Foo - Jobs from hell...

We've all had them. What was yours?

Myself, my first job was when I was about 14-15 cleaning up in the morning at a drive in theater. The further back you got, the nastier it got. I carried a stick to pick up the nastier items of feminine hygiene and contraception. After I picked it up, I'd break the end of the stick off so I would not accidentally grab that end of the stick.

Later on, it was at Radio Shack. The district managers managed by terror. I had my job threatened at least once a week. And I did a better than average job. It was hell.

Lastly, as a Bill Collector. This was in the old days when you held your own accounts. At first it seemed terrible, but a few weeks later when all those promised checks didn't come in, you began to get mean. I did some big time lying and trickery trying to find people. I always try to leave the job at work, but back then my wife said at home and away from the job I was going around busting peoples chops and calling them out on little lies, etc... Anyway, after I left and decompressed she said I was a much nicer guy.

Those were so long ago. I still have a fear in the background of having to resort back someday to having a job I hate.

Repo Man

I worked as a photographer for a school portrait company. That lasted about a month. The lead photographer would set the guidelines for how we shot kids, then when the head boss looked at what I shot and said "Why'd you shoot it like that? That's wrong," the lead wouldn't own up to his or her errors.

It was tripe.

Proletarian labor @ at a plastics factory, working on mold machines making disposable plastic dishware/utensils. Built character, but I ****ing hated that ****.

Maintenance/janitorial. Anyone that asserts women are cleaner in their respective restroom than men, would be incorrect.

Working for a house painter, who poured paint on my hair so would get a hair cut. He alos gave out sand paper by the half sheet and you had to return the old shee to get a new one.

Washed test tubes in a doctors office, had pour out congealed blood

Hoed weeds from sugarbeets....right beside the mirgrant laborers

Workd for a bank in IT...my manager had no work for me, but was feuding with the manager who had work. So I sat and didn't really have work to do....which is truly terrible

I've never had a horrible job, but I'd say anyone working at the France Télécom SA. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125291498468308169.html

Working for a house painter, who poured paint on my hair so would get a hair cut. He alos gave out sand paper by the half sheet and you had to return the old shee to get a new one.

My goodness, that is really tight.

The worst job so far was being the nanny to the kids of Forest Whitaker. It was so bad that I quit, never having any regrets.

That's funny gitarzan. A friend of mine has stories about his work at a Drve-In, his worst job ever.

Mine was as a "salesman", an odd type; what I had to do, is trick (or lie to) customers, cold-calls at times into having their Office Machines Fixed. Did I feel liike a heel ! Did'nt last though. I did well but felt creepy.

My goodness, that is really tight.

The worst job so far was being the nanny to the kids of Forest Whitaker. It was so bad that I quit, never having any regrets.
Nanny has always struck me as a horrible thankless job. I understand parents being concerned about their children so they are always breathing down a nanny's neck, but at the same time, if it is so important, why doesn't a parent stay at home and take care of them instead of running around to fashion shows and crap?

First job I had at a garment facory, where patterns where cut of of fabric then shipped off to the custumer so they can sew the pieces together and sell their items. My position was called "skid boy". I loaded the trucks. The air in the building was always thick with denim and other fabric dust since the cutting machines ran all day cutting through thick layers of fabrics. Those were my drinking days. I'd get home and still be coughing up blue dust for the rest of the evening. The place closed down since then and is now a luxurious loft for people to live in.

I worked 6 years in the citys animal control division. That was before 9-1-1/3-1-1 was in operation and we did our own call taking and dispatching. We worked in an ancient rat infested building. You had to make noise before entering a room to give the rats time to run and hide or you'd be in for a big suprise when entering the breakroom/kitchen! Good times and bad times were had in the breakroom! We were just supposed to pick up live animals but there were times we had to pick up dead ones. We assisted the police when they busted up animal fighting rings and we had to respond to dead body calls. When people died for whatever reason and we had to pick up the pets so the detectives could do their work. The poor pets were always VERY protective of their owners dead body! Oh and the animal abuse cases! Things I wished I'd never seen. We worked hard and the shelter was filled beyond capacity in the summertime. You'd be suprised at how many strays ran loose in a city the size of Dallas! The fleas got bad and we had to use the same seven-dust that we powdered the dogs down with before during and after work. We had to get rabies shots just to work there. People would call in sick everyday and I'd volunteer for the overtime to cover the shifts (before the city did attendance control), I used to work at the shelter for 2-3 days straight. I had just gotten divorced and sought escape so I worked all the time.

Then I get promoted to senior animal control officer. There were days I ran the whole shelter by myself (I was already doing that job anyway!). Duties now included the euthanazia of animals. That was before the days that we got the giant cooler and the dead animals were simply piled up outside for sanitation to pick up. By 0730 at least 30 to 40 animals were already put down. We had to do it. You'd walk into the building from the parking lot and just not look at the large pile of carcasses as you went in to work. The sanitation trucks picked up 3 times a day. We were supposed to rotate people every 2 days 'cause it was an emotionally draining job. Personnel would always call in sick (those pot-heads and whinos!) and I was stuck doing the job for 2 or 3 weeks straight! I'd just get tired of euthanizing and would recycle entire lots of animals to live another 3 day cycle. That was bad for a shelter that was already at overload capacity! I was doing a managers job by then and told the Health Director to get me more help or more animals would live, I was plain tired of it! I had to leave soon afterwards. I see and recognize the importance of animal control in a big city but I couldn't do the job again. I've lost the touch. I've always been proud to serve my city and do what she required of me but I'll never do that again.
Ernest

PS: I'd say Repo man and Animal Control are 2 of the most dangerous jobs there is. You never saw a more aggressive person than when you walk up to someone's house and tell them you have to pick their dog up 'cause it bit or scratched the neighbor's kid. YIKES! Try that out in the county where people let their dogs run free and are highly independent. Try that in the projects where people use pitbulls to guard their hideouts. Double YIKES! Grueling knows what I'm talking about!

