I'm sure glad I don't work there anymore......
Work's been a grind...thought maybe I'd remind myself how lucky I am by reviewing some of the bad jobs I've had in the past. If you've got a story to share (especially if it will make me laugh), I'd love to hear it. I think it's important to stick to jobs in the past...if the worst story you have is from the job you're currently doing, it may not be theraputic to tell it, and even if it makes me feel better about my job I'd feel better at your expense, which isn't nice.
I think my "worst job" story might be the summer I spent working as a general helper in a consulting engineering firm. Doesn't sound too bad, but I was assigned to a truck-weigh station, to record the weight of gravel being used on a new road construction. I sat at the weigh station in the middle of nowhere for somewhere upwards of twelve hours a day. There wasn't bathroom or a portapotty , not even a tree or shrub to hide behind. And trucks would come at uneven intervals, you could never predict when one might arrive. So for the first few weeks I tried dehydration...drinks before and after sunrise only. It was ok till the temperatures soared into the mid thirties and I started to feel a bit delusional. The only access to a bathroom was on the trucks themselves, hitch a ride back to the construction site, use the construction workers' bathroom. Of course the trucker would get right on his radio to announce that the weigh girl is taking a bathroom break, so much for privacy. Not the usual portapotty on the site - there were new houses being built and one of them had the plumbing installed but nobody had moved in. There was a second floor bathroom in one of the houses that was the site bathroom...no curtains mind you and no cleaners ever visited it. I'd tell myself that all those people working below are very unlikely to look up ...then take he dumptruck back to the weigh station. At my current job, I have only a short walk to a lovely clean bathroom! I feel better already.
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Share your Past-Tense Worst Work Experience and Increase Your Satisfaction with your Current Employment
You'll Feel Better
If you don't feel like sharing a story, how about a "bad job" book you've read or a song that "works" for you...
Work related Songs
- Maggie's Farm by Bob Dylan
- We Aint Gonna Take it by Twisted Sister
- I Quit My Job by Old Man Ludecke
- Tillsonburg, Stompin Tom Connors
- Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (traditional)
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2 comments:
My worst job was working for a blood analysis company. It was a co-op term and my job was taking a vial of a sample of frozen human plasma, thawing it and then pipetting it from the larger vial into smaller vials & then re-freezing it. I had to have Hepatitis shots to do it. Mind numbingly boring, but there were bathrooms near by at least. I learned the Mandarin phrase: "I'm not well. I am going insane." That & "I want chopsticks" are the only Mandarin I know.
There was also the banquet waitressing that I did in High School, but the worst part of that job (other than the food they served to the waitstaff) was avoiding being burned by the patron's cigarettes (I had a number of uniforms & stockings singed with circular patterns before I learned the proper avoidance technique).
IT was the best of time and the worst of times....no seriously..it really was. The summer of 1986 I worked at "The Cadet Camp" on the Mattawa Plains at Base Petawawa. The majority of the time we (a crew of ~ 10) set up or tore down huge army tents, however once every couple of weeks it was your turn to follow the "honey truck" from porta potti to porta potti cleaning up.
The ones by the mess tents were unbelievable. There was crap up to and sometimes above the toilet seat. I've never quite figured out the physics behind that... At any rate once the toilets were pumped out, I'd have to come in and clean up the mess, restock the TP and then dump a gallon of odd blue liquid down into the tank below. I cannot fathom why the manufacturer of the chemical ever made the decision...but some idiot decided the solution should smell like bubble gum - Hubba Bubba if I recall. To this date if I smell that gum I feel noxious.
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