Worst Job, Best Job...

[Torment Leaves Scars]

1.  What's the worst job you've ever had?

2.  What's your favorite job you've ever had?

3. How does your current job rank between them?

WORST:  My worst job was working for an auto parts company, abbreviated AAP.  Being a retail job, you'd expect it to be, well, a retail job.  What you wouldn't expect is to have people leaning over counters to grab you, screaming at you, threatening to beat you up, follow you home, return after you get off work, or lift a shirt to display a gun at you, all over some wrong car parts, parts we didn't stock, or simply parts we didn't have in stock.

It got to the point that my entire life was affected by this job; everything from my marriage, hatred for people, and of course, my stress level, blood pressure, etc.

Eventually, I just walked out on that job, but not before I was promised a different job with the company 8 months prior.  I decided I was never going to return after confronting the manager about the job I'd been promised (driving job) one day in our parking lot, while I was on my day off.  He told me that I was needed behind the counter.  As he told me this, one of our delivery trucks pulled into the parking lot, and a new face was behind the wheel.  He hired someone else into the job that he promised me.

I left, and totally chimped out.  I'm pretty sure it was a nervous breakdown, because I just couldn't control myself.  I just totally FREAKED after I left.  I was angry, upset, devastated, full of hatred for everyone, and just very "out of this world."  I couldn't calm down for about 3 hours.  I literally almost passed out.

After "coming to," I made the decision I was never going back to that job.  This little voice in my head just told me that if I'd returned to that job for one more day, I was going to die.  Everything just felt like, "heart attack." 

Given that this manager just screwed me, I didn't even bother telling him I wasn't returning.  I just simply didn't go to work.  He called and called, and I never answered the phone.  Given his actions, he should have known why I wasn't returning, especially after the discussion we had.

My wife wasn't supportive of the way I left, but I was adamant on screwing this guy over.  She was supportive that I was no longer working that job.  She even mentioned that she was scared that one day she was going to come home from work and find me lying in a pool of blood with a hole in my head, and a gun next to me.  When your wife tells you something like that, you know you've made the right decision. 

It's been over 2 years now, and I still feel that had I returned to that job, I wouldn't be here today, for one reason or another.

BEST:  I've worked in 3 mail rooms during my life, and 2 of them were very pleasant.  I'd worked at Chase Manhattan Bank for about two years in their mailroom back in the early 90s, and it was great.  While the pay wasn't great, the people who worked there were awesome.  We were all a big, happy family.  Let's not forget to mention that we had the run of the building, too.  There was never a dull moment.

I missed working in a mail room like that, and years later, I wound up in another one, back around 2003 or 2004, I wanna say.  It was a party all over again.  The boss didn't bug, my coworkers and I did our jobs, shared some laughs, and went home.  No stress whatsoever.  Unfortunately, that job came to an end when the company closed, otherwise, there's no doubt in my mind I'd probably still be working there.  They paid well, treated their employees very well, and was just a cool place to work.  I miss it.

CURRENT:  I'd just started work for a sales and merchandising company last month, and I'm loving it.  The downside is that it's part-time work.  I really don't think this job has any negatives, aside from being part-time, and having to deal with the occasional grumpy store manager at the Food Lion.

These days, I make my own hours, and choose the jobs I want to do.  That means, if I don't feel like working on Friday, I don't have to schedule my job for a Friday, or if I want an entire week off, I don't have to schedule anything for that week.  All of the assignments have deadlines, but there's usually a span of about 3 weeks that I have to do them.  Each job normally runs between 1-4 hours, and can be done at any time of the day, but sometimes jobs do come up which are 8 hours long, and it's usually a "reset."  This is a team project, and the boss "encourages" accepting the job.  Even if the job is supposed to take from 8-4, plan on pulling an 11 hour day.

So, I make my own hours, work the days I wanna work, and choose the work I wanna do.  Not to mention, I don't have a boss up my arse, and no longer have to deal with ANY people, really.  I'm doing what I want to do.  I'm going to work, doing my job, and going home.  Since I work alone 99% of the time, I can just focus on my own thing.

These days, I don't have a lot of stress in my life.  My job is very relaxed, home life is relaxed, my blood pressure's down, etc.  Aside from this being a part-time job, it's just...wonderful.  This is exactly what I wanted out of a job, except for being part-time.  I'm done working in call-centers, doing customer service, retail, etc.  All I wanted was a job "staring at a wall and feeding paper through a machine," and this is about as close to that as I could get, plus the other obvious benefits.

