What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

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Lucky2beAlive

Lucky2beAlive

Happy Carolinian
Neighbor
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Joined
Mar 19, 2021
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Charlotte, NC
What job were you glad to leave behind?

We’re you ever glad you were fired from somewhere?

Is there somewhere you worked where the worst part about it was your co-workers?

Have you ever put someone in there place so bad you ended your argument with “I Quit?”



I love reading threads from the many truly good people on this forum talking about any subject. The content here is very rich—grounded with good morals & positivity.

I finally thought of a good question to ask you guys 🙂 I can’t wait to hear some good stories! I’ll add a few myself.

Peace Y’all ! ✌️🤠👍
 
My worst job wasn't really the job itself but the boss. I don't know if I'll ever go into the field again because of him, but..never say never. Still a no for now ☺

I worked in architectural model making and I got a job in a studio in Dubai. First I was doing the hands on work, assembling and painting..the manual labor part of the job. It could be fun, a lot of fun, but also tedious. In the end, it's worth it because you get to see how it comes together and "wow, we made this! And it looks so real!".
Then I got promoted to editor, meaning I was on a computer 90% of the time.
Around the end of 2018, we had a couple of large projects and I was put on as project manager for one of them. It's not as fancy as it sounds.
The project was full of unrealistic expectations and we, the teams, told our boss that over and over again. What he wanted done in 3 weeks was done in 2 and a half months, with no weekends, overtime until sometimes 3am and to come back the following day at 9.

The whole time we were negotiating with the boss and telling him that what he was expecting and promising the clients, was not possible.

One day, we were supposed to reach a certain milestone, take pictures and show the progress to the client. But again, we weren't going to reach the milestone on time, even if we rushed but we also had to make it perfect...ugh, some things you can't rush and shouldn't rush. But the boss wouldn't have it.

I can talk back sometimes - which I don't like l, but it happens. I'm not particularly impressed with authority figures. It's like, lead me well and I'll respect you and do whatever you ask. But if I don't respect your leadership skills and/or ethics, I won't listen to a single thing. So I talked back at him, which got me sent to the "principal's office" 😏
He told me I couldn't talk to him like that in front the others, which I get. By the end of the conversation, I told him I'd finish the project and once it was done, I would quit. And I did.

I'm really glad I quit. I still wonder if I should have stuck it out a little longer but I'm good. I don't like working for disorganized people. It's a major pet peeve of mine.
 
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I would agree with Newbri. The worst jobs I have ever had were due to the boss, and not due to the work or co-workers. To answer one of your questions, there were one or two jobs I was happy to get fired from. IMHO we are all at the mercy of the economy, unless you are independently wealthy and don't have to work. Given that circumstance I would say, at least for me, I took jobs that I knew were not a good fit, and under different circumstances I would never take. When you are unemployed, and nobody else is asking, you take something to keep the wolf away from the door.

Not the worst job, but I would say the "hardest" job I ever had was landscaping. I was hot, hard, backbreaking work, and I am not talking about mowing lawns. This was construction site stuff where everything was done by hand. It paid well, and I was helping a friend, but it was physically the hardest work I ever did.
 
Lucky2beAlive said:
Is there somewhere you worked where the worst part about it was your co-workers?
Click to expand...

That was always the worst part of every job I ever had.

I've never had a job where the work was what drove me to quite. It was always the people I worked with. Eventually I always reached the point where it was either quit, or go postal.
 
One of the first jobs I had was a 'flesher' in a tannery. I lasted about 2 days, lol. The machine was located in the basement of the factory, it was dark, stinky, greasy floors and near impossible to hang on to the pigskins that we fleshed.

Buh Bye................lol.
 
My first job was probably the worst. It was working in the dishroom at a local college when I was 15. I'd work 2-3 hours in the morning, had a few hours off, then work the lunch shift, then a couple of hours off, then finish with the dinner shift. I was there all day long, but only got paid for about 6-8 hours due to the off time between meals. I lived too far away to go home between meals so it was a lot of wasted time. Plus, the dish room was HOT and humid all the time. I was thrilled when I got promoted to a different job at the college. With the worker shortage as it is now, I can't imagine who would put up with that job these days.

I've been fortunate to have had decent bosses. I always had the attitude that I didn't have to work at any job I had. There were always other opportunities, so it gave me a lot of freedom to just be myself. If anyone didn't like it, they knew I wasn't afraid of getting fired, even though I never got fired from any job. I was a good worker, and they knew it. I don't think I've ever had a job that I hated, except maybe that first one. But, at the time, I was thrilled to have a job and make my own money.
 
