Soul destroying jobs you've had

Ave Sodalis · 13-07-2016 02:04PM

Realt Dearg Sec wrote:

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.

Start because I didn't know how bad it is. Kept there from a mix of being a long way from anyone who could get my things, and the fact the boss was in the inner circle of a small group of elites in the area who could destroy any chance of getting any career if I cross her. Or so she lead me to believe.

5rtytry56 · 13-07-2016 02:16PM

Explaining to angry phone callers in <<computer company>> technical support that the update driver for their joystick port (when this was on the soundcard, yes, in that age) is not ready yet. And I don't know when it's ready but can't say that directly to you.
Chairing technical support conference calls in the same company.

Later, working with 2 utter female so - and - so's, "there". They purely hated me, and contradicted their instructions whenever they wanted. I GTFO of there

Realt Dearg Sec · 13-07-2016 02:19PM

sup_dude wrote: »

Start because I didn't know how bad it is. Kept there from a mix of being a long way from anyone who could get my things, and the fact the boss was in the inner circle of a small group of elites in the area who could destroy any chance of getting any career if I cross her. Or so she lead me to believe.

This was in Ireland? Surely she could be jailed for that?

Jakey Rolling · 13-07-2016 02:28PM

I often imagine that the most soul destroying job must be working as an Irish translator for the EU.

Spending years of your life translating and filing away documents that will never be read by anyone - what a pointless, unfulfilling existence that must be.

Realt Dearg Sec · 13-07-2016 02:32PM

Jakey Rolling wrote: »

I often imagine that the most soul destroying job must be working as an Irish translator for the EU.

Spending years of your life translating and filing away documents that will never be read by anyone - what a pointless, unfulfilling existence that must be.

Presume there's a good few quid in it.

Ave Sodalis · 13-07-2016 02:36PM

Realt Dearg Sec wrote:

This was in Ireland? Surely she could be jailed for that?

Nobody cared. I contacted an awful lot people and all I got in return was a lot of shoulder shrugging. Even the college that placed me there, it took nearly a month for them to get in contact to get me out, and it was only the course director going after them that made them do anything. I've yet to contact the new government about it, but the old ministers never replied. It's been over two years now since I left. It will be my word against hers at this stage. The other girl probably won't say anything because of the risk of not getting another job. That risk doesn't really apply to me because until I get my hands sorted, I'm not fit for any sort of physical work. I work in a shop at the moment, saving for a masters and I can find my hands starting to seize if the shops busy and I have to work quickly with change.

nikkibikki · 13-07-2016 02:48PM

sup_dude wrote:

Nobody cared. I contacted an awful lot people and all I got in return was a lot of shoulder shrugging. Even the college that placed me there, it took nearly a month for them to get in contact to get me out, and it was only the course director going after them that made them do anything. I've yet to contact the new government about it, but the old ministers never replied. It's been over two years now since I left. It will be my word against hers at this stage. The other girl probably won't say anything because of the risk of not getting another job. That risk doesn't really apply to me because until I get my hands sorted, I'm not fit for any sort of physical work. I work in a shop at the moment, saving for a masters and I can find my hands starting to seize if the shops busy and I have to work quickly with change.

You need to see a doctor and a solicitor pronto!

El Tarangu · 13-07-2016 02:49PM

Jakey Rolling wrote: »

I often imagine that the most soul destroying job must be working as an Irish translator for the EU.

Spending years of your life translating and filing away documents that will never be read by anyone - what a pointless, unfulfilling existence that must be.

€4K a month though, with no tax. Loads of holidays, can't be fired.

13-07-2016 02:51PM

I worked in a cinema as a student, among other things. The worst shift was a Saturday or Sunday morning for the kids screenings. The mess to pick up was unreal, and there was always puke. Always.

Once I picked up a discarded paper cup, and it was full of puke. Still traumatised.

corner of hells · 13-07-2016 02:56PM

Intel as a contractor responsible to Americans.

Not one of them had any sort of sense of humour , to use a quote from a poster here years ago " they were nothing but a bunch of swivel eyed goons".

Buckfast W · 13-07-2016 03:32PM

Worked in a call centre for 11850 for directory enquiries, the people were ok but the work was horrible. I had to answer on average 600 calls a day. As soon as one call finished another one would come straight through and I'd have to say "11850 ***** speaking" for 8 hours a day. It was soul destroying and actually got to the stage where when I finished work all I could think about was having to go in the next day, or finish on a friday and dread going back in on the monday it was soul destroying. Because I did so much talking in work I'd practically be a mute for the rest of the day, just didn't have the energy or will to talk to anyone. It got so bad that I remember my mother and father pulled me aside to ask me what was wrong, they'd noticed a massive change in my personality and behaviour, I just wasn't the same person. The only reason I stayed was I was linked to another contract in the centre and was due a bonus of 1,500 euro when the contract ended.
As soon as the contract ended I was out the door.
Never again
Ever

s4uv3 · 13-07-2016 03:56PM

I did a summer washing hair in a salon when I was in school. The place was manky, I wasnt allowed wash the towels after using them, just tumble dry them.
Some of the customers matched the mankiness though...
"Give it a good scrub love, it hasn't got a wash in three weeks"

*shudder*

ohnonotgmail · 13-07-2016 05:13PM

Jakey Rolling wrote: »

I often imagine that the most soul destroying job must be working as an Irish translator for the EU.

