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Worst Job you have ever had?
- Thread starter hbk48942
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Unlike several who have already posted here, I have not had the sort of ghastly experiences people have written about; most of the jobs I have held have been interesting, and challenging, jobs which I mostly enjoyed, and a few of which I loved.
However, while there is no one job in itself which I can say I loathed, there are bosses who made particular work environments an absolute nightmare.
I have had two spectacularly dreadful bosses, - one a male university professor, and one a female head of department when I worked for the public service - the proverbial bosses from the abode of the rebel angels, and they, in turn, made the world which they presided over a living hell.
However, while there is no one job in itself which I can say I loathed, there are bosses who made particular work environments an absolute nightmare.
I have had two spectacularly dreadful bosses, - one a male university professor, and one a female head of department when I worked for the public service - the proverbial bosses from the abode of the rebel angels, and they, in turn, made the world which they presided over a living hell.
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Picking strawberries as a child for a holiday job. It might seem idyllic in some ways (height of summer in the fields of Kent), but it was painful on the back and limbs, and very hard to pick enough good fruit to make what even a 16 year old would consider decent money.
Many years on though, I look back at how much I hated it at the time, and consider how many people around the globe do much worse jobs for far less money, and I feel rather guilty about all the fuss I made about it, particularly as I was just a child with a roof over my head and nothing to worry about.
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Nice - I had quite forgotten that - good old D&C!
Many years on though, I look back at how much I hated it at the time, and consider how many people around the globe do much worse jobs for far less money, and I feel rather guilty about all the fuss I made about it, particularly as I was just a child with a roof over my head and nothing to worry about.
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The worst job I ever had?
That has to be retrieving lobsters from Jayne Mansfield's bum.
Nice - I had quite forgotten that - good old D&C!
Delivering newspapers as a kid, definitely tough job. I subbed for my brothers when they were away or pretending to be sick, like when it was ten below zero. The jobs were all bike routes in good weather, otherwise the workboots express. I had birds crap on my head or shirt plenty of times. Running into spider webs (and sometimes the spiders) in the early morning was par for the course. And then there were the dogs. Some of the pooches I knew because they were neighbors critters. But most I didnt know and a few of them had real twilight zone personalities. I carried dog biscuits to keep one of them from committing hip surgery on me. He was a bored border collie. Cute but totally nuts.
My worst job as an adult was trying to work as a systems analyst for eight months for a manager who was very clearly addicted to Valium and alcohol, popping pills like they were bar peanuts and drinking wine at lunch, taking two-hour siestas, and disappearing for hours with no explanation. That manager was on vacation when I was hired. Lesson learned! Always interview with the person who will actually direct your work.
Meanwhile I knew from day three that I was going to be in the job market again as soon as possible. I stayed past six months so the company had to pay the headhunters fee, but I was just about nuts myself by time I quit that place. Working for an active addict is like signing up to be a lab rat in a maze with no exits.
My worst job as an adult was trying to work as a systems analyst for eight months for a manager who was very clearly addicted to Valium and alcohol, popping pills like they were bar peanuts and drinking wine at lunch, taking two-hour siestas, and disappearing for hours with no explanation. That manager was on vacation when I was hired. Lesson learned! Always interview with the person who will actually direct your work.
Meanwhile I knew from day three that I was going to be in the job market again as soon as possible. I stayed past six months so the company had to pay the headhunters fee, but I was just about nuts myself by time I quit that place. Working for an active addict is like signing up to be a lab rat in a maze with no exits.
Of course not. It was 1983. When I think about all the clouds of asbestos dust I've stood in...I hope you wore a mask!! I recently went on an Asbestos training course and its nasty stuff isn't it?
Asbestos fencing was only outlawed in Australia in 1985.
The worst job I ever had?
That has to be retrieving lobsters from Jayne Mansfield's bum.
I don't suppose you could mention on the other community thread the famous people that you've had in the back of your cab?
Close tie between farm/ranch labor and working in a slaughterhouse.... Ugh.
Wait. Did I just necro a two-year old thread?
Wait. Did I just necro a two-year old thread?
Good job. Think this might be the first thread I've seen worthy of resurrection.
IT support in a law firm. If you're not fee-earning in those places they treat you like dirt, and all the unnecessary upstairs politics seep down into every department. The only place I've ever worked where I've seen women break into tears on a regular basis.
If you're going to necro a thread, this is the one!
I worked some temp jobs after college. The worst was holiday help for Hickory Farms of Ohio in Toledo. My job was to use a butter knife to pack the fake grass inside the box around the plastic insert that would hold the cheeses and sausage. I lasted until lunch break, at which time I left for lunch and never returned.
