First Day at Work Nightmares

[night cycler]

Some interesting stories there, some sad, dangerous and funny. The one thing that is always gained though is experience.

 

[swee'pea99]

First paid job (hospital porter), first day. Sent to get a 'long stand'.

Once when I was temping I got sent for a day as a hospital porter. They told me they used temps a lot on Mondays and Fridays. Hmmm. I was sent down to the laundry, and shown a big wire cage on wheels, full of clean linen. "Take that and push it down the corridor, when you get to the end turn right, push it to the end of that corridor and turn left and you'll see the lifts. Up to the seventh floor, then left out of the lifts, along to the end of the corridor, and you'll find a trolley just like this one, full of dirty linen. Leave this one there, and bring that one back here."

So I got behind the trolley and pushed it down the corridor to the end, turned right and pushed it to the end of that corridor, then turned left and there were the lifts. Up to the seventh floor, then left out of the lifts, along to the end of the corridor, and there was a trolley just like the one I had, full of dirty linen. I swapped them, then came back along the corridor,down in the lift, right at the bottom, along the corridor, left at the end, then along the corridor, and I was back at the laundry. Where I was shown another trolley, which had to go to a ward on the ninth floor. So I pushed the trolley down the corridor, and....

At the end of the day, the very nice lady who ran the laundry (they were all, without exception, lovely) said to me rather hesitantly: "So...will we see you in the morning?" I said to her that I felt bad about letting them down, especially after they'd been so nice to me, but I didn't think I was really cut out for hospital portering. She sighed gently. "Well, to be honest we was surprised when you came back after morning tea break. Most of them don't."

 

[RichardB]

Once when I was temping I got sent for a day as a hospital porter. (snip) She sighed gently. "Well, to be honest we was surprised when you came back after morning tea break. Most of them don't."

I honestly enjoyed it, and would go back to it tomorrow if the chance came up. Yes, some of it was boring routine, but none of it as bad as you describe above. Laundry, oxygen, dinner trolleys, and the occasional 'carry-out' - which, as I worked mainly in the geriatric wards, was quite common. Plus night work, the chance to chat to the patients, a load of pretty nurses, and good money for the time (£18 basic for a 40-hour week, but could double that with intelligent shift changes), and a canteen that served chip butties and Tetleys, what more could a young lad want? The Head Porter, he of the 'long stand' instruction, was a bit of a martinet, but the gang had some awesome characters in it and I enjoyed it very much. I learned a lot about real work and had some of my sharper corners knocked off. Then I went to Uni and it all went pear-shaped from there.

 

[RichardB]

Was it behind the left-handed screwdrivers and the skyhooks?

Yes, just behind the tins of striped paint.

 

[hedder2212]

my first job on the first day i was told that they were redecorating and so i was sent to the DIY shop on the companies run around moped to get a glass hammer, tartan paint and a long weight. I was stood there 45 minutes before the DIY stores boss told me that they have been doing this to every new guy for about 25 years

Then I started working for a aerosol can manufacturer, I quit after a while but went back after getting my forklift licence, first day back as a forky and I was asked to move a pallet which had 25,000 tiny aerosol cans stacked onto it.... Nobody had bothered to put a top frame onto it or band it and wrap it... I picked the pallet up with the truck, very slowly reversed out and forgetting to put the truck into forward i planted my foot down on the throttle and 25,000 tiny aerosol cans spilt all over the floor infront of the MD of the company and my 10 workmates who were all in hysterics Well it turned out my lunch break had just started and my 10 workmates were told to pick every can up off of the floor, inspect them for damage one by one and restack them onto a pallet, put a top frame on and band and wrap the pallet.... Funnily enough, every pallet i got asked to move after that was atleast wrapped

 

[Katherine]

I was sixteen years of age , my first job, general dogsbody working at a well known carpet manufacturers here in Halifax ( I hadn't been there long). I had a work colleague who would torment the life out of me on a daily basis, we were good pals, he came into work one Thursday morning still staggering from the party he had attended the night before, at lunchtime he told me he was going to get some kip and asked me to wake him up when it was time to start work again, when I went to wake him some 45mins later he was dead, choked to death on his own vomit.
At the tender age of 16 it was a very traumatic and upsetting incident for me, not as amusing or interesting as some of the above tales but very true.

How traumatic and sad.

 

[steveindenmark]

I am ex military.

We had a CV sent to our company in Denmark by an ex British military guy who had served 22 years. I pushed and pushed to give him a try out.

He turned up smelling like a brewery. Within 10 minutes of arriving he was laying on a table picking his nose. Within 15 minutes of arriving, I fired him.

I dont know what army he belonged to. But it wasn't mine.

My very first day as a police officer in Reading. Shift starts at 6am. I didnt even get into the briefing room before I was sent out with my tutor constable to a man with gunshot wounds on Oxford Road. We arrived at the house to find a guy on the landing trying to push his intestines back into a big hole. He failed. It was the start to a very interesting career.

