Years ago I started a new job in a new industry (to me). The manager did not hire me, but her manager, the VP, did.
One of the first things we worked on together was a presentation that she would provide to the VP on a program, only I was expected to build the presentation. Now, I am OK with us collaborating on something, and then someone else running with the ball, as long as that expectation is set up-front (it was not). Not only did she not collaborate, and made me do all the work, she got to read each draft and critique. It would have been a hell of a lot easier if the two of us sat down for an hour and mashed it out, but NOOOOO, she was too high and mighty for stuff like that which the little people do.
After several drafts and this back-and-forth, I finally said to her in exasperation, “Can you just tell me what you want?”, to which she replied “I don’t know what I want until I see it”. Best line ever.
We did not last much longer as a team, and I was fortunate to find another position in the same company (with the VP’s help).
Detasseling – removing the tassels from corn plants. It’s a teenager’s job, either walking the fields or standing on a machine that moves down the rows. The machine isn’t bad because you’re above the corn and reaching down to pull the tassel. But walking, the corn is over your head, and there’s no air, and if you’re not wearing long sleeves, the corn leaves will scratch your skin.
It wasn’t bad, except for the Summer of the Corn Borer. Big fat white gloppy worms, and no gloves. ::shudder::
From a distance, corn fields don’t look so bad. Inside, they’re green hell.
I was the victim of a little “employment agency” scam as a young man-they promised that I would only have to pay their fee if they actually found me a ‘real’ job. Well, they did, at a work-to-own place (and as I later learned as I moved out of my wide-eyed innocent phase, those places are bent as hell too), where I spent 3 hours standing around doing nothing (didn’t even lift a single sofa or anything), then got fired on the spot. At that I went back to the agency to complain, and they politely pointed out the fine print, didn’t say that I had to stay on said job for say 2 weeks before the fee was due. Beeotches.
Yes for grossness it’s hard to beat caregiving for bodily fluid content, it’s true.
I’ve done my share of shit jobs, but the summer me and a friend hitchhiked out west, we stopped and got jobs picking apples, in some small town. The other pickets were French Canadians, every night they got drunk and into fights. I lasted three days. It was awful and back breaking. We were kind of doing it on a lark, so it was easy to walk away from. Me and the Chinese kid were singing negro spirituals by day two! The Swiss kid lasted over a week - very impressive!
And I haven’t thought of it in a million years, great topic!
Job just out of school, working in the kitchen of the local hospital. I got to unload the big industrial grade dishwasher. Lots of heat and steam plus wearing heavy rubber gloves and apron.
In summer. In Australia.
Plus the coworkers were a bunch of dickheads as well.
ETA: I was pretty happy when they demolished the place a few years later.
Working in a refractory (fireproof) cement and firebrick plant. Of all jobs I;'ve had, this was the worst.
1.) Unbelievably noisy. When I dropped my shovel (see below), I didn’t hear it hit the ground. The plant did not provide ear protection. After the first day, I brought my own. The old guys who worked there didn’t use any. And were mostly deaf.
2.) I spent most of my time shoveling chromite dust onto a conveyor. The stuff got ground up so fine that it flowed like a liquid, and got in everywhere. It got through my breathing mask, and after putting in a full day, I sneezed black for an hour. It got into your skin. I had to take two baths to get it all out.
3.) lack of adequate safety practices. I saw a guy get into a mixer to clean it out (otherwise the cement would set up in there and harden), but I didn’t see anyone “tag out” the switches to prevent it being turned on while he was in there. Another guy pressed an “Off” switch while standing in a puddle of water – and got a shock. My favorite one, though, was quality control. The guy weighing out the cement into containers smoked a cigar while doing it – and tapped in a few ashes at the end before sealing it up.
I didn’t stay there very long. I valued my health too much. But there’s one place I stayed eveb shorter – the time I got a job making pledge-begging calls for a university.
Given that we were generally calling “seniors” yeah we did sell, sadly… because it was overpriced crap. I was too young and stupid to realize it at the time, but a lot of these seniors were really being taken advantage of in my opinion.
In college, I had a summer job selling women’s shoes in a department store. The women would come in just to rest their feet with no intention of buying anything. Then they’d claim to wear a size 6, when in reality they should wear a 10. And you have no idea how much it stinks down there, between their feet and their spread legs, cramming their feet into all the 6s. I think I may have sold one pair a week.
Back when I was writing freelance, I wrote an article about scammers who would call (mostly old) people, claiming to be raising money for the widows & orphans of firefighters & police officers killed in the line of duty. For research purposes I got a job with one such company. I could only stand it for about a week, and I ripped the paycheck up when they sent it to me.
Another temp agency story. In between my freshman and sophomore year in college, a friend and I were assigned to dig out a huge ditch for one thing or another. It was another hot New Orleans’ summer. I remember being eye level with the ground and looking over the haze of the Louisiana landscape. All that was missing was a herd of Zebra and Wildebeest. As soon as our supervisor left, we would throw down the shovels and head for the shade. Needless to say, we didn’t return after lunch. Hardest half day of my life. I’m soft that way.
In high school a couple times a year I worked at a egg farm. I guess when a chicken gets to a certain age, they get sold for meat.
I was hired to carry live chickens from their cages to a chicken hauler truck. This involved walking in a stinky barn, going to a cage where a guy was “pulling”. He’d hand you 4 chickens for each hand and you carry them to the hauler. Mean while the chickens are freaking out, scratching you, shitting on you etc. Oh and at this state of their lives they only have about 10% of their feathers so they looked pretty freaky.
The second job that comes to mind, for 5 summers I worked on a Commercial Fish Packing boat off the coast of British Columbia. It was probably both the coolest job and worst job I’ve ever had.
I worked brutal shifts (record was 37 hours straight with virtually no breaks), I was often waste deep in dead salmon and you worked rain or shine. The money was epic, but you earned it. It was pretty crazy, I was 18 years old and I was driving the boat twice a day for 4 hours, and cooking for 5 guys. At times I hated this job, but honestly I’d do it again in a second!
In my college days I worked in a poultry genetics lab.
A lot of genetics experiments involved controlled breeding. Alas you cannot just put the rooster and hen in the same cage and play them some Barry White music to ensure successful breeding.
So every Tuesday was fuck a chicken day - an afternoon of artificially inseminating chickens. That was bad.
But what was worse… you have to have the right stuff to inseminate the hens with. So every Monday was wank off a rooster day. Just hold this little test tube right here while you massage the rooster like this.
For some reason my research interests turned to bacteria. Anything you can grow in a petri dish starts to look pretty good after that.