I worked some temp jobs after college. The worst was holiday help for Hickory Farms of Ohio in Toledo. My job was to use a butter knife to pack the fake grass inside the box around the plastic insert that would hold the cheeses and sausage. I lasted until lunch break, at which time I left for lunch and never returned.
I won't name any names, but I had a PharmD internship at a national retail pharmacy chain. Worst experience of my life.
The company is run in a completely top heavy fashion. Corporate was completely out of touch with people actually working in the pharmacies. The goal was filling as many prescriptions as possible in the least amount of time. Metric systems were everywhere. Things like safety, patient health outcomes, optimizing treatment, etc appeared secondary. Ethics was another issue, the pharmacies I worked in (and see to this day) often break the law on tech-pharmacist ratio. Uninsured patients were raped on cash prices (often leading them not to get necessary Rx's... i.e. $15 inhaler marked up to $80 is unacceptable), which ultimately convinced me to leave. Many technicians hold a lot of resentment towards pharmD interns, which was incredibly annoying. They tend to think their experience with the workflow somehow translates to being a pharmacist (techs of course have no formal education and cannot discuss medication details). Customers also tend to be very disrespectful in chain pharmacies compared to independent pharmacies. The place was always understaffed, pharmacist was so tied up with work that I really didn't learn anything about medicine other than the workflow of the company. But efficiency is reallly all they cared about anyways.
I did work with some good people though. I substituted for a friend at another pharmacy within the same company and oh my god one of her bosses was literally the worst person I've ever met in my life.
Overall it was an awful experience. Never again. You couldn't pay me enough.
Now I work in a hospital as a clinical pharmacist. Much better Job that I actually enjoy.
The company is run in a completely top heavy fashion. Corporate was completely out of touch with people actually working in the pharmacies. The goal was filling as many prescriptions as possible in the least amount of time. Metric systems were everywhere. Things like safety, patient health outcomes, optimizing treatment, etc appeared secondary. Ethics was another issue, the pharmacies I worked in (and see to this day) often break the law on tech-pharmacist ratio. Uninsured patients were raped on cash prices (often leading them not to get necessary Rx's... i.e. $15 inhaler marked up to $80 is unacceptable), which ultimately convinced me to leave. Many technicians hold a lot of resentment towards pharmD interns, which was incredibly annoying. They tend to think their experience with the workflow somehow translates to being a pharmacist (techs of course have no formal education and cannot discuss medication details). Customers also tend to be very disrespectful in chain pharmacies compared to independent pharmacies. The place was always understaffed, pharmacist was so tied up with work that I really didn't learn anything about medicine other than the workflow of the company. But efficiency is reallly all they cared about anyways.
I did work with some good people though. I substituted for a friend at another pharmacy within the same company and oh my god one of her bosses was literally the worst person I've ever met in my life.
Overall it was an awful experience. Never again. You couldn't pay me enough.
Now I work in a hospital as a clinical pharmacist. Much better Job that I actually enjoy.
Worked on a couple of systems projects for a major financial institution in the 90s which were no win situations.
The first was a joint effort between teams in NY and London (10 on each team). Nice part was that it took me to London for a week or two every month for two years. Not so nice was being away from wife and 4 young kids. Also not so nice was that NY users had different needs than those in London, the project was too expensive, Bloomberg terminals became available and nobody in NY thought the project was worth doing (myself included from day 1).
The second was smaller scale but same idea. Trading floor was all Macs and users wanted anything on a Mac, while systems really only could support PC based apps. Plus side was that we rolled out something to the group that I was supporting that everyone globally loved (Lightspeed C/4th Dimension) and I got to develop using the Mac Toolbox. Downside was not getting paid and bad review for not pushing the party line, since I wasn't on the payroll of the trading group.
The first was a joint effort between teams in NY and London (10 on each team). Nice part was that it took me to London for a week or two every month for two years. Not so nice was being away from wife and 4 young kids. Also not so nice was that NY users had different needs than those in London, the project was too expensive, Bloomberg terminals became available and nobody in NY thought the project was worth doing (myself included from day 1).
The second was smaller scale but same idea. Trading floor was all Macs and users wanted anything on a Mac, while systems really only could support PC based apps. Plus side was that we rolled out something to the group that I was supporting that everyone globally loved (Lightspeed C/4th Dimension) and I got to develop using the Mac Toolbox. Downside was not getting paid and bad review for not pushing the party line, since I wasn't on the payroll of the trading group.
