"Worst" job you've ever had

The only job I ever had that was so horrible that I literally would cry on my way to work was when I was managing a video retail store at a suburban mega mall. I spent more time trying to stop the endless string of theft and I was losing that battle daily.

Unmeetable sales targets, clueless upper management and being a "mom and pop" store that was selling what Walmart was selling for 35% lower than my cost. Pointless.

The one moment that I'm really not very proud of in my entire working career... I saw that a few managers had been let go and given a VERY nice severance package. So I just sat in my office and read Harry Potter books until they came in to fire me. I got three month's full pay and benefits so I got the summer off and was able to set myself up to start my new career... and I did.

In college I worked as a Pharmacy Technician for a major drug store chain in a highly impoverished and crime-ridden city in Western Massachusetts. It was awful on a nightly basis. Every shift I would have customers who were blatantly abusing their Mass Health benefits, customers who had no money to pay for their medications, customers who were clearly hooked on pain medication, customers who were terminally ill. It was terrible and infuriating and heartbreaking all at the same time.

The worst, for me, was the young girls who would come in with scripts for the morning after pill...and the doctor had written it with a refill.

By far the worst job experience I have ever had.

MotoDC wrote:

Certain parts of that minimum wage thread were enlightening, others were entertaining, others were both. Personally I found everyone's account of their prior work-a-day histories both. So let's have it, nice and clean, here in a new thread. What's the "worst" or toughest thing you've ever done for money?

For me, it's probably helping my gf's (at the time) family's construction company dig a pool. I was a teenager and in great shape, but

holy
hell

that's some hard labor. I only helped with a part of (the parts that can't be done other than with a shovel and at the expense of a human's back), but that was enough.

Strangely though (or not, depending on your perspective), I'm particularly proud of that labor in my otherwise fairly white-collar life.

Easiest and least-proud job I ever held was pizza delivery (no offense to any pie drivers here). Easy money, no real physical or mental effort, but man did my car reek of pizza for months afterward. And the hat, oh the hat they made us wear...

I worked in a bending area of a windshield manufacturer. For those that don't know...the windshield on your car is actually 2 pieces of glass held together by a type of vinyl that is then bent and curved to specifications. The ovens were around 900 degrees and on for 4 days straight. The amount of heat from those ovens coupled with the extreme heat generated by the Kevlar suits we had to wear made for a very uncomfortable work environment. And to make matters worse the workers had banded together to vote on how to do breaks...we had one 20 minute break and two 5 minute piss breaks. Truly awful. Since I was low man on the totem pole I had to work the RV line...I think sometimes the glass weighed more than I did at the time...horrible...I think the hottest temp we recorded was 127 and very humid because of the amount of water. If it hits 125 they let us go early after giving us icey's...Wouldn't do that again for any amount of money.

Thanks for the memory walk Moto...

Shortly after finishing school, I worked as a cleaning woman.
Well, the worst was when they sent me to this construction worker motel. A team of three women cleaned there usually and I was the vacation replacement for one of them. I had to get up at 4 am which I hated. It was in the summer and we had to clean the rooms of the construction workers, including changing the bed stuff. It was stinky, the towels were sometimes crusty and hidden under the bed. The other two told me that the building is often used by people to end their lives by jumping out of the windows. Then the cleaning ladies would have to clean the walls. It was just too much for me. Too much of everything. I felt like I was experiencing a penalty or a sentence, not a job. It didn't last too long though.

Construction job here in NY good pay but man was the job supervisor a prick totally abusive of the workers yelling at them making sure you worked from 1mnt to the last mnt hard hard labor , jack hammers all day moving rocks & dirt , carrying cement in buckets up flights of stairs .....I'm tired just thinking about it

rival. wrote:

people sneaking into the closed pool to have sex.

so......what you sayin is......you'll loan me your keys so i don't have to sneak

thanks buddy.

81 wrote:

rival. wrote:

people sneaking into the closed pool to have sex.

so......what you sayin is......you'll loan me your keys so i don't have to sneak

thanks buddy.

i'll just give you the room with the hot tub.

Jason P wrote:

Sounds like a job perk to me!

when it was the sorority/frat yearly gala, maybe.
when it was the 60 year old drunk mom from the wedding party, not so much.

Worst paid job...
Bus boy at a Rib House. I lasted only one lunch shift. I hated it so much, i told the manager to give my paycheck to the waitresses... they were the only one that were nice to me. Everyone yelled at me, the manager, the cooks, the bartender even the fucking dish washer. But, the worst... by light years... the customers. No wonder restaurant workers spit in people's food... some of them fucking deserve to eat spit... some even deserve to eat shit... literally.
I was paid out by the waitresses tips and was able to eat a ton of ribs and took home a plate full of ribs, potatoes and baked beans... which was good enough for me. I was supposed to go back for the dinner shift, but blew it off. The mangercalled me to yell at me for not being there and I told him i quit. He was shocked and told be i had to come down to get my pay... i told him to give it to the waitresses.
...
Needless to say... I am very pleasant to restaurant workers... all of them, from bus boys to waiters/waitresses and i tip them well, even if the service is marginal. I know I wouldn't do their job and i know what kind of mega-assholes they have to deal with.