Spending years of your life translating and filing away documents that will never be read by anyone - what a pointless, unfulfilling existence that must be.

but what a fantastic opportunity to put in private jokes.

Dues Bellator · 13-07-2016 05:59PM

i was a courier for 15 years in Dublin the money was great but people pulling out on you or basically seeing you but pretending you don't exist got to be a pain Literally.
but by far the worst job was working for my brother in car sales never ever under any circumstances work for family period.

AtomicHorror · 13-07-2016 06:04PM

Other's have said it, but Dunne's Stores. I worked on the floor in the Ilac Dunne's. Horrible place, horrible customers, horrible co-workers. I spent more time in the stock room "looking for sizes" than I did on the floor. I waited out my temp contract and then was horrified when they made me full time without actually asking me. Quit that day.

Worked in XtraVision a few years later and it was actually very pleasant.

Motivator · 13-07-2016 06:26PM

For the life of me I can't understand how nobody has mentioned working in a bookies.

Spent more time than I care to remember stuck in a seat behind a pane of glass for 12 hours a day. Probably the most monotonous, soul destroying & unrewarding work that exists. If ever a job was repetitive & depressing than a cashier in a bookies is it.

I can't honestly think of a worse way to earn a few quid every week - and for those who may question this, try it for a couple of years & see what you think then.

This is a job where you wake up every morning & think to yourself "I'm going to work for 12 hours in this place, 720 minutes of working & you won't make one single bit of difference in the world"

HORRENDOUS

the evasion_kid · 13-07-2016 06:49PM

A CD and DVD packing place in Sydney,something similar to sonopress.just standing there for 8 hours a day beside a conveyor belt placing CDs into sleeves as they passed by.the supervisor was this little Chinese one and she'd speed the conveyor belt up to get production up,which usually ended up in a mess somewhere down along the conveyor belt as someone couldn't keep up..

Full Marx · 13-07-2016 06:59PM

Work in a call centre. They are ****holes, monitored to the last second, even toilet time. I was in one particilarily bad one a few years ago whose name I wont mention that had some particularily Nazi like managers. I dont know what it is about some people, give them an extra fifty cents and hour and a fancy title and they become slave drivers who think they own the company, they buy into the corporate BS hook line and sinker and turn on the people they used to sit beside. Bar managers can be like this too.
Proudest achievment of my life though was unionising the vast majority of phone operators in that call centre I was in years back. Managed to force a lot of positive changes and got the employers to recognise the union but as a reward i was basically managed out.... no prospect of advabvement after that but the union is still there and defending the workers... still a dump but not half as bad

wakka12 · 13-07-2016 07:03PM

Mec27 wrote: »

you probably need to relax and not take things so seriously. why are people so hellbent on bigging up how ****ty their jobs are, its just a job so you can afford to do ****, stop treating it like it defines you.

Thats the problem, they always tried to not pay me. Make it as hard for me as possible to get my pay, and when I got it theres always hours missing, or wrong pay rates. Or some other bull**** that managers always pull in the hospitality industry

Fuzzy Clam · 13-07-2016 07:22PM

Mine wasn't the worst job in the world but working for a pittance for 7 years was truly soul destroying. Only one pay rise and that was after 5 years and only brought me back up to the equivilant of my starting wage. Had to work at a trade show for no extra payment. I did that once and refused to do it again.
Had minimum wage been around, it wasn't introduced until a few years later, my employer would have had to nearly double my wage just to put me on minimum.

thelad95 · 13-07-2016 07:40PM

wakka12 wrote: »

Thats the problem, they always tried to not pay me. Make it as hard for me as possible to get my pay, and when I got it theres always hours missing, or wrong pay rates. Or some other bull**** that managers always pull in the hospitality industry

This was something I experienced quite a lot when working in a cafe- 15 minutes always went missing from the day. In an eight hour day, I'd have one half an hour break and one fifteen minute one meaning I would be entitled to 7 hours and 15 minutes pay but only ever go 7 hours pay. Might not seem like much but over the course of a week it's an hour pay down the drain and over the course of a year it's well over a weeks pay that they were robbing from staff. Gobsh!tes.

What's worse is I was always handed a pay slip giving the above breakdown with the fifteen minutes blatantly missing.

It got worse then because they extended the day by half an hour but I was still only being paid for 7 hours and 15 minutes meaning there was now half an hour missing, I left shortly after that.

TG1 · 13-07-2016 07:52PM

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.

