"Just Think of the Money..." Your crappest jobs.

Arbitrax

Hi all,

Thought I'd start a bit of a light-hearted thread to share experiences about the most disgusting, soul-destroying things you've done to earn a wage. Reminiscing about them gives me a chuckle nowadays, and hopefully some of you have some similar experiences to share

My Worst:

After I graduated from uni in 2009 (Class of the credit crunch - woohoo!). I had two weeks' agency work as a 'Maintenance Engineer' at my industrial laundry. This place serviced the local NHS trusts and nursing homes, so a lot of the laundry came back in a bit of a state. While I have also worked on the !!!!-soaked sheets, that isn't the worst job I've had with them...

Have you ever accidentally left a nappy or a plastic bag in the tumble dryer? For those of you that haven't, it welds itself to the wall of the dryer, and needs to be removed. My job was to climb inside the industrial-sized tumble dryers at the factory with a hammer, chisel and drill, and clean this !!!!!! off the inside of these things.

There's nothing on this earth quite as horrifying as hacking through the absorbent part of an adult nappy and having the tumble-dried, powdery contents puff out onto your face, in your hair and into your lungs. :eek:

All for minimum wage of course. :rotfl:

I have a couple of pictures stored on my phone of the inside of one of these beasts. If ever I feel like I'm having a bad day at my current job I pull up the pictures and think, "It could be worse!"

So does anyone else have other tales of working woes to share?

Red_Doe

I was a secretary in the days when skirt and stiletto heels were compulsory office clothing, wasn`t allowed to join or form a Union and the boss used to chase me round the ruddy office table and try to corner me in cupboards to pinch me bum!
And I got pneumonia from cockling once, in the middle of February, in the snow, by getting caught in a trink tide and having to wade back to shore in freezing water up to my armpits. Could easily have been worse though. Pay was 50p per bag of cockles, it so wasn`t worth it.

steve1980

Worst job ever, leaflet distribution in all weathers.

Person_one

Arbitrax wrote: »

Hi all,


Have you ever accidentally left a nappy or a plastic bag in the tumble dryer? For those of you that haven't, it welds itself to the wall of the dryer, and needs to be removed. My job was to climb inside the industrial-sized tumble dryers at the factory with a hammer, chisel and drill, and clean this !!!!!! off the inside of these things.

There's nothing on this earth quite as horrifying as hacking through the absorbent part of an adult nappy and having the tumble-dried, powdery contents puff out onto your face, in your hair and into your lungs. :eek:

All for minimum wage of course. :rotfl:

I have a couple of pictures stored on my phone of the inside of one of these beasts. If ever I feel like I'm having a bad day at my current job I pull up the pictures and think, "It could be worse!"

So does anyone else have other tales of working woes to share?

Wow, they really shouldn't have made you do that, or they should have given you gloves, apron, face shield etc. Nappies coming from hospitals or nursing homes are highly likely to be contaminated with MRSA, C.Diff or other nasties. The nursing staff aren't allowed to come into direct contact with that 'stuff' why should you?

I don't if tumble drying etc. would kill the bugs but its not a chance you should be taking!

Lip_Stick

My worst job was working in an amusement arcade. All you did all day was make tea, a few sandwiches and give people change. It was an awful environment for me, the room was darkened so the flashing lights looked better, with all the bloody noise from the machines. After an hour there I'd have a huge headache. I lasted a week in that job. My sil works in one though and loves it, but her previous job was in a nursing home, so I can see how she was attracted to it.

gargantuan_2

Delivered "Yellow Pages" style telephone directories once when needing a bit of cash. Had 1000's of the !!!!!!s in my car boot, hallway of my house and shed. Took me weeks to deliver them all and I was chased by dogs, threatened and abused by local youths. I was paid the princely some of £85.

I've also worked alone in a rat infested cellar of a market shop that sold pet food, weighing bags of bird seed for 8 hours per day. For this I was paid £2.50 per hour.

Also done various packing jobs, worked as a glass collector at a busy nightclub and in a well known fast food outlet. All pretty grim jobs, but I'd rather have one of them than nothing at all.

Sambucus_Nigra

Working on building roads, the worst was during the winter, the A256 near Dover; with the wind howling across the channel straight through us.

Fe.ck.ing freezing. No shelter. Had to be on site for concrete at 7am and work through to about 8pm. Horrid horrid horrid.

Magnolia

Leek skinner, Brussels sprout grader, carrot topper, Brussels sprout trimmer - can you tell I lived in Lincolnshire - gotta love the gang masters :rotfl:

The only one that was minimum wage was the sprout grader - all the rest were piece work :eek:

Becles

A receptionist with a little bit of secretarial work that took about an hour at most. The rest of the time, I was just hanging around waiting for the phone to ring. I got told to "make myself look busy" which was difficult when there wasn't any work to do. Left as I was so bored and it was doing my head in as the time just dragged while I was there.

Raksha

Grinding the lugs of some Scart sockets with a belt grinder - just me and 60,000 of these things which had to be converted. It got so the heat built up from the friction of the belt grinder was releasing fumes from the plastic, but there was no ventilation or face mask provided.. It took about 3 months to do all 60,000

SailorSam

Selling Double Glazing, commission only door-to-door.
There are only so many times you can be told to '!!!! off'.
The good pushy salesmen were making megabucks, while i just spent hours knocking on doors.