A bad day at work for me is when I can't find products on a shelf.  Not bad, huh...

 

[kboman]

1.  What's the worst job you've ever had?

Telephone sales guy. I could barely stand the four days I was there and didn't return the next week. I have never encountered anything so soul sucking in my entire life.

2.  What's your favorite job you've ever had?

I don't really have a favourite job. At my last job I had fantastic co-workers but a disastrous store manager and bad pay. Those are people I really miss working with now, because in all the mess at the time I used to have fun at work too.

3. How does your current job rank between them?

It's ok, but not wonderful. Long commute that steals way too much time from life, very one-sided clientel, pretty much zero intellectual stimulation. On the other hand it's a steady full time job with decent pay and usually several pleasant customers every day.

 

[elfro89]

1.  What's the worst job you've ever had?
On-line Telephone Fundraiser.
My job was to call on behalf of charities (the charity would change every month) to get donations. They way we treated people was ridiculous. There were 4 teams, 1 team had to get people to accept a money box to which they would collect spare change and send it off to charity. The second team would then ask those who had previously accepted a money box to go direct debit every month. A third team would call those on direct debit to see if they would like to leave something in their will. A fourth team would be put on chase duty in which they would chase up those who had not returned their box or had not paid their direct debit. The sick thing was it was bordering on harassment, it was totally impersonal and it felt like I was abusing the good nature of the people who generally were helping charity, so I left that job quickly and have a severe distaste for anyone working in this line of work. They ought to know better.

2.  What's your favorite job you've ever had?
Being a self employed musician, I work for myself and its great, the pay is crap but at least I'm the boss. Working for someone else's business making someone else money is crap and I will never hold proper employment ever again.

 

[swarfrat]

Worst job ever was refinishing floors one summer in college. Nasty work, nasty chemicals, nastier people.  Honest to goodness, on a crew of maybe 6, we had one guy who'd been in a mental institution, one guy awaiting trial on  murder charges, maybe two more run of the mill hoodlums, and me and a friend from church.   I'm not against manual labor (Mike Rowe has some excellent comments on this subject), the framing crew I worked on rocked, but that one....

 

[crash]

The worst job and best job were, essentially the same.  I worked as a process engineer at a little local circuit board manufacturer.  About 100 employees, almost no turnover for 8 years.  It was like a family.  Then we were bought out by Molex (the company that makes connectors).  What a horrible piece of sh!t company that is.  Everything went downhill.  Everybody started leaving, morale was low, so I also left. 

Where I am at now is about 1/2 way in between the above extremes.  I get to work on some pretty cool stuff; mostly medical equipment.

My next job I would like to work for a small company again.

 

[Torment Leaves Scars]

Worst job ever was refinishing floors one summer in college. Nasty work, nasty chemicals, nastier people.  Honest to goodness, on a crew of maybe 6, we had one guy who'd been in a mental institution, one guy awaiting trial on  murder charges, maybe two more run of the mill hoodlums, and me and a friend from church.   I'm not against manual labor (Mike Rowe has some excellent comments on this subject), the framing crew I worked on rocked, but that one....

So, was he convicted?  What a nightmare! 

 

[Damon]

Hard to pick a single worst job. I had several jobs in the late 90's through the mid 00's that sucked to various degrees for various reasons. Worst overall would probably be a toss up between working at the call center for Cox Cable (they wouldn't give me any freedom to be me - everything was essentially scripted) and my brief tenure at a little marketing company as their IT director, where I was over worked, under paid and generally treated like crap. That one actually led to a nervous breakdown.

Favorite job... Does being a dad count? Otherwise it'd have to be my current job is great. Not my dream job, but most of the people are good, the work is relatively easy if a bit tedious and repetitive at times, and the compensation is more than adequate. I'm a network engineer/desktop support technician for a real estate company. If I could completely drop the desktop support part and just be the engineer, I'd be very happy. Could happen once the housing market recovers, but probably won't before.

 

[JaySwear]

Worst: KB Toys. Most unorganized place I've ever seen. Parents didn't care what their kids did with the toys, it was our mess to clean up, after all. The back stock room always looked like it had been hit with a bomb. The managers were pretty indifferent to everything, and I literally got $12 pay checks because they gave me so few hours.

