What's the WORST job you ever had ?

[johnnyb47]

I worked on the maintenance side for the chemical giant Monsanto year's ago.The site was huge and had been situated there for over 100 years from what I believe.
Some of the chemicals there where seriously deadly affairs and you really had to abide the strict H/S regulations ( it was a dangerous place to say the least)
I remember I was solely given the lovely job of repointing a giant retaining wall inside one of the processing plants.It was old brickwork of about 150 metres long and 20 metres high.
Behind the wall, it was retaining the ground to which another processing plant which was stepped up on top of it.
Over the decades goodness knows what chemicals has leached into the brickwork.
Every morning I had to report to the H/S manager, and he would ask me the same questions before I started work.Will I be using tools that could create sparks or dust ect.He would then issue me a permit which could take up to an hour to get.
The plant was boiling hot and the noise inside was deafing as it was producing aspirin on an emence scale.For six months I went in there with an angle grinder, an attachment to it ,to suck away the clouds of dust I was chasing out the brickwork,and a positive breathing apparatus.
Every couple days the monotony would be broken by the alarms going off somewhere in this chemical plant and I would have to retreat to an under ground bunker until we got the all clear from any potential chemical or gas leaks.
I used to stink to high heaven of aspirin at the end of the day.
It got that monotonous my head was completely frazzled by Friday and remember one Friday afternoon in particular.
I needed the toilet so I took my breathing apparatus off and popped to the loo.I was standing there having a P in the long urinal and this other contractor came in ,looked at me and started grinning at me and and walked out.
I wondered what was so funny and then I suddenly realised I was peeing in the long stainless steel hand washing basin instead of the long stainless steel urinal.
When I eventually finished repointing it I remembered throwing my pointing trowel away when I got home and vowed never to repoint anything again

 

[sevenfourate]

Working from home during lockdown for a call centre, for BT through an agency.
I had always worked in hospitality before, for 35 years.
When everything in my trade shut down, I was made redundant, so after a few months landed this job.
I hated it, lasted less than 5 months, 2 of them were training
I still wonder how one can get sore legs after sitting down for 8 hours straight, when one can cycle miles without issues

The second worst is the one I'm doing just now, but it's by far the better paid one I ever had.
Working as a cleaner in a hospital, mainly toilets, dealing with all sorts of bodily fluids.
Boring as a boring thing too!
Been it it for 5 years now, will stay in it till retirement in a few years, the pay and benefits are too good.
I consider myself very lucky to have landed this job when I was almost 58.

Very much nearing retirement hopefully: I’m at the back end of my working life and mostly detest what I do. Maybe I just detest work full-stop at this point ? And mostly who I do it for. In the right conditions it could be ace. But right now it’s not.

But - I mostly set my own agenda, make my company ‘fortunes’ and get paid handsomely accordingly. I get excellent holidays / pension too. And there is no doubt they need me more than I need them at this point.

So - at the moment I’m sucking up the long hours, fair daily pressure and other detrimental factors and taking the money for mine and my families future. Which isn’t ideal perhaps; but is work meant to be a doddle ? I don’t know many jobs where if you earn a decent whack - you don’t have give a lot back in return: ‘of course’…….

So - I bet there’s plenty of us doing ‘this’ one way or another.

 

[Accy cyclist]

Having had 40 plus jobs in my life, remembering the worst is difficult as there were many bad ones. A few I remember are trying to sell some multi extension plug to shops that no one wanted. Trying to see flapjacks to shops that no one wanted. Cleaning cotton looms in a local cotton mill, having to crawl under them to brush up all the fluff, dust etc. Boxing grouting powder on a production line, wearing a hazmat suit and breathing mask, with me only doing from 8am till my dinner break than scarpering, not going back. Digging out a barn with three feet of cow, sheep muck and pee when the ammonia smell hit with every dig of the spade or fork. I could go on, but that's enough for now.😉

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Trying to sell Ice Cream to Eskimos

... TRUE STORY!! 😆

 

[PeteXXX]

What could have been the worst job actually wasn't.. I worked in a VD clinic at Greenwich Seamans Hospital, right beside the Cutty Sark, testing & treating people for diseases picked up places (both geographically & physically) from assorted unsavoury sources.. This was pre-AIDS so just the 'normal' treatable infections..

