What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

[Admin]

I started one a bit similar to this on the old FOF forum. Obviously we can't drag it up but I thought I'd start another one as it became quite popular.

Worst job I ever had was for a company called Alloys International. They are not there anymore but I was a shop floor cleaner. I worked in the aluminium factory sweeping up the shavings all day. I had to wear one of those stupid all in one white paper suits.

I was only young, 19 I think but the pay was 3 times better than all of my other mates at the time. Downside was, as soon as I'd swept the shop floor, it was full of aluminium again, so back around I had to go.

To make things even worse it was 12 hour shifts. 4 days on, 4 nights, 4 off. Every so often you copped a weekend of nights and it wasn't fun.

[HatterDon]

Flying in aircract that stopped being built in the 1940s, flying so low and slow that we could be [and regularly were] passed easily by helicopters, and watching tracers arc up at us when we landed after sundown. In between flights being routinely attacked by flying cockroaches slightly smaller than Pomeranians, while spending restful nights diving under the bed during periodic visits by rockets and mortars.

Mind you, I did get to wear jungle fatigues and No-mex flight suits, so I had that going for me which was nice.

Not a job I want ANYONE to have EVER AGAIN.

[keith]

 :I`m an Entertainer,and early on in my career i took a last minute Friday "Gig"in the North West of England.Due to Roadworks on the M6,i arrived just in time to go on stage.On i went and gave the packed room Five quickfire gags that always worked,silence,no one laughed and they all sat staring at me."Oh well"i thought "Crack on".I had the same reaction for another Five minutes until the manager of the venue beckoned me off.In the wings,he told me that there`d been a mistake and i shouldn`t have been booked.It turned out that the audience were all Polish,and not one of them spoke English!!!!.They were expecting a night of Polish poetry from someone from Warsaw,who actually turned up as the manager was  explaining this to me.What they made of "And then the Parrot said,"i never found out.!!!!

[Berserker]

First job as a saturday girl for the co-op was to clean all the shopping trolleys in the supermarket with a toothbrush

[The Doctor]

Working on the checkout at Somerfield.  It wasn't so much the job as the people I had to work with.  Such as the store manager, who whenever he did deign to grace the shop floor with his presence would ride around on one of those motorised pallet trucks because he was too lazy to use his legs.  Unfortunately, he wasn't as averse to using his mouth.

How I lasted 9 months there I'll never know.  Eventually I decided that £3.50 an hour wasn't worth the hassle and I'd be better off using the time to concentrate on my A levels

[Deanothefulhamfan]

Mine was when I did some builders clean work, when I was 18... we used to go in after the builders had done their work, and clean up. I was paid half rate for the time I was in the van with the other guys (which equated to 70% of my time working in the day) The guys I worked with were awful, Very long & unsociable hours....  And to top it all off it was tidying up, something I have never been very good at :S

Think I lasted a month before I stopped turning up in the morning

[Burt]

During one summer holiday during my uni days I worked in a factory in Blackheath that made components for BT. It was all precision stuff, so lots of drilling and cutting with oil to lubricate the process.  Muggins here had the job of going around each machine and scooping up all the metal shavings (swarf) and oil, wheeling it all to small round room where there was a small centrifuge, and bunging it all in there to extract the oil so it could be used again. Despite having thick rubber gloves, by the end of the day I would have dozens of tiny splinters in my palms.

Awful job, but I needed the money, so no choice... Head down, get on with it.

[MJG]

Working for an overseas property company from its call centre in Dorking.
Working in a basement with 40 odd sales people and most of them were early 20's and I was 40 at the time.

Never been treated so badly by management and treated like a kid. Pissed all over the sales targets but would never want to work in that environment again.watched every minute, calls checked...how long, how many calls. Hand up to go for a loo break.
Would never ever want to work in a call/sales centre again.

[Holders]

British Aerospace. 3 months to suss them out and 3 months to get out.

Talk about bad industrial relations. The management and unions would line up down each side of a long table, about 30 people from each side down each side staring at each other and trying to score points off each other rather than trying to reach constructive concensus. The management were as bad as the unions. What a shower!

[David_Keating]

First job as a saturday guy for a big grocery shop bit like a Tesco's, sweeping and cleaning the floors, cleaning up baby's / children's vomit whilst reaching / gagging and then saying to the mother 'no worries, this is my job', great way to earn £1.50 per hour.

[alfie]

working for Fulham football club,

[Jack Fulham]

Did a week in a cafe once where I was working with just women who were all foreign. Was washing up most the time, we were always under staffed and customers complained a lot. Had virtually no social interaction and all that washing up made me feel like a zombie. Then I quit.

[BedsFFC]

Early 80's, about 17. For some reason all my mates were working at the Chicago Ribshack in Knightsbridge. My mates brother had the most exclusive job in those days of being a valet. He parked the bloody cars of customers. They roped me in to get a job. I wasnt so lucky with my position. I was the washer upper. I wasnt very good. My second day was a Saturday night. 1am and plates washed, Diners left, all my mates finished, my Iranian line manager, a complete and utter (insert four letter word starting with C) decides I should clean kitchen cabinets. He wants me to scrub cabinets for an hour. All my mates are just saying "Leave". I left. Monday shift...I'm sacked.

The story however, has a happy ending. A football match had been arranged with The Ribshack verses the sister restaurant The Chicago Pizza pie factory. Despite being sacked, I was still in the Ribshack team kicking off in Regents Park the following Sunday. Guess who had been transferred to the Sister restaurant? Guess who lined up against the Ribshacks finest? Man, this guy was hated. Game kicked off, ball played to Mr C....2 footed challenge (not by me, i was frankly too young) Mr C broke his bloody ankle within 15 seconds of the start of the game...it really should'nt but it still brings a smile to my face

[Snibbo]

Shippam's meat paste factory in Chichester. I can still see and smell and her the rows of hooks carrying cooked chickens, and women ripping the meat off the carcasses and dropping it onto conveyor belts. Had to spend hours in the bloody cold room and it was bloody freezing. I lasted one day, and I think I got paid 5 quid.

[nevzter]

Removing dead animals from roads - during summertime.  Bloody job kept me in school though.

[F(f)CUK]

I have only ever worked as a consultant engineer, but the worst task stands out. It involved taking waste leachate samples (smelly contaminated water from landfills). I had to use Waterra tubes (also known as a w**king machine). Stirring up the liquid led to it acting like a geyser and every minute or so there would be an explosion of liquid that would drench me.

On the other hand my best working day involved me being paid once to lie on a beach on the Black Sea coast.

[Lighthouse]

Does being born count? Life is pretty much the worst job I have ever had. (Deep Sigh)  090.gif

[epsomraver]

Does being born count? Life is pretty much the worst job I have ever had. (Deep Sigh)  090.gif

You could always resign, a 220 bus will sort out your redundency

[epsomraver]

Worst job I had was the first one I had, in a basement off Ken High street in a printing firm, sitting at a glass topped desk with a 100 w bulb under it painting out any light showing through the print negatives before they went on the machines, treated like kids you had to go out lunch times rain or shine, not allowed to stay on the premises, did 4 months then got the best job of my life mending buses at Stockwell depot, I could write a book on the laughs I had there and the characters I worked with, great days.

[Lighthouse]

Does being born count? Life is pretty much the worst job I have ever had. (Deep Sigh)  090.gif

You could always resign, a 220 bus will sort out your redundency

Too much bother looking at timetables etc.