Worst job ever?

sensibleken · 30-11-2010 10:29am #1

Back in medieval times, otherwise known as olden times or 'the day' there was a job known as a Braigetóir. he was a professional farter and not the most respected of performers.

In these times of economic whinging lets take a moment to remember the ****tiest jobs we've ever done.

Mine was when I worked in schuh for about 2 weeks 12 years ago. running up and down stairs 40 times for young ones who had no intention of buying anything. having to listen to 'whats she gonna look like with a chimney on her' 30 times a day for the princly sum of 15 quid a day. Finally quitting when the manager suggested that she thought it would be good if i 'moved to the music'. see ya!

whats your worst job ever?

AnonoBoy · 30-11-2010 10:37am

If your worst job ever was working in a shoe shop then consider yourself lucky.

Cleaning out grease traps in a flooded kitchen for 10 hours at a time is mine.

I'm surprised I didn't get trenchfoot.

problemchimp · 30-11-2010 10:38am

worked in a putty making factory for 5 weeks. I smelt of linseed oil and generally had a very greasey look on me.

FatherLen · 30-11-2010 10:43am

worked in a mine in chile

FunkZ · 30-11-2010 10:43am

problemchimp wrote: »

worked in a putty making factory for 5 weeks. I smelt of linseed oil and generally had a very greasey look on me.

Ya can make hair gel by boiling linseed, smells good too

Market Research in a call center, cold calling people. ARGHHH.
You get told to feck off from 9AM to 4PM.

RedXIV · 30-11-2010 10:47am

got offered a management job by a women in my local town when I was 16, she was opening a seasonal shop. thought it was going to be brilliant.

She had me gut and redo an old building to turn it into a shop, no problems there. But then she started making me babysit her kids, coming up to her house to clean up her messes, and when things started to go bad for business she accused me of stealing from her.

Worst employer ever, which is a shame because the job could have been fun.

Wench :mad:

xzanti · 30-11-2010 10:47am

I worked as one of those black gym bag people for a day once in Dublin, circa 2000 I think it was.. they advertised it as a "Marketing" position.. I was only out of school and strapped for cash so I said I'd give it a go..

Spent the whole day travelling around on CIE buses with this massive black bag full of dodgy crap merchandise trying to flog them to people in industrial estates and restaurants etc.. Think we were chased off a few premises aswel iirc.. Very humiliating..

Needless to say, I didn't go back the next day.

Wompa1 · 30-11-2010 10:48am

Hmmmm....probably Christmas in a toy shop...customers were very very very rude. I was also working with a coke head that made alot of mistakes including selling a returned broken PSP to a customer who gave it to their son from Santa Clause....it had someones name on it on the custom background when you started it up....oiiiiii

Not nice to hear that you ruined peoples x-mas or that you're f8ckin useless...especially when it was other peoples mistakes..

Thank god the people I worked with were nice

barleybooley · 30-11-2010 10:49am

Worked a summer in a small hotel run by a power tripping slightly below average height wench. She'd call us retards on a daily basis, screw around with wages, give you a million and one impossible tasks to do, give out yards when each wasn't completed, accuse all sorts (she accused me of stealing, no foundation other than she felt she needed to shout her mouth off), and shout really aggressively at her two kids who were really quiet and good. Yeah, so that was the worst.

flyton5 · 30-11-2010 10:51am

Fluffer on a gay porn set?

Bill2673 · 30-11-2010 10:52am

I worked the night shift in Abrakebabra for a short while....while I've had jobs that on paper might seem worse, such as flowerpicking in Holland, washing dishes in Belgium, working the night shift in a bogroll factory in the states, selling calendars door to door in Ireland... and so on.....Abrakebra will always have a special place in my heart.

It wasn't the customers, they were fine. it was the pettiness of the place....there was a big interview process for a job that paid £2.40 an hour for a night shift (in 1992, even then a very low sum of money).......irregular hours, 12 hour shifts two nights in a row and then nothing for the rest of the week.....but in particular, I was paid about £58 for my first weeks work, out of which they deducted £22 for my apron and two poxy tee shirts, that you could buy in TK Maxx for fifty pence each......but the worst of the worst was....one night at about 4.30am, having just served about 300 drunk and hungry customers, I made myself a cup of tea and took a muffin to eat with it. The supervisor came over and said "oh no....muffins not allowed pal", and put it back on the shelf.

The other thing I hated about it was seeing all the Abrakebabra rubbish thrown around the street the whole way home afterwards, made me a bit ashamed to be part of that whole mess.....

