The Worst Job You have ever had.

[Edsland]

One summer in high school I picked corn by hand for 60 cents an hour. I made enough to by a pool table that I still have over 45 years ago. 

[bwdial]

2 hours ago, boogielicious said:

8th grade has to be the hardest. I coached U14 boys soccer and they were a great group of kids, but it was like herding cats.

I used to teach 7th.

That was like herding cats. 

For me, 8th is like herding sloths, with the occasional cat or chihuahua.

[Patch]

Crawling around in the S.E. mess was my worst job. Of course back then, I was young, and some what ignorant. At first I believed it wasn't a job. It was an adventure. I got real smart, real fast. 

I've only had two jobs since then, and they were both what I wanted to do. 

[BamaWade]

It's a tie for me, both summer jobs as a teen 1990, then 1991.

#1a was "making fishing equipment" as my mom sold it to me.  Okay, cool.  But she has a way of packaging turds as candy canes.  It was a non-cooled warehouse type place in the swelter of an Alabama summer, and my job was to manually run the mold press to make plastic fishing worms.  I'd inject the plastic, press the mold, then peel the hot-as-the-sun "worm" out and hand peel all the artifacts and edges.  Burns, blisters, and bleeding cracks, oh my.  The lady teaching me was a real winner, too, and didn't care much for "somebody's kid" getting the job.  Shot straight with the production manager and he laughed, was cool about it and said I could bolt.  I shook his hand with my one good remaining hand and said don't even worry about paying me for the ~5 hours.

#1b was from an ad in the paper I fell for at 16 (Account Manager - make $1000+ a week!).  Yeah.  It was an MLM door-to-door sales deal, trying to sell discount cards for a run-down golf course (that week) to some of the richest neighborhoods around central AL.  I loathed walking up to each door.  We had the cops called on us ~5-6 times a day.  And every day started at 5am in a huge empty room at an office complex where we stood (no chairs allowed in the place) for 2 hours doing group mind and positivity exercises...things like tossing a ball to someone, and that person would say something self-affirming, or how many units he'd sell that week, etc.  Pay was 100% commission-based, so getting to $30-$40 in one day was the absolute ceiling.  Took me a week (only because of quitters guilt) to bolt that looney-tune joint.

[bwdial]

17 minutes ago, BamaWade said:

It's a tie for me, both summer jobs as a teen 1990, then 1991.

#1a was "making fishing equipment" as my mom sold it to me.  Okay, cool.  But she has a way of packaging turds as candy canes.  It was a non-cooled warehouse type place in the swelter of an Alabama summer, and my job was to manually run the mold press to make plastic fishing worms.  I'd inject the plastic, press the mold, then peel the hot-as-the-sun "worm" out and hand peel all the artifacts and edges.  Burns, blisters, and bleeding cracks, oh my.  The lady teaching me was a real winner, too, and didn't care much for "somebody's kid" getting the job.  Shot straight with the production manager and he laughed, was cool about it and said I could bolt.  I shook his hand with my one good remaining hand and said don't even worry about paying me for the ~5 hours.

#1b was from an ad in the paper I fell for at 16 (Account Manager - make $1000+ a week!).  Yeah.  It was an MLM door-to-door sales deal, trying to sell discount cards for a run-down golf course (that week) to some of the richest neighborhoods around central AL.  I loathed walking up to each door.  We had the cops called on us ~5-6 times a day.  And every day started at 5am in a huge empty room at an office complex where we stood (no chairs allowed in the place) for 2 hours doing group mind and positivity exercises...things like tossing a ball to someone, and that person would say something self-affirming, or how many units he'd sell that week, etc.  Pay was 100% commission-based, so getting to $30-$40 in one day was the absolute ceiling.  Took me a week (only because of quitters guilt) to bolt that looney-tune joint.

A buddy of mine got into one of those MLM scams when we were in college.  They wound up hauling them down to New Orleans, and dropping them off in some gated communities that had "No Soliciting" signs posted.  A bunch of them wound up getting arrested.  All got bailed out but one, and he wound up in a New Orleans jail, with the orange jumpsuit and everything.