I've an inkling as to what industry that was in.... If I'm right my own was in the same industry, manual labour, 80+ hours a week, strong chance of injury every day, but it was the abuse coming from the owner that made it soul destroying. I would be told regularly that I was in the wrong industry, that I'd never last because I was too soft. I was shouted at, called names, had equipment thrown at me day in day out while I was working my hardest to keep her business running, her clients happy and her animals in good health. It was so demoralizing, it turned me off the industry as a whole in the end, so I guess she was right about me being too soft!

Boskowski · 13-07-2016 08:04PM

I was working for a year in manufacturing place that made all sorts of things from glass fibre reinforced plastics. Which are quite a lot of things. Like surfboards, or car parts, or mobile homes and countless other stuff. These things are made using a mould and after that they need to get cut, cleaned, angle grinded, blasted, sanded, spray painted etc. Actually not a bad or uninteresting job as such, but...

Loads of tiny glass particles in the air. Also all sorts of wicked chemicals involved.

Now you'd be wearing a mask but still these tiny glass bits are all over you and they get into your pores and it doesn't come off with a shower or anything really. Basically day and night you'd be scratching yourself raw after a while. How I lasted a year there I don't know but I guess I was young and needed the money.

PMBC · 13-07-2016 08:08PM

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 really rings a bell with me. I never heard or read of anyone who worked a press. I did in a clock factory in London at age 16. Since I was very slight and small I was working on the smaller machines with all the women who used slag me about taking out a daughter some time. While it was not enjoyable it was money, first job before my Leaving and I spent the day reciting Milton's 'Paradise Lost' to keep my sanity. I knew it off by heart for the following years exam.

metaoblivia · 13-07-2016 08:16PM

For a few months I worked as a standardized test grader. We were given a rubric and would spend weeks grading the same 10 questions over and over again. And you could get through a couple hundred tests a day.

That was more monotonous than soul-destroying, but they also treated us like cattle. We got a 15 minute break in the morning and in the afternoon and a half hour for lunch. For the breaks they herded us all into the parking lot to stand around. Outside of those, we were not allowed to leave our cubicles. Even restroom breaks were frowned upon outside of those allotted breaks. We also weren't allowed to talk while grading (no discussion on student tests). And the job was located in this big office space - way too big for the number of people actually there - so all of our cubicles were tucked into this dark corner and the rest was wide open, empty space.

I've held my share of office jobs in my life, and I don't mind them on the whole, but that one reminded me of a movie-version of hellish office life.

Mister Vain · 13-07-2016 09:08PM

the evasion_kid wrote: »

A CD and DVD packing place in Sydney,something similar to sonopress.just standing there for 8 hours a day beside a conveyor belt placing CDs into sleeves as they passed by.the supervisor was this little Chinese one and she'd speed the conveyor belt up to get production up,which usually ended up in a mess somewhere down along the conveyor belt as someone couldn't keep up..

Yes anything where you're at the end of a conveyor belt is horribly monotonous. I worked in a biscuit factory where the supervisor would do the same thing and there would be biscuits all over the floor.

SEPT 23 1989 · 13-07-2016 09:36PM

Boskowski wrote: »

I was working for a year in manufacturing place that made all sorts of things from glass fibre reinforced plastics. Which are quite a lot of things. Like surfboards, or car parts, or mobile homes and countless other stuff. These things are made using a mould and after that they need to get cut, cleaned, angle grinded, blasted, sanded, spray painted etc. Actually not a bad or uninteresting job as such, but...

Loads of tiny glass particles in the air. Also all sorts of wicked chemicals involved.

Now you'd be wearing a mask but still these tiny glass bits are all over you and they get into your pores and it doesn't come off with a shower or anything really. Basically day and night you'd be scratching yourself raw after a while. How I lasted a year there I don't know but I guess I was young and needed the money.

You have knocked ten years off your life

I'm in the same boat

Ave Sodalis · 13-07-2016 09:50PM

TG1 wrote:

I've an inkling as to what industry that was in.... If I'm right my own was in the same industry, manual labour, 80+ hours a week, strong chance of injury every day, but it was the abuse coming from the owner that made it soul destroying. I would be told regularly that I was in the wrong industry, that I'd never last because I was too soft. I was shouted at, called names, had equipment thrown at me day in day out while I was working my hardest to keep her business running, her clients happy and her animals in good health. It was so demoralizing, it turned me off the industry as a whole in the end, so I guess she was right about me being too soft!

Yes, you would be correct. Unfortunately, it's right across the industry and something that needs to be targetted as a whole than going after individuals. You probably weren't soft, she was just mean and I'm sorry to hear it turned you off.

spaghettifier · 13-07-2016 09:50PM

Safety Inspector in Sector 7G.

Realt Dearg Sec · 13-07-2016 10:05PM

sup_dude wrote: »

Yes, you would be correct. Unfortunately, it's right across the industry and something that needs to be targetted as a whole than going after individuals. You probably weren't soft, she was just mean and I'm sorry to hear it turned you off.

Why is it such a big secret what the industry is?

Soul destroying jobs you've had

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