I was fired after three weeks.....they told me "I wasn't cut out for it"; which I was glad to hear. I've never eaten there since.

starbelgrade · 30-11-2010 10:53am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpxJu4uJff4

bonerm · 30-11-2010 10:54am

Cleaning the kill floor at a meat processing factory probably rates fairly high.

youcancallmeal · 30-11-2010 10:59am

Worked in a dog and cat food factory about 10 years ago. Words cant describe the horror but I'll try a few......exploding cans, maggots, the smell.....

Wompa1 · 30-11-2010 11:00am

Actually on this, I was having a discussion about working hours before with my gf. She was saying that one of her friends was in college for nearly 12 hours and poor her...

I use to work the two late night shopping nights for about 12.5 hours each. Before that job I worked a good few 12 hour shifts too, not usually two days back to back but a couple times a week.

I kind of assumed most people working in retail at least did these kind of hours. But my gf said nobody does those hours. How about everybody out there..I know I'm right and people did.

Venom · 30-11-2010 11:03am

Was offered a job by Eircom in what was ment to be broadband support but was in fact tele-sales. The whole job involved ringing up old age pensioners and telling lies to get them to come back to Eircom.

Quit after 2 days.

krudler · 30-11-2010 11:10am

While it was fun at times, working in a cinema is a pretty sh1t job, cleaning a screening of the Pokemon movie after about 1000 brats have wrecked the place with spilled food, icecream on the seats, puke, coke all over the place and knowing you'd have to do the exact same after the next showing wasnt a nice way to spend a hungover Sunday. Putting up with drunk people and knackers at the weekends was a pain too, although throwing people out for talking was always fun, you'd be amazed the results of shinging a flashlight in someones eyes and mortifying them in front of a hundred strangers can be.

Fun times were to be had though, sending scumbags into movies they clearly wouldnt understand was a highlight,like Being John Malkovich

being asked for a refund becuase everyone in Crouching Tiger was "shpakin' Chinee or sometin' boss" by a group of travellers.

d.pop · 30-11-2010 11:24am

worked in a printing factory in Israel putting elastic bands around bundles of gas bills. There was a little number in the corner of each bill, you started at one and when you got to 500 you put an elastic band around the bunch and into a box, then 501-1001, 1002-1502 etc etc, went on for 8hrs at a time on a shift from 04:00 to 12:00, the boss would randomly pick out bunches to check that you were following the numbers correctly, if you weren't you'd have to pause the machine sort it out and start again, down time was added on to your shift. Guy who had the job before me hung himself out the back of the plant, to this day i swear it was because of the job, he did it for 6 months, i lasted about a week and nearly went mental.

Gratzi22 · 30-11-2010 11:26am

Back in around 1990 when I was a hard up student in Liverpool, I got a job at a late night Chinese/chipper. First night was a Friday, turned up at 9.00pm and got home at 4.00am. The place was digusting - the chef (to give him some title but at some stretch) cooked whilst smoking continually over the pans etc and at the end of the night cleaned the floor by power hosing all the filth down the corridor to the back steps which were left there forever more.:eek:

Got paid £10 in total for my troubles. Needless to say I didn't turn up for the Saturday shift. Makes you wonder what goes on behind the screens.

rannerap · 30-11-2010 12:54pm

Mc Donalds was the worst by far for me, serving scumbags double cheeseburgers all day was soul destroying, its unbelievable how customer sthink they can treat you in there just because you work in Mc Donalds, and thats on top of the nazi polish managers

thebigbiffo · 30-11-2010 12:59pm

i've said it before in these threads and i'll say it again:

i wound dental floss.

i'll be leaving now safe in the knowledge that nobody can top that in terms of s'hite jobs.

geeky · 30-11-2010 1:01pm

Sarannewrap wrote: »

...the nazi polish managers...

Just had a mental image of some obscure, 90-year-old wartime collaborator finding his niche in fast food. I reckon there's a sitcom in that, could be the next 'hail hunny, I'm home'.

I thought I'd worked some crappy jobs in my time, still do, but this thread's been great for perspective - cheers.

bonerm · 30-11-2010 1:02pm

d.pop wrote: »

worked in a printing factory in Israel putting elastic bands around bundles of gas bills. There was a little number in the corner of each bill, you started at one and when you got to 500 you put an elastic band around the bunch and into a box, then 501-1001, 1002-1502 etc etc, went on for 8hrs at a time on a shift from 04:00 to 12:00, the boss would randomly pick out bunches to check that you were following the numbers correctly, if you weren't you'd have to pause the machine sort it out and start again, down time was added on to your shift. Guy who had the job before me hung himself out the back of the plant

Did he use rubber bands?

