Worst job you've ever had?

So I thought it would be interesting to have a discussion on what was Achaean's worst jobs ever. Perhaps it will make other feel better about their own situations. The only rule is to be vague about the company you worked for, because I think it is more fun to try and guess. I'll go first!

So I did a stint as a customer service agent/cashier at one of the largest furniture stores in America for four months as a way to stay ahead of student loan payments (I was desperate!). My coworkers and the management were wonderful, it was the customers that were a special breed of human beings. Here are some examples:

1) So we are a self serve warehouse, sort of like costco, and customers are expected to look through our rooms and take down the numbers and get the items themselves. So this woman comes up in line, with her cellphone out, and starts showing me pictures of items she wanted. I'm giving her a blank look the entire time while I have five customers behind her. I tell her that she needs to get the items herself and then point out the areas where she needs to go get them (It's like a dozen items!). This is where entitlement kicks in and the woman gives me her best b*tch face ever. She starts complaining that she is the customer and we should do what she wants. So I just shrug, call up the manager, and have him deal with it while I serve the others. She managed to convince him to have an employee to get all of her items for her and have him ring her up!

2) A large party of college students come to my line with about 100+ items. Which is not really a big deal where I work. However, after I give them the final total, they tell me that they desire to split up the transaction ten separate ways and give me a list of which ones each one bought. So I had to break out my calculator to total up each of their transactions separately based on the items I rung up. After a good five minutes, I finally have a sound calculation for each of the students and start allowing them to pay. Bozo number 6 and 8's cards were declined, so I had to shut down my line and wait for them to call up their banks. Of course they don't have any money, so their friends spotted them.

3) Oh... this one is precious. A little background on my state is that it is a bit gun crazy. Gun pride everywhere! So I finished checking out this gentleman, wearing a NRA shirt, and his wife. They had a good amount of items. When it was time to pay, the man becomes very serious and says he wants to ask me a question on why our company doesn't allow guns into our store. I say I don't know why and try to change the subject. When my answer doesn't quite satisfy him, he starts going on a long rant and slams his hand down on the counter, saying that we should allow guns and he isn't going to support our "communist" store. So him and his wife just takes off towards the exit and I have to get a manager to void his transaction.

Comments

  • Hrm.... I worked for an industrial maintenance company, doing all kinds of jobs. Had several that were bad, but the worst one was probably this:

    In an aluminum recycling plant, there's a room called the "Dross Room". When you melt aluminum (or any metal) the impurities will float to the surface. This is bad stuff, so they skim it off the top and put it in big steel pans. Forklifts move the pans into a warehouse, flip them over, and dump it out on the floor to cool. After awhile, all the pan flipping eats up the floor, and it has to be replaced. 

    Thing is that it has to be replaced with refractory (basically a thermally-sound version of concrete). So for 3 days, me and one other guy mixed up 56,000 pounds of refractory by hand. Remember that the stuff in this warehouse just got skimmed off the top of molten aluminum. Also know that when this stuff gets wet (water needed to mix the refractory, obv) it emits ammonia gas. All we had were dust masks. 

    Easily the worst 3 days of my life.
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  • JeslynJeslyn United States
    I work for a steel construction company now and I have no idea why safety would allow you to do that, especially with just a dust mask. OSHA would be all over that shiz! It's a good thing you made it out alive.
  • I worked for a man once who was suicidal and refused to tell me where his diabetes testing kit was. It was awful, I had to keep him locked in like a kitchen area and never let him out of my sight for a second. Which was double sad because he had a really nice house and just watched a small tv in his kitchen area laying in a bed all day. I seriously felt like I was abusing the man it was extremely horrible.

    Also his upstairs was hunted which scared the shit out of me.
  • JarrolJarrol New Zealand
    Being a bartender, working every night your mates are out, serving shots to douchbags and drunken women. It's worse when you have to stop serving them and they go crazy at you.
    I work at a gaming store now while I study, so I'm happy with that
  • I worked at a Papa Murphy's Take-And-Bake one summer.

