What was your worst job ever?

[AUFred]

I worked as a concrete tester out of high school which was a nasty thankless chore.

I worked in a steel fabrication shop for a while. I spent a short stint inside a shot blaster with an air hose blowing steel shot off of cleaned steel. When I went home at night and shower rust ran from every pore in my body. I also still have hearing damage from using air powered grinders.

Working a hay field is pretty bad too.

 

[dancingpotato]

I have only ever worked in childcare and I have enjoyed all of my jobs. I'm pretty lucky to have never had a bad job.

 

[acctnt shan]

I worked at a dry cleaners during high school... lots of horror stories from handling people's dirty laundry...

 

[HK]

I worked for 6 months in a pub before the smoking ban, I suppose that's the job I'd least like to do again. I've never really had a job I absolutely hated though - even at the pub I hooked up with a chef, so it wasn't all bad

 

[freakofnature]

It's a toss up between my job as a waitress a number of years back and my job on the horse farm prior to my current one. I loathe waitressing and ever since I had that job I've always said I'd rather be a homeless beggar than have another job doing that. The fact that I'm ranking a job on a horse farm up there with waitressing speaks volumes as to how horrible my working conditions were on that farm. :ninja Thank goodness that's all behind me now.

 

[AUFred]

It's a toss up between my job as a waitress a number of years back and my job on the horse farm prior to my current one. I loathe waitressing and ever since I had that job I've always said I'd rather be a homeless beggar than have another job doing that. The fact that I'm ranking a job on a horse farm up there with waitressing speaks volumes as to how horrible my working conditions were on that farm. :ninja Thank goodness that's all behind me now.

I grew up working on a farm. We did not have horses but we had cows, pigs & chickens. Felt like I spent every day in manure. We also kept about 20 or 30 acres in crops most of the year. I have never waitressed and my only time in food service has been voluntary so I cannot imagine doing it for a living.

 

[pjbleek]

I worked as a concrete tester out of high school which was a nasty thankless chore.

I worked in a steel fabrication shop for a while. I spent a short stint inside a shot blaster with an air hose blowing steel shot off of cleaned steel. When I went home at night and shower rust ran from every pore in my body. I also still have hearing damage from using air powered grinders.

Working a hay field is pretty bad too.

what does the job entail being a concrete tester?

 

[AUFred]

what does the job entail being a concrete tester?

I had to pour cylinders for testing or someone else handled that part. The cylinders were brought to me still in their plastic form. I had to remove the form after 24 hours. The cylinders which are about 6" in diameter and a little over 1 foot long weigh about 30 pounds apiece. Each pour required at least 3 cylinders. These cylinders were kept in a moist environment or underwater for a minimum of 7 days and up to 28. At certain time frames they were to be capped with molten sulfur on both ends before going in the pressure machine for testing. Every part of the process was dirty and the molten sulfur created some very intense burns to the skin. If you splattered yourself with the sulfur you had to wait for it to harden before removing to keep from spreading the burn. I had scars for years afterward from only one summer of doing it.

 

[Zorak]

It was working in a newsagents for £4.90 an hour.. But I think my job in the library topped it. Mind numbingly tedious, and all the staff were miserable old cows (that's not fair, the ones who weren't my direct bosses were pretty cool). I didn't even get a chance to quit in style because I had an interview for another position.

 

[AUFred]

I had to pour cylinders for testing or someone else handled that part. The cylinders were brought to me still in their plastic form. I had to remove the form after 24 hours. The cylinders which are about 6" in diameter and a little over 1 foot long weigh about 30 pounds apiece. Each pour required at least 3 cylinders. These cylinders were kept in a moist environment or underwater for a minimum of 7 days and up to 28. At certain time frames they were to be capped with molten sulfur on both ends before going in the pressure machine for testing. Every part of the process was dirty and the molten sulfur created some very intense burns to the skin. If you splattered yourself with the sulfur you had to wait for it to harden before removing to keep from spreading the burn. I had scars for years afterward from only one summer of doing it.

I forgot to add after testing the cylinders are in shards which had to be swept up and shoveled into a pick up truck and unloaded on a pile out back. All of this was in a building with no A/C and very little air movement in the middle of Alabama's summer where 100 degrees are a norm. The sulfur was melted in big pots which were started each morning because I believe it took about 400 degrees to melt the sulfur.

 

[Panacea]

Shift Manager at a low end CVS right off the highway next to a shady apartment complex. Worked there for 4 years as a teenager. We got all the mentally ill, the homeless, the illegal, and the entitled commuters flocking in wreaking havoc.

To this day, and I haven't worked there since 2007, I have nightmares about the place.

 

[hart]

Well I didn't get paid for it, as my dad owned it, but helping out at the guinea pig farm was horrible. Dad had thousands of guinea pigs in cages and I had to help take out the bottom slide where they shit, take the brush and scrape the shit and piss into a wheel barrow. Fill water bottles, etc. Dad sold them to Holister Steir (not sure of spelling) so they were going to laboratories to be tested God knows how.

My greatest day on the job was I found out I'm allergic to ringworm and dr. said I couldn't work with the guinea pigs anymore!

I can still remember the smell......YUK!

 

[pjbleek]

being my brothers clean up boy at some of his construction sites...destroying cement ponds, picking up scraps, shingles were by far the worst...and it was summertime as well...the pay did make up for it, but those summer days seemed to last forever...especially when it was the last day at the gig....place had to be spotless and keeping up with his "messes" were near to impossible.....

 

[AUFred]

I know about those payless jobs. I worked for my grandfather from the time I was about 12 until I moved away to college. I might be helping string wire fencing or tearing down an old structure on the farm. I spent the spring behind a hoe and the summers loading trucks with watermelons or picking row crops. I helped run the vegetable stand and worked the hay fields. My summers were never dull or mine. The summer of my my senior year I worked for an old couple as their lacky until midsummer when they moved me to the testing lab to test concrete. That summer for quite a stretch I loaded watermelons at first light. Worked testing job during the day and worked the hayfields in the evening. I was lean and strong and tanned. I never worked harder in my life.

 

[Kyle B]

During high school I worked for a supermarket chain as a cashier. That shit sucked bad. The customers didn't really bother me all that much. It was the crazy management. Not to mention that standing at a cash register for eight hours is boring as fuck. Seriously, I kid you not. It's super boring.

For a few months in high school I worked in the office of a printing company doing things like filing and running envelopes through the mail machine. Even that was better than cashiering.

 

[satinbutterfly]

I worked at Arby's for 3 days. Fast food is not for me. :thumbdown

 

[AUFred]

I worked at Arby's for 3 days. Fast food is not for me. :thumbdown

My son worked at an Arby's about that long. LOL!

 

[Kyle B]

I tried to get a job at Wendy's once. Apparently I flunked the interview.

 

[Panacea]

Ya fast food was never an option for me, not for pride, but I knew I'd be a wreck. I'd much rather clean. Used to clean a Sears store, actually, loved it.

 

[HK]

Ya fast food was never an option for me, not for pride, but I knew I'd be a wreck. I'd much rather clean. Used to clean a Sears store, actually, loved it.

Yeah cleaning doesn't bother me much either, minimal customer interaction which is what I look for in any job!