Rubberlegs · 30-11-2010 1:05pm

When I was 19 worked in a restaurant in town. You weren't paid for your hour's lunchbreak AND you had to buy your own lunch. How very dare they:mad:. Needless to say, I only lasted the week.....

AAAAAAAHHH · 30-11-2010 1:07pm

Wompa1 wrote: »

Actually on this, I was having a discussion about working hours before with my gf. She was saying that one of her friends was in college for nearly 12 hours and poor her...

I use to work the two late night shopping nights for about 12.5 hours each. Before that job I worked a good few 12 hour shifts too, not usually two days back to back but a couple times a week.

I kind of assumed most people working in retail at least did these kind of hours. But my gf said nobody does those hours. How about everybody out there..I know I'm right and people did.

I had a summer job a few years back in a 24 hour factory. There were three of us doing a rotating shift, so 8 hours each. One of the guys quit a month before the end of the summer so I had to do 5 12 hour shifts a week. That was pretty rough.

scientific1982 · 30-11-2010 1:08pm

Had a lot of **** jobs like washing dishes, stacking shelves and collecting trollies. Working in a call centre was the worst though. I despise call centre managers.

mikemac · 30-11-2010 1:09pm

Kitchen porter

Going in for my shift with a pile of dirty pots nearly taller then me waiting for me.
Some dwarf designed the washup area, I had to lean over the sink, my back was in pain after every shift.

Bullying chefs who would make Gordon Ramsey look like a pussy.
Customer returns a steak and the kitchen porter gets ranted at :rolleyes: Or even have a pot thrown a me! :mad:

Powerwashing the floor wasn't too bad but cleaning the grease traps was.

Long hours, lousy pay and then I read on boards "oh Irish people are lazy and don't do these jobs.....". Yeah, who did these jobs before mass immigration?
You haven't a clue!

sensibleken · 30-11-2010 1:10pm

73Cat wrote: »

When I was 19 worked in a restaurant in town. You weren't paid for your hour's lunchbreak AND you had to buy your own lunch. How very dare they:mad:. Needless to say, I only lasted the week.....

are you being sarcastic? Isnt that normal. Ive never been paid for lunch when i was working at an hourly rate and always had to buy my own lunch. Never heard of anywhere any different

sealgaire · 30-11-2010 1:13pm

anyone see the guy at the Wellpark junction dressed as the Woodies man?

Duggy747 · 30-11-2010 1:14pm

Wompa1 wrote: »

I kind of assumed most people working in retail at least did these kind of hours. But my gf said nobody does those hours. How about everybody out there..I know I'm right and people did.

When I worked in Lidl years ago I used to have to work 12 hour shifts, 3 - 4 days in a row, from 6am to 6pm with only a half and hour break. You were very lucky if you even got 30 minutes as my lunch was around 1pm.............when EVERYBODY decides to come in and shop and I'm needed out on the floor to get rid of them.

Any complaints from you and there was a 1000 CVs with willing people to replace you.

Horrible place to work in at the time but I suppose it did pay for college.

allanb49 · 30-11-2010 1:34pm

<snip> in <snip> a few years back, new manager came in and was from <snip>and a <snip>to boot.

I had volunteered at christmas to come in early (5am) to do the christmas pallet of goods.

In i came and the delivery was an hour late.

Come 6am they arrive and instead of one pallet they have 3 all about 8 feet tall

so i get them up on my own nothing too hard and proceed to strip and pack them on the shelf.

Now one of these pallets would take one person about 2 hours to do. But usually you have 2 or 3 people helping you so maybe 40 mins or so to clear it off.

At 8.30am the manager pops in been working away on the pallets and only have maybe 2 or 3 items left to put on a shelf before i start on the second one.

She comes in sees the pallet at the back of the shop and passive aggressivly asks what i've been doing since 5am that the pallets haven't been cleared.

I explain the delivery is late and as only one person it would take this long to clear it. she says i have an hour to clear the two pallets and come to the office when i'm done.

So i clear the pallets but not in the hour, and head down. Have the head eaten off me for making such blatent lies and for not working hard enough.

She also introduced that socks could not come up past your ankles and your trousers had to cover the tops of your shoes but not drag below a certain point

Also took people off the tills who talked with the customers and made them feel welcome.

-=-=-=-=-=

Also worked in ladbrokes for 2 years.