I repaired explosive scanners at the airport. We had 26 machines and we had to cover the airport 24/7 with 6 people, and 3 of those were useless, so there was a lot of OT. A lot of the tasks we did required 3 or more people so on your off time you were always getting calls for help. 90 plus hour weeks were the norms. I slept in my truck in the parking garage a lot because I knew I was going to get called to work. The security guys knew me so they let me sleep. I told my wife she had it made. A full-time paycheck and a part-time husband.
The stress when a machine was down was incredible. Not only the airlines and TSA were on your back but we would get messages from corporate and Washington DC wanting status updates about every 30 minutes. One time I got an email and the CC list was 3 pages long and the problem they were interested in wasn't our machine but I had to reply ASAP. The working conditions were hot, dirty, and dangerous. Breathing exhaust fumes in the bag wells, having to climb under or over conveyor belts with luggage flying past. We had 3 systems that were on a metal grate 20 feet in the air. The only way to get to them was via an extension ladder tied to the rail on top. Once you got up there you had to climb over the safety rail and over 3 conveyor belts.
We could not get the company to hire more people. Every single person that worked there got injured. Some bad enough to be permanently disabled.
The company just dumped them as soon as they could after they were injured.
I saw my boss one morning and I told him I had enough and I was quitting.
I was soaked with sweat, dirty from head to foot and I had a big bleeding gouge in my back from a bolt that caught me while I was climbing under a conveyor belt and it was 9 AM, I started at 7 AM. After I left they hired 6 more people but it was too late.
I'm glad you started this thread. It reminded me of how good life is today.
 
I have mostly had good jobs, but the bosses really can make or break it.

When I was in h.s., I applied for a waitress job at a local restaurant. The woman who owned the restaurant was probably the first divorcee I ever knew. Her husband divorced her and later married another local woman, a widow. They moved to Minnesota. She didn't like me, and I am not sure what that was about. It may have been her personality or it may have been a family thing. I quit after a couple weeks. She had girls who worked for her who still say how wonderful she was. Nope. She was cold and nasty, at least imho and experience.
 
Hmmm...power washing hog pens in confinement buildings is pretty bad. Actually anything involving livestock confinements sucks.

In a confinement building, it is a disease critical environment. One batch of hogs gets sold, everything gets power washed with hot water and soap before the next cycle comes in. The floors are made of woven wire grates, so the animal wastes can fall through into a water filled alleyway below. Then a scraper blade pushes the waste to the end and it goes out of the building into an underground slurry pit.

Of course the floor grates don't allow all the waste to fall through. Poop gets stuck in the openings and in the corners of the pens and it gets dry and crusty. The hot water makes it like a sauna and you wear a full body rain suit. You try to ventilate the building but the air is full of feed dust and animal dander and water vapor. You have to wear a mask and a clear face shield and the poop flies all over because the water pressure is well over 2000 psi. You're covered in poop, soaked in sweat, coughing up the dust and you reek like pig poop for two days afterwards. Oh, and at that Time minimum wage was around $4/hr. This would have been around 1990. I made $5/hr to wash those pens...
 
When I started at the packing house I worked in the area where hot dogs and bolona was made. I was part of the 2nd shift clean up crew. That was a nasty job. Only good part was the area was about 40-45 degrees most of the time.
I've had some crappy bosses, but most of the time the jobs were good enough to make up the differences.
 
There were good and bad for all of my jobs but
my first job.
Was the worst job.

Caddy at a private country club.

It was like the movie "Caddy Shack" but not funny.

I walked away on the 14th hole and never looked back.

Ben
 
Worst job was at a meat processing plant in the office. They used a ruler to line through things as opposed to just freehand a line through. Also bosses daughter only wanted to work 2 days per week and they needed someone full time so hired me. I lasted 1 week shy of 1 year and left. Bosses daughter went back to working 2 days per week.
Next worse was the first couple years of my last job. Boss was a snake, and I saw through him. I was ready to quit when a new boss entered the office so I hung on. Like Morgan said I knew I wasn’t meant for certain jobs but was single momming and not wealthy.
 
The worst job I held was at Wendy's during my junior year of high school. Yes, it was worse than wearing the Little Ceasar's Pizza Pizza man suit holding a hot and ready sign next to Main St. Wendy's will be the one & only fast food kitchen I will have ever worked in.

