Worst Job You've Worked

[Jakexe]

Door to Door vacuum cleaner salesmen. It feels dirty just typing it.

Dodgy as business I worked at when I got out of school, they would actively encourage you to rip off and manipulate pensioners. They're entire sales tactic was illegal and based on lying. As soon as you got in the door it was encouraged to not leave until you had a sale and the police had to be called on a few ocassions because the people just wouldn't leave.

Worst part was the vacuum cleaner itself was sold at ~$5500, with around $4500 wiggle room to get a sale. I had loose morals at that age but even it was too dodgy for me.

[Deleted]

No, it isn't their own fault as such an environment can become very grating and stressful if it ends up being like that day in, day out for months or years at a time.

I did for for 8 months...I get not everyone can get a new job instantly, but the amount of people who were bitching about the job at work without looking for other jobs was insane.

[shadowmouse]

When I was in high school I used to work at the local newspaper putting together the various sections ("stuffing" the papers). I was small, didn't smoke, and strong for my size. I got switched to cleaning the printing presses. Specifically, under the printing presses, with benzene. Lots of benzene. Not smoking was important.

Historically in the printing industry, benzene-containing solvents were used in the ink solution and to clean the printing machines. Solvents can also be applied to a rag and used to clean printing machines. Press operators and maintenance workers are two examples of trades in the printing industry that risk exposure to benzene.

Source

Fortunately, I didn't work that job for more than a couple of weeks. That was 40 years ago and I don't seem to have suffered any clearly related long term effects. I got lucky.

[Deleted]

Tech support for a blue chip ISP. Trust me, there was nothing blue chip about how they treated their own staff, and the training... Don't get me started on the training. Happy where I am now

- - - Updated - - -

These jobs, pft. Go talk to literally anyone employed in or by the military who's ever been combat deployed. You'll feel a whole lot better about your jobs when you realize that you're not being shot at, eating expired food regularly, sleeping in the dirt, carrying 100's of lbs of gears in over 100 degree heat, digging and emptying latrine pits in that same heat...you get the idea.

You join the military knowing what will happen, so please spare us the sob story. /smallest violin .

[Hyve]

Fiberglass insulation is the worst invention ever created.

I've had to do some some Fiberglass Insulation myself, and that stuff is horrible... Absolutely horrible!

[inboundpaper]

Line Cook at an Applebees, sweet fuck. Literally none of the refrigeration got quite cold enough. The manager wondered why I didn't eat the food...

[Pendulous]

Dishwasher at a restaurant. Terrible environment to start. No breaks. Making much less money than the servers, working three times as hard. Seriously. I would walk up to the waystation to do things, and I would see them all dicking off on their phones. Also, not a single tiny iota of thought, intelligence, or respect for my job. They would throw trash on the counter, in the silverware tub, in the sink, anywhere except the TRASH CAN. And it's one of those giant multi-gallon ones. Not stacking plates and dishes like they logically should, making my job even longer. Kitchen staff just as bad. Take everything up there and add in sweeping their trash into my area, because morons. Working with broken equipment because, hey, why bother, right? The managers didn't even bother doing anything about all the problems I had. Did I mention I made less than anyone?

[Tyrgannus]

Line Cook at an Applebees, sweet fuck. Literally none of the refrigeration got quite cold enough. The manager wondered why I didn't eat the food...

Ooh! I have a fun story like that too (I've mostly worked TERRIBAD jobs, but this is America after all and that is far more common than we care to admit)

Health inspector stopped by and told us to throw away certain food since it wasn't cooled properly. Inspector left, and someone ordered food that required ingredients I had to throw away. Manager (and it was like her 2nd day too because managers dropped out like flies at this place all the time) told me to just make the food because the customers were waiting. I told her I couldn't and that we needed to apologize to the customer and offer them something else. She sent me on lunch and then proceeded to make the not properly refrigerated food herself.

I was SO close to calling the inspector back and firing my boss. I ended up just putting in my two weeks notice instead.

