Worst job you have ever had?

This wasn't my worst job, but the most disgusting (I posted my current job as worst earlier in the thread):

I worked in a massive nursing home as a cleaner. It was pretty grim having to clean out the sluice rooms (the place where all the commode chair thingers were emptied), mop up blood, vomit and urine and encountered many a ninja dried stealth turd whilst going about my business cleaning under beds etc. However, this wasn't the worst part.

I decided that I'd work Saturdays at the launderette attached to the nursing home. Cue getting picked up by the home's transport at 7:30am, and going straight into the launderette. My first job of the day was to walk to the main building and smaller, separate buildings and collect massive open laundry bins, with various colour coded bags. If there were lots of red bags, you new you were in for a very rough morning, as they contained the heavily soiled clothes/bedclothes and STANK of urine etc. The main issue with this was that in order to take the laundry to the launderette from the main building, an archaic lift had to be used. It was the slowest lift ever, and being sealed in a 7 foot square box with a load of stinking laundry was NOT good, especially when hung over. I remember having to frequently stop on the way back to throw up in one of the many bathrooms from the stench and being a bit jaded from the night before. I worked there for about 9 months.
 
Dark_Angel said:
Surely the employer is in breech of something there? It's expected?

Okay fine. Get a bunch of gay people in, tell them he likes to be molested and profit!
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There's a comment from someone who's never been to the "Kingdom of Fife". :p

You're perfectly right, the employer should be protecting their staff but I have to admit I saw the post then looked at the location and mentally chalked it up as unsurprising. I'm possibly being harsh to Kirkcaldy as it has been a while since I've been.
 
semi-pro waster said:
There's a comment from someone who's never been to the "Kingdom of Fife". :p

You're perfectly right, the employer should be protecting their staff but I have to admit I saw the post then looked at the location and mentally chalked it up as unsurprising. I'm possibly being harsh to Kirkcaldy as it has been a while since I've been.
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Lol. That could be it. Kdy is the only place I've worked in a pub so I don't know how much protection other barmaids get but it has totally put me off working behind a bar ever again! I think I work 3 shifts and I cried after every one of them just because of the sexist remarks, bullying and grabbing that went on! :(
 
When I was very young: Temping, got sent to a factory which bottled cleaning products. A batch of 5lt containers had been under filled. It was my job to take a container off a pallet, weigh said container and top it up to within tolerance before putting it on another pallet to be recapped. I lasted 4 hours.

When I was in my 20's: European Courier. 1000 mile drive there, 1000 mile drive back. 1000 mile drive there, 1000 mile drive back....... lasted 2 months and saw nothing of Europe apart from motorways and quirky European store men.

Mate of mine, worst job, putting the skins back on chickens which had been damaged on the production line. he did that for 6 months.
 
My worst job would have to be a toss-up between Sainsburys and an outbound sales call centre, both within weeks of each other when I was 18.

Sainsburys offered me a job in their restaurant and made out that it would be waitressing. I mentioned in my interview that I was a vegetarian when asked how I would deal with a specific angry customer. A couple of weeks into the "waitressing" job, I was told that I had to help prepare food which included laying out bacon at night for breakfasts the next day. I was told if I didn't do it I would be fired, even though my direct boss knew I was a vegetarian when he hired me. I tried and ended up in floods of tears because it wasn't what I'd signed up for. I think I did one shift after that.

My next job was telesales for accidental death insurance. I still don't know how I lasted a month. We practically had to beg to go to the bathroom outside our breaks and one team leader got fired for talking to me for 2 minutes between calls. People were fired for not hitting ridiculous targets and it was soul destroying trying to sell over the phone when I hang up on people who do the same to me.
 
Draining a drain pit under diesel tank filler pump at aunts taxi garage by hand (bucket), standing in it. Aged 12.

I was stinking after it.

She dropped her wedding ring in it lol. I was an enthusiastic family employee. :p Would have got sucked up other wise.
 
Night shift at Reading services.

Serving up chilli con carne / chips / then doing brekkies in the morning. Clearing tables.
Lasted a few months then just had enough of coming home smelling of grease and having The Big Breakfast as my evening telly.

The funniest thing about that job was turning up stoned out of my tree for my first shift (didn't take it seriously) and just not being able to figure out how to replenish the milkshake machine as a consequence.
 
My current one, working in a supermarket as a team leader. The only redeeming thing about it is that I really like a girl I'm friends with who also works there. She's about the only other person there that I have anything in common with, we're very similar. She keeps me sane anyway.

Plan to jump ship and pursue my real interests (policing) soon enough though.
 
I did a range of jobs in the holidays whilst I was at Uni. Being a dustman actually wasn't too bad, I did it in the summer, so it was nice to get up early, be out in the open air getting some exercise. The bins weren't too bad as the borough we did had wheelie bins you just pushed to and from the truck. We also got some very healthy tips for doing house clearances on the sly.
The downside was if you pulled "domestic refuse" duty - basically going with the sewage truck and pumping the liquid waste from the tower blocks. It smelt terrible and the bloke who drove the truck was (unsuprisingly) a miserable so-and-so. It didn't help that the first time I did it I lost one of the bolts you needed to connect the pump to the waste outlet in the waste. I had to fish it out from an unknown depth of stinking waste with only a pair of latex gloves between my skin and thousands of gallons of excrement. I used every cleaning product known to man when I got home.

Production line work is probably the worst I've experienced. I was at the Elizabeth Arden factory, doing whatever menial task was required of me that day. The permanent staff there seemed to have had lobotomies as part of their training - I once had to spend an entire day breaking boxes without using a box cutter as "it was against health and safety". I pinched the supervisors ruler, snapped it, then used the sharp edges to cut the boxes open. I later returned the ruler to her desk and swore blind I found it like that.

It wasn't helped by the fact all the other plebs on the production line were all foreigners, mostly Somalians who stuck together, never spoke any English and certainly didn't associate with non-Somalians (like me)

However, the absolute worst thing was, standing in one position for eight hours a day, doing one repetitive motion several hundred times, whilst the radio was playing, just loud enough to make you aware it was on and playing, but not loud enough to actually be able to hear any music. I asked Mrs.Frontal (my supervisor, who proudly told me she had been there 30 years, the poor demented soul) if it could be turned up. She looked at me as if I had asked if I could ritually sacrifice her first born on the mascara boxing line. Needless to say, the radio volume was not increased. It was kind of like an audio water torture.

I had to quit after a month, it got to the point that I started talking to myself as I didn't have anyone to speak to during the day. I still look back on those days and shudder, perhaps I should pop back and buy Mrs.Frontal a new ruler...

[/rant]
 
I know it sounds good, but I once spent a week spinning candy floss at Wembley Arena for the Holiday on Ice crowd. At first it was good fun but after a few hours the smell really got to us and we ended up covered in a pink, sticky fuzz. This went on for days and we had to spin it and bag it in freezing conditions with hardly any breaks. Even when we did get time off, we were so covered in sugar that we weren't allowed into the canteen.

I have to say though, working there I saw some amazing concerts, but after a month of Holiday on Ice I still can't listen to a Strauss waltz without flinching.
 
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