The only reason it was the worst & not just bad is because of the second shift manager, Shirley. She was proud of shouting at anyone below her in a way making it sound like they were incompetent. She was just mean. My best friend in high school also started working there about the same time I did. Any other time we were together we would talk about how she acted & laugh at how ridiculously power-hungry she was. We were both getting fed up of this job by the second month. By the third month we didn't care if we got fired. Our horseplay & joking increased which led to my friend, unbeknownst to me, instantly stuffing a hand full of microwaved hot bacon down my pants. I immediately grabbed the first thing available which was a fully slathered mayonnaise spreader & smacked him in the face with it. This caused a laughing ruckus in our area which got to Shirley's ears. We heard her coming across the kitchen yelling, "What? Who do I hear laughing?" She gets closer, "Alright, alright, what's going... WHY DOES HE HAVE MAYONNAISE ON HIS FACE?" Me & Sean are standing still at attention, making it obvious we're both holding back laughter. She scowls at both of us with a disgusted look. "Wipe that mayonnaise off your face!" & rants on or something. I just knew we were fired, but I was wrong. We finished that shift. I quit a couple days later & Sean quit a couple days after that. We both vowed never to work fast food again.
 
I had to think long and hard on this one, I grew up doing lots of "dirty" work and labor in miserable conditions. But, I think the worst was the summer I spent working at a gas station in CO. For weeks I did every ugly job you could think of, toilets, mopping the shop, but the deal breaker was the drain to their service pit clogged and it was ankle deep in black oil and water, I had to dip it out with a 5 gallon bucket (while standing in the muck), when I got to the drain (2'X2' with metal grate over it) I discovered that someone had dropped a plastic ice bag into the hole and it was blocking the drain pipe. Yep, got it all dipped out, drain working, mopped down with degreaser, had it shining like new and then quite..... I just couldn't afford to keep ruining clothes for $1.10 an hour...... Got a job the next day at a resort, paid better and had lots of side benefits...... ;)
 
I have found ways to really enjoy every job or military assignment I ever had. We managed to find the good in even the less desirable military instillations. I did have a co-worker who was one rank more senior than me that tried to make my life miserable for about a year, but I outsmarted this idiot in the end. While the year was tough, the end was glorious when I got a specific position over the more senior low life.
 
Alaskajohn said:
I have found ways to really enjoy every job or military assignment I ever had. We managed to find the good in even the less desirable military instillations.
Click to expand...
That's the outlook I'm trying to put into practice now. It does help, especially on those crappy, crappy days. Looking for the fun, or the challenging (like competing with myself) or why what I'm doing is valuable.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it takes a while for it to work. Or sometimes, I just grumble my way through it 😏
 
Fresh out of lab tech school, I took a job in research. Right below our lab was another research lab that used dogs in their research. I couldn’t deal with that. I only lasted 3 months there. Besides, my boss felt I should be at home learning how to cook for a future husband. 😏 When I pointed out his wife worked he told me it’s because they need the money. 😡
I’ve worked in Hospital labs ever since and I love what I do.
 
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I've been thinking about this one for a long time.
Never had much of a problem with bosses and co-workers. The jobs, yes.
Crawling up inside of a combine in scorching summer heat and working for hours, that don't even count.
But you do find out fast where they got the idea for an oven. :oops:
I worked as a truck tech for Waste Management for several years. Yes, the liquid that dribbles out of garbage trucks is called "garbage juice". No problem.
One truck broke the shaft off of the hydraulic pump on a Friday.
It was full and they couldn't empty it (hey, no hydraulics), so they parked it on the yard.
It sat in the August heat over the weekend. Festering.
We pulled it in the shop (you become immune to stench over time) to change the pump.
The pump was located under the bed, which was mostly rusted out.
I crawled under it and there was a gentle snowfall of fly-larvae (maggots) coming down from above.
Nothing you can do about that.
When I got back out an hour later with the pump, I looked at the floor completely covered with "moving rice" except for the silhouette of some guy, (me).
Then I had to go back underneath it and install the new pump:mad:.
So if you got your feelings hurt because your boss yelled at you, just remember, a fly-larvae can actually burrow under your skin if you ignore it long enough:oops:.

But the good news: I made tons of money and we made a tradition of spending a week in the Caribbean every year😁:thumbs:.
 
O former colleague of mine and I talk about once a week. We had a boss who would lie and tell convoluted stories to get people to do what she wanted done. The truth didn't work for her. One of her things was fake interviews. If there was a job opening, she needed to interview 3 candidates, required by law. She would select who she wanted for the position, but unbeknownst to others. Then she would encourage other people to apply and interview for the position, even though she knew that she wanted a particular person. My friend got drawn into one of these situations and still talks about it, more than a decade later. This was just one of her subterfuge's. There were many others. She played all of her staff and even the parents of the students. She could create stories and reel them out like no one else I have ever met.
 