Best: A tie between Pac Sun and the go kart track that was my first job. Pac Sun was just one big group of friends. We had a ton of fun with each other and customers, and we actually got a lot of work done! The go kart track was a great experience. I worked there for three summers and met a ton of kids who had come to the US from all over Europe. Was a ton of fun to try talking to the Russian kids. I took four years of Russian in high school and still struggled to say anything sensible. But it was a lot of fun anyway.

Current: My job now is pretty damn laid back. It's a pottery place. People come in, grab a pre-made piece of pottery, and paint to their heart's content. The customers are usually fun, and the kids are usually well behaved. Plus I'm on the computer here at work right now :icon_biggrin: gotta love that. Not the greatest job I've ever had (few hours here) but it's fun, and something to take up my weekends. Soon I'll be running a kid's camp for my church during the week too. Hopefully that'll go as smoothly as this job.

 

[AGWAN]

Worst?

CNA. poop and death, Poop and death. Poop and death.

I win.

Best?

Well, its hard to describe. I worked for a small car dealership and took care of half their business. the pay reflected that and my life was great.

then I got in a car accident and they had to let me go.

Now I work for subway. its depressingly bad and I want to Off myself. but no one will hire me for one of my many qualifications.

 

[pabloman]

Worst.........Poncho's Mexican Buffet. I was a dishwasher there. It was horrible. No real horror stories but the Mexicans would make fun of me because I wasn't a real Mexican. I was just a Sears Mexican. I also worked at Tire and Lube shops in Waxahachie, Lancaster, Duncanville, and Pleasant Grove. Those weren't too fun but they forced me to attend Lincoln Tech and become a mechanic. My stint at the Nissan/Subaru dealer here in town left me with alot of mixed feelings. Then there was that month I sold Kirbys in North Dallas. That was lame too.

Best..........Definetley a toss up between the Officer's Club on Ft.Hood and Guitar Center. Both jobs were lots of fun with great coworkers. It was always a party. My GC was far from the norm. It has the small town atmosphere. At least it did. I hear its poop now. Those are my favorites for selfish reasons. My favorite favorite now is working in an emancipation home for teenage boys. I also do case manager and tracking work. It's really cool to help make a difference with these kids that everyone has pretty much given up on. It's not always perfect. In fact quite often I have to put the smack down on them. Physical restraints can be scary stuff. I have enough confidence in my training and abilities to know that I can keep my staff and residents safe. There are alot of kids that just aren't ready for the program. Those are the ones that are always in holds and trying to escape the facility. The kids that are on point make my job easy. Either way they all need help. The kids that fail and go back to jail or the ones that get their parole revoked are the ones that leave you questioning yourself. It's hard to not ask yourself what could I have done differently. Some kids are just assholes because they can be.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Worst:  Temp agency warehouse grunt.  I was between jobs waiting on a background check to finish.  I needed work fast. 

Best:  Right now.  I'm an (out of work) licensed elctrician.  There's up and downs with employment due to the feast and famine nature of construction, but I'm paid decent, have okay benefits, and I went through a Union apprenticeship.  it feels good to reap the rewards of being a licensed professional, knowing I've learned a trade, and can work anywhere in the country or the world if I wanted too. 

**Please don't let this become a political thread because I mentioned Unions.

 

[Velcro]

WORST:  My worst job was working for an auto parts company, abbreviated AAP.  Being a retail job, you'd expect it to be, well, a retail job.  What you wouldn't expect is to have people leaning over counters to grab you, screaming at you, threatening to beat you up, follow you home, return after you get off work, or lift a shirt to display a gun at you, all over some wrong car parts, parts we didn't stock, or simply parts we didn't have in stock.

It got to the point that my entire life was affected by this job; everything from my marriage, hatred for people, and of course, my stress level, blood pressure, etc.

DId that leave scars?

 

[Mor Paul]

Worst job? Advertisement designer. Not many hours, sometimes the end client can be hard to please sometimes. Also, my "boss" (I'm freelance, work through an ad company, though. There's Me>Owner of the ad company>Client.) seems to have trouble receiving emails sometimes, and can be slow on communication and payment.
Best job? Advertisement designer. I get to be creative, and oftentimes work quickly. I choose my own pay and hours, and my per-hour pay is pretty good. It can go up to about $45 to $55 an hour.
Current job? Advertisement designer.

