Previous Jobs

Worst jobs:

Mending chain link fences in the mountains of southern California. 100+ degrees, heavy lifting, lots of digging. Tore my biceps tendon which didn’t heal for many months.

Addiction Counselor for a major HMO. One thousand new clients were assigned to me each year for ten years. I ran group sessions for the clients of 20 other counselors, each of whom had one thousand new clients per year. That comes to 210,000 people I repeatedly counseled, including 10,000 of my own clients whom I got to know very closely. The good part was I was good at it and I got to save lives. Years later people recognize me and say they are still sober and thank me. The tough part was that during treatment several died. But the worst part was my boss was a vicious, sadistic practicing Vicodin addict who made life miserable for staff and clients. She taught me two things: 1. There really are a few truly evil people in the world. 2. How to hate.

I’ve had two completely awful jobs, neither of which lasted more than three weeks.

The first was McDonald’s in 1984. I was 16, pretty clever, and compeltely unable to relate to guys my age. So, what does McDonald’s do? the put my on the grill with the other guys, case boys worked the grill, girls worked the registers. No amount of persuasion changed their sexist minds. If I’d known better then, they would’ve gotten a call from the EEOC. I ended up quitting Saturday afternoon right before the end of a nearby high school football game.

The second was right after high school – my first full time job. I worked at a local electrical supply house. My dad was an electrician, so I was familiar with the industry. Another wrong fit – I dressed in business casual clothes instead of jeans and a t-shirt. My boss was an abusive ass who stunk to high heaven (comsologically speaking).He threatened to hit me one day because I hit a button one too many times on the adding machine. I walked out right after that. Told my father what happened, and he let his local electrician friends know. The guy was out of business in 3 months.

well, two “types” of bad jobs.

In the first category: Techsupport + installing DSL for a local computer store. I frequently wondered if those people even knew how to turn their computer on.

Also, alphabetising books at the national library, were people just leave stacks of 20 books on random tables.

In the second category: Disaster cleanup. During my Civil Enginering Master, I worked at a cleanup company who got the roads open, waste and water flowing in/out, rivers cleared etc. Even though I had what pretty much could be considered a “desk job” (the desk was infact a table in a tent), you can’t help but grab a shovel and help out. Long story short, there were some things I really, really would like to avoid seeing in the future.

I had to take inventory for Telex for 2 weeks a couple years ago. I wasn’t a bad job per-se, it was just mind numbing, repetitive, and so far away that I had to work about an hour just to break even. *shudder*

On a separate note, You should have been my math teacher in high school. I got to the point where I was better at math than my teachers. Why are you so mean to me? 😉

My first job out of law school was with a collections firm. At the time, my objection was low pay and that the actual work was boring (five hours in the courtroom or driving for 3 minutes in front of the judge). Over time, I’ve become increasingly embarrassed that I spent most of my time suing widows over medical bills they couldn’t pay.

There was the guy who bought a $40,000 sports car and made exactly zero payments. That one was fun.

I also sued a local charity that builds houses for the poor (the house was defective) and a state park for not letting my client strip-mine it (hey, the state never bought out his mineral rights).

After 10 months, I moved from litigation to estate planning.

I worked as a Sunday School preschool teacher for my parents’ church. How’s that for a different world?

The weirdest lesson I ever had to give?

The Stoning of Stephen.

Yes, stoning stoning. To preschool kids! I felt horrible.

One of my worst jobs was that of doing telephone market research. It’s very much like telemarketing (including getting all the same kinds of weird and abusive responses from people), except that we weren’t actually selling anything, just getting answers to badly worded questions on badly designed surveys (in a converted warehouse where virtually everyone was a smoker, so that the whole place was constantly filled with an eye-stinging, lung-searing haze) — so while it was easily as unpleasant as telemarketing in all the usual ways, at least it wasn’t quite as soul-sucking as that.

The other worst job I ever had was actually just stupefyingly boring: Yellow Pages Proofreader and Fact-Checker. I had my own office, which was the only time that has ever happened, but the boredom of that job was even worse than the physical danger (and employee hazing) that I experienced at my very first job as a KFC fry cook. I lasted just three weeks; I cannot tolerate boredom that severe.

~David D.G.

My worst job was my most boring job. I worked in a general store on an RV park. I was there, alone, for 8 hours and I wasn’t allowed to read. The worst were the rainy days when nobody came in.

