I had one for about 15 minutes, but was not fired or quit, but was promoted. Seems like the director looked at my credentials and as I was going through on the job training he came, introduced himself and told me that it looks like we placed you in the wrong department and sent me to a different one. While I don’t want to go into details I was quite happy, actually crying happy as I left that tedious job and got one that allowed me to do what I love doing.
Yes I was paid for those 15 minutes, with a note on my time sheet saying ‘sent to ----’ I still love looking at that sheet
Shortest temp job was doing phone calls to solicit donations. I lasted less than a day, because I really didn’t believe in what I was asking people to donate to.
Most memorable was a job making refractory (fire-proof) cement. I shoveled dust in a very noisy environment. They didn’t give me ear protection, and when I dropped the shovel, I couldn’t hear it hit the ground. The next day I brought my own ear protection. The ground dust was so fine that it flowed like liquid and got everywhere. I had to take two baths at the end of the day to get it off. I wore nose protection, but the stuff still got it, and I sneezed black.
For some reason I lasted two weeks before I quit. I went to plant making highly explosive nitrocellulose, but it felt cleaner and safer than that cement job.
I had a mindless job hand-packing grease fittings for a crappily-made tool. The grease smelled and got on everything. They gave you latex gloves that only lasted about a minute before ripping. Everyone was unpleasant. It paid badly. There was no break room, so I had to leave my lunch in the car where my Coke would heat up to about the temperature of a cup of coffee. My friend started at the same place at the same time so I figured at least we could chat over lunch. He found another job on day three and didn’t bother to show up for day four. I decided on day five I wasn’t showing up any more either.
Did a couple of event gigs as a kid, lasted a few hours.
Had one job where I was assigned the task of making sure kids bubbled in their standardized tests correctly - we weren’t supposed to change answers, but if the kid made an “X” or if they bubbled outside the bubble, our job was to clear that shit up. 2 days at that one. My friend lasted months, and my God would we rag him.
I lasted one morning at New England Printing Ink in Brighton, Mass. The upside of the job was that it was a 2-minute walk from my house.
The job consisted of mixing ink to printers’ specifications. They had huge vats of basic colors and you had to go from one to the other, scooping out a specified amount and mix to specs. The thing is, you had to “scoop” the ink with a palette knife! This was a skill not acquired overnight.
After a frustrating morning, I walked home for lunch. My roommate greeted me at the door and fell over laughing. I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and discovered I was covered in ink from head to toe.
Exhausted and ink-spattered, I decided to call it a career. I did later pick up a check for a few bucks, which immediately went to beer.
I spent one evening doing in-seat service at a Tampa Bay Rays game and hated every freakin’ minute of it. It was then that I realized the extent of my social anxiety. I can recall going to the restroom to hide and one time I accidentally walked into the men’s room which was humiliating and rattled me even further. At the end of the night you had to go through this whole lengthy process to cash out / get your tips so I ended up staying there until midnight for what was probably 15 dollars, only to drive home in the blinding rain. The next day, my coworker who also did the stadium gig (and who could be a real nasty piece of work)asked me in front of the whole department “how I did” the night before - she was really good at it and made a ton of money - and that pretty much ended my willingness to ever attempt a food service job again.
A group of us were hired to collate and assemble syllabuses (syllabi?) for the college law school. There were a lot of pieces to put together, but we quickly fell into a rhythm.
A few days later we got paid and our checks bounced. Turned out the law school paid us out of the wrong account. It took longer to straighten out the clerical error than the entire job.
A friend of mine owns a liquor store. He was desperate for a clerk one day. He had hired 2 people but they weren’t due to come for another week. I agreed to help him out for a few days. OMG, what a shit job. I don’t how anyone does it. The shaky drunks come it the morning. The party-ers and aftework drinkers start coming in the afternoon. The crazies come out at night. I got more marriage proposals and cussed out more often than at any other time of my life. He did pay me. He wanted me to be permanent. Nope.
I was 16, attending high school after leaving home and living with a roommate. I needed the money.
Worked for a company that sold coupon booklets based on cold-calling. A total rip-off. Pay $50 to get maybe $30 off on goods/services you might use. I suppose if you used most of the coupons it could be a deal, but really, how many times can you get your carpets cleaned?
