changes. I swear, there were times I arrived home with no memory of the drive. There was no reason they couldn’t have had a day shift and a night shift and swapped us out every month or so. It was a case of “We’ve always done it this way!!!” I so hated that job - fortunately, it only lasted 6 months.
After I dropped out of college at age 19 and before I became a software developer at age 34, I had a variety of jobs that qualified for most of the items in the poll.
I drove a truck for a printing company, which involved heavy lifting and being outdoors in all kinds of weather.
I had various sales jobs that were all commission, and I suck at sales, so those jobs were terrible for me, financially and in every other way.
I installed and repaired overhead garage and warehouse doors, which involved heavy lifting, carrying heavy things up ladders, working with electricity and welders, and some outdoor work in crappy weather. Mainly due to fear of injury, I switched to an office job at the company, which was a 70 hour per week gig. Getting fired from that job drove me back to school to learn programming.
While I was at school learning programming, I worked as a security guard, third shift.
I worked in a venom laboratory for about five years, part-time. I extracted venom from and otherwise took care of snakes, toads, spiders and scorpions. Although my life was in danger pretty much every minute I was at work, I really enjoyed that job.
First day on the job at my first real job. Part of the place was a rendering plant. You can search for rendering plant if you want, it is where all the animal scraps go to be processed into usable materials. Nothing goes to waste. Oils, meat and bone meal, that sort of thing.
This plant processed mainly fish guts and scraps. So they hand me some rubber boots and a shovel and put me in “the pit.” The Pit is where all the blood gutters ran in to settle out the solids. About a foot deep in black pudding like stuff that was rotting blood and guts, and oozing and moving with maggots.
About 20 minutes later the person training me came back and said, “Are you still here? Get out of that shit!”
Apparently I passed the test. The plant was later featured in one of the first pilots for the TV show, Dirty Jobs. By then we were turning the fish waste into fish food for the state and federal fish hatchery system.
The only thing that pertained to me was a summer job in a liquor warehouse. Lifting boxes was part of the routine and I quickly learned that a case of pints weighs more than a case of fifths. I also quickly learned not to lift single bottles of El Toro tequila by the decorative cap.
I’ve worked as a security guard and in a convenience store, so plenty of graveyard shifts. I’ve worked for the USPS and we were required to lift 70 lb bags of mail. I’ve also worked in a beer store, so I’ve manhandled my share of 15.5 gallon kegs.
I did a short stint in the salad bar at my university’s largest food court. There were so many employees and assistant managers that nobody knew everybody. On my last day, one of the ass[del]hole[/del]istant managers happened to see me walking to clock out, gathered I wasn’t very assertive, pulled me over, and tried to make me clean out these massive grease hoods without gloves. They were from the extremely-high-traffic burger grill/fryalator(sp?) section. I didn’t even work over there! Anyway, these things were coated in utter disgustingness, because I guess that particular task was done approximately once a never.
Rather than tell him to shove his shit work onto another patsy, I waited until he went to bug somebody else, clocked out, and never came back. Truth be told, there were so many student workers in the place that I probably could have just clocked out, come back for my next shift, and not gotten in trouble. But I didn’t need the money badly enough to put up with the bullshit, so I got a job working prep across campus at a hamburger joint instead. The worst thing I was ever asked to clean there was mayo off the counter.
Working nights in the campus computer lab that summer was awesome. The pay was minimum wage, but it covered my bills and I could play WoW until the sun came up, so I didn’t give a fuck.
Never cleaned a grease hood, never will. I’d rather be homeless.
I’ve had some crappy jobs (fast food, mailrooms), and some jobs that might appear crappy but that I really enjoyed (landscaper, construction labor). But the job that checks off the most boxes on this list was one that I loved: grad student. My research was focused on environmental heat transfer processes, especially in extreme environments. I worked in 129 °F (54 °C) heat in Death Valley, in 50 mph winter winds in the Sierra Nevadas, on superheated geothermal wells and in mines on three continents. Heavy stuff, bad weather, and long hours were par for the course, and a small mistake in planning work in extreme conditions could easily lead to dangerous or lethal situations. But it was a great job and I’ve never regretted doing it.
I still do similar work in some of the same spots, but when the temperatures get above 110 I send students out instead of going myself. I hope they like it as much as I did.
I am an aircraft mechanic, so peoples lives in my hands? I can only kill 400-500 people on the plane with a mistake. How many on the ground? IDK. Yet I love my job!
Long hours? YES!!
Human waste? Rarely but every now and then.
Heavy lifting? I regularly lift 100 lb sacks of material into the aircraft. I am a big boy and I enjoy the manual labor. It also helps me stay in shape.
Work more then 50 hrs a week or 7 days a week? My average work week is 54hrs. Seven days a week? I ask for how many weeks? 24 weeks in a row is my record so far.
Work out side in all kinds of weather? There are not many places that we can put an airliner indoors. Of course I work on airplanes in bad weather! It is murphy’s rule at work on this one. The longer the job, the crappier the weather.
Work the night shift? For over twenty years I worked 3rd shift. Very few bosses and no BS meetings! Safety meetings, Yes, but no other BS. When I worked 2nd shift we had at least 4 BS meeting a week. Dayshift gets 6 or more a week. 3rd shift averaged 1/2 a safety meeting a week! No BS.
One had to volenteer for the 3rd shift at Boeing. I volenteered! I also HATE HATE HATE the 2nd shift.
My own life in danger? Working on aircraft is fairly dangerous, but not the most dangerous job I have worked. I roofed houses to pay for college the first time. It was the 2nd most dangerous job in Oregon at the time, right behind logging, which I did with my family while in HS.
Work solely for tips? HELL NO!! I can make more $$ flipping burgers at DQ. Although I did buss & wait tables between HS & college a few times. I got GOOD tips when I waited tables in a “store” owned by my family . I took VERY GOOD care of my customers.
First real job was a mail & supply clerk for a tiny Federal agency. Had to lift heavy boxes in supply and heavy sacks in the mailroom. Got a back injury a month into the job when I fell sideways on ice while walking from the bus stop to where I was living. Got moved to the IT department eight months later while they processed the paperwork to get rid of me.
Based on the above, I got a trial in a big Federal agency as their lead supply clerk. Picked up a small box that was way heavier that it looked and really messed up my back. Boss told me to not bother coming back when I went to lunch.
Temped as manual labor in a cold storage warehouse. Nearly got a five pound block of cheese upside the head; gone the same day.
Temped as manual labor in a hot & steamy warehouse. Lasted two days.
Tried telemarketing & door-to-door sales. Lasted a week in both.
Worked part-time in the front end of a local grocer: cleaning, cart & handbasket corralling, and helping customers load groceries. Was the only one there who would clear ice off the sidewalk in winter. Only job I could get at the time.
Second job with my current employer was in a copy room. Had to move 75 lb. boxes of paper short distances.
