Worst job you ever had

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Seacowboys, Sep 2, 2006.


  1. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    Righthand got me to thinking when she explained that cows were brought into the living room but were escorted to the milking parlor and she used to be a milkmaid with a 150 farting cows that had to be milked twice a day and have their tits bathed. I have a cousin that worked at UT in the Agriculture department and his job was washing and steralizing portholes in cows (apparently they had surgically implanted portholes to observe the four stomachs)...I guess someone has to do it.
    One of my crane operators raises deer, didn't even know there was a market for pedigreed deer but apparently there is and his biggest return is in selling champion deer sperm. I mentioned that I would rather be running cranes than jacking off whitetails and he informed me that they used an electric prod inserted into the deer's rectum to stimulate ejaculation, just like they do with bulls and there went not one but two misconceptions about other peoples probable professions. I was certain there were diviant and talented people somewhere that devoted their entire working life to , well, you know...I mean what about that Ron White story about Sluggo, his bulldog that loves to go to the vet?
    Well, that got me to thinking about the worst job I ever had and thought maybe some of you would like to share those little mistakes in career planning.
    I have held jobs as a painter, roofer, brick and block mason, carpenter, sheetmetal worker, welder, railroader, crane operator, tug captain, commercial diver, musician, gunsmith, bouncer, bounty hunter, commercial fisherman, logger, rod-buster, pilebuck, salvagemaster, blaster, deckhand, engineer, demolitions consultant, project manager, horse trainer, ferrier, dog trainer, magazine publisher, writer, and sound engineer. I am sure I don't remember them all but I do remember them all being interesting. I have had such a lucky existance for having always been surrounded by quality people willing to teach and share their livelyhoods with someone that was willing to learn and work hard at it. The only job I ever had that sucked was unloading sides of beef from a truck route when I was a kid, but the driver was pretty cool, so even that had its moments. I guess I can't really recall ever having a job that I didn't enjoy. Maybe I'll volunteer to help Danny milk his deer, there has got to be some challenge in running them down to stick that prod up their butt.:rolleyes:
    deer.
     
  2. Bear

    Bear Monkey+++ Founding Member Iron Monkey

    Worst Job.... 14... working the Dole Pineapple factory... running all the palletizers.... every other week there was a fight in the locker room and there'd be blood everywhere.... never argue with a pineapple trimmer with a knife....:cool:

    2nd Worst Job.... Pioneer Chicken fry cook.... 16.... hint... I don't eat at chicken joints anymore.... you'd be appalled.... once had a cut on my finger and I lost my bandage while making the cole slaw.... guess most folks don't eat the saw.... never had any complaints.... [dancindevil]

    Wow! you've had a variety of jobs.... I learned alot from all of mine including these two....:)
     
  3. RightHand

    RightHand Been There, Done That RIP 4/15/21 Moderator Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Once again SC, you had me in stitches !

    I've had lots of jobs but none were bad although some were pretty odd.

    Like Bear and the chicken joints, I don't eat Hermits or Rum Cake from bakeries. Most bakeries have a vat in the back and all the scraps and unsold goods get thrown into the vat, cakes, cookies, bread, etc. Once a week, they toss in some flour, sugar, sale, shortening, water and spice or rum - voila, the special sale of the week. Whatever is left over of the Hermits or Rum cake goes into next week's vat and the cycle continues. Sort of like starter for sourdough.
     
  4. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Well to name off the jobs I have held that pop to mind heres a brief list. Ive worked at fruit stands and flower lots unloading trucks carrying out stuff and tending to the plants, food service from waiter to cook to dish washer and prep cook in everything from fast food to fine dineing and $100+ per plate banquets, bouncer, body guard, delivery driver, blacksmith, tree trimmer includeing power line clearance, construction and light demolition and a few others.