I never felt so useless before. And boy can those campers complain. I don’t know why people do it.

I used to work at a synagogue… and it was one of my favorite jobs! My Rabbi was the 10th woman ever ordained, so if that gives you any indication of the working environment, you might understand.

Currently, I’m in Tech Support for an Internet Security company. I can’t believe I’m gonna say it – It sucks, but sometimes is very rewarding.

My worst job – hands down, Construction. I worked as a Project Administrator for a General Contractor in the DC/Metro area. Lots of Management, but pretty much only me doing the work. It sucked! And I had to wear uncomfortable shoes…

I have to say the worst job I have ever had was in high school. I was the guy in the back of the packie (liquor store) that counted and processed all of the can and bottle returns. This was before the automated machines…I had to move and count all of them by hand. This doesn’t sound that awful until you realize that most of the returns were collected from the streets or they sat on back porches for months before making their way to me. One anecdote should suffice here. One day while moving some filthy and smelly cases of cans that a customer had just dropped off, I noticed a cockroach on the box moving toward my hand. I dropped the box and about…no lie…fifty or more roaches scattered all over the floor and ran in all directions.

Now for the church related job that was good at the time, but in retrospect could have been quite dangerous for me. From about 8th – 11th grade I worked as a receptionist/dishwasher at my local parish. Basically I cleaned up after the priests when they finished dinner and then worked the front desk by answering phones and processing baptismal records and selling spiritual cards for funerals and wakes. The job was pretty easy, I pretty much did my homework or watched television most of the time and I got paid in cash.

I was also an altar boy for a long time, then a lector, and I served on the leadership board of the youth ministry. I attended a catholic high school and then went on to a Catholic college (certainly a bad choice in retrospect, but I didn’t know any better at the time and I did end up getting a great education).

Ok, now back to the job and why it could have been dangerous. I found out a few years after leaving the job that one of the priests who lived in the rectory was one of the pedophile lowlifes that was shuffled along from parish to parish by Cardinal Law. It turns out he was heavily medicated at the time, which explained the rather glazed look on his face that I found rather odd. A few years later I found out he was institutionalized, right around the time he faced a bunch of law suits from several victims across the state of Massachusetts. The thing that bothers me most about it is that both of my younger brothers were altar boys at the time and could have easily fallen victim to this monster.

So many other things like science and logic led me to atheism, but situations like this certainly helped push me in the right direction.

Polly,

I daydream about being a high-school math teacher at least once a week.

Then why not say “what the heck,” and just do it. Hang up your white lab coat and go!! The kids need some more great teachers who are passionate about teaching. ^_^

Oh, I forgot about the job as a nurse’s aide in a nursing home changing diapers. God…. I had forgotten about that. The most depressing job.

I worked at a rendering plant one summer. I think I win hands down. We got the leftovers from McDonalds, dead cats/mice from from U of Minnesota labs, deer that were hit on the highway, the left overs from Richard’s job at the slaughterhouse, well you get the idea.

I was a lifeguard for one hour a week for Alcoholics Anonymous meetings held at the local YMCA for the then breath-taking sum of $10 per hour (in 1978). It was really depressing when I realized that there wasn’t something “right” with most of the kids there. One even told me he was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. Lifeguard attire is pretty casual, swimsuit and tee-shirt. I was so embarrassed when after my shift I went to the meeting room to collect my pay and everyone stared. Turns out I was wearing a Budweiser t-shirt and caused offense.

With my shiny degree in hand…I got my first real job as an honest-to-goodness button pusher. In my suit and tie I would put a large tape reel into a tape reader, put a small tape into a tape drive, and then push a button to transfer the data from one to the other.

It wasn’t really a bad job and I was allowed to read since I was alone in the computer room. It wasn’t exactly fulfilling though and I’m grateful that it opened the door about six months later to my 14-year career as a technical writer.

I’ve never had any bad jobs. They weren’t all great, but I really enjoyed working at each of them and have made many friends during my employment. They’ve all been decent and my wife makes fun of me for being so annoying about how much I know about them. (Every time I am in a Subway resturant, see an ice delivery truck, or a security desk, I have to reference how well or poorly the jobs are being done).

I daydream about being a high-school math teacher at least once a week.

