Soul destroying jobs you've had

spaghettifier wrote: »

Safety Inspector in Sector 7G.

Pfft, Sector 7G. Lightweight.

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

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

It's not. It's the equine industry, specifically sport horses. I just assumed people would be sick of me whining about it because I've posted here before

I was offered a part time job over summer once, when I was 17. It was organised through an employment agency, I never actually thought those agency's actually got jobs for some reason, but hey I was told to be at this address at this time early Monday morning.

My family was proud. (It was one of my first jobs. Even though I made little effort to get it, the phone call went like, "please Sir, can you put me on a list for work? Thx bye!) We celebrated anyways the night before with a huge gathering and fancy meal at this posh restaurant, my Dad paid like 400 pounds for the bill. He was pound to see his boy grow up.

Anyways I turned up all excited. Monday morning, bright as a button, ready to put my mind and body into the best employee anyone could want. I was greeted by this blank looking lady, who brough me around the back into this hugh factory floor. Hunting for this fella called "Joe".

The film "Oliver Twist" popped into my mind, as i was being dragged around like a stupid simple child, needing an owner. I could tell by the wiskers on the women's top lip. She didn't have any kids, she didn't look like the bonding type. I was a pain for her. The sooner we found "Joe" the better, the job was beginning to lose its shine.

Joe was a nice man. But in 20 years since gone on my life. I'll never forgot the job he gave me to do.

(My job training was learnt in less than one minute.)

I had to put a brown cardboard tube. 1m long, (Identical to the ones you find after finishing a loo roll) into a hot wax bath and soak it in wax for few seconds then place it on a palette and repeat. It took around 15-20 seconds. To do each roll. The pallet would take 260 rolls. Before needing to stack on a new pallet. A fork like would remove the full pallet. There was a mountain of empty pallets so no excuse to stand idle.

I started at 6am. By 11am I was done. I was 100% happy to walk out and never look back.

I convinced myself to see the day out till 6pm. I gritted teeth and ploughed on till the end of the day. I filled like 10-12 pallets. Waxed like 2400 toilet rolls and left. No-one said thx or goodbye.

I did it 5 days till Friday and was paid 180 pounds. I worked the second week also and saved the 360 pounds.

I handed notice in and told my parents, I'd quit the job. I saved that 360 pounds incase my Dad got real mad and angry for spending all that money on meal the day before I started. I was ready to give him that meal money back as soon as he would flare-up. I felt weak and shameful for quiting a job.

But Man. It was the worst Job in the World.

I did learn though how hard you have to work for a couple of pounds. You always spend them carefully.

astrofool wrote:

Unless you own the stable, this industry is probably the worst in the world to be in, exploiting people's love for the animals and paying a pittance, while at risk of serious disability every day (know someone who broke their back, others with various life threatening injuries left to fend for themselves), everything is off the books, no wonder Gilligan wanted into it. The entire industry needs a bullet between the eyes, I wouldn't even flinch.

I think it's saveable. I mean the thoroughbred industry isn't as bad as sport horses. Most stable staff get a wage etc (though not all, admittedly).
Though I do think if wages/holidays/working hours were enforced, a lot of top yards, including some well known ones, will have a big issue with staffing all of a sudden.

jones 19 wrote: »

I was a steel fixer for 5 years and I hated it. The money was good and the boss was sound but I had to travel and the job sucked ass. I also dipped sheep one very hot summer. That was cat. Oil skins and a mask for a tenner a day.

Also dipped sheep many years ago before H&S. No mask, no gloves and the sight of maggots was truly offensive.

W0LFMAN wrote: »

I was offered a part time job over summer
I had to put a brown cardboard tube. 1m long, (Identical to the ones you find after finishing a loo roll) into a hot wax bath and soak it in wax for few seconds then place it on a palette and repeat. It took around 15-20 seconds. To do each roll. The pallet would take 260 rolls.

i'm really intrigued, what exactly were these tubes used for???

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

Presume there's a good few quid in it.

I knew an Estonian/Irish girl who did the translations from Estonian into Irish and vice-versa in Strasbourg in real time whenever there was a speech in Irish. She got 800+ a week plus expenses and usually only worked about once a month.

There are worse jobs

I had a job in England years ago, working as a temp. I was in a dingy government building, and the paper work for asylum seekers was processed here. these were the days of electric type writers. I had to listen to a posh marbles in your mouth English accent all day long through plastic (awful sound) headphones. The reports were monotonous and boring. No one was ever successful! You had to be very careful not to make a mistake, as everything was carbon paper, and mistakes had to be hand corrected with a whitening pen.

There were three of us in the room, all typing like mad. And a supervisor, who, I kid you,not, spent all day on the telephone, or filing her nails, or reading. If you even stopped to re-load paper, she would glare at you. Getting permission to go to the loo was embarrassing. She would carefully click her stopwatch for break and lunchtime. She was bout three or four years older than me at the time. I was barely 21. Broke, in London, needed the job.