    The worst job I have had though had to be working at a dairy farm. It was 2 shifts a day milking 125 head and before milking I had to clean and replace the bedding in the areas for all the different cattle (calves, pregnant cows, milking cows, etc.) and for a lot of this you had to wade knee deep in semi liquid manuer. Then had to scrape the manure out of the milk cows barn, feed and water all the cattle then set up the milking parlor. As the cows came in I had to go along to each and wipe/scrub the manure off their teets, then wash them then dip them in sanitizer all while avoiding being kicked by the ones that got annoyed by this and dodging the ones that would thr to crap or piss on you. After milking was done then I had to scrape all the cow manure out of the milking parlor and hose everything down and get it spotless as well as scraping the manure out of the holding area. Once that was all done in the mornings then we had to use a bobcat to push all the manure from the feeding area into a pile that was later spread on the hay fields. Then was off for about 5 hours and went back and did the same for the evening shift except that after milking was done any cows that were ready to be impregnated got artificialy inciminated. 'Artificialy inciminating' a cow is the nice way of saying you take a long flexible thing kind of like a syringe, put some bull sperm in it then shove one arm up to the shoulder in one of the rear holes of the cow and the other arm up to the shoulder in the other so you can get everything in the right position to release the sperm. As bad as that part of the job was I think it was even worse that about once a week you would step in the wrong spot in one of the pens and go past the knee in manure and create a vacume that when you took a quick step to keep from falling face first in the crap would suck your muck books off and you would wind up with one or both legs covered on the socks, skin and pantlegs up to the mid or lower thigh in liquid shit. Then you had to walk back like this to recover the boots and out of the pen, go to the hose and rinse that stuff out of the boots and hose yourself off as best as you could and this was always BEFORE you started milking so you then got to walk around in wet jeans and socks that had LESS liquid shit saturating them for several more hours.

    I would have to say that was about as unplesant of a job as I have had and all for about $7/hour just a couple of years ago.

    Working on the kill floor in a butcher shop killing, skinning and gutting animals all day wasnt actualy half bad especialy after the dairy other than that it REALLY sucked if you made a bad cut when you were gutting the most especialy if they had been fed just before comeing in and ruptured the stomach which you also had to do once it was in the gut barrel just to save on space. If you have ever had the misfortune to be behind a cow when it ripped a really big fart, multiply it times about 20 and you have an idea of the sensation you get when you cut open the stomach of one that has been dead for about and hour which is about how long (at least) that it took before you were at that stage.

    Being the smallest person (even compared to the wemon) and the only one unarmed, in the middle of a brawl in a biker bare and haveing to break it up can also be a tad bit interesting but at least it that wasnt dull. lol
     
  5. ricdoug

    ricdoug Monkey+++

    Nothing really bad. Paper boy in Middletown, Ohio...

    Carhop in Kokomo, Indiana during High School.

    USMC Recon Scout Sniper from '68 to '92.

    Currently in Ford Commercial Fleet Sales in San Diego, California.

    Ric
     
  6. ghostrider

    ghostrider Resident Poltergeist Founding Member

    I need to hire you as a motivational speaker for some of my people that think they have a crappy job. Remind them there are some really tough jobs out there. I bet some of them would double their production.
     
  7. Blackjack

    Blackjack Monkey+++

    Special Police Officer (special as in limited powers not special as in George W.)
    was the worst year of my life hands down! 9 bucks an hour and in just a year I had to deal w/ 3 knife weilding crazies and one with a pistol. I got my nose broken, my ribs bruised pretty bad, my knee busted up, and my wrist busted. I can't even count the number of unarmed fights we got into, I caught OC spray several times, spit on numerous times, bit once, had to tackle a bum covered in his own toxic feces, I could go on and on. And when I quit after the year and turned in my uniforms, the boss whined about me not bringing back the clothes hangers....... what a jackass!

    Many other jobs... Army, various security,
    dj and bouncer at a strip bar (not as fun as you might imagine, but interesting nonetheless),
    played guitar in a band for a while,
    taught guitar for a while,
    blackjack dealer for casino Aztar (hence the screen name),
    gardner,
    melon farmer
    oilfield worker
    stage crew at a theater (live, not movies)
    sold meat off a truck, lasted one week
    lasted about 6 months on ebay
    lasted 10 hours at a pizza place
    waiter
    plastics factory

    It's been a diverse, interesting 38 years! I wonder what'll be next :)
     
  8. CRC

    CRC Survivor of Tidal Waves | RIP 7-24-2015 Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    I've done a lot of different jobs too...

    Hmmmmmm....the worst physical job was one I lasted one day at, in High School...... I had to sit outdoors, down at the docks , in a covered old building , from Slave days.....:rolleyes: putting tax stamps on the bottom of cigarette packs and you got paid a penny a carton....by hand...Hotter than Hades...and surrounded by some characters that a 15 yr old girl in a miniskirt really shouldn't be surrounded by...and you got tagged as a "runner" for all the guys off the ships...Uh, yeah...I didn't go back...