 

[back2thefutre]

Worst: telemarketing
Worstest: Drive thru
Best & current: caretaker

 

[Torment Leaves Scars]

WORST:  My worst job was working for an auto parts company, abbreviated AAP.  Being a retail job, you'd expect it to be, well, a retail job.  What you wouldn't expect is to have people leaning over counters to grab you, screaming at you, threatening to beat you up, follow you home, return after you get off work, or lift a shirt to display a gun at you, all over some wrong car parts, parts we didn't stock, or simply parts we didn't have in stock.

It got to the point that my entire life was affected by this job; everything from my marriage, hatred for people, and of course, my stress level, blood pressure, etc.

DId that leave scars?

No scars, just torment.  :toothy12:

It was really weird.  After quitting, I constantly thought about that place.  I dreaded it so much that for about the next 2 weeks after quitting, I'd still wake up in the middle of the night, dreading of returning.  It was just a habit, to the point of being second nature.  It wouldn't be until a few minutes later that it would finally "click," "Oh, that's right, I don't need to worry about that place anymore," then, I'd just go back to sleep.

Once that "twilight zone" phase passed, I started getting full nights of sleep without waking up.

To this day, when I drive by that place, my stomach turns with hate.  Just driving by the place will evoke negative emotions, like anger.  I just get this "pit" in my stomach, and just this feeling of absolute hatred.

 

[Graffiti62]

Worst job I ever had?  There have been a couple...

One of them was working for a Shakey's Pizza & Buffet for a winter while I waited for my seasonal job (ballpark concessions) to open back up. Two days a week I worked as a dishwasher--not the absolute worst. Everyone left me alone, and I was able to work at my own pace. On the other days I had to work, I had to bus tables and work in the video arcade. The weekends were the worst!  People would bring their kids in, drink beer and eat fried food, while they let their kids get loaded on sugar and caffeine and let them loose on a video arcade, where they fought to get as many tickets as they could, in order to redeem them for cheap toys. I was sixteen, and I wanted to get a vasectomy because of how much I hated the kids in there.

The other bad job I had was working at a school supply warehouse during my summers home from college. They boasted about their incentive and bonus programs for their seasonal college employees. Fine and dandy, as long as I was going to a school in Wisconsin, which I wasn't. Northern Michigan University was offset by two weeks to the UW system, meaning I started work two weeks before the majority of everyone, and I had to quit two weeks before everyone, so I wound up getting shafted on the bonus program. The second year, they fixed it to where everyone got a bonus every payday--that helped. The only problem was that was the year I switched from working in shipping to working as a forklift operator. I loved operating a forklift, especially considering that I was one of the few who was trained on the high-lift stand-up models. The issue came when I was assigned a forklift to use. The model I had was ANCIENT!  The dead-man switch on the floor had a bent spring in it, when one of the night crew guys drove it over an unused shelving mount that was cemented into the floor, meaning you had to pound down on it to disengage the brake, and if you took off even a little bit of weight on it, you stopped then and there. I wound up getting maintenance to fix that one pretty quick after I dumped a pallet full of gallon Crayola paint jugs all over the floor when the dead-man locked the wheel up. They were ready to fire me, when I insisted that the warehouse supervisor drive the forklift around, and he wound up having the same problem, when the wheel locked up and actually threw him off. They paid for the repair on that, but that's all they had fixed on it. The other issue was the heat exchanger for the drive motor. That was bent, I assume at the same time that the dead-man spring was bent, and it was pressed against the floor, which meant it excanged heat right into the floor of the forklift. They wouldn't fix that one because it didn't affect the machine's performance, and I wound up wiith constant blisters on my feet, which were already worn out because I was working at the ballpark as well.

The best job I had? 

I worked as a computer repair technician for my university's laptop lease program. Every student at NMU is leased either a Lenovo ThinkPad (or an Apple if you're an art student), and this meant that we had a walk-in help desk, as well as a seperate on-site repair facility, which I worked at. One of the perks was that we were paid the highest rate of anyone on campus due to the additional technical training and skills we had, as well as the environment was extremely lax and laid back. We were allowed to study, listen to music, play games when work was slow, but we were expected to get a laptop repaired or replaced in a matter of two hours, which we always delivered on. Plus, we also had to know everything the Help Desk knew (or were supposed to know), so we were always everyone's best pal whenever something broke down on someone's computer. This helped me actually get a couple of phone numbers and dates in college, when a friend of a friend said "get a hold of Mikey!"

My current job?

