What's the worst job you've ever had?

[shlocko]

I was a children's photographer at Wal-Mart for three years. If you ever want a job that will slowly, but surely drain your soul out, do this for a while. Kids, by and large, are great. Parents are a huge pain in the ass. Plus the hours were terrible and Wal-Mart was an awful environment to work in.

What is the worst work you've had to do?

[Caliber]

Oh my God. That must have been an absolute nightmare, man. You have an iron will.

I agree, kids are fine, it's the parents that are nightmares. There's no way I could stand that.

My worst was a dishwasher for a gnarly old Chinese restaurant. I mean, it's as cliche as you can imagine. I'm a bit of a germaphobe. I can't help it.

The first thing I had to do on my first day was scrape up frozen blood off the dirtiest freezer floor you've EVER fucking seen. They'd have blood flying all over the place, and would just wipe it up with a paper towel. There was dirt, mud, fungus, and all sorts of gross shit EVERY WHERE. They'd thaw meat out in a tub, and then once it's thawed they'd cut it apart and all that, then just give it a spray with a hose to clean it out. Yeah, they brought a hose in that was connected outside in the alley.

There was a time I had to do battle with a GIANT rat. Me and one of the cooks chased it down with a broom and such, and he beat it to death.

The real icing on the cake was the fact they insisted on listening to this terrible goddamn Vietnamese music. I felt like I was next in line to play Russian Roulette or something. This one cook just kept playing the same song over, and over, and over. Then once, when no one was back there, I asked if I could listen to some of my music and that was shut down fucking PRONTO.

[robertd]

Oh man, WalMart is a terrible place to work. During culinary school, I worked as a "99", a buggy pusher outside. And that was before the fancy automatic cart pushers they use now. We were given a pair of gloves and a robe with a loop and hook on the end.

My worst job was a Mexican restaurant a friend owned that was failing health code checkups and he hired me to get it straightened out. It was as bad as the chinese place Caliber mentioned. Plus, I spoke no Spanish, so trying to get the guys to quit smoking over the food while cooking, or having sex in the cooler was a nightmare. I finally quit 3 months in, and a month later they were shut down. I felt bad for my friend, but the public was safer.

[The Fuj]

Ive only had two jobs my entire life Being in the USAF and my current job of being an Inventory Control Specialist at a Grocery Warehouse.

Bot of them arent bad to be honest. some of the days of gay as hell but they are satisfying for the most part.

[regalstretch]

Worst I did was working as a cook at a pizza shop. It wasn't bad most days, but every Thursday was the $3.99 pickup special. People would order five pizza, and ask that they be only half baked so they could freeze them and eat them for the week. Then you have people who wanted no cheese on only half of a pizza.

After that, I worked at a call center doing helpdesk support. The level of stupidity was scary. After a while, we also had to handle customer service calls for catalogs. Grown men should never get upset and yell at someone because a cartoon figurine is not in stock.

[shlocko]

I worked at a call center, too. We took warm transfers from People PC Customer service to sell people Video Professor CD-Roms. It was pretty awful. I eventually moved on to selling all sorts of stuff for that company, and evenutally moving into management, which wasn't bad.

[yj2310]

It would have to be McDonalds for me. I worked there back in the mid 90's and it was easily the worst job ever. I still cant eat burgers from a fast food joint since I worked there.

If you are ever desperate for work and McDonalds is the only option, look for a cardbox to move in to and dont take the McJob.

[acsativa]

Working at a nearby pizza scumhole. That's an awful job as it is, but in this case the owner is the biggest piece of shit I've ever met in my life, and this is a business that's full of dirtbags to begin with. Add that to him putting his useless coke-whore daughter in charge of the day-to-day operations and it was pure hell. I'd rather beg for change than ever go through that shit again.

[aratcliffe]

Here's a tacked-on question: How old was everyone when they had these terrible jobs? Because I think just about everyone will submit something that bugged the fuck out of 'em when they were 16 to, say, 23, perhaps?

[Caliber]

Yeah, I had the gig when I was 18.

As you get older, you obviously end up in better jobs, but then it's people and situations that can make them suck.

I worked at Hollywood Video for a year. The staff of people I managed, and the job itself was perfect. I absolutely loved it, and would have had no problem doing it for the rest of my life. However, management changed, and the person they put in charge was a massive idiot who was barely there, and never listened. The place went out of business within 6 months of them taking over.

That's Jim Herd style of bad management.