    Went to college and got my Nursing Degree and did that for 17 yrs....12 on the floor in L&D, and 5 in a thoracic surgeon's office....Not too shabby...but they worked you to death...I pulled a double , on my feet, in L&D, the night before my first child was born....(Holiday weekend and 3 girls called in sick.....no big deal...I always thought pregnancy was a "condition" , NOT an illness like I see some woman treat it..)

    burn out, finally.

    Then Hospitality....Hotel work...and I love it! Front Desk and acted as the Customer Services Manager...all aspects..Budget, Scheduling, etc.....I know, not everyone is cut out for Customer Service..but I excel at it..and really really like it..Meeting new people...new stories...and well , it's just fun. I like people....find them fascinating....Lots of stories to be heard...

    I probably would have stayed there...but calling our GM, who just happened to be the owners only brother and the baby, a Crackhead, didn't advance my career there.....:D (and he was! From May of 2002, to the end of Sept he didn't even stick his head in the Hotel!) Uh, yeah..I had to go...courtesy of being fired for the first time in my life....Owner made up 3 fake write ups in one day the day before she brought her brother back in...Imagine that...

    Since then, I've been involved in banking and every aspect of the Mortgage process....The loan side for 3 yrs....then closing loans at an atty's office....Finally on to my last job..and the worst I ever had...

    No, it was not the physical work.....It was the people and the sneakiness and back stabbing and total "out for #1 BS)...

    A Real Estate Company. RE/MAX. Highest producing company here on the island......

    It was the most work for the least money I have ever done in my life....I swear, Realtors, especially in a highly competitive market, on a "resort" island where the increase has been 300% for the last 3 yrs?

    It was a lesson in Human Behaviour, that's for sure..and just how cunning and conniving people can be in a civilized setting....

    It got where I'd come home, Cry and eat...play on the computer, and go to bed......Wake up, Throw up, and then have coffee...Great way to live, huh? :rolleyes:

    I swear, I have never ever never EVER seen more back stabbing people (mostly women) in one place in my entire life! They were incredible...unbelievable...I had an office right in the middle..and great access to the copy room so I overheard a lot that wasn't meant for me....and one..the highest producing one? She'd always call or greet you with "Good Morning , FRIEND!"....and she didn't even know my last name...sheeeesh...and she did this to everyone after the 2nd conversation...Must have learned it in some Motivational Meeting on how to sell more.....I found it annoying as hell, and finally told her..."YOU are NOT my friend!".....(I have this problem with being who I am, and saying what I think...not good for a career.....:eek: )

    Anyway....I did something I've never done...I went in at 9:30 at night on my day off...and wrote my resignation, effective immediately. I was dying there....It was just horrid...

    Now I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up...I'm thinking back to Hotel work...Not a lot of money..but you can travel (which I love!) and get great rates...on Hotels, and even airfare....and well, it was the job I loved the most other than nursing....and I don't see going back to that.........

    Just a little lesson that physical work sometimes is good and a cushy office job is not always the easiest.....
    Y'all have certainly helped in me getting back to being me.....Thanks...a million!


    Now, go start practicing how to Talk Like a Pirate...only 10 days left! :D
     
  9. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Dunno about the worst, because these three didn't last too long.
    -Mucking out a grit chamber at a sewage treatment plant for inspection and upgrading.
    -Indspecting the inside of a sewage sludge digester. (It had already been pressure washed. Still pretty ripe.)
    -Shoveling dead horseshoe crabs out of a screen backwash sump after the Fourth of July weekend at a power plant. NB. Summer, no ventilation and the sun was out the whole weekend. Couldn't even enter the pit until the tide went out, so it was late in the day.

    Even roaches would gag on those three. [yukface]
     
  10. ColtCarbine

    ColtCarbine Monkey+++ Founding Member

    Long ago before I became a plumber, I worked as a laborer for a plumber. The swore I'd never become a plumber after doing a sewer repair at a bar that did not shut down it's establishment while we did the repair. We wore hip waders and gloves that went above the elbows to do the work. It didn't take long for the ditch to filled with soupy water after we cut 'er open. I got to see what the patrons had for dinner the night before, it was not pleasant trying to cut a section of damaged piping and replacing it with shitty water flowing out, yummy. This is why I have made it a point to not be a Service Plumber and just do new construction or remodels. No thanks.

