Bad Jobs and bad work experiences

[Pine]

So, most of us have spent our lives being part of the workforce, and some of us are now (luckily) now employers rather than employees at some degree.

But what are those occupations that made you or still make you say "I hate this friggin job".

I'll start: When I was 18, I got a job at a Pizza place. I thought it was going to be awesome. About a month later I had worked the amount of time and effort a grown man does when he's picking up cotton in the fields. It was like a damn mine. All the day you had to stand up, carry steel molds with raw pizza dough on them, stand next to an oven and then move into the freezer to bring out new ingredients when needed. I had a "split" schedule, so I had like 4 hours of rest between two 4 hour shifts, plus I hate wearing red and black.

On the plus side, I did get free pizza!

What about you? What has been your worst job?

 

[bgillisp]

When I was 20 I took a job in outbound sales as it was a nice pay increase from my current fast food job (I went from $5.40/hr to $8/hr). Turns out I hated that job so much that any time there were options to do work off the phones and get paid still I always volunteered for it. Want the kitchen cleaned? I'll do it, can I wax it too? I'll even scrub it with a toothbrush if it keeps me off the phones.

Eventually I quit that job and went back to work at my old fast food job (pay cut and all), just because I couldn't stand the sales job.

 

[Sharm]

Outbound sales for me too.  Worked there exactly a month before I realized the stress was literally going to kill me and I quit.  There was this terrible script that you absolutely had to read no matter what the person on the other line said.  I felt like a scammer anytime someone actually agreed to buy anything.  It wasn't a bad product, it was just being pushed so hard it didn't seem ethical.  The business eventually went under, I believe they got in trouble for some bad business practices and couldn't pay all the fines.

In second place was a job doing assembly in a factory, putting food into boxes, and I got fired because the boss had found an illegal immigrant he wanted to hire in my place.  I should have sued or something but there was no proof and I hated the job anyway.  I think I heard that they went under too for tax fraud.

 

[Bonkers]

My worst job was working as a contractor for IBM.  Various physical and verbal harassment which went nowhere due to the people having permanent status or being coworkers who were previously IBM employees and became contracted work.  The worst of which came to work constantly drunk, so the tech would dump all of his work onto me.  Eventually after he assaulted me he fell asleep in his car and drove into the other lane hitting a police officer.  She survived with minimal damage thankfully.  He was not so lucky.  Had the managers listened to my complaints that accident could have been avoided.  

The others were a bit more amusing.  An old man given to talking to himself would become angry when I interrupted his self conversation.  He would take the tools from the station and begin to pick the skin off his hand causing it to bleed.  We worked in a clean room to assemble the computers.  I of course was being taught by the guy at the time. After the first year or so of being snapped at by him, and having him claim to have all sorts of degrees and work experience the rest of the team turned on him violently.  I saw first hand just how bad middle management and IBM was after that.  Suffice to say he no longer works there and is now making deliveries elsewhere.  It is suspected he killed his wife and was previously in jail, though that seems far fetched when they started that rumor.  People are cruel.

My "Supervisor" who was actually a coworker dumping more work off onto me met with an unfortunate disease and took a definitive change in attitude and behavior.  Not only did he put his fist through a computer monitor but he would pick up random breakable objects and throw them to the ground.  Eventually he stopped coming to work, trying to still collect his paycheck with doctor given leave time.  Layoffs happened and he was given the pink slip directly at home.  He attempted to come back a few times before that, all the while giving me his work and telling me that he was taking courses of some kind on the computer.  The courses involved "Woot" "Imgur" and "Hulu".

I'll spare you the rest.  It's all rather amusing in detail and what not, but I think you get the idea =3  5 years of this.

 

[Sharm]

@palladinthug:  You couldn't pay me enough to work in that kind of environment.

 

[Bonkers]

@palladinthug:  You couldn't pay me enough to work in that kind of environment.

Same here, the kicker was that my father was attempting to work during the end of his life.  I wanted to make sure he didn't suffer, which in turn prompted my own.  Towards the end he couldn't even drive anymore and I was left at the job wondering "Why am I still here?".  The inevitable happened last year.  I walked off one day.  I never looked back.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

It's weird because there were many things I loved about my last job, but it ultimately turned into hate that would result in my resignation. 

