Worst job you ever had?

[Magical Realist]

Mine was installing that pink insulation with a construction company at an apt complex. I was so itchy by the end of the day I had to scrub it off my skin in the shower every night. I only lasted about 2 weeks.

 

[Seattle]

It was a summer construction job in eastern NC (hot and humid) while in college. I had to do all the dirty jobs but the worst was using a jackhammer. The regular, heavy jackhammer was bad but the worst was the handheld jackhammer because you had to hold it up. I was converting a window into a doorway in an old brick high school building.

I had to wear safety glasses but they fogged instantly so I couldn't really see. It was hot, humid and tiring. I only had to do that particular job for two days (or I would have quit). A runner up worse job was that same construction job, putting down a tin roof in 90 degree F temps with 90% humidity. We were taking salt tablets just to survive. That was a one day job.

I lasted the entire summer because I was saving up to buy a car to be able to drive back to college. Most of the jobs that summer were in the worse category though. We were working for a small contractor and he used the college guys for all the dirty jobs and would move us from site to site.

I'd leave my air conditioned house at 6:30 am to drive to work, in the next town over, and immediately upon leaving the house I already felt sticky due to the humidity. Our most common job was scrapping the mortar that oozed out from between cement blocks. A minute into the job, you couldn't even run your fingers though your hair due to the humidity and all the mortar in your hair and this would be at 7:30 am. Miserable by 7:30 am!

We got off at 3 pm to avoid the hottest part of the day and we were "spent" by that time. At breaks and lunch time we would just eat whatever we brought and no one had the energy to even talk. I was able to buy a used car at the end of that summer though. This is what white privilege gets you I guess...

This is also what you do rather than complain that minimum wage isn't a livable wage. Don't work at McDonald's.

 

[cluelusshusbund]

Mine was installing that pink insulation with a construction company at an apt complex. I was so itchy by the end of the day I had to scrub it off my skin in the shower every night. I only lasted about 2 weeks.

That has to rate high on a miserable jobs list… makes my first jobs seem like a picnic

My first real job was at 15 workin on a pickle farm that a banker owned… it only lasted thru 1 pickle pickin season… an i decided that pickin more pickles was not in my future.!!!

Side note::: I got a new car loan from that same banker when i was 19

Anyhow… after pickin pickles i moved up to a higher payin job putin cold tar roofs on older businesses… an that only lasted for a few mounths.!!!

An then my job at a bakery… an the best part… ther was always leftover stuff an you coud eat it for free… an boy did i eat… until i was moved to the back actually makin the stuff… an when i saw how nasty it was made i ate no more

That job lasted a year… an then i got a janitor job at sears an robuck for a year… an then a factory job that lasted 5 years… then my last 2 jobs that lasted 20 years each.!!!

I’d say the job i most dreaded goin to work at was the bakery… especially on tuesdays when work started at 2 am… an in the summer when the humidity was often in the 90’s early in the mornin… i was already sweatin bullets after walkin the last 3 blocks befor i even got to the un-airconditioned bakery

 

[Seattle]

The most depressing job I had was only a 3 week job after I had graduated from college but before I left, so the summer after I graduated. I was going to another school in September and would be moving from the East Coast to the West Coast.

I was in the Appalachian Mountains and a friend had a summer job at Broyhill Furniture just down the mountain in Hickory, NC. He was driving down the mountain every day to go to work so he "invited" two of us (friends) to go with him every day just to make a little money at the end of the summer.

It was depressing because this was an old factory in a poor area and the factory looked like it had been built in the 1920's. The buildings nearby looked like company housing. The people that worked there were poor, uneducated, hated working there but it was the only job in town.

In the morning they would come in, sleepy, hungover, smoking and we had to stand all day by the assembly line. The furniture had already been assembled by the time it reached us and it had just come out of a spray booth where it was sprayed with lacquer.

This was August, there was no air conditioning, we had to stand all day and when the furniture moved by on the line, we had to use a rag, bend over and wipe some of the lacquer off of each piece of furniture as it moved by. It was totally a miserable job and most of the people working there had been working there their entire lives. At break time they would just lay on a nearby padded roll and sleep for 15 minutes.

At the end of the day they would walk home to smoke, get drunk, beat their wife and kick their dog only to have to come back the next day to a low paying job. It was hard not to have a headache all day just due to the working conditions.

I lasted the 3 weeks but if I had started at the beginning of the summer, I never would have stayed for 3 months, much less a lifetime of doing that.

 

[Pinball1970]

That is a toughie! I actually liked my student jobs. The work was hard, cleaning student halls and repairing damaged fixtures and fittings. I earned about £120 a week but I was loaded! It was about 70p for a pint of beer! We all went to the pub at dinner break and played football in the park too. Great days.