I guess I'm the odd one. I have liked all my jobs. Sure, some have been more lucrative than others, and coworkers have been friendlier at some jobs than others. But I can't say I disliked any of the jobs. That includes being a Hobartoligist (i.e., dishwasher operator) at a nice restaurant every now and then when the official one couldn't make it in to work. Your job is what you make it, and your attitude about it. It helps to identify the friendly and fun coworkers and hang out with them, while staying a bit more distant from the complainers and grouches.

I have fond memories of that job. Technically, I was a back-end cook. We working in back (duh!) while the main chef was up front in view of all the customers flipping steaks on a flaming grill. The manager came running back to our area once, all panicked because we didn't have any hot bread for the customers. He threw open the oven to see when the bread would be ready ... and found it full of nachos! We had stolen snacks from the bar and ingredients from the salad bar and made a mess of damn fine nachos for all the employees. He just kind of rolled his eyes and muttered, "You guys..." Then ate a nacho.

At that same job, a friend/coworker and I were off duty but having some beers up in the bar (we got discounted stuff). And unexpected bus full of people on a group trip showed up. The manager freaked. Because us back cooks were supposed to estimate crowds, cook baked potatoes in advance to meet estimated needs, make sure enough salad bar stuff was prepped, etc. None of that was done for an unexpected busload of people. Anyway, the manager ran up to the bar and begged me and my friend to go fix the kitchen. We said, "Roy, we're drunk. Is that really a good idea?" He screamed, "Yes, yes! You're better in that state than anybody else I have in the back! I'll pay you time and a half." So we took our beers and headed back to the kitchen. We got the kitchen fixed up, and even helped out the poor overloaded Hobartologist. Fun times. The job is what you make it. Even if it's technically a menial job.
 
Pretty much the same as Supervisor 42. Towing rendering trucks, & trash trucks. Aside from the fact their usually overloaded, & the frames will fold up on you if you pick the front end off the ground. So, you pick up enough weight to get them to track, but not enough to bend the frame. Then, they rain maggots when you beat the driveline out with a 12 pound sledgehammer. You might get lucky and it could be raining. There's fewer maggots, but with water topping the raingutters, it's a tossup wether you'll drown before the driveline comes out. That's the glass half full, what it's half full of is anybody's guess.
 
SeventiesWreckers said:
Pretty much the same as Supervisor 42. Towing rendering trucks, & trash trucks. Aside from the fact their usually overloaded, & the frames will fold up on you if you pick the front end off the ground. So, you pick up enough weight to get them to track, but not enough to bend the frame. Then, they rain maggots when you beat the driveline out with a 12 pound sledgehammer. You might get lucky and it could be raining. There's fewer maggots, but with water topping the raingutters, it's a tossup wether you'll drown before the driveline comes out. That's the glass half full, what it's half full of is anybody's guess.
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Yep, Rendering trucks are the worst! Had to do an inside tire repair on one in mid-August, mid-day, just south of Blyth CA.... crawling under one of those things should require hazard pay and barf bags.....

But it was just part of what otherwise was a good job.....
 
angie_nrs said:
My first job was probably the worst. It was working in the dishroom at a local college when I was 15. I'd work 2-3 hours in the morning, had a few hours off, then work the lunch shift, then a couple of hours off, then finish with the dinner shift. I was there all day long, but only got paid for about 6-8 hours due to the off time between meals. I lived too far away to go home between meals so it was a lot of wasted time. Plus, the dish room was HOT and humid all the time. I was thrilled when I got promoted to a different job at the college. With the worker shortage as it is now, I can't imagine who would put up with that job these days.

I've been fortunate to have had decent bosses. I always had the attitude that I didn't have to work at any job I had. There were always other opportunities, so it gave me a lot of freedom to just be myself. If anyone didn't like it, they knew I wasn't afraid of getting fired, even though I never got fired from any job. I was a good worker, and they knew it. I don't think I've ever had a job that I hated, except maybe that first one. But, at the time, I was thrilled to have a job and make my own money.
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I did this same job in college. I still have fond memories of it. For us, it was a team job. College used ceramic plates and they had to be scraped by two people. Dishes were stacked then loaded into racks that were pushed to someone who pre-washed them by spraying them with hot water, then pushed them through a dishwashing machine. They came out and two people stacked them up and put them away. It was hot and hard work. I worked different positions on the team as a freshman, but was the lead person and sprayer my sophmore year. The boss was a nun, the head of the cafeteria. I liked her, maybe because she was kind to me. I made toast and helped serve breakfast for the retired nuns who lived in a wing of the school, and then did dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
 
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