    Wastewater treatment plants aren't much fun either, cleaning out a Muffin Monster after it's been online is a joy to say the least.

    However, I don't have it as bad as the guy that gets to suck out the Porta-Potties :D
     
  11. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    I'll take a Muffin Monster 10 to 1 over rodding out an overheated sludge heat exchanger. (The portapotty guys have some advanced equipment these days, almost no hands on until time to dump the tank.):cool:
     
  12. RightHand

    RightHand Been There, Done That RIP 4/15/21 Moderator Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    As I have been thinking about this, the one job I had that was pretty bad (but didn't seem so at the time) was the summer when I was 15 and worked tobacco, a rite of passage here in CT.

    Bus would pick us up by 5am so we could be at the tobacco sheds by 5:30. Working in the sheds under the summer sun was hot work. We would hand cut the leaves (the plants are under netting,) bundle them and pass them to the boys who would hang them from the poles which ran from the top of the tobacco barn to just floor level as the summer progressed. Tobacco juice burns the skin and the heat in the barn in unbearable at times. There would be a dozen or so barns on each farm - we call them tobacco shed - and they would be filled as the weeks went by. I don't know anyone who did this more than one summer. As soon as we were 16, we moved on to jobs that paid more than the 25 cents an hour tobacco paid but the work was good training for the hard work of life that was to come...

    Kids don't work tobacco anymore - they bring in migrant workers, mostly Jamaican, and house them in dorms for the season.
     
  13. ColtCarbine

    ColtCarbine Monkey+++ Founding Member

    Never had to do that, thank god. I would not want to clean a grit chamber or anything related to the sludge process from the clarifier to the digester, no thanks. :D

    I worked at a facility a few years back that used incinerators for the sludge, IIRC. Also noticed a field that had lots of tomato plants growing, seems that tomato seeds survive long after leaving the body. :eek:
     
  14. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Tomato seeds are pretty hardy and get spread far and wide by (among other things) birds. Said tomatos are pretty healthy eating:D if the "fertilizer" doesn't have a lot of heavy metals in it.

    In a properly operating plant, secondary sludges are not very offensive at all, just slightly musty smelling. Primary is a different story, as are grit and screenings after a short while in the sun. And digested sludges are really rough, not to mention that the off gas is toxic as hell. The biggest design challenge these days is odor collection and treatment.

    FWIW, incineration is an expensive way to go these days, the combustible content of sludge is low, and usually needs supplemental fuel to keep it going. Digester gas is used a lot of times, but the quality is variable to a degree, and needs supplemental fuel (usually natural gas.) The heavy hitters are trying to get to a beneficial product by composting to a soil amendment that can be used without limitation on crop lands.
     
  15. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Happened to think of a couple of jobs that didnt get mentioned. Back in my late teens did perfume sales for a while for a company that did generic bottled highdollar perfumes. Also there was one job that sucked in other ways than the ones mentioned.

    One of the companies I worked for doing tree trimming was a big national company that dose power line clearance. I went to work for them as a climber from the start but I have always climbed with gaffs (climbing spikes) and they didnt allow them, you had to climb your rope and or shimmy up the trees like you did as a kid. This combined with the fact that the job was to cut stuff back about 12 feet from the primairy power lines that start at 12 Kv @ 70 amps (enouph to crystalize every fluid in the body in under 3 seconds of full contact or just vaporize body parts) and going up from there, which ment everything we worked on was usualy laying across the lines or within inches of it. So I decided I wanted to work ground for a while and watch how they did this specific type of trimming before I got up there and fried. Turns out that that location needed climbers but the one in the inner city needed groungmen and the upper managment told them they had to trade personel and to send good workers. Little did I know the general foremen of the lots had an old fued going over some old grudge and wanted to make each other look bad by makeing all the transfers quit or get fired. So they stuck me on a brush truck in the less than plesant area of the inner city.

    The normal situation on any tree work crew is that you have one trimmer with at least 2 or more groundmen to take care of cleaning up after them and a good trimmer can work 2 guys into the ground. They put me with 2 experienced trimmers and told them to 'burry' me. So any trees smaller than 5-6" at the base were just dropped and I was to drag them and chip them whole and had to keep up on my own with 2 trimmers running full tilt. Keep in mind this is also in an area where the following was the saftey meeting that took place each morning on the way to the job, 'Watch out for broken glass and dirty needles. If you hear gun shots or see someone with a gun run to X truck and keep in mind your chaps are kevlar so toss them across your back as you go...and make sure to stay out of my (the truck foreman) way cause I'll run your ass over.'