What my real actual worst job was packing plastic things: hot water bottle stoppers, flowers for bathing hats etc. in a grotty factory in Sandwich.
I lasted almost a week before, fortunately, my college course in Scientific Glass Blowing was brought forward.

 

[All uphill]

Was this at Ellough ? For Fibrenyle ?

It was!

 

[gbb]

Boxing grouting powder on a production line, wearing a hazmat suit and breathing mask, with me only doing from 8am till my dinner break than scarpering, not going back.

Reminds me.. my late wife early in our marriage, we were struggling financially so her and a friend decided they'd do nightshift at a pea packing factory to get some money rolling.
She returned the morning after the first shift and I asked how it was...
Apparently they started at 10pm, by midnight they were so bored standing at a machine watching a wall of peas going by, looked at each other...'shall we go ?..yeah sod this'
So by 1am they were sat at a bus stop, and chatted then slept on the bench till 6am.

One of life's 'adventures' that didnt work out

 

[DaveReading]

Apparently they started at 10pm, by midnight they were so bored standing at a machine watching a wall of peas going by, looked at each other...'shall we go ?

Presumably in the days before the iPod had been invented.

 

[sevenfourate]

It was!

Small World. I suspect my Father was probably working there then in 1975. And I’m now base on the Industrial Estate dead opposite; and a small stones throw away: and do a lot of work for them.

*Them. Fibrenyle went on to be LMG Marsden, Promens, Polimoon, M+H Plastics Ellough………and are currently owned by a Multi Billion pound packaging giant called AMCOR.

And I bet it’s not changed a huge amount ! Brown bottles, light bulbs and all 😉

 

[VinSumRox]

I worked as a labourer for a sub contractor in Uni holidays. One job was breaking out a concrete wall inside the old foundry in Fords at Dagenham, with a small(ish) compressor run breaker. Before you reached the concrete there was a thick layer of black stuff, presumably a mix of soot and metal dust.
PPE was mostly unheard of, but we did get a pair of gloves and a facemask of some sort. It was summer so it was pretty sweaty in there as well.
This was around 1979 - the plant allegedly produced cars but we never saw much activity going on and there always seemed to be loads of people sleeping in the restrooms.

 

[richardfm]

Two jobs come to mind, both when I was still at school.
The first was pea picking. I lasted a day. It was boring and my back aches at the end of it. I was paid a pittance at the end of the day and decided I wasn't going back.
The second was assembling industrial chains. A mate and I were shown in to a room with a great pile of chain links. Each link was 20 to 30cm long. They were heavy and covered in thick grease.
We did this for a week. We finished each day covered in grease and tired, but each other's company and the pay meant we stuck it out.
As an adult I've had jobs with tasks I didn't like and with difficult people, but on the whole the jobs were OK. However, after more than a few years at any one job I'd had enough and was ready to move on.

 

[Dave7]

I'm like Accy in that, until j was in my 30s I had lots of short term jobs. I honestly cant think of one I didnt like. I got bored and moved on but didnt dislike them.
2 examples........
1. Delivering coop bread and cakes. We had to collect the money daily or weekly. If there was a shortage they took it out of your wages.
2. Delivering for Findus and Lyons Maid. They gave me the furthest round (20 miles) but when I jacked they gave me 72 drops. Impossible. I did one drop were i always got a big tip, took it all back and told the boss "lick em and still em"...... slang for give me my p45.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Cleaning cotton looms in a local cotton mill

Are you in this photo?

 

[MontyVeda]

My first job aged 14 as a milkboy. I hated it. 4.30am - 8am Monday to Friday and got £8 a week. It wasn't a lot of money in them days.
Second job, my YTS as an apprentice fitter for the council bus company. Loved playing with spanners and socket sets, loved taking things apart and putting them back together... but the mechanics were just a bunch of workplace bullies. I hope none of that 'initiate the apprentice' sh!t goes on in this day and age. It's just nasty.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

When we're young and desperate, we can do terrible things. I was a teenager living in Guildford after leaving the Navy. I'd been dumped by the girl I left the Andrew for and had about £5 to my name and digs until the end of the week. This was over 40 years ago. The job I took (slaughterman) and what I did still haunts and disgusts me, profoundly impacting my attitude to animals to this day.

A few days later my digs got a call from one of the companies where I'd knocked on the door and I got a job making repair panels for MGs.