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What was the worst job that you have ever had. Mine was a "labor pool"(day labor) job. It was at a trash incinerator. My job was to suit up in a HAZMAT suit with goggles and a gas mask and set up scaffolding inside of the burner (it was turned off) so that a crew could sandblast the walls. When a trash incinerator isn't burning, it emits arsenic and other boogers into the air. I made $70 for 12 hours of work.
I'll leave the subject open for music related jobs so that we can hear BC's horror stories. Ben

Dirty bookstore.

You've got me beat on that, Ben.

I worked for Carrie Sissom, the "Notorious Landlady" of Nashville.

Carrie owned a bunch of houses that she turned into flophouses. Some...a few...were ok. When a renter responded to one of her ads, looking for a room to rent, she's assess them and put them into a room house where she thought they belonged. When I called her, she put me in one of her better houses (David Allan Coe lived there a few years before). There was a family of four upstairs, a guy and his mother in the room off the shared living room, and another guy by himself in the room across from mine, he ended up stealing my autoharp.

When I first met Mrs. Sissom, she asked if I'd like to do some work for her for my rent, I said sure. For most of the next year, I spent my time going into some really run down places (Nashville was always suing her and trying to get her to shut down). I'd crawl under her houses and wrap the pipes and string lights so they wouldn't freeze; carry out some really nasty mattress; move tables and dressers; and clean things up. She had one house that was all storage, it had a room full of mattresses...very dirty mattresses, another full of kitchen tables and chairs. Most of her rooms had a kitchen stove that doubled as a room heater. I did some of the hookups when she switched out bad gas stoves. It's amazing I didn't blow myself up. Once in a while we'd clean out a room where some old alcoholic died.

After that, I'd get home and take the hottest bath possible, then walk four miles carrying my guitar to the Silver Dollar (two doors down from where Douglas Corner is now) to play my four night a week gig.

Funny, those seem a bit like the good old days

I haven't had anything really bad. Was a caretaker in a cemetery once - that was actually not bad, was outside work and peaceful. The only bad days were when the cement truck came and we had to cart wet cement in wheelbarrows across the grass to make foundations for headstones. Back-breaking work....

Worked midnight shift in a convenience store. Numbing boredom interspersed with moments of terror...

Did inventory in a hardware store for a brief period. Doesn't sound bad on the surface. Spent most of the day down in a dark wet basement counting foot-long, 2 in diameter carriage bolts stocked at foot-level.

Nothing to touch Ben's, I reckon. Not sure I'd want to touch Mark's...

Scott

Dealing with songwriters. Just kidding! LOL!

MAB

I worked in the mail room at some corporation, sorting mail and delivering it to the employees. Not dirty work but I understand why some people go "postal". It sucks the life right out of you and I was only there for a month.
Then I went to flip burgers at a Yankee Doodle Dandy restaurant chain. If my father hadn't been the manager's old friend, I would have been fired after dropping a gallon jug of their "secret special sauce" all over the kitchen floor. (thousand island dressing) The manager yelled at me in Greek all the time. It seems I didn't fill the ketchup and mustard bottles or spread the sauce on the buns fast enough. After 2 weeks of going home smelling like fried onions, I quit, much to my father's relief. It was putting a crimp in their friendship.
It all builds character, right?

Ricki

Well, I've had 2 that I can post here
The first was slicing onions for onion rings at an upscale eatery in Milwaukee. I was doing about 2 - 50lb bags a night. My eyes were red and crying all night long
But the worst was pulling out cow hides from rail cars at a tannery in Brewtown. Does anyone know what they soak the hides in while transporting them?

Mike, boarding houses are a thing of the past down here, but before tourism, when the packing houses and agriculture were king, we had plenty. When I was a kid, my best friends grandmother ran a boarding house. A two story house with a bathroom on each floor/bathtub. The ladies room on the second floor. I spent many nights over there and got to know the police. We had a blast as kids watching the adult transients come and go. Especially their behavior. The Grandma's name was "Moe". She was an Ironwoman and kept a clean house, but a few miscreants would sneak by but would be dealt with accordingly by "Moe" or the cops.

Mark, did you really work at a smut shop?

Scott, Sean Connery and Rod Stewart worked at Cemeteries.