    What really pissed on their Cheerios was the fact though that I managed to get it done and keep up with them and kept comeing back for more. The GF even let the truck foreman know before we went out one day that he was to find a reason or make on up if he had to but to wright me up before we came back in for the day, so he made it up and let me know what was up and sugested I didnt sign it.

    The one thing that finnaly did get me to quit was the fact that they had started useing a new herbacide called garlon IV (sp?) about the time I started on the lot. We had asked about needed saftey measures and were assured the stuff was as safe as kool aid and you could practicaly drink it if you wanted to but if we wanted to extra paranoid just wear a good set of leather gloves when we pored it into the spray bottle (just as it was delivered). We were going through 5-10 gallons of this stuff a day douseing everything and wadeing through it going home bathed in it. After a couple of weeks a lot of us started getting sick. We finnaly got a hazmat book off one of the other trucks (ours didnt have one) and looked the stuff up. Turns out that first off you were supposed to dilute the stuff 1 part chemical to 10 parts water, this and all handleing of it was to be done with a FULL resporator, neoprine rubber jump suit, boots and gloves. The fumes would kill you in the short term from chemicaly induced phneumonia. In the longer term by being absorbed through the skin or ingested (it had IIRC a cumulative effect) it would kill you from liver and kidney failure. To top it all off they had us storeing the stuff in a dark green spray jug out in the sun on summer days often over 100 degrees and at 140 degrees the stuff was listed to spontaniously explode. If you got the stuff on your clothes you were not allowed acording to the manual to wash them, burn them or throw them away, they had to be disposed of as hazardous material.

    The truck foreman went to the GF and let him know that the stuff was killing us and the GFs response was, 'oh its just alergies. Lots of the guys are getting allergies right now.' I heard that response and it was my last day there. I was involved wit ha woman with 4 kids and they would all come up and give me a hug and climb on me when I came in the door and my clothes got washed with theirs and so on. At that point they were no longer just endangering me but also my family and doing so willfuly. I knew if I ever saw that GF on the job site again I would fource a gallon or so of it down his gullet right before shoveing him through the chipper. So come the end of the day I went home and never went back.
     
  16. Bear

    Bear Monkey+++ Founding Member Iron Monkey

    Yup... Pineapple factory was the typical rite of passage... you could get a work permit to be able to work when you were 14.... I did it so I could get my license and a car.... hourly rate was $1.40.... No more pineapple factory today.... most of it went to South America...

    I remember stories from the trimmers on the lines where the pineapple came down and they picked them up to trim out the eyes on the pineapple... knives were sharp... and if you were out late partying .... kids got alot of cuts and some lost fingers.... pretty gross... all of a sudden the conveyer belt would turn red... and you knew there was an accident up the line....

    Still wanna eat canned pineapple ????:D
     
  17. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    My ex BIL runs a tobacco operation. They have camps for a couple hundred workers in the area, the farms get together and bring up Jamaicans, and to do so requires a tremendous amount of INS paperwork. The kids refuse to work tobacco these days (and have for the last 20 years or better) so if you want to farm shade tobacco, you gotta have the help. It is tough under the tents and in the barns, hot, humid, and dirty. John tells me the Jamaicans are hard workers, and will go as long as you point them in the right direction. Slower than the kids were 30 years ago, but far more reliable and steady.
     
  18. RightHand

    RightHand Been There, Done That RIP 4/15/21 Moderator Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    I can believe that. Unfortunately, in general, kids today are looking for easier work and their parents support the idea of quick money for easy work.
     
  19. CRC

    CRC Survivor of Tidal Waves | RIP 7-24-2015 Moderator Emeritus Founding Member



    Man..how could I have forgotten that Summer in High School at the "Tomato Sheds"????

    Yep....rite of passage....it was a little more ....85 cents an hour....Hot as Hades...Humid...smelly...and hard work!

    But all the kids who had jobs in High School did it ...some lasted...some didn't.....I did.

    The one at the docks was just too much for a 15 yr old kid...around all the guys coming off the boats they were unloading....Not a good place to be....
     
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