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Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:39 pm
by Chuck(G)
How about:

Coal miner
Gut-plucker in a poultry plant
Biilge crew on a commercial fishing vessel
Euthanasia tech at animal control
Tank cleanup at a rendering plant
Choker-setter on a logging crew

There's lots of others...

Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:34 pm
by MartyNeilan
Day labor.
Work all day in the worst of conditions doing the work no one else wants to do for minimum wage. Then they take out a trip charge to and from the jobsite out of your check, and then another fee for getting "paid today" (even though you don't usually have a choice.) Not to mention mandatory "rental fees" for boots, gloves (if you are lucky), backbrace, etc. All for the pleasure of working with ex-cons at least half of whom are drugged up.
SO, you get blistered, sunburned, and / or dehydrated for the joy of bringing home around twenty to thirty bucks for a whole day of backbreacking labor.
Kiddies, stay in school!!!

Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:38 pm
by Matt G
Musician.

Re: worst job?

Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 6:13 pm
by Mark
I really think it depends on the person. I'm sure there are people who like cleaning septic tanks.

However, considering it's the political season, I have to say the worst job would have to be President of the United States. It may also be the very best job. Some jobs are like that.

Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 8:48 pm
by Jeffrey Hicks
As someone who has had a plethora of lousy jobs the worst one I had was working in a printing factory hand collating 13 stacks of 10,000 sheets each of the new Zebco Catalog for Christmas 1998. To say it was bad is possibly the understatement of 2004

Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 9:37 pm
by Dean
I once had to shovel human waste for about 3 hours on my very first full-time job. I was 16 and making $4.25 an hour.

The rest of that job sucked too, but that was by far the worst day...

I am much happier nowadays.

Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 9:40 pm
by WoodSheddin
my worst was while i worked for a temp service. the job was working from midnight to noon in the middle of the night in 12 hour shifts at a steel mill. the mill was closed while we cleaned it. required wearing a full body suit including goggles and mask to protect you from the chemicals in the pressure hoses used to coagulate the whatever it was into a black sludge. since we were working within tight confines and sometimes under ground level we had to sweep the liquid soaked sludge into large buckets and hand carry them up stars to the disposal receiver on top. took about 5 minutes for enough sweat to build up in the suits to drench me and my goggles became fogged up enough to block most vision. being in the middle of the night the little vission left was useless.

that was the only job i ever quit because it was too difficult. this especially considering the hourly wage of something like $8.00/hour with zero benefits. not worth it. i left after about 45 minutes, called the temp agency the next day, and asked for another assignment. this was in high school.

Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 12:09 am
by Chuck(G)
I think it's all in one's attitude.

The guy who cleans my septic tank is a nice cheery guy who seems to enjoy his work.

When I was working my way through college, it was at a steel mill. I worked out of the pyrometer shop, had to replace thermocouples on live furnaces (during my senior year, one of my co-workers collapsed and died doing just that), wade through rolling mill sumps to check sensors, climb to ridiculous heights to handle instrumentation (I'm acrophobic) and do just plain filthy work.

I worked without supervision and generally enjoyed myself.

I was young and stupid, but I had fun.

Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 12:22 am
by Dan Schultz
I know a guy who makes a very good living determining the sex of turkeys!

Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 9:49 am
by Leland
Chuck(G) wrote:Tank cleanup at a rendering plant
My dad, Steve Jordon, did an investigative story about slaughterhouse cleanup, and it got noticed by the Columbia Journalism Review:

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/1/omaha-kelliher.asp
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/articles_20 ... media.html

And the original story, posted on the Omaha World-Herald's website:
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=1638&u_sid=884007

Yup, it sucks.

Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 10:54 am
by Chuck(G)
Leland wrote: My dad, Steve Jordon, did an investigative story about slaughterhouse cleanup, and it got noticed by the Columbia Journalism Review
Please tell your dad that he has my sincere admiration. It's pretty rare nowadays to find any media that doesn't play fully into the hands of special interests.