[draganid]

hmm, tough one, either sorting recycling at bfi or selling kirby vaccuums

[Stelio Kontos]

Worst job: tie between furniture mover and bouncer at a EDM club

Most fun job: working as a bouncer at a strip club

[Deleted]

Worst job - Till roll salesman.

Cold-calling businesses (read: Corner shops) and selling till rolls for their credit / debit card machines. I lasted two months in that job, until I accidently stole another member of staff's lead with a fairly large amusement park. She went ape shit, I stood up and walked out, never to return! The thing is, at the start of your shift you were given a folder of businesses to call that day (to prevent calling the same customer mutiple times a day / week) and the amusement park was my third call (meaning she had either called them out of my folder, or making up her lead bullshit). I was suprised when they placed a huge order, but I was never going to say "hold on, are you SURE you want to buy that many till rolls?"

Thankfully that was over 10 years ago, but I will never, ever, work in a job that involves cold calling again. Going home every night feeling sick is no-way to live

[inboundpaper]

-snip-

My first manager at my current job did similar things. God I hated him.

[Yunru]

Hm...student job...

I had to run araund the city and put paper on car windshields. I had to do that for 8 hours on a sun with 36*C.
Oh the fun. Worst part was that there was some guy who was checking on every student each hour.
My phone bill was pretty high because he keept calling us for a location where we are, so he get us more paper.
After 30 days i ragequit....it was just not worth it.
My phone bill: 80 Euros
Money made: 200 Euros
=120 euros

8h x 5 days = 40 x 4 weeks = 160 hours

1.3 Euro/hour

Guess what how many times i was yelled at for not delivering 400 paper/hour. There were even that many cars.

Well good thing is that this is banned now as work. So no more people who will suffer this.

[Kilperch]

This thread is great.

I can't really compete with some of these, though.

My worst moments of employment were mostly during my 3 years as a blackjack dealer at an Indian casino.

I had literally 200 dollars in my bank account and no job offers at all.

My friend got me an interview at the casino where they enrolled me in a six week, unpaid class to learn how to be a dealer.

Six weeks with no pay, which means I had to drive to and from the city every day and make no money doing it. That adds up to a lot of money spent on gas instead of food.

But I made it through the class and got the job (graveyard shift was the only thing they had available). My pay came from tips, which was pretty frustrating when you realize a lot of the patrons were belligerent racist assholes. But thankfully, some of them were kind.

Starting my shift at 1am and having to stand there in one spot, two feet away from the guy swearing at me and blowing smoke in my face for 8+ hours straight until I can go home at 9am was really, really awful. Cameras everywhere, supervisors constantly checking to see if you're stealing money. It was like working in a hospital. Everyone treats everything like life or death. Most of the people there are old or disabled, and they all basically live there. I lost count of how many times I'd go home and come back to see the same people gambling from the night before, in the same clothes.

Also not a great place to work if you have a guilty conscience. Lots of people gambling away their life savings because they're addicted and can't stop themselves. I've witnessed people come to the casino on their 21st birthday and over the course of the night become gambling addicts. I've seen parents tell me to remind them to go home at 7am to take their kids to school, and then when I remind them they say "One more hand, one more hand." Then two hours later they go home. Lots of crying women pleading with their female friends or husbands to leave, only to be shoved aside. Lots of beggars, and homeless people. Lots of pregnant women smoking and drinking constantly.

Not to mention the hygienic issues! That casino was so filthy it was disturbing. Decades of smoke saturating every inch of that place, coupled with hundreds of people who probably haven't bathed in weeks. I think one of the low points was watching a guy pull sweaty dollar bills out of his sock and hand them to me. Or a guy sticking the cut card into his girlfriend's (hooker's?) cleavage for "luck" and then sliding it into the deck.

Lots of horrible experiences in that place. Gambling brings out the worst in people. I'm never going back.

[Deleted]

Wiped sweat off the basket court every Saturday for several years. For free! Involuntary voluntary work FTL!