Edited April 21, 2020 by bwdial

[BamaWade]

7 minutes ago, bwdial said:

he wound up in a New Orleans jail, with the orange jumpsuit and everything.

I hope to finish life some day (far into the future) having avoided jail, but particularly, a New Orleans jail.  Thankfully, back then, the cops just asked us to move on to a different neighborhood.  It was still embarrassing, and I totally empathized with the people I had to pitch.

[billchao]

2 hours ago, BamaWade said:

It was still embarrassing, and I totally empathized with the people I had to pitch.

What always bothered me about my MLM job was that I was never convinced what I was selling was of any value to the people I was selling it to. Maybe they'd save a little bit of money on the bill for a time, but what happens when the introductory rate runs out after a year? Then they'd have to call and fight to get a reduced rate or switch carriers again. Most people I imagine would just let it go and they'd end up spending more money in the long run than if they never switched to begin with.

It was never an issue with sales for me, which I'm decent at. I've worked in food service, I was a bartender, and now I do repairs and maintenance work. I don't like selling somebody something unless I truly believe there's a benefit for them, or they wanted it in the first place. If somebody asked me for wine recommendations, I'd give them a few options that I thought would pair well with their dinner choices or their flavor preferences, but I never pushed anyone into buying something just because it was more expensive and I'd make more money on the sale. Same with today - if I recommend an upgrade for a piece of equipment or a more extensive repair than simply patching it up and getting it running, it's because it's going to work better and save them headaches in the long run. MLMs require a lot of Kool-Aid drinking and I'm not a Kool-Aid kind of guy.

On the bright side the whole experience has allowed me to empathize with the people who come to my door trying to sell me something. I'm pretty polite when I decline whatever it is they're selling because I've been there. Some people are really nasty and it makes an already shitty job worse.

[David in FL]

On 4/20/2020 at 10:16 AM, Vinsk said:

I later learned that the OIM had mentioned to a good friend of mine from the rig that he was considering approaching me once off the rig. However, my friend had advised him that wouldn’t be in his best interest and he gave a hilarious grin when he told me that. I knew it was time to go after that and I quit. It’s the only job I ever just quit. 

Come on.  Tell me you weren’t at least tempted!  

[Vinsk]

47 minutes ago, David in FL said:

Come on.  Tell me you weren’t at least tempted!  

Lol. Of course I was. 

[iSank]

Working on a boat out of Honolulu was a pretty fun job, but when I started as a deckhand the job was not so good. Marine toilets all have a sign that basically say “ if it did not come out of you, put it in the trash, not the toilet”. When someone decides to put anything else in the plumbing the macerater would jam up. It’s the deckhands who take apart, clean, and replace the little beast. Nastiest work I have ever done, and it motivated me to pass the Captain’s exam ASAP. I did and then as Captain I got to assign who would clear the beast but I felt for them so during a refit, I talked the company into going with a bigger macerater. As I put it to the maintenance manager, I wanna be able to flush a thanksgiving turkey without any clogging. 
got to go watch Mike Rowes dirty jobs video.

Aloha,

iSank, now teaching high school  

[BamaWade]

13 hours ago, David in FL said:

he was considering approaching me once off the rig

So, I can be a little slow, but...approaching you for what? 🤨

[Papa Steve 55]

Installing a hot tar roof in the summer. The tar was melted in what looked like a cement mixer, except it was about 180 degrees. The tar was glass like before it melted, and the edges just as sharp. We would hump a five gallon bucket up 3 stories of ladders, dump the tar in the hopper, melt it, pour in back into the buckets then carry it to where we were spreading it. We were on a flat roof, in the summer sun. The factory made a fiber board that was used as a shoe insert. It ran through these huge driers, that also exhausted the heat out to the roof. I think most days it was 120 on the roof.

I'll give the owner credit. He sent up a tent in the parking lot with large fans and always made sure we had water and salt tablets. No idea if salt was worth anything or not, but if your company is giving you something for free, you take it.