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Soul destroying jobs you've had

thelad95

What soul sucking job have you had throughout your life?

For me it was going door to door trying to secure direct debits for an animal shelter. As someone who is firmly against the idea of direct debits for charities (the company would have actually made more money if I had a bucket collecting change instead of looking for 9.99 a month from everyone. So many people said they'd happily donate change but didn't want to set up a DD).I absolutely hated it and was treated like ****e by many people. I lasted two weeks and secured no more than 5 direct debits meaning the only payment I got for 80+ hours labour was €15 commission. Fook that.

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The Backwards Man

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

The OED defines 'soul-destroying' as an adjective that means 'unbearable monotonous'.

It looks like you have it backwards.

What would anybody that contributes to the OED know about work?

Pfft.

kfallon

The Backwards Man wrote: »

I've never had a job that was soul destroying, and very few posting here have either. A job that's a bit repetitive or a bit squeamish, or maybe having a boss that's a bit overbearing is something we'll all have to deal with from time to time, it's a part of life.

To me, a soul destroying job would be something like a teacher working in a deprived area, an emergency crew that encounters fatal incidents or a nurse in a children's hospice. But the people who do these jobs are not soulless, they are heroes doing extraordinary work.

Tl;dr, soul destroying jobs me hole.

Nice post Mr Tough Guy but I'd imagine anyone who has had a job that has led to them being systematically bullied in the workplace would consider that job to be 'Soul Destroying' whether it's working in a hospital or else just stacking shelves in a shop. It's not happened to me thank God nor have I had any bad jobs experiences but I'm sure it's happened to plenty of people working under little Hitlers!

Tl;dr, you're talking thru your hole

Klopp

Easily a Call center job. The end!

Speedwell

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

The OED defines 'soul-destroying' as an adjective that means 'unbearable monotonous'.

In that case I'll have to nominate the five-week temp job that involved (by hand) putting a roomful of purchase orders in order by date and time, then when that was 90 percent done, turning around and following new orders from their corporate office that wanted them alphabetised by company name first and then sorted within company by purchase order number.

dr.fuzzenstein

I worked in a factory that manufactured non genuine printer toner.
The building was a shed with no heat, a crazy boss and run by bloodsucking, evil, German cnuts. The production schedule was impossible to adhere to with the ancient machinery that hadn't been maintained properly since the 80's, the heat was broken (that was the winter where it was -5), there were puddles of water on the floor and it was dirty beyond belief.
One day the evil German overlords decided they would fire us all and make us interview again for our jobs, of course there were now less jobs, so not everyone got hired back. They did this to cheat people out of their redundancy. They also fired local people on spurious grounds so they could replace them with cheaper Eastern European lads.
The guys working there were sound, but the evil cnuts running the place were blood and soul sucking vampires that had one goal in life, to exploit their employees and contractors to manufafure an inferior product to burn their customers with their shoddy sh*te to make as much money for themselves as possible and fcuk everyone and everything else.
Did I mention the German owners of this place were evil cnuts?

Alf Veedersane

The Backwards Man wrote: »

What would anybody that contributes to the OED know about work?

Pfft.

You say it's only words.

But what if words are all I have to take your heart (soul) away?

The Backwards Man

kfallon wrote: »

Nice post Mr Tough Guy but I'd imagine anyone who has had a job that has led to them being systematically bullied in the workplace would consider that job to be 'Soul Destroying' whether it's working in a hospital or else just stacking shelves in a shop. It's not happened to me thank God nor have I had any bad jobs experiences but I'm sure it's happened to plenty of people working under little Hitlers!

Tl;dr, you're talking thru your hole

That's nothing to do with the job though, that's the wanker you're working for. I'd agree that there's plenty of bad cnuts, but I'd disagree about their being a lot of bad occupations

The Backwards Man

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

You say it's only words.

But what if words are all I have to take your heart (soul) away?

I have T'Pau

kfallon

The Backwards Man wrote: »

That's nothing to do with the job though, that's the wanker you're working for. I'd agree that there's plenty of bad cnuts, but I'd disagree about their being a lot of bad occupations

The people you work with, the people you have to interact with and the atmosphere make up a lot of how you feel about the job! I don't think you can define the job by just the tasks involved, there are always other factors.

nkav86

jennyhayes123 wrote:

I feel sorry for everyone working there. I had so much trouble from Eircom and then Eir. I hated ringing up every month and felt guilty doing it as I know these people probably hate there jobs as much as I hated ringing

Blue Whale wrote:

I rang eir a few times..wasn't impressed by their customer service, what is it about their work environment that is so bad?

