From crappy restaurant/bakery/deli dishwashing jobs…
I can knock out the nastiest highest pile of domestic residential dishes quickly and systematically. I don’t care how big a party you’ve just thrown and how hazardous a zone your kitchen has become, I’ve seen worse 
And I can do so without the slightest wince or complaint, and find a nice zen calm from the activity (toasty water on my hands, steam in my face, citrus scent in the air…bliss.)
I smell new thread fodder!
I smell something, anyway.
I can wire a trailer’s lights in nothing flat. And I know how to sharpen a lawnmower blade.
Dear Og, I try never to admit this in public, but I can stuff envelopes with astonishing speed and neatness.
I’m also really good at fixing paper jams in printers and copiers, another skill I do *not *admit to in my current job.
This is kind of a useless skill, but from a job as a photo assistant from a company that did senior portraits, I can tell any man’s suit jacket size just by looking at him.
Oh no one wants to hear my stories of… …picking up skinned cow heads with a hook through the lower jaw and having the eyes turn to look at me or… …just exactly how hard I laughed when a hundred and fifty pounds of fresh, warm entrails landed on my supervisor or……just exactly how broad the definition of “beef” is when you’re talking about pet food ingredients. (hint - what do you think they do with the hooves and horns?)
I worked as a stocker at a grocery store for one year. I am really good at breaking down cardboard boxes.
I am also good at pushing heavy carts with casters, like a pallet jack. You know, like where two wheels are stationary and two swivel around? People have trouble with this. But if you have to push a huge heavy pallet full of laundry detergent through a crowded store and down a small aisle, you get good at it.
Ditto on this, plus what do do if the cable plow turns up a dud mortar shell*. :eek:
(* Clear the area and radio for the base engineers’ EOD unit.)
I’d kinda like to hear that one.
From my catering days, I can flip twenty hot dogs at once.
I can also make meringue, mayo, and whipped cream by hand.
That last one especially induces the most amazing displays of abject slobbering gratitude. You’d think I’d cured cancer or something.
I don’t know if this skill counts as useless, but it’s always met with a certain sort of impressed awe whenever I perform it.
5 years of working irrigation has left me with the skill to dig a perfect 5" deep trench in grass in minutes; removing soil and sod in one chunk and leaving a level base.
Dirt also doesn’t bother me at all (biological effluvia, yes). I’ve reached up to my shoulder into stinking rotting vegetation in muddy water to open valves before. Your sifted loam in the garden is a treat, thank you.
I got really good at putting juuuuust the right amount of mayo in tuna salad when I was making it in bulk for two different food service jobs. At the first such job, one of my coworkers said she liked it best when I made it.
I also discovered the joy of mixing such things with my hands. It’s so much fun! Not so much when the meat’s cold from being in the freezer, though.
I spent my HS days unpacking those cantaloupe and putting them on the shelves (I still do if we’re short crewed)…what can I do now you ask? I can spot a piece of fruit rolling off a counter out of the very corner of my eye while immersed in a conversation with someone else. 99% of the time, I can grab it before it falls without ever breaking eye contact. When I miss, I can usually catch it with my foot so it doesn’t hit the floor. Oh, and at one point I could juggle said cantaloupe.
After being an art-supply-person for an after-school program run by a very disorganized art education department, I can now organize un-organizable piles of junk!
Some of the lessons from the craptacular jobs don’t make themselves apparent for years.
From working at a summer camp, I learned to manage large groups of kids ( use to be kinda like the guy from Full Metal Jacket, but girls don’t respond to that kinda talk. ponies! ) . Here is a clue: Girls need “You are pretty and dress nice and ooooh, sparkles!” and boys …Half Full Metal Jacket Half Weird Al Yankovic. (Then I make the boys more sensitive and toughen up the girls.)
From working at a MegaStore, I perfected my patience and poker face from the wandering herd of humanity. Their inability to find what was right in front of them is/was my job security. [size=1]“Do you know where the Stalin is?” " Stollen. Yes, ma’am, right over here." Politeness and walking them to the product, lest they get lost by some shiny endcap display.
We’re twins, Motorgirl.
Did you use any kind of gloves for your produce work? Since speed was key and the melons were wet from washing we took cotton gloves, cut bicycle tire innertubes into 1" lengths and sewed them over the fingertips. It gave you excellent grip, this back in the '70s before the advent of ubiquitous specialty products.
In the peak of the season we might work 20 hour days to process all the harvest. You’d pack and stack 1200 to 1400 boxes, get a few hours sleep and start all over. The sheds, especially in West Texas, didn’t have AC and the temps were over 100. After a couple of hours of work your shirt, then your pants and finally your shoes were drenched with sweat. When the wind shifted and came past the onion dicing shed next door we’d have 40 people out in the open crying like babies. So that’s another thing I learned from a crappy job, to get a couple of degrees and make a living with your mind instead of your back.
No, no special gloves for putting up produce. Speed may be the key for packaging them, but when you’re putting them on the shelf it’s just a matter of keeping up with the customers.
As for juggling them, all I needed was a second person to toss one over to me since I couldn’t hold two in one hand to get started.
I can giftwrap like a motherfuck!
In high school I worked at a stationery shop that also sold various trinkets on to which I would paint people’s names in fancy scripts. The job is a distant memory, but the lettering skills linger on.
I’ve also got Crane’s Blue Book pretty much committed to memory.