Working on my own in stepaside for 8 days from 9.30am to 9.30pm with supposed Time in Lieu (never got this as it was at the discretion of the District Manager)

No breaks while doing the above 12 hour shifts (was told i could take them but customers wouldn't leave for me to close the shop and if i did take my break and lock the shop door customers would bang on the door till i came out of the back room and let them in)

Called me in for a disiplinery because i couldn't get up to stepaside because the buses weren't going that far was told i should have gone to another shop and sent staff from that shop up to stepaside

Called me in for a disiplinery because i was in the hospital with my grandad who had taken a stroke the day before

Called me in for a disiplinery because i was out sick for 7 days with a Doctors note and said 7 days is almost 2 weeks missing (exact words)

TheInquisitor · 30-11-2010 1:44pm

73Cat wrote: »

When I was 19 worked in a restaurant in town. You weren't paid for your hour's lunchbreak AND you had to buy your own lunch. How very dare they:mad:. Needless to say, I only lasted the week.....

Seems pretty normal to me? Your not entitled to be paid for lunch? And why would they give you free food??

Bendihorse · 30-11-2010 1:50pm

I feel real bad for the guys who walk around with the 'Any Pizza Any Size for €9' billboards from Dominos strapped to them, front and back. Saw a gaggle of them in Wexford the other day wandering around aimlessly looking depressed and perished with the cold

My worst was working for/with Arabs. It was a cabin crew job with an emirate airline. The job was fine, the pax for the most part were also fine apart from the 10% of locals we had to carry/serve. To put it into perspective, i have worked cold calling in a call centre selling insurance and i would put that job before it.

allanb49 · 30-11-2010 1:53pm

Bendihorse wrote: »

My worst was working for/with Arabs. It was a cabin crew job with an emirate airline. The job was fine, the pax for the most part were also fine apart from the 10% of locals we had to carry/serve. To put it into perspective, i have worked cold calling in a call centre selling insurance and i would put that job before it.

And what was actually wrong with the airline job??

30-11-2010 1:54pm

Bendihorse wrote: »

I feel real bad for the guys who walk around with the 'Any Pizza Any Size for €9' billboards from Dominos strapped to them, front and back. Saw a gaggle of them in Wexford the other day wandering around aimlessly looking depressed and perished with the cold

My worst was working for/with Arabs. It was a cabin crew job with an emirate airline. The job was fine, the pax for the most part were also fine apart from the 10% of locals we had to carry/serve. To put it into perspective, i have worked cold calling in a call centre selling insurance and i would put that job before it.

What was wrong with them?

dougal-maguire · 30-11-2010 2:02pm

Wompa1 wrote: »

Actually on this, I was having a discussion about working hours before with my gf. She was saying that one of her friends was in college for nearly 12 hours and poor her...

I use to work the two late night shopping nights for about 12.5 hours each. Before that job I worked a good few 12 hour shifts too, not usually two days back to back but a couple times a week.

I kind of assumed most people working in retail at least did these kind of hours. But my gf said nobody does those hours. How about everybody out there..I know I'm right and people did.

back just before the ressesion hit i was doing 16 hour days,i remember doing a 14 hour day the day before xmas eve and then went on the beer and back in the next morning for a 12 hour day.even a few weeks ago i was doing 60-70 hour weeks.i would of thought plenty of people would be doing 12+ hours a day.

curlzy · 30-11-2010 2:04pm

Working in Burger King, the customers thought it was grand to speak to you like **** because you couldn't answer back, cnuts. Second would be working in a shoe shop at Christmas that only had one tape of Christmas songs, felt a bit suicidal towards the end so moved to Xtra Vision

IamtheWalrus · 30-11-2010 2:05pm

sensibleken wrote: »

'moved to the music'.

Oh dear..

ingo1984 · 30-11-2010 2:07pm

neither of these were the worst jobs i ever had, was just the fact i was doind them at the same time. was the summer after 1st year college. from the middle of may to the end of august, monday to friday was working in an office from 9-5, then straight from there got the bus to work in a bar from 6 until 2am. got home at 3am and then back up to do the same again at 7am. was a horrible, horrible time.

mikemac · 30-11-2010 2:07pm

allanb49 wrote: »

Also worked in ladbrokes for 2 years.

Working on my own in stepaside for 8 days from 9.30am to 9.30pm with supposed Time in Lieu (never got this as it was at the discretion of the District Manager)

One person on their own running a bookie shop? :eek:

Sounds like an amazingly easy target for a gang to rob

Bendihorse · 30-11-2010 2:09pm

allanb49 wrote: »

And what was actually wrong with the airline job??

bluewolf wrote: »

What was wrong with them?