Dya know it's not even the customers so much for me, was the company attitude and constraints I loathed. Made it so hard for me to do the job I felt was needed. I can't go into too much detail, I don't wanna get a slap for running the company down, probably not allowed in thread. Just let it be known there are actually good agents working there that want to help, but it's usually knocked out of you sharpish!

Pickpocket

AllGunsBlazing wrote: »

Stockroom boy in Dunnes Stores back in the early 90's. Basically eight hours a day sorting clothes hangers for the girls out on the shop floor. And department store managers are easily amongst the lowest forms of life on Earth. Barely a Leaving Cert to their name with a laughably overblown sense of their own self worth.

I'm not surprised. Most of the individual department managers in my local Tescos and Dunnes only made it to Junior Cert and some of them have no school qualifications whatsoever. I know them personally. But they're managers because they started out sorting hangers and tins of beans for 8 hours a day and gradually worked their way up. They know their business inside out. Dickheads? Possibly. More valuable to their company than a third-level business grad that's wet behind the ears? Guaranteed.

The Young Wan

There's not much more soul destroying than working in an airport. Watching people take off on holidays while you're stuck in the grey and rainy airport is torture.

The Backwards Man

kfallon wrote: »

The people you work with, the people you have to interact with and the atmosphere make up a lot of how you feel about the job! I don't think you can define the job by just the tasks involved, there are always other factors.

For sure, but unless you're a shepherd on the Kazakh Steppe you're always going to have to interact with people you might not be too keen on, a good atmosphere can make the job a lot easier, but it doesn't make the job in my experience.

fancy pigeon

kfallon wrote: »

The people you work with, the people you have to interact with and the atmosphere make up a lot of how you feel about the job! I don't think you can define the job by just the tasks involved, there are always other factors.

I once worked in a scrapyard in Co Armagh

Dis-organised, messy, often muddy environment
Poor damp filthy office/eating quarters (mice and rats were a constant issue)
50+ hours minimum during the week plus the odd weekend
Daily abuse from some customers
Daily verbal abuse over the phone
Poor manegerial decisions that would result in further abusive threatening calls
Miserable weather 70% of the time
Personal delivery service to customers that you were never paid for
The staff were complete headcases (fights did break out in the yard. I did see someone once try to swing a hatchet as intimidation and lodged it into the door instead)
Management looked after their own family rather than the already neglected staff
Pay was non existent

Management were all cliquey. Big shots regularly pushing us to breaking point until something went wrong, usually of their own doing, then it was left to us to clean up the mess while they buried their heads in the sand

There was one incident where on the 23rd of December 2 of us were taking a starter out of a lorrey as it pissed sleet on us. Our vain attempts to keep the dry had failed. Clothes were naturally destroyed and we were frozen. Management/family looking on from the shed laughing at us. I asked myself how on earth did I end up in this situation

I used to dread getting up in the mornings. I hated the thought of the place. It did nothing positive for me.

I worked very hard to get out of that place and have never looked back

kfallon

fancy pigeon wrote: »

I once worked in a scrapyard in Co Armagh
Dis-organised, messy, often muddy environment

Poor damp filthy office/eating quarters (mice and rats were a constant issue)

50+ hours minimum during the week plus the odd weekend

Daily abuse from some customers

Daily verbal abuse over the phone

Poor manegerial decisions that would result in further abusive threatening calls

Miserable weather 70% of the time

Personal delivery service to customers that you were never paid for

The staff were complete headcases (fights did break out in the yard. I did see someone once try to swing a hatchet as intimidation and lodged it into the door instead)

Management looked after their own family rather than the already neglected staff

Pay was non existent

Management were all cliquey. Big shots regularly pushing us to breaking point until something went wrong, usually of their own doing, then it was left to us to clean up the mess while they buried their heads in the sand

There was one incident where on the 23rd of December 2 of us were taking a starter out of a lorrey as it pissed sleet on us. Our vain attempts to keep the dry had failed. Clothes were naturally destroyed and we were frozen. Management/family looking on from the shed laughing at us. I asked myself how on earth did I end up in this situation

I used to dread getting up in the mornings. I hated the thought of the place. It did nothing positive for me.

I worked very hard to get out of that place and have never looked back

Should have joined the Provos..... :pac:

Seriously tho, I reckon the bit I've bolded shows how much someone really dislikes/hates their job. Very few times have I dreaded coming into work but to have that feeling every day would be awful imo! Utter relief leaving the job in the evening and then that sick feeling in the morning when the alarm goes off!