I worked in a small local grocery. 

I worked in several departments but my new produce department manager ultimately drove me away.

The old manager had given me a lot of extra training and had entrusted me to do, basically, all the roles of the assistant manager. Including ordering and receiving. The new manager? She wouldn't even let me cut an ear of corn. You know? Because knives are scary.

She was such a control freak that I pretty much was not allowed to do anything so I'd stand around for eight hours doing nothing and be completely miserable. It sounds absurd but I like working at work. She herself didn't know how to do anything in the produce department and she flat out would not accept anyone's help, especially mine. She didn't even know my name three months after starting the job. So, she did absolutely everything wrong and even dangerously.

Other highlights include

• The full time cashier called off 15 days in the first two months of the year. She cried absolutely every day about wanting to go home. Not whined. Cried. She also "accidentally" crapped all over the bathroom wall once and verbally abused a bagger until they cleaned it up for her. 
• One time in the stock room I saw a foot hanging out of the ceiling, put on my brave face, went to the attic, and found a bagger (minor) had stolen liquor, blacked out drunk, and his foot had gone through a weak spot in the floor.
• An older guy that worked for a chip vendor, "chip guy," would come in a few times a week to stock, kept whispering "I miss you" in my ear, and kept trying to ask me on dates and find out where I live.
• A girl that worked at the store would always find out my schedule, and even on her days off, would wait for me to get there. Then she would follow me around the store all day.
• A guy had passed out in the bathroom and was snoring on the toilet. We almost locked him in the building at closing. He was very clearly on some kind of drug.

 

[Pine]

Is it bad that I can laugh reading some of your stories? Not in the "haha your life sucks" laughing style, but more of a "I can't believe these things happen" spirit.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

Nah, I feel the same way. Really, I sort of loved all the weird crap that happened at my store. You can't NOT laugh at that stuff. It was totally my new manager that drove me away.

 

[Pine]

Here's another job I had when I started working on IT. I was a consultant of sorts in a local company. I hate the terms hacker and white hat and grey hat and all the hats, so I don't use them...

Anyways. When a company was going to fire its IT lead (usually SMBs no larger than 70 people) they called the company I worked for and they sent me mascarading as an auditor. My job was to gain control of the company's network and plan a massive change of passwords, backup full servers and patch any backdoors if any and prevent the soon-to-be-fired IT person from doing any kind of damage as  a revenge for getting fired. Leave additional backdoors for us in case we missed a backdoor from the fired person.

Then, after the company's integrity was assured, clean up everything, and hand over control to the new IT person.

This wasn't a ****ty job because of the job itself, but because I felt bad for all the backstabbing involved. Normally social engineering skills are key to progress, so you end up liking the person you're helping get fired. I felt horrible every single time.

 

[captainproton]

Let's see... I have dealt with:

*someone pooping in the fitting room.

*bloody panties in the fitting room

*someone soaking a pile of clothes in the fitting room

*people having sex in the fitting room

*a guy who wouldn't use fitting room and took his clothes off in the middle of the store.

*the couple who screamed at their children for refusing to steal

*taking an employee to the emergency room because a shoplifter bit him

*being sworn at more times than I can count because we were sold out of something

*calling the police because we dared to close the store at ten pm Christmas Eve, and people wanted to shop

*all but pushing a woman outside because she refused to evacuate during a really bad gas leak

*finding a severed cow leg in a shopping cart

That's what immediately comes to mind.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

@captainproton 

I remember on Christmas Eve one year I was trying to close the front door and a woman rushed to the door and tried to pry it right out of my hands so she could get inside. I won, locked the door, did my happy dance, and she just started screaming on the other side. It was awesome. It's not like we even had cashiers open anymore. "I only need oooooooone thing." Ha, sucks. The same Christmas Eve we also had a guy start throwing pennies and nickles at my face while shouting "Merry (bleep) Christmas! Jesus (bleep) hates you!"

I really do have what feels like endless stories about that job. That's the best part about retail. The stories you get to tell.

 

[Sharm]

My retail experience was so tame!  Maybe it helps that it was a charity organization.