Marc, That's a dirty job.

Ricki, Thousand Island dressing seems to be every one's "Special sauce" i.e. "Big Mac".
Glad that you are inept at fast food. You are ept at music, so stay with music and forget about a future serving burgers and spilling things.

I really did. I saw an ad for a bookstore clerk and I thought it would be great. I called them up, had a nice conversation and was hired over the phone. I was crushed when I realized what it really was, but too broke and too suddenly fascinated to walk away. I was never a porn fan, but I was always a people watcher, and this place was like another world. So I worked it awhile. There were dancers there who loved me because I never wanted to see their shows in that back room with the windows, never hit on them, even helped them with their college homework. I saw the dark side of people...the poor, seedy ones with the discoloration around their eyes...gamblers get that look, too...and also the well-dressed gentlemen, judges and businessmen, cops. I remember macing a guy who tried to rob me with an implied gun in his jacket.

I finally got the hell out of there. But bad as that was, it was better than telemarketing. Couldn't do that one, never made it through the first day.

In one of my first restaurant jobs, I spilled an entire 5-gallon bucket of pancake batter on the cooler floor. Ever try to mop up pancake batter? Don't.

Mark, I worked at Red Lobster for over a year during high school. I know that you're a restaurant guy and may have worked there yourself. I was a line guy putting plates together for the waitresses. I hated cleanup at the end of the night.

Worst job? Hands down for me, or rather, almost hands off for me for one job. I was forced to quit for I didn't want the second chance of loosing my hands.

Whimpy, (rest his soul), his brother, Tommy, and I worked at a truck radiator manufacture plant in New Brunswick, (or near there). The billboard had hundreds of photos of accidents at the plant, so the new workers would take safety seriously. I found out how some of those photos were able to be taken.

As I was just getting my hands back in position on my machine, from stacking newly made, but partial Mack Truck radiators, the machine I was at suddenly let loose of the many ready to be made radiators, which came down from about five feet above at full let go speed. The weight was said to be around a ton. Now, do you know that game we play where you have to move your hands without being tagged, when laying then on your friend's hands? Well, it's a good thing I am one of the fastest at that game, for I had to remove me hands from the machine in just that short of time, to not have both hands sliced right off. The crash was of course very loud, and everyone came running over ot my station. My friends, Whimpy and Tom were the first ones there and just looked at my hands, then yelled something like, "Alright! You're alright....Fking A"!

As soon as it registered I still had my hands, (for it looked like I wouldn't as I saw the accident, (hands "are" quicker than the eye), Three of us hugged, and kept saying all kinds of fun phrases, THEN I walked right pass the foreman, and went into the main office to announce I was leaving right THEN.

It was dumb of me to take such a job in the first place. But with my two friends I grew up with just getting that job, I thought it would be FUN to for us to work together! Man! It was NEVER fun. All the time it was hairy, with how the sharp copper and metal tubes and frames of the radiators were. And all the ways to have accidents there! I was playing Russian Roulette with my hands all the time there, and came within a nanosecond and a hair of loosing that game. I still cringe when seeing that exact moment in video fashion that is etched in my memory. I can hear the sudden burst to the crash a split second later. I moved my arms and hands so fast, that I had pains in my upper back and neck for a couple of days.

Makes all other jobs I had seem like picnics!

I'll have to ask Tommy for the year. It was in the early to mid 70's.

Guess what I was just doing before I sat down to write this?

Mark, let me guess, cleanup?

John, I worked at a cabinet shop. I ran a drill press, and guess what? I ran the bit through my finger once. The left side of my left finger is still numb thirty years later, but I can still play guitar. I would be more afraid of the chemicals at the radiator shop.

I worked in a factory that had job titles like, the whip, the crowsnest and turd cutter, among others. The whip was a transfer job between two lines. The product was covered with acid and was large and heavy. A pair of work boots would only last a month. The acid caused the leather to curl up and they wouldn't fit. I have a couple of acid scars.

The crowsnest, as the name implies, was upstairs in the factory and entailed breaking out the product from bake frames. The stuff weighed between 40 and 80 lbs. I would walk out to my truck after work and feel shorter than when I went in. Talk about hot?