Mojo Hand

Apprentice boil sucker. As an apprentice I got all the dirty jobs.

Ave Sodalis

Most soul destroying job I worked in had me working 60-100 hours a week of a labour intensive job. It could be much long than a week before you got a day off though. The boss I firmly believe was a sociopath or psychopath. I was nearly hospitalised with exhaustion, and two years later, my hands still don't function properly and I need to stretch and crack them to get them open in the morning. There was no pay except very cold, damp accommodation. I ended up "fired" when I was meant to be on medical leave (which she wouldn't let me off for), because I kept dropping things and walking into things, and I ended up in tears in front of her trying to explain why I wanted more than my ten minutes lunch break, having dropped my lunch all over the floor.. I had got badly injured the month beforehand and it took me several minutes to even realise I got hurt because I was too tired. The girl I was working with ended up in hospital after she wasn't allowed time off when she broke her back... causing her back to go into spasms one night. She rang her friend to come take her to the hospital so the ambulance wouldn't alert the boss, and only told the boss she was gone the next morning.

The job I work in now isn't great and push the limits of what's legal. People are horrified when I tell them, but compared to the last place, it's easy.

kfallon

sup_dude wrote: »

Most sole destroying job I worked in had me working 60-100 hours a week of a labour intensive job.

You obviously had the wrong boots on trout..... :pac:

Pickpocket

sup_dude wrote: »

Most sole destroying job I worked in had me working 60-100 hours a week of a labour intensive job. It could be much long than a week before you got a day off though. The boss I firmly believe was a sociopath or psychopath. I was nearly hospitalised with exhaustion, and two years later, my hands still don't function properly and I need to stretch and crack them to get them open in the morning. There was no pay except very cold, damp accommodation. I ended up "fired" when I was meant to be on medical leave (which she wouldn't let me off for), because I kept dropping things and walking into things, and I ended up in tears in front of her trying to explain why I wanted more than my ten minutes lunch break, having dropped my lunch all over the floor.. I had got badly injured the month beforehand and it took me several minutes to even realise I got hurt because I was too tired. The girl I was working with ended up in hospital after she wasn't allowed time off when she broke her back... causing her back to go into spasms one night. She rang her friend to come take her to the hospital so the ambulance wouldn't alert the boss, and only told the boss she was gone the next morning.

The job I work in now isn't great and push the limits of what's legal. People are horrified when I tell them, but compared to the last place, it's easy.

CCTV footage from your last job.

Ave Sodalis

kfallon wrote:

You obviously had the wrong boots on trout.....

Oops!

ScumLord

Operating a steel press. It's a large machine that stamps steel into shapes using around 30 tonnes of force. Mind numbingly boring. Steel is fed in from the right, push steel to stop, press foot pedal, part falls out, push steel to stop, push foot pedal. There were no safety guards back in the day so there was always the risk of squishing your finger at any moment and fighting the urge to squish your fingers just to end the boredom. I was eventually replaced by a pneumatic ram, it didn't even take any kind of fancy automation the process could be automated mechanically.

fancy pigeon

kfallon wrote: »

Should have joined the Provos..... :pac:

Seriously tho, I reckon the bit I've bolded shows how much someone really dislikes/hates their job. Very few times have I dreaded coming into work but to have that feeling every day would be awful imo! Utter relief leaving the job in the evening and then that sick feeling in the morning when the alarm goes off!

Work was far enough away too which meant I had too much time to think of how much I wanted finishing time to hurry round. It got to the stage where I got home and felt nothing; after being degraded for so long you realize that even when you're back home you have to do the same thing over again the next day, knowing you'll have to deal with the same rubbish over and over again with no one to turn to or nowhere to go

It's not a nice position to be in and wouldn't wish it on anyone

Pickpocket

ScumLord wrote: »

Operating a steel press. It's a large machine that stamps steel into shapes using around 30 tonnes of force. Mind numbingly boring. Steel is fed in from the right, push steel to stop, press foot pedal, part falls out, push steel to stop, push foot pedal. There were no safety guards back in the day so there was always the risk of squishing your finger at any moment and fighting the urge to squish your fingers just to end the boredom. I was eventually replaced by a pneumatic ram, it didn't even take any kind of fancy automation the process could be automated mechanically.

That sounds like the beginning of a Hollywood drama. Menial worker follows dream, succeeds, but never forgets where he's from or the valuable lessons learned along the way.