Not really related to the post, but I’m just finishing up my seventh and last year of high school teaching (Social Studies). In fact, today is my last day and I just about have everything done and packed up, but am required to stay until 3:00. Hence all of the posting. 🙂

I laid out designs on tombstones, hand etched some as well, and helped in the process of transporting and setting these monstrosities at cemeteries. Catholics were the customers of choice, since they always wanted the biggest stones with the most crap on them. Aside from being physically tough and back breaking, I personally traced and etched more christian imagery there than anyone should ever have to. That was a crappy job that lasted about a year

One funny thing was the designs got shorthand names like they do in diners. The “sacred heart” was coined “the heartburn”.

Spurs Fan,

Not really related to the post, but I’m just finishing up my seventh and last year of high school teaching (Social Studies). In fact, today is my last day and I just about have everything done and packed

Good for you! Congratulations! Too bad you won’t be teaching anymore. I’m sure you were a great teacher. Let’s see… I’m imagining…. a Mr. Holland type (?) Enjoy your summer. 🙂

I had a couple of short-term jobs here in Nash Vegas which qualify as among my worse nightmares.

For several months I worked as a secretary for a travel agent in Nashville. The local newspaper used to sponsor trips to London twice a year. The regular members of the group averaged age about 80 (not that there’s anything wrong with that). The guy had the worst temper I’ve ever encountered in a human being. He didn’t know how to use the computer to make reservations so he put it all on his one or two agents. If only his elderly customers (including the Gideons Bible locals) could hear what he said about them when he slammed down the phone on routine calls.

I made the mistake of forwarding a potential customer call to him one time, and he threw the phone at me (my last day there). He really despised the fact that I had lived in England for many years, stayed with friends when I visited here, and had seen most of the current West End plays.

The other worst job was working for a small Catholic college in Nashville. I worked in the financial aid department with Drama Queen and Christian Queen. I could have put up with the forced attendance at religious assemblies and the painful comments about those who had abortions. According to one instructor and a priest, the coat-hanger stories were an urban upon the public by liberals (i.e., Jews, non-Catholics, etc.). I couldn’t stand the lies that were being spoon-fed to potential students about the money they could borrow for school. “Oh, don’t worry! If you owe $40,000 in [like the loan staff member did] you can defer it forever!”

I guess the saving grace in the last part is that the instructor (a lesbian) ran off with one of the sisters.

Like most folks, I’ve had a few short-term jobs I didn’t much care for. In hindsight, I don’t have much to complain about. I’ve had a number of acquaintances over the years who at one time or another had the job description, “professional killer.” That’s a job fraught with moral ambiguity, but what made it particularly unpleasant for many of them at the time was that, while they were trying to kill people, those same people were trying to kill them right back.

Bottom line, I hate trying to sell things to people, and doing it over the phone when you know that most of them think you’re the scum of the earth is even worse.

My mother-in-law does this now…I feel bad for her and have a new respect for telemarketers.

I’ve had a number of acquaintances over the years who at one time or another had the job description, “professional killer.” That’s a job fraught with moral ambiguity, but what made it particularly unpleasant for many of them at the time was that, while they were trying to kill people, those same people were trying to kill them right back.

Damn!

Ed said (May 30, 2008 at 8:32 pm): Soon I’ll graduate from a community college, move to a state university, and hopefully won’t be swept away by the crumbling economy.

I wouldn’t become too hopeful, Ed.

The absolute worst job I ever had. I worked as a correctional officer in the toughest maximum security prison in Texas. I graduated with my BS and went to work 2 weeks later. I made it 2 years. I lost 30 pounds in the month of August. I worked in Administrative Segregation. This is where the prisoners who were too violent to be with other prisoners were sent. I had several prisoners try and kill me. I still remember when a sgt. took me into the staff room one day to talk to me. He said he was worried becuase I had more death threats against me than any other CO in the prison. I found thousands of homemade knifes (shanks), 1 gun, some ammunition, clubs, homemand alcohol (chalk) and hundreds of pages of gang communications. I witnessed numerous occasions where one gang memeber tried to kill another gang member and one riot. I saw two suicide attempts. I stopped counting the number of times that urine was thrown on me when I reached 100. I took down dozens of inmates when they attacked me and pulled them off of fellow officers. I hated the job. I dreaded going to work. I learned to ignore tear gas. It was a terrible job with very low pay but it was enough to support my wife and children so I did it. Now I am an accountant and it is much better.