A turd cutter was a step up from the other two jobs. You basically made sure the weight was right for fiberglass turds before they were molded into shape. Dependant on the fiberglass cases that were being molded you had to make the turds the right weight. The bad part was they used air grinders to trim the excess fiberglass off of the finished product. Even though we had a washer and dryer, my work clothes went to the laundrymat.

You guys must have posted while I was composing, these were also radiator related jobs...I also worked in fast food for the Col. back in high school. Teaches you a good work ethic.

I retired from the Army after 23 years in 1988. Doing the bang-bang, shoot-em up thing over in Vietnam was the worst by far. But, I don't think that's the real intention of this thread.

The last three years I was in the Army, I was the logistics manager of a small Army base in Germany. I was reponsible for the Dining Facility (Mess Hall), Education Center, Library, Bowling Alley, Movie Theater, NCO and Officers Clubs, the various Craft Shops, the maintainence and disposition of 87 military vehicles, maintaining 11 different duty rosters, etc. I was also responsible for the safety and well-being of about 2,000 soldiers. I had a 17 million dollar buget for which I was responsible and had a staff of 17 to manage. I was also the Public Affairs Officer for the base. I had the opportunity of having been "misquoted" in both German & English! My immediate supervisor was a two-star general. It was a tough, demanding job, but I actually liked it.

So, when I retired, I thought I would get me a little part-time job with little or no responsibility...something to keep me busy and put a some change in my pocket. I flipped burgers for Burger King for 4 months. I had more fun being responsible for 17 million dollars and all that other stuff than I did flipping burgers.

I went home every night smelling like stale grease and my feet and back were obliterated from standing on tile floor for 6 - 8 hours with only a 20 minute lunch break. For me, that was the worst, other than Vietnam.

Alan

I couldn’t wait to work on tobacco when I turn 14 (or was it 13?). Carrying the lats full of leaves and handing them to the guys to hang up high in the barns was mostly what I did. And the sewing....Oh, how I wanted to sew, but they only let me once! I did awful…was too nervous...my hands were shaking and I couldn't get the leaves up into the machine properly. I never sewed again. I can still "see" the black underneath my fingernails as this was the mark of a tobacco worker doing this “desirable” job back then… cuz the money was great. Ahhhhh....memories…

Steve, don't cry, (pun intended) I can't imagine the smell of cow hides.

Rick, I worked with fiberglass too. It gets under you skin.

Alan, you had the worst job in history. Thank you for your service. I mean that sincerely.

Kristi, all you wanted was a job at that age. At least you were willing to work.

Yeah Al, restaurant work isn’t for everyone.

For me it was washing dishes. The problem was the restaurant’s drains backed up and there was a good two inches of really nasty water on the floor. My boss wouldn’t close so he had us dishwashers lay “bun racks” down to stand on. He then opened up the grease trap and told me to squeegee the water into it.
Of course I slipped off my bun rack and slid into the grease trap. For those of you, who never experienced the aroma of a grease trap; simply imagine falling into a porta pottie.

Thirty five years later I’m still in the restaurant business, coming home every night smelling like French fries and loving every minute of it.

Ben,

You are welcome! And thank you for caring.

Alan

That is exactly how I described my four years as a bounty hunter. (In Indiana, it is legally called a Recovery Agent.) I actually liked the job, but couldn't get used to going for weeks (or sometimes months) without work, then getting several cases at once.

I did the bounty hunter thing right after I got away from my worse job ever, working for a religious television network for 17 years. Actually, my job wasn't that bad, but I had to do a lot of rationalization with myself to get past the money-raising techniques and excesses of the folks in charge. I got through it by telling myself I was a broadcaster just doing my job for a company that was a forerunner to Comedy Central.

Of course, I was embarrassed by the company, so whenever anyone asked what I did, I lied and told them I did something a little more honorable... playing piano in a bordello.

Hi Ben

Sounds terrible! yikes!

I guess when I was cleaning a bar on the weekends (Sunday morning starting at 4:00 am was the most disgusting job.
So cleaning toilets was the most gross thing for me. They DID however have a speed bag mounted in the cellar. I would punch that thing all the time, great for speed,timing and stamina. I Got pretty lethal after a while.

The other jobs were worse because they were for LONGER times.