You're not famous by any chance?

gingernut79

Inspecting toppings in a pizza factory, closely followed by inspecting metal detectors in same pizza factory. Had to leave after bursting into tears eating my lunch there one day.

ScumLord

Pickpocket wrote: »

That sounds like the beginning of a Hollywood drama. Menial worker follows dream, succeeds, but never forgets where he's from or the valuable lessons learned along the way.

You're not famous by any chance?

Where did you find success in that? Oh wait, were you talking to the pneumatic ram?

beveragelady

On my CV it says that I managed a canteen in a busy chain store, taking sole responsibility for purchasing and stock, staffing, hygiene and cleanliness etc.
The reality was that I was the dinner lady. I worked alone preparing unimaginative dinners and limp sandwiches for a staff of about thirty. The staff were very cleanly divided into two groups.
The first group were late teens and early twenties, skivvies who were using the job to pay their way through college. They were full of plans for their future, they wanted to get a masters when they were finished their degree, they wanted to travel. Unfortunately in the seven months that I stuck it out most of them found it impossible to balance the job with college so they dropped out of college and continued to work. The shop got a ready-made workforce willing to work for nothing because they have no qualifications and no prospects and are so focussed on the gossip from last Friday night and the promise of next Friday night that they are making no plans to improve their situation. Then they get pregnant or buy a car so they have financial commitments so they can't leave their job. The talk of MAs and exotic travel dried up. I watched this unfold so often in just over half a year that it really got to me.
The second group were the managers. They had risen to this lofty position by pure brass neck. They knew they were out of their depth so most of them felt the need to assert their right to boss others around by belittling the staff and each other. One of them used to bang his empty mug on the table without looking up from his sleazy tabloid newspaper to get me to leave whatever I was doing and pour his tea. Another one used to call me 'Love' so I waited until he was the only one there and he said it again. I lightly said "It has been a long time since anybody had the nerve to call me 'Love,' I'm not sure I like it." The next day he waited until there were a few people there to loudly point out a missing apostrophe on the menu I had displayed. I haughtily reminded him that I had a masters in English literature and plurals don't automatically need apostrophes. His sweet, sweet fury and humiliation kept me warm over the cold miserable weeks before I quit in the middle of a shift.

Pinch Flat

Had a few jobs when in college, stock taking supermarkets overnight where you literally had to count everything overnight in a store. Worked in a person station pulling petrol and washing cars. Took a few summer jobs in Germany, building trucks on a production line and working in a toy making firm. Great for the summer, but I pitied the guys who worked there day in day out for decades doing the same tasks

Realt Dearg Sec

sup_dude wrote: »

Most soul destroying job I worked in had me working 60-100 hours a week of a labour intensive job. It could be much long than a week before you got a day off though. The boss I firmly believe was a sociopath or psychopath. I was nearly hospitalised with exhaustion, and two years later, my hands still don't function properly and I need to stretch and crack them to get them open in the morning. There was no pay except very cold, damp accommodation. I ended up "fired" when I was meant to be on medical leave (which she wouldn't let me off for), because I kept dropping things and walking into things, and I ended up in tears in front of her trying to explain why I wanted more than my ten minutes lunch break, having dropped my lunch all over the floor.. I had got badly injured the month beforehand and it took me several minutes to even realise I got hurt because I was too tired. The girl I was working with ended up in hospital after she wasn't allowed time off when she broke her back... causing her back to go into spasms one night. She rang her friend to come take her to the hospital so the ambulance wouldn't alert the boss, and only told the boss she was gone the next morning.

The job I work in now isn't great and push the limits of what's legal. People are horrified when I tell them, but compared to the last place, it's easy.

So, you were literally a slave? What was the actual attraction of this job with no days off, endless hours, backbreaking labour and zero pay? I'm having trouble understanding why you would start, let alone continue, in a job like that.

Galway K9

I think Dunnes is easily the winner here judging by all the posts, i never worked there but loads repeated what was said here and when i shopped there the treatment to staff was cruel.

Most soul destroying for me was working in a cab office as a dispatcher, no holidays, no booking days off, some staff didnt show so working overtime, taxi drivers coming in giving off stink, and i started smoking from that office and quit shortly after. We smoked inside despite the law.

gigantic09

Wompa1 wrote: »

Every single one.

My last job was probably the worst...I worked 100+ hours most weeks. My son was born on a Sunday. I was back working at 7am Monday morning.

My first reaction when I read that was,'you poor poor girl,those Magdalene laundry fcukers'.
Take it that you were actually the daddy tho,which makes it sound a little less cruel,but well ****ty scenario none the less.