    We usually had a deal on two-topping pizzas.  This means the whole pizza can have a grand total of two unique toppings.  So you could have a Pepperoni and Olives, for instance, or a half Pepperoni/half Olives, or even a half Pepperoni and Olives and a half Pepperoni.  But you couldn't have a half Pepperoni and Olives and a half Hawaiian.  You'd have to pay an extra dollar for each other topping.

    Given, it doesn't cost us anything more to put one topping on half of a pizza and a different topping on the other half, but somebody up top decided that was too complicated, so the two-topping deal means two unique toppings total.

    So a guy came in and, like quite a few people before him, tried to get the two-topping deal on a half-pepperoni/half-hawaiian, which is technically three toppings.  I explained that we couldn't do that.  He made the (perfectly correct) point that he was actually asking for one and a half toppings, not two.  I told him I understood completely, but I still couldn't give him the deal with three unique toppings.  "Well, this is bullshit," he said, and left.  As he's walking out the door, my manager yells out, "We're sorry, Sir!"

    He turns around and shouts "FUCK YOU!" and slams the door.

    This happened like four or five times in one summer.
  • Worked in a grocery store from 14-18. Made me hate people.
  • Amarillys said:
    Achimrst said:

    Also his upstairs was hunted which scared the shit out of me.
    Be vewy, vewy quiet. It's upstaiws season.

    I'm sure the ghost was harmless it just turned on the lights. I never went up there to turn them off.
  • Achimrst said:
    Amarillys said:
    Achimrst said:

    Also his upstairs was hunted which scared the shit out of me.
    Be vewy, vewy quiet. It's upstaiws season.

    I'm sure the ghost was harmless it just turned on the lights. I never went up there to turn them off.
    That dude was probably laughing his ass off as the timers the lamps were on turned them on.

  • Jeslyn said:
    I work for a steel construction company now and I have no idea why safety would allow you to do that, especially with just a dust mask. OSHA would be all over that shiz! It's a good thing you made it out alive.
    $$$$$$

    Second time around we had respirators and a 4k lb mixer, so it wasn't as bad. Still sucked though.
    image
  • Trey said:
    Achimrst said:
    Amarillys said:
    Achimrst said:

    Also his upstairs was hunted which scared the shit out of me.
    Be vewy, vewy quiet. It's upstaiws season.

    I'm sure the ghost was harmless it just turned on the lights. I never went up there to turn them off.
    That dude was probably laughing his ass off as the timers the lamps were on turned them on.
    All I know is I wasn't going to go up there and find out. All kinds of weird shit happened up there.
  • DaslinDaslin The place with the oxygen
    Worked for AT&T as tech support for U-Verse. All I'm gonna say is holy shit the entitlement and rage.
  • Well I can't really say much as to all my jobs had their ups and downs but never really more downs than ups. Anyways right now I work for one of the biggest semi truck rental as a diesel technician meaning I do light repair to tractors change and repair semi and trailer tires oil changes and fuel them up. THe Tires  Easily weigh in at over 150 lbs and I gotta generally put on 4-10 several times as day on this lovely humid weather loo
  • I worked for a private builder at 18 for 4 months. I swept the same patch of floor for 4 months. I would then be told my brushing technique wasn't quite up to scratch, and he would throw crap all over the floor and make me sweep it again. Plot twist - this wasn't even a room we were working on in the house - double plot twist - he would throw crap in there for me to sweep up and rinse/repeat the same thing over and over. He then got me to load a skip with dirt (large skip) and then unload the same skip only to get me to re-load it.

    It toughened me up, and made me lose some puppy-fat I had at the time, however I couldn't grasp the fact why he didn't get me to do anything remotely useful to the build for four months. He had his plasterer running around like mad painting red-oxide paint on steel girders for the house-structure, and he was then way behind on his plastering - meanwhile I was sweeping a room that wasn't being rebuilt and then sweeping the exact same load hour after hour..

    Was really quite fun.
  • AchimrstAchimrst Nature
    edited October 2014
    Daslin said:
    Worked for AT&T as tech support for U-Verse. All I'm gonna say is holy shit the entitlement and rage.
    @Daslin OMG I have probably yelled at you before! :D
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