Cleaning bar & bathroom

Furniture Store - Delivered furniture,carrying wall units & sofa beds up flights of stairs all day. (built great strength though)

House Painter - A few years of this will kill your neck & back as well. But learned a great trade & it built up my wrists & forums great for my kung fu.

Dock Worker - OUTSIDE on the water all year, all day in NJ. This lovely 17 year test of endurance accompanied by Welding, Lifting truck tires & Jack hammering steel spikes into concrete.
In my opinion is why I'm disabled today!

On tour & on the tour bus many were complaining about inconveniences, things like the weather, hot and cold, carrying gear whatever. All but me! Wonder why lol...

I have been very lucky and had some really good jobs outside music. Nothing bad springs to mind.

I have had some real stinkers when it comes to gigs though....some places were pretty rough...fights and mayhem were commonplace.
One night a guy was killed during a fight whilst we were told to keep playing....the song was "Gimme some lovin" SHEESH.
I wrote a song about it with Mark Kaufman. "Just another day"

35 yrs ago I spent a summer masturbating rams. Try that one on some girl you are trying to pick up.

In College I worked construction to keep me in spending money... We were rehabbing an old factory to make it a modern mini-mall with most all the original 'distressed' brick walls intact. Due to some design fluke in the original building, there were a series of closets one over the top of each other on the building's 5 floors which were perfect for the installation of an elevator for the new mini-mall. Only one problem... There was not enough room under the set of closets for the "bottom equipment" of the elevator they were going to install. Of course five stories of 10x10 walls prevented any machinery from reaching to the bottom of the hole to remove the soil. My job was to shovel by hand all the soil from the bottom of the shaft into a wheelbarrow which I then had to roll up a 2x8 to the outside of the shaft for removal... wasn't that hard at first but as the hole got deeper the trip up the plank got steeper so the loads got lighter but the trips up the plank more frequent... There was no winning... That one really sucked!

Doug, I really hope that this was a job!

I worked as a soda-jerk in my Uncle's drugstore and he decided to begin marketing his own brand of flea and tick powder. Guess who got the task of filling cardboard cannisters with this DDT laced product. 100+ degrees... no ventilation... a cloud of dust everytime each little can was filled. Nasty business.

Then there was latrine duty at boot camp... but I digress... LOL! Anyone remember the Andy Griffith movie where he was at boot camp and when the officers inspected his work, he had rigged all the toilet lids to "snap to attention" when he pulled the lanyard?

Killin' Chickens.

My first job was killing chickens for a local butcher.
I'd grab the chicken by the head and hold it between my legs. Cut it's throat and throw it into a big drum. The chicken would flop around in that drum for a bit til it bled out. Then I'd toss it in hot water to loosen the feathers and pluck it.
Fortunately I didn't have to gut it. They stink enough when you pluck them.
I also had to clean up the mess. Blood, wet chicken feathers, and chicken crap really stinks.
I was 10 years old.

They say that Welsh people do it as a hobby.

The incinerator job was just a one day gig.
Other jobs that I've had were: Iron worker in my early 20's. I could walk a beam pretty good. Carpenters helper, toting lumber and sawing. That was back breaking. Cab driver, I hated that. Digging worms and maintaining the worm beds at my dads worm farm. I enjoyed that.
I flew a Cessna 172 for a heavy equipment company for a short time and flew my brother to meetings when he owned a construction co. That was fun
My favorite job was as a wholesale rep. I had a company car worked my own hours and made a descent paycheck

WE HAVE A WINNER!!!! {Bet you were pretty popular round' the barnyard!}ROFL!!!

WARNING!!!! If you have a weak stomach, do NOT read this!
Dave...

Two comments. First, at that age I was a soda jerk, minus the soda. Second, you mentioned latrine duty. In Vietnam, before I became a member of the LRRPs (Long Rnage Recon Patrols), there was a job back at base camp that everyone hated. Pardon the language, but it was called Sh*t Burner. The latrines were ouhouses with barrels below the holes to catch the uh, uh, uh...donations. Every day, every latrine had to be cleaned. Someone in each unit was detailed each day for this wonderful duty. You had to pull the barrels (oil barrels cut in half) from under the holes, pour a mixture of kerosene and diesel fuel into the barrel, set it on fire, stay with it until the fired burned out (fragrance of fesces, anyone?), and then dig a hole to dump and bury the small amount of "material" that remained. Not fun!