Unfortunately I was ill and had very little money to survive on, and I needed the job. I turned up to work one morning and almost fainted at my desk. She stormed over and told me to go home, she would call the agency. I did go home, I did faint outside the door on the street, and spent a month recovering from pneumonia etc. The agency never hired me again and my next job was in a restaurant.

I will never forget the sheer drudgery, no stopping for little breaks, radio, chat, nothing.

Used to work in a vegetable factory when I was 16, inside it was packing carrots/spuds into a crate, then throw said crate onto pallet and stack them. This for 12 hours, sometimes from 8pm to 8am, not having any conversational topics with my partner, was the most mind numbing thing in the world. I used to feel physically sick going to work each morning. Not to mention the agony my skinny shoulders and back went through.

I was often out in fields on a spud harvester tho, which was like a day out, got free chipper for dinner everyday, could smoke whenever we wanted to, ahh that part wasn't so bad.

I used to work for 11850 years ago when it was really busy. When I say really busy I mean it
I did 12 hour shifts spread over two weeks (3 days one week, 4 the next) so it worked out as just over 80 hours over 2 weeks. The hours were handy in a sense as you would get more days off but the job itself destroyed you mentally.

It. Was. Hell.
As soon as 9am would arrive the calls would come in. Call, after call, after call. The company dictated that your average call time should be between 30 seconds to 60 seconds dealing with the customer to find the number they are looking for. They also set a monitoring system in place to check this :rolleyes: (more about that below)
But the kicker was that you would only have 8 minutes "not ready" time a day - it was essentially a pause button, you could only be away from your desk for a total of 8 minutes each day (minus your break of course) So if you have a weak bladder forget about it. The team leader will be moaning at you.

And why would the team leader be moaning at you? Because see the way I said monitoring system above? A team leaders bonus was effected by his team. Which in turn, your bonus, was based on your stats of the amount of people you connect (forward a call) - See, when a person calls a phone directory service they are asked at the end of the call "Would you like to be put through?" aka connected to the number (at a higher rate of course) But let that sink in... your so called bonus was about the number of people who chose to be put through. Something that the caller would choose and was out of your hands.
So overall, you would be expected to answer around 1,000 calls a day over a 12 hour shift. For average wage. You can't be away for your desk for over 8 minutes. The Team leaders would come down on you if they don't get their bonus so yeah.... pretty much soul crushing.


I guess the only upside is that if someone was sneaky enough to put people through before they hung up. So the system would register it as you were connecting so many people... but at the same time they werent being charged..... But, hey I mean, who would think of that? *cough*

:pac:

Surprised nobody has mentioned already.

For a few summers during college, I worked as a kitchen porter in an upscale restaurant, washing smelly pots all day and when that was done, wash smelly kitchen and smelly freezers. For 8 hours a day, you were wet and covered in a light sheen of grease. I could live with that, but the worst part was the waiting staff and chefs who looked down their noses at you. I'd swear to this day some of the chefs intentionally burnt the food in some of the pots, just to spite us.


But bad and all as life as a kitchen Porter was, I would actually say that easily my worst job ever was one summer, I did some charity fund raising...You had two options, on the phones OR door to door...surprisingly door-to-door wasn't actually as bad as the phones. But both were pretty awful and made me wish for an early death.

Sometimes it's not the job as such but the people giving the orders.

Simply put it's like this, I really like my job (Lighthouse/sea safety stuff) I know what I do every day saves lives and that's good, but the darn fighting and bickering between middle and upper management is really starting to grind me.

Daily one of the three will issue work orders for us only to be countermanded by the others as soon as you start. Then the first (or second) guy will come back to you at he mid day and put extra pressure on you for not getting what he said done! .. OK so you do what he says right? WRONG! the third boss will give you more work not related to boss one or two. WTF? FOR F%^K sake just sort your management crap out with yourselves and stop fighting via ground workers!

Our department has gone from 15 to 4 men in 10 years actually doing the work ground level but the workflow /output is still the same and so it's like a presser cooker most days.

I remember one year at the work xmas party and there were a few different companies in the function room, the waiters/waitresses were brilliant serving up the food and very helpful and friendly as well.

There was one drunk tosser at the table beside us and he sent the poor waitress back with the dinner 3 times and there was obviously nothing wrong with it because he was laughing with his mates about it every time she had to return the food.

No money is worth having to keep smiling whilst having to deal with **** like him.

jimbobaloobob wrote: »

Used to clean grease traps from the back of ovens cooking the hot chickens in delis, it was stomach wrenching.

Had to shove my fist up it as far as my elbow with one of those veterinary gloves. Even now i get the shivers.

I can attest to how disgusting this job is. The smell is absolutely repugnant.

Funny thing is, the fat is collected and used to manufacture makeup.