 

[captainproton]

@ms littlefish:

Oh, yeah. That same night, a couple came in for honey-baked hams--from three hours away, they said--because someone told them our little Target carried them, and were screaming pissed because we didn't. Why they didn't stop at one of the thousands Wal-Mart's or grocery stores between here and there, I don't know.

Also, some guy came in about 45 minutes before we closed, wanting to sign up for a contract cellphone. A) the mobile kiosk closed about two hours ago, and seriously? Why would you wait until almost ten on Christmas eve to do that? More screaming and swearing.

Oh, and there was the Awful Family who made not-really-playing death threats to each other while signing up for a phone. With their kids right there.

 

[bgillisp]

@captainproton: Those stories sound familiar. Was this by chance in or near KC, Missouri? I seem to recall reading about one of them in the newspaper when I was growing up. Or maybe it was someone doing something similar?

Thankfully, I never worked retail, but I do recall those days when we worked fast food and 4 sets of customers would come in 5 minutes before close, then get mad that it was 20 minutes for food. What do you expect that close to close? We've thrown away all the precooked stuff, so now we have to start from scratch.

Though, I do still remember the time someone started swinging a baseball bat in the parking lot and screamed "Come and get some of this" at us. Had to call the cops on them. Never knew that people got that upset over Long John Silvers before.

 

[captainproton]

@bgilisp

Frankly, I'd be a little untrusting of food ready to go that late.

Close! Jefferson City, Missouri.

 

[bgillisp]

@Captianproton: We actually had a manager who tried to sell food that had been sitting in the window, already cooked, for 3 hours, as he thought 30 seconds in the frier made them taste as good as new. The head manager stopped him (thankfully).

Ha, so maybe your story still made the paper, as I thought I read one of those in the KC Star when I was in high school, as we got the paper during study hall one year (and were allowed to read it as long as we shared it nicely with each other).

Though speaking of food stories, I still remember when I was working at Pizza Hut when I was in high school, we got an order for, I kid you not, 217 Medium Pepperoni Pizzas. Turns out it was a legit order too, as the boy scouts were the ones ordering. Had to go in at 5 am just to cook all those pizzas for an order due at 11 am. Was sick of pepperoni pizzas after that. My father had to take in the Dodge Caravan just to fit all those pizzas in one delivery, and he still had to drive with a couple on his lap.

 

[Pine]

Though speaking of food stories, I still remember when I was working at Pizza Hut when I was in high school, we got an order for, I kid you not, 217 Medium Pepperoni Pizzas. Turns out it was a legit order too, as the boy scouts were the ones ordering. Had to go in at 5 am just to cook all those pizzas for an order due at 11 am. Was sick of pepperoni pizzas after that. My father had to take in the Dodge Caravan just to fit all those pizzas in one delivery, and he still had to drive with a couple on his lap.

I feel your pain. Worked at Pizza Hut at a mall. Can't even begin to tell you how many pizzas I've done in one day on a payday.

 

[Kyuukon]

I wish I could contribute more to this thread as I only had (and still have) one job I got just recently and I don't complain. But yeah, almost all places now all they want are slaves to do their dirty work. They don't want you to think, just do. If they could replace you with a robot they would without doubt. It's kinda disgusting... -.-" Yet there are people who still say capitalism isn't flawed...

 

[Bribolox]

Wow, these stories make my work experiences seem tame...

I have one story I want to share - it's not necessarily bad, but something I'm still puzzled by to this day.  I worked for a store called "Media Play", which sold books, movies, music and software.  It was in a building of a store that was called Builder's Square, which sold home improvement supplies.  So one day, this man came in.  He was elderly, but not really old.  He walked in, past the displays of new games, through the movies section, past the New York Times bestseller display, through the shelves of books to the books kiosk and asked "where can I find the aluminum siding?"  I laughed, thinking he was joking.  When he made it clear that he was serious I said "Sir, this isn't Builder's Square anymore."  He blinked and looked around, like he was coming out of daze and said "Oh."  Then he turned around and walked away...

Anyway, yeah, retail sucks and companies don't care about their employees because they are so easy to replace.  I've had the "scheduled to close one night and open on the next day" issue, the bad pay, the lack of full time benefits even when you are working full time, refusing to schedule according to your availability...yeah, it sucks.