Alan

A dishwasher was my worst. I was a hi-rise window cleaner for 26 years. There's nothing like high places for peaceful thinking.

Game over. Doug wins.

I concur!

That will be the name of my next band...B.C and the Masturbating Rams!

Yeah, those day labor jobs are rough, i had on where I was scraping some kind of powdery residue off of the inside of a concrete tower structure, it looked like a reactor....
I worked for 20 minutes, I came out for 10 to breathe.....

That sh*t stayed in my mouth, my clothes, my hair, my eyes, and every where else for days....

I castrated 'em. Try that on some unsuspecting fella you like the look of!

Frightening thing was I was good at it.

Also picking opium poppy seed - legally I should add. It was dusty and I was in more danger from the chemical residue from spraying than anything left in the dried head.

maid at a hotel...cleaning rooms after parties. and dishwasher at a restraunt. but cleaning rooms was worse...i just never really needed to know that much about people.

Wow, that is nasty. I sure hope they tipped well.

They'd be salted... if they was soaked... possibly in brine (heavey salt water)... at the tannery they'd cop a lime bathe to remove the hair before hitting the tanning fluids...

I worked on a piggery and for a time had a job not unlike doug's.. in the breeding pen I had to "Help" the boar (male pig) find the target.. you make a guiding tunnel with your hand and hope he got it right before he lost his load... if not it was just like Doug said.... The worst job however was not that... nor was it regularly being waist deep in pig sh!t with a shovel trying to clean a blocked drain...

the very worst... (if you have a weak stomach read no further)

There was a top load furnace to burn off dead pigs, after birth etc... one year it got too blocked to burn ... after several attempts and two weeks of summer I had to get in and clean it out so we could get it sucking air... I cannot even come close to discribing the smell ... Al may have some idea...that was in 1983 I was about 18... no special suit, no gloves... just jeans and shirt, crowbar and a shovel... There was rotten half cooked flesh and innards and other stuff... that was putrid and the slime of the rotting making it slippery... I ended up using my hands because I couldn't dig through the bones .... to this day I cannot stomach the smell of bbq pork.

I reckon Al's stint (and anyone else who visits) in the two way rifle range has had it far worse....

Cheers

Wow, great job, Noel. I have 2 that come to mind.

First, I worked for the town when I was 17 at the sewage treatment facility. Back then after chemically treating the turds they were swished into a green house to harden and crack like an old dried up river bed. We had to go in with wheel barrows, pitch forks and shovels and shovel the sh## out. It must have been 120 degrees in there. We got so crazy we started having sh## fights throwing the stuff and breaking the greenhouse glass. 2 guys were removed from that duty and sent to clear away the weeds around the fence perimeter. We were eating lunch, when the 2 guys came back, one had poison ivy on his genitals and the other one on his mouth. LOL and LOL. They never did come back to work again.
They removed me from turd clean up to turd inspection. I had to keep an eye on the main sewer intake and fish out all the rubbers with a pole. They tended to clog the pipes.
Another bad job was pigeon sh## removal from soffit return boxes so they could be capped in aluminum. Sometimes that dung was 2" deep, 2 stories up on a ladder. The guy that left his cheese steak in the bed of my truck for 3 weeks, was responsible for that job. LOL.

I was an "million heiress" as a teenager. I never had to work because the large trust fund paid weekly bonuses from the interest it was drawing. My childhood was ruined by shopping, excess and fake friends. To this day, I can't stand the smell of cash and jewelry hurts my eyes to look at it. I won't wear anything but faux fur now, because of the trauma I have suffered over the years. Paris Hilton has nothing on me. My life was so full of wealth and priviledge I still need therapy some days.

I was trying to forget this one but when I was 18 I got a job in a foundry in Eugene, Oregon called IRECO. We cast aluminum parts for irrigation and specialty parts for companies like Boeing and Ford.
I had to pour molten aluminum (2000 degrees) into a cylinder chamber, then close the two halves of the mold and actuate a piston that would force the metal into the chamber forming the part. Then I would open the mold and extract the part using asbestos gloves. We poured the metal using an asbestos ladle. If you spilled molten aluminum on your boots, it would fuse to the eyelets and burn right to you skin is seconds. I still have scars on the tops of my feet from that year.