Sounds nightmarish Big_e

Maintenance/janitorial. Anyone that asserts women are cleaner in their respective restroom than men, would be incorrect.I've spent many hours picking up used diapers and pulling bowls so I could fish the little plastic sanitary napkin things out with a coat hanger.

My worst, was a summer between college years. I signed up for "hire a student", and they'd send their students out for short term work, sometimes less than a week even.

I spent 3 days as the person who climbed up into the chimney above the fryers and grills in restaurants cleaning the congealed grease out of the inside with a high pressure hot water/steam gun. I came home at night covered and reeking of the stuff (actually that happened within the first 30 minutes each morning). It was hot, wet, and brutally disgusting.

Worst part..... at the end of 3 days, and cheque bounced, and I never did recover even a penny for those hours.
Best part.... it was only 3 days.

some other reasonably bad ones...

logging industry in winter
framing houses in winter
working for any boss who's a lying bottom feeder (no matter the job)
weeding market garden rows forever long

... now I'm one of those guys who makes changes and upgrades to software for my clients - lol

I've spent many hours picking up used diapers and pulling bowls so I could fish the little plastic sanitary napkin things out with a coat hanger.

Those plastic things are tampon applicators. Stupid *****es need to read the labels on the those, the cardboard ones = flushable, plastic = not. I was in a women's washroom in some maul recently, some disgusting person left their diabetes test strip with blood on it on the counter where the sinks are. ****ing gross!

New car salesman back in the early 1990's recession. Folks would come in to buy a car and first thing they did was berate me about how they were not going to get cheated by a snakey salesman (then why did you come here?). I'd just sit them down, ask what they were looking for, any special uses (towing capacity, hauling heavy loads, etc), and find them the closest things we had before going out on the lot - really calmed them down when you worked with them like that, and made the sale really easy. Actually, it was great experience in dealing with people, and I sold more than the average car salesman on the lot. Long hours working on commission, but I lasted about nine months until I found a 'real' job.

BTW: The dealership's DO teach salesmen to be aggressive, thinking that it sells more cars. Didn't work for me, and the sales manager couldn't understand how I was able to sell so many cars with my mild-mannered demeanor.

BTW #2 - repair guys had the worst job. You wouldn't believe what they found in/under cars . . . .

I forgot, it really wasn't a bad job, but I also once worked in a hospital where part of my job was to clean old Gomco chest pumps and wash the splatter from bedside commodes as well as cleaning used and bloody surgery trays. A little gross but I really did like the job and the employer.

Proletarian labor @ at a plastics factory, working on mold machines making disposable plastic dishware/utensils. Built character, but I ****ing hated that ****.

Maintenance/janitorial. Anyone that asserts women are cleaner in their respective restroom than men, would be incorrect.

Correct.

My worst was at Wal-Mart. I was on overnights at store that was not yet a supercenter, so they actually locked the doors at night. Since I wasn't hacking it in receiving unloading trucks (I'm sorry, but it's not a good idea to throw merchandise as means of moving cargo, let alone someone with glaucoma), and they would stick me outside. Was not allowed inside, wanted me to sweep the parking lot with a broom and dustpan, water the plants in the garden center/greenhouse in the parking lot, and keep an eye on the sidewalk/tent sale merchandise they left outside. Couldn't stop anyone from taking anything, assuming that my night-blind self saw them in the first place. Also got a flat on the car while doing a perimeter check, and I had to pay full cost of replacement, less the standard employee discount. The last straw was when they wanted me to pick up all of the cigarette butts from the sidewalk cracks and landscaped areas. YUCK.

Those plastic things are tampon applicators. Stupid *****es need to read the labels on the those, the cardboard ones = flushable, plastic = not. I was in a women's washroom in some maul recently, some disgusting person left their diabetes test strip with blood on it on the counter where the sinks are. ****ing gross!The best thing I found in a toilet was a compact mirror. It would pivot and let water through but catch paper. I think we removed and reinstalled it three times before we figured it out.

Part of my job at Blueridge Biofuels is collecting used fryer grease from restaurants. Besides rotting kitchen waste, I occasionally find dirty diapers, bags of trash, and even dead animals floating around in the oil. Needless to say, I stay pretty filthy and smelly, and my clothes have a permanent "scent." Dogs love me though.

I've spent many hours picking up used diapers and pulling bowls so I could fish the little plastic sanitary napkin things out with a coat hanger.

Paid the bills, but man. Once I went in there and all I could think about was Brando as Colonel Kurtz, "The horror...the horror."

Many of the jobs that I did as an abatement worker might fit some peoples definition of hell. Certainly many of the sites looked like the set of stupid 80's horror movies.

Imagine being 1/4 mile into a crawl space only pitch black maze of tunnels with rats and poisonous spiders, and a water on the ground that smelled like sewage. Or maybe 135 degree enclosures with 100% humidity and full face respirators as you're covered in lead and asbestos dust. How about being 5 stories up on a big lift glove bagging insulation off pipes while it's 10 degrees? How about tearing apart black mold covered asbestos after water damage?

Sounds crazy, and sometimes it was. But I did enjoy it.