[magoonie]

When I was 17 I got a job at Wal Mart, just like robert I was a stock boy/cart pusher and this was 13 years ago so no automated pushers (Robert, when you see those don't you get a little pissed off?), I didn't mind pushing the carts. But at this Wal Mart we were severely understaffed and a couple of the other stockers were morons who didn't give a crap about how well they did their job. During the Christmas rush it was hell working there, trying to get everything done with two idiot slackers not helping then having to deal with bitchy customers, my Christmas spirit drained fast on those two years.

When I was 19 and in college I was talking to my Creative Writing I professor and he and his friend were doing wedding tapes (go to weddings with a video camera, shoot everything, edit it together into a nice package) but he sucked at the editing part. So me being very good with AVID he gave me a tryout and then a job. I started out just editing but during a busy season I did shoot a couple of weddings and the clients really liked my work so I ended up doing the filming as well. Now most of the time, I loved this job, got to meet cool people, shoot things on camera, get a couple of drinks (never got drunk though) and there were other "perks" that I'm sure anybody who has seen Wedding Crashers can imagine. But every once in a while you would get a really bitchy bride who just made my life hell, constantly bossing and pushing me around, thinking they knew how the camera worked better than me, just being an all around pain in this ass. One time the bride was so bad, the groom actually handed me a $100 and said he was very sorry. I felt bad for the guy as he would have to live with the women but I still took the 100.

[Caliber]

Haha, well at least you made a $100. I have a friend who's dreams are to be a director, and right now he does weddings. He says it's a bitch because you give them a price, and they act like it's robbery. They have no idea what goes into the editing process.

Mag, I get super pissed when I see these automated cart pushers. When I worked at Costco, I LOVED pulling carts [at Costco, you'd get a rope with a hook, and pull'em, instead of push]. It was such a workout. With every shift, I'd start out pulling at least 10 a time for every run until I reached the Century Club [100 carts] then I could be a little lax. I loved it. Then of course you'd do this thing where you've got 15 carts, and you've got a good run, then someone just pulls out in front of you in a car and kills your fucking momentum.

But yeah, these guys with the automated stuff, pssh, sissies.

[parallax1978]

I've had some shitty jobs, most when I was a teenager but some more recently.

I worked at McDonalds which to this day I consider the hardest job I've ever had as they would some times make $1000 an hour with and average sale of $3.12 for like 10 hours straight. Of course the customers and management treat you like absolute crap.

I worked at Dip N' Dots which was awful for the obvious reasons but also because people had no concept of the product and it was nearly impossible to explain to them.

I worked at an Adidas outlet which was ok except the company treats their people like utter shit. Like they make your schedule a week in advance, give you virtually no hours, change your hours between the time you last work and your next scheduled shift so you come in at the wrong time and give you shit for it, won't let anyone work more than 30 hours etc...

I worked for a startup network installation company that among other things bounced a few of my paychecks and was run by a guy who turned out to be a thief and a coke head.

But the worst job was this hot dog/burger place called Frank and Stein (they sold beer also. Hot Dog and Beer... FRANK AND STEIN! GET IT?) the employees were alcoholic, pot head, morons, the manager was a thief and a lazy ass who would buy the products from Sam's Club half the time, the customers were absolute morons who couldn't pronounce half of the very simple menu, the pay sucked, the food sucked, the employees and management sucked... and oh yeah I met my first wife there... worst. job. EVER.

[Caliber]

You know, Parallax, I'm always annoyed by how we kiss the asses of cops, firemen, and armed forces yet we give the opposite amount of respect to people who work places like McDonalds. Those people do more for the public than just about anyone. It's incredible the amount of work they do, and the amount of trust they're given. Yet they get SHIT for respect, and it makes me so fucking mad.

My first job was a Runner for a local newspaper when I turned 17. It wasn't a glorious job, but I didn't hate it. I quit after a year because, well, I was just sick of it.

I didn't get another job for 3 years, when I got on at Costco. That place was alright, but they were asses. I kept asking to be switched out to carts. They told me if I took over Maintenance for two weeks, then I could. Well, I did the gig for two weeks, and I did so well I got an Employee Appreciation Award. They loved me in that gig. Of course, that means I'm stuck there, which is bullshit. So, I left there after a while because again of bullshit. They'd do things like fuck with my schedule, and I'd wake up at 3am to see if I needed to be there at 5am, and the person I'd talk to would go check, but never come back. 4 times I called. I finally said fuck it, because it was rare I worked at 5am. So, I showed up at 1pm, for what I assumed was my shift, and was told it was at 5am. I then went into to quit, and was told no need because I was fired. Fuckers.

Later, I worked at Hot Topic, and I really dug that job too. For a while there, that was my style, so I fit right in. Really not a bad gig for retail.

Still, Hollywood Video was my dream for at least 6 months. Absolutely loved it.