It was suppose to be impossible to get your hand stuck in the machine when the two halves of the machine closed but a friend of mine, a Dutch immigrant, somehow got his hand stuck in the machine and lost his middle finger. He couldn't even use it to tell the company what he thought of their safely record. After I left, a guy was burned heat to foot when a cauldron exploded. I believe that was a fatality. It was the most dangerous place I have ever worked.

It had one thing going for it though. The dynamics of the flames, heat and noise did provide a kind of primordial energy that feed the creative impulse. When I worked at the open door in the winter, the furnace and the night sky outside did provide me with a lot of creative fodder. It was like working at the edge of a volcano.

Doug, I didn't know you worked for the St. Louis Rams!

Hey Tricia, I hate to see a good girl "suffer" like that! I guess it demonstrates a good point though: that we can never predict where tyranny is hiding. Too little money enslaves one by limited choices; and too much money can do the same.

I have been listening to Charlton Heston reading Emanuel Kant this week. Kant was an 18th Century German philosopher best known for his "Critique of Pure Reason". His contention is that it is impossible to determine absolute moral law; that the best we can do is to be true to ourselves; and that when we establish our moral principles, and can honestly say that by living them we would be comfortable if they were a "natural law", then we come as close as we can to validating moral principle, and we will live with "self respect". I really connected with that because we all go through life not completely sure what is absolutely right or wrong in the external world. But if we just look inside and find for ourselves what seems to be the moral law in ourselves, we gain self respect. For Kant, self respect was the highest achievement of man. Tricia, when you we living the life of privileged, you were unhappy because it violated your inner since of self respect. And Paris Hilton is an example of someone who is a victim and her lack of "self respect". It is so well documented that it has become a National joke. All the young girls who think that being rich and famous is the ultimate achievement secretly know better and even their desire to "be like Paris" is evidence of their lack of knowledge of themselves. Emanuel Kant said he was in awe of two things in nature- the magnificence of the night sky and the magnificence of the inner moral law. He spent a lifetime coming to that conclusion so I think he is on to something important.

I have a sister who went from abject poverty after the suicide of her first
husband to enormous wealth. I think that is a psychologically healthier situation when one has built wealth (it took about 10 years) but still it has it's hazards because it doesn't take long for someone to take for granted the gift they have. My sister is generous and grateful but she wears a Rolex, dives a Beamer, has and airplane and several houses etc. The difference may be that if she lost it all tomorrow, she would still be the same person. He husband may have a tougher time because he was born to privilege. But they are both wonderful people. And even though they will pay more taxes because of their vote, they both voted for Obama.

But back to to point- maybe Not having a job is the worst job!

Joe, I was only kidding. I was the kid that grew up in a rent house just 3 houses away from "Fuller Hill"-that was sort of the projects where I grew up. Not government subsidized, but close. Most the people that lived there had only 1 parent and were dirt poor.

We were poor, just not dirt poor. My parents stayed married till I got out of high school, then they divorced. I was one of those academic/athlete students but in the summer time I flipped my share of burgers and I worked "under the shed" packing peaches at a local orchard. Under the shed-meaning, it was out out of the hot sun but open and unairconditioned. I sorted peaches at a conveyer belt as the peaches came off the truck. I think one week I must have worked 60 hours for a whole $63.00. It bought a few clothes for school. Also, I babysat, which was my least favorite job because I didn't like being without an adult in other people's houses.

I shouldn't kid about stuff like that, I guess.

Trish, I got it and think it's fine to make fun of Paris, Zsa Zsa, and Eva(the nice one).

Trica I prefer the million heiress story..... it suits you better.
The fact that you rebelled against such an awful lifestyle and saw sense and through sheer determination climbed up out of it does you credit..... Being a millionaire is a rotten dirty job but somebody has to do it. You paid your debt to society...LOL

Tricia, you are such a classy lady, I believed you could have grown up rich. But then I am pretty gullible. And though I am not rich, two of my sister's have rags to riches stories to tell so the concept is not foreign to me.