Most of the pandering that passes for reporting nowadays makes me ill. Maybe it all started with TV news readers calling themselves "reporters"...

Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 1:15 pm
by Dean
PhilW. wrote:
Dean wrote:I once had to shovel human waste for about 3 hours on my very first full-time job. I was 16 and making $4.25 an hour.
What kind of a job was that? Attorney? :lol:
Ha, good one...

I was working labor for a township--working on public roads and such. Being the lowest stage of government, we had to work on the old back roads that no one ever drives on anyway, unless they live there. Small budget, so not much equipment and such...

Someone had some sort of septic accident spill that day... it sucked.

Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 12:52 pm
by Chuck Jackson
I am from Upstate New York, prime farm land called muck land abounds in the Central NY region. When I was 12, I got a Farm Permit and worked blocking lettuce in deep, black, thick, gooey soil for 12 hours a day for the princley sum of $1.25/Hr. I did it the entire summer of 1972 and still have the pay stubs. That even beats having to clean out grease traps in the mess hall during Basic Training. Gives creedence to the old adage "Watch out what you Volunteer for". I thought I was going to be working cleaning up the strore room. Yeah, right.

Chuck

worst job

Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 8:33 pm
by TubaRay
Wayne, we all need to vent every now and then. I guess being short on drivers doesn't contribute to you tuba playing situation, does it?

Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 9:10 pm
by tubatooter1940
Worst music job I ever had was as a guitar player in an all country band
at a late night joint in Mobile.
At our first afternoon rehersal a guy walked in to the bar and caught
his wife dancing with another man and comenced to beat her almost to
death.Later that night some guys lured the bouncer out into the parking
lot and worked his back over with a lead pipe.Toward the end of the evening a gunfight broke out inside and outside the club.
I usually give at least a two week notice before leaving a band but that
one night did it for me.
The Fart Man

Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 9:27 pm
by scottw
Well, I had kind of a double header horror job in my younger days between HS and college: I lasted 1 day (working for a temp agency) walking behind a tractor equipped with a scratch harrow, picking up rocks and putting them in a sling basket, in an attempt to build a golf course free of obstacles. Can you say sweat mixed with dust? I opted out of that job only to be assigned one feeding pallets into a leaking hydraulic press which broke them apart. Can you say sweat mixed with hydraulic fluid? One day of that was enough, too. I've had several awful jobs, but those 2 were something special! :cry:

Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2004 6:29 am
by Dylan King
Working at Sam Ash music in West Hollywood for two months. I walked out on the job. The only good thing about it was I got to get to know Melrose Larry Green.

Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2004 12:54 pm
by Matt G
tubatooter1940 wrote:Worst music job I ever had was as a guitar player in an all country band
at a late night joint in Mobile.
At our first afternoon rehersal a guy walked in to the bar and caught
his wife dancing with another man and comenced to beat her almost to
death.Later that night some guys lured the bouncer out into the parking
lot and worked his back over with a lead pipe.Toward the end of the evening a gunfight broke out inside and outside the club.
I usually give at least a two week notice before leaving a band but that
one night did it for me.
The Fart Man
And they say southern hospitality is dead!

It is terrible what a few un-educated and overly zealous drinkers can do to ruin the reputation of about 50 million people.

Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2004 2:20 pm
by ThomasDodd
PhilW. wrote: Probably telemarketer.
Naw, bill collector.
I knew several at collection agencies. Spend all day on the phone listening to sad stories form people who cannot pay the bills on credit cards they never should have been given. And you sole purpose is to get them to pay you to stay out of court.

Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2004 2:26 pm
by ThomasDodd
cc_tuba_guy wrote: Added: Anyone read "The Jungle"? It's a pretty horrific view on slaughterhouses in early 20th Cent. I even went vegatarian for about 3 weeks.
Read parts of it. There is no reason for it to be the same today.

Oh, I've cleaned animals for food, and would prefer to do it myself all the time. I just don't have anywhere to store a whole cow worth of meat.