Mostly their complete disrespect for you.
The females refusing to look at you or speak to you because in their opinion you are a white whore. The men leering at you thinking the same.
SCREAMING at you because you wont get them water in the middle of preparing the cabin for take off during taxi.
SCREAMING at you in general. Just horrible spoiled demanding people with a MASSIVE sense of entitlement.
Luckily they only made up 10% of pax on any flights but they caused more fuss than the whole rest of the pax put together. Oh and their 14 spoiled children. If you didn't answer their every whim, again, father would be screaming at you. I often went out of my way to please just to see if i could prove myself wrong but no. Give someone an extra drink or offer assistance and they treat you with complete contempt.

I did love dealing with the other pax, people were so appreciative of you doing something small for them. Most of the time there was a language barrier, but a friendly smile was enough to let you know that you had made their journey a little easier in some way.

allanb49 · 30-11-2010 2:24pm

feelingstressed wrote: »

One person on their own running a bookie shop? :eek:

Sounds like an amazingly easy target for a gang to rob

It should be, hell the counter didn't even have glass the security door was an old kitchen door with just a pane of glass

If the place was robbed you have to press the emergency button

Wait for security in england to ring you

Confirm you are being robbed

Then contact your DM to see if it is ok to call the police....

The shop in question.

<Snip>

Funkfield · 30-11-2010 2:30pm

allanb49 wrote: »

The shop in question.

<Snip>

Is that you at the door? :pac:

allanb49 · 30-11-2010 2:34pm

Nope the manager,

Who would spend his day smoking his pipe outside and telling the customers they where cúnts for spoiling his smoking time

mawdz · 30-11-2010 2:37pm

I worked in the Bar in a Radisson hotel. The job itself was fine. Here was the problems:

I was the only irish bar staff.
Being the only irish i got all the crap hours and the crap jobs. E.G. Cleaning the smoking area used to rotate departments. I was the only one of the bar who didnt smoke but yet they made me try clean it.
Used to work only weekends. Usually Fridays 6pm - 6am, Saturdays 12pm-3pm and 6pm-6am and sundays 12pm-6pm. I would barely sleep some weekends. I remeber one weekend i would Friday 3pm-6am, Saturday 12pm-6am, sunday 12pm-6am.

Used to be great for saving money as all i'd do all week then is sleep but still rough times.

Truley · 30-11-2010 2:39pm

'Security' at this years electric picnic. Basically had to stand on the road from 8pm to 8am checking people's tickets. Cold, tired and so soo boring. I wasn't even close enough to the event to hear the music. And the festival goers were incredibly rude and nasty.

sensibleken · 30-11-2010 2:55pm

Theres enough in here for a few folk songs

MajorMax · 30-11-2010 3:15pm

Venom wrote: »

Was offered a job by Eircom in what was ment to be broadband support but was in fact tele-sales. The whole job involved ringing up old age pensioners and telling lies to get them to come back to Eircom.

Quit after 2 days.

I doubt very much if they offered you a position in broadband support. That job is very specialised very different from outbound sales which is outsourced

Venom · 30-11-2010 4:14pm

MajorMax wrote: »

I doubt very much if they offered you a position in broadband support. That job is very specialised very different from outbound sales which is outsourced

The company who handle Eircoms sales and support are called Capita and are known for false job advertising via the online jobsites as they couldn't get staff for telesales by honest advertising.

Darraghnormal · 30-11-2010 4:26pm

11850....quite possible the most soul destroying job in the world.

Between 700-800 calls a day, about 3 calls a minute, and you werent allowed have a call go over 25 seconds, preferred partner advertising, so someone could ask for a hotel in limerick, and the first advertisment would be one in tipperary or something, and you HAD to offer the one advertised, usually resulting in the customer screaming at you, and getting docked your bonus if you didnt adhere to this.

5 minutes "not ready" time a day, so 5 minutes for the whole day to use the toilet/get a drink of water etc, 5 minutes is not enough to time to take a sheite.

Ridiculous timekeeping rules, started by shift at 9:00 one morning, arrived in at 9:00:31, one hour later brought into a meeting and given a written warning.

5 months of my life i will NEVER get back

rannerap · 30-11-2010 4:31pm

geeky wrote: »

Just had a mental image of some obscure, 90-year-old wartime collaborator finding his niche in fast food. I reckon there's a sitcom in that, could be the next 'hail hunny, I'm home'.

I thought I'd worked some crappy jobs in my time, still do, but this thread's been great for perspective - cheers.

if only:( all polish women around 30, who relished their authority, I got a warning once for using the bathroom once when there was a queue. it was like slave labour

Worst job ever?

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