Ugh...don't ask!  I wound up getting laid off twice in the past year, and have been looking ever since. The silver lining was the fact that my help desk job I worked after graduation paid well, and I had to leave it when my wife was hired at a nursing home back in Michigan. When I was laid off the first time, I wound up having those wages included when they calculated the unemployment, so I wound up getting more in compensation than I was earning from the job I was laid off of the first time. I was then laid off from Best Buy when I accepted the sole seasonal position they needed to fill at Geek Squad, with the assurance from the store manager that she wanted to keep all seasonal people on and was really picky about who was taken on. All was fine and dandy, til they realized that we weren't bringing in enough money and overestimated how much people in this area would love Best Buy, and underestimated how cut-throat Walmart could get, and the hours were cut, and almost all seasonal folks were laid off. Right now, I'm in the middle of trying to finally find something full-time, and, while I've had a lot of interviews, I am always told that I am over-qualified for any position around here, with everyone fearing that I'll leave them for the next best thing that comes along. Up here, jobs are far and few between, and anything I find full-time is going to be held onto. I've even had the state employment agency helping me to find something and tweak my resume. Sadly, the only thing they don't do is job placement. My unemployment runs out at the end of the calendar year, unless an opportunity to cash in on all of my extensions is granted, then I'll be good til June of '12. Its a struggle to say the least, but I get to spend time with my little girl, which is worth it in the end.

 

[Steve_Karl]

Worst:
House painter ( indoor ) in the late 70's for a company that had about 8 people working for them.
It was so bad that I had them drop me off on the parkway near an exit where I knew I could get a bus close by.
I jumped ship (truck) on my fist day, mid-day, on the way to the 3rd or 4th house on the schedule. It was still before lunch break.
I just said, "see ya later" and got out of the truck when we hit a traffic stop, and never looked back.

Best:
Has to be now as a freelance computer consultant. I make my own hours, only work for nice people by choice, and have time to work on recording and composing.

Now if you wanna talk gigs that's a different story.

Worst gig: that actually ended my live playing:
Valentines Day 1999 in "Who Knows Where" West Virgina at an Animal Club ( Elks Moose whatever )
It was a 1.5 hour + Drive from Pittsburgh PA and it was snowing sideways by the time we got on 79 South.
2 of us in a computer enhanced duo doing everything from Frank Sinatra big band, Harry Connic Jr big band, to 70s 80s stuff like Earth Wind and Fire etc.
Snow got thicker. Roads got bad. We got lost.
When we got there the load in was up the outside metal fire escape, which was covered with ice and snow, to the 3rd floor and then across a full sized gym floor.
After about 3 trips across that floor in ice caked boots my band mate said something like "start lookin' for an other gig because this is crazy and I've had it and I can't stand no more."
I agreed.

Best gig:
Most all of the other ones.

 

[Kublai]

Worst was a foundry. It was very hot all the time. And boring. I only lasted 2 weeks and then ran off to help a buddy with catasrophic insurance adjusting. Which would have been my fav job, but we partied away all of our profits. Ended up not making a dime from a decent paying job.

Best was a late night security guard. I used to take my guitar with me and could play for 3-4 hours at work.

 

[MikeW]

Worst: Pizza-delivery driver. Ugh. I lasted all of one day. Left and never looked back.

Best and Current: I'm a software engineer working for a biotech building software that runs medical diagnostic instruments. I get to play with software, robots, chemistry and some pretty cool data mining stuff. And the pay is great. The only downside is I usually put in 50-55 hours a week at work.

 

[Jusatele]

Worst:  Temp agency warehouse grunt.  I was between jobs waiting on a background check to finish.  I needed work fast. 

Best:  Right now.  I'm an (out of work) licensed elctrician.  There's up and downs with employment due to the feast and famine nature of construction, but I'm paid decent, have okay benefits, and I went through a Union apprenticeship.  it feels good to reap the rewards of being a licensed professional, knowing I've learned a trade, and can work anywhere in the country or the world if I wanted too.   

**Please don't let this become a political thread because I mentioned Unions.

Unions

Unions

ok let me tell you about Unions'
they have been very good to me, Raised 2 kids through college, never had an issue, always had health care and have a retirement coming.
best Job I ever have had IBEW electrician, good pay, good working conditions and good benefits
worst job ever ? was a night guy at a hotel when I was in college, man that sucked and it was every friday and saturday night, so not only did I work every weekend but I had to go to school when I got off, I could sleep anywhere at any time I wanted, and did. It sucked big time.