I lasted 3 months, the entire duration of the job. We showed up one morning to discover the company had pulled up stakes and stiffed us for our wages. I didn’t even care, I was so glad it was over.
If only
The wait person carries a POS device (point of service, not piece of shit )and patrons can order anything the stand sells. You send the order to the food vendor, pick it up and bring it back to them, and obviously collect the money. God forbid a group of ten is sitting together.
Cold call job out of a very temporary office. They gave me a script that started out “Hello, sir/mam-I am Officer Jones calling on behalf of the Police Charity Circus For Children…”
I stopped when I got that far into reading the script and walked out the door.
I once got a night job in a bakery. My job was to operate a huge machine that made dinner rolls. A huge, mean woman showed me how to operate the machine and to load the rolls onto a rack and take them to the freezer. What she neglected to show me was how to turn the machine off when the rack was full. When the time came, of course the machine kept making rolls, and there wasn’t another rack available. I felt like Lucy and Ethel in the candy factory. When the woman finally came around, she called me every name in the book and refused to acknowledge her fault. I walked out and never went back.
I had another job with a woman who made people feel stupid for asking reasonable questions.
“What typeface should I use?”
“Obviously, Times Roman.”
“And what size?”
“Obviously 16 point.”
Former roommate had a horrible job doing STD testing. He’d go to homeless shelters during the day and they’d set up shop outside bars during the night. Being an alcoholic, and the fact that the business was horribly run, he was trying to get out of the job.
He ran across a listing where they’d sell knives, and the job allegedly paid amazingly well. He immediately quit his current job and went for his first day at the new one.
Turns out, they’d go door-to-door trying to sell the product and also do in-store demonstrations. So, a bunch of “new hires” piled in the manager’s car as they went out for the day to try and sell their wares. During the lunch break at a fast food place, my friend told the boss that he didn’t think this was right for him, that he was misled as to what the job entailed, etc.
Boss said that he was sorry my friend felt that way, but was on a tight schedule and didn’t have time to take my friend back to the office for his car, and also that he didn’t think the friend should tag along for the rest of the day since he wasn’t interested. Oh, and did I mention that the “training” wasn’t paid?
So, my friend lasted half of a day, didn’t have a job to fall back on, and was actually worse off because he had to pay for an Uber to take him to his car, 15 miles away. We ribbed him a lot over that.
Sad thing is, a few months later, he got roped back into something similar, but at least this time, he was smart enough to wait until he was back at his car before saying something to the boss.
My brother and I delivered phone books door-to-door one day. It was murderously hot and we had to lug those heavy books up many a set of apartment building stairs. Towards the end of the day we could see there was no way in hell we’d finish our route, so we took the rest back and quit.
Women’s shoes at a department store in college. At the end of my first day (4 hours - part time), I left my ID badge in the locker I’d been given. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.
I applied for and submitted a portfolio to be the main artist in the painting of a mural on a large, city block long brick wall. Got the commission. Poorly paid and in the summertime. It was the prestige I’d gain, they said. I had 2 guys who were volunteers to help. It was arduous and slow. Climbing on scaffolding for 2 months was horrible. They did bring us ice water every day. Finally finished. Got paid. Never again. Got a few commissions from it. They were bad too.
A summer temp job testing postage meters at a Pitney-Bowes office. Basically, the job entailed sitting in a large windowless room full of blank envelopes stuffed with blank pieces of paper and a single postage meter machine. I was to then spend the next 8 hours (with a break for lunch) feeding the envelopes through the machine.
After an hour, I called the temp agency and told them I wouldn’t be coming back the next day (although I did finish out my shift).
There might have been a few other “one day here/one day there” jobs, but that one sticks out in my mind.
I was walking past WDAF, a Kansas City TV station and saw that a guy was working on repairing a satellite dish. It was a twelve foot solid metal Ku dish. I chatted with him a bit and he decided that I knew what I was talking about and he hired me to wire up all the heating panels on the underside of the dish that would melt all of the ice and snow that landed on the dish.
)and patrons can order anything the stand sells. You send the order to the food vendor, pick it up and bring it back to them, and obviously collect the money. God forbid a group of ten is sitting together.