 

[Cubist]

Probationer gags were all the rage in the 80s. Many involved visits to the mortuary and were variations on the theme of corpses coming back to life. I was aksed if I wanted a cup of tea and was sent to door one of the big fridge for the milk, and was handed it by the occupant of the middle shelf.

My favourite though was a tall but surprisingly naiive ex squaddie who was sent to the cells to collect a prescription for a detainee. He was handed a sealed envelope and walked to the pharmacy round the corner. He handed the sealed envelope to the pretty assistant who opened it and smiled. It contained a note which said "I am a very shy policeman and would like a dozen extra large condoms please."

Another lad was told by his sergeant that he needed to produce at least one motoring summons per day. He told us after a few days he was sick of the run of the mill stuff like parking in disabled bays and running a stop sign, so I suggested he could try some construction and use offences as they were always interesting and involved some more complicated legislation. For example, there was an offence of using a hackney carriage fitted with a reverse gear... After all, you never see them doing a three point turn, they always simply do a u turn when hailed. He trotted off to do some checks near the station. We expected him to spend a few uncomfortable minutes talking to a puzzled or amused cabbie, but it all went a bit wrong. Within half an hour he called up on the radio to say he had made an arrest. He had managed to choose a middle-aged Sikh driver in a black cab, where the language barrier meant the joke was lost on the driver. He had refused to furnish his details. Luckily PC Kulvinder **** was working that morning and knew the driver, and after much hurried organising we were able to smooth things over.

 

[Katherine]

One of the first things I got asked to do as a new teaching assistant was use the laminater which I did but I used two pouches not realising that they opened to put the paper inside, so the work was ruined. Better instructions were given after that! I always show newbies how it works as well.


Many, many... years ago as a very new student nurse, I sent the keys down the shute with the laundry! I was so scared of telling the ward sister but she was very understanding (maybe she'd done it herself). Before she could ring the Porter, he came strolling down the ward with them! Although he doesn't remember the incident,......and he isn't a porter anymore.

Reader, I married him.

 

[steveindenmark]

My favourite though was a tall but surprisingly naiive ex squaddie who was sent to the cells to collect a prescription for a detainee. He was handed a sealed envelope and walked to the pharmacy round the corner. He handed the sealed envelope to the pretty assistant who opened it and smiled. It contained a note which said "I am a very shy policeman and would like a dozen extra large condoms please."

It wasn't me. Correct size condom, but Im not very tall.

 

[mybike]

When I was an apprentice we spent a number of weeks in different departments, plenty of opportunity to get things wrong. When I was working in the machine shop they had us making our own tools, and I needed some cutting oil. Having seen others take it from the lathes, I went over, switched on the lathe, got the oil and switched the lathe off again. To my horror the chuck continued to rotate and soon came off the thread to land on the track. I was not popular with the person who had to file out the dents! I still to this day don't know what I should have done, aside from use a different lathe.

 

[Globalti]

I used to cycle round Newcastle looking for summer holiday jobs and once as an inexperienced driver I landed a job as stand-in driver for a plant hire company, driving MK1 Transits and delivering light equipment to building sites. My first job was to deliver a big welding transformer to the new Tyneside Metro site at Grey's Monument. It was loaded into my van and off I went, without securing it in any way. First corner I went round and BANG, it fell over, making the van lurch with the weight. I was aware of a quiet glug glug glug and an odd smell but didn't know what was happening until I arrived at the site, opened the door and found that all the cooling oil was pouring out and the back of my van was awash, it was even pouring out of the doors. The foreman took one look and said: "Whey that's nay fookin' use bonnie lad!" and sent me back with it.

Shortly after that another temporary driver got back to the depot after collecting a huge Hydrovane compressor and went round to unhitch it but it had disappeared. He set off back up the road and found it buried in a bus stop, which cost the company a few hundred quid to rebuild.

 

[Andrew_P]

I wrote off a car and a 4 year old Transit on my second day if that counts. (it was 32 years ago) up until he died my then boss always used to remind me of that when I used see him. Having written that realised how much I miss seeing him.

 

[night cycler]

One of the first things I got asked to do as a new teaching assistant was use the laminater which I did but I used two pouches not realising that they opened to put the paper inside, so the work was ruined. Better instructions were given after that! I always show newbies how it works as well.


Many, many... years ago as a very new student nurse, I sent the keys down the shute with the laundry! I was so scared of telling the ward sister but she was very understanding (maybe she'd done it herself). Before she could ring the Porter, he came strolling down the ward with them! Although he doesn't remember the incident,......

Reader, I married him.

They must have been the keys to your heart.

 

[Fnaar]

My first day on the Special Care Baby Unit, I stuck myself with a used needle and had to be sent to Occ Health for a blood test (hepatitis)

I was a nurse once upon a time. Doing my drugs round test, I cut my thumb opening an ampoule of summat or other. Bled all over the trolley. Test had to be postponed