Worst Job, Best Job...

[Graffiti62]

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.

My little brother is in the IBEW as well. Their apprentaceship program was the best thing that ever happened to him. He actually wound up winning an award for either his chapter (IBEW Local 577), or for the entire state of Wisconsin for being "Apprentice of the Year."  He rarely mentions any kudos or anything he's ever received, because he'd just rather point to his work and let that talk for him. In all honesty, a great organization, and a real representative of all that's good about unions.

 

[swarfrat]

It's ok - it's not political as long as its pro union, right?

 

[stormbringer]

Worst - Royal Fork (food service). 1st job 30+ years ago. Lasted 2 weeks and I told them to stick it. Have never worked in food again...

Best AND Current - Software Developer. 100% telecommuter, great pay, can't complain...

 

[hannaugh]

Worst:  Intern for a summer stock rep theater company.  We worked 13 hour days 6 days a week, building scenery in an asphalt parking lot.  It was so hot that a number of our build team members ended up in the hospital with heat stroke and extreme sunburns.  I missed a spot with the sunblock and got a second degree sunburn on my back.  On top of that, our boss was completely incompetent and only interested in saving money on building materials and constantly ordered us to make unsafe scenery, which inevitably led to a pretty insane accident during a sold-out performance that could have easily led to several deaths (a platform carrying an actor rolled off the stage into the orchestra pit, nearly killing several musicians).  Luckily nobody got hurt, but my boss at least got fired.  At some point towards the end of the summer, we decided to figure out how much we were getting paid to go through hell with that guy for 3 months, and it came to $0.14 an hour or something ridiculous like that.  I think several of us started crying. 

Best:  Working at OCHSA, which I do currently.  There's just something awesome about coming home and when asked what I did that day, being able to say "I showed a bunch of kids how to shoot a blood cannon."

Current:  I have another job right now at 2 comic book stores.  It's definitely better than some jobs, but I would rather work at OCHSA full time.  I hate working with about 80% of the customers though.  We have some really creepy people who come in all the time. 

 

[tfarny]

1.  What's the worst job you've ever had? Probably, cleaning up a butcher shop after hours. You could show up to work totally loaded, but it didn't make it any more fun. A close second would be teaching out of control kids in South Korea. Got a razor blade "ninja star" thrown at me. Did not keep my temper.

2.  What's your favorite job you've ever had? Probably the consulting gig (one-time deal) I've got in Vietnam next month; for the flight, room and board, I have to give a total of 4 hours of talks on a subject I know back to front.

3. How does your current job rank between them? Closer to the best one, for sure! I have tons of freedom (I'm an academic) and get to work on things that are interesting to me. Downside: it's actually a lot of work, and most of it is lonely.

 

[Superlizard]

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

Prolly busting rocks outside in an office complex (it was a "moat" of sorts) for minimum wage.

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

The one I haven't started yet - my woman & I have plans to get into real estate; snarf up a handful
of duplexes - fix 'em up, rent them out and manage.

3. How does your current job rank between them?

Systems Admin for major college... it's decent but I do grow tired of
whiny doctors and admins.

 

[bagman67]

Worst?  There've been a few -

1 - Project Manager at a litigation support data processing company.  24/7 availability for the highest-maintenance client I've ever known, and zero support from the back room or management.  Eventually the unbalance between demand on my time and need for sleep led to me causing a pretty nasty car accident.  Everyone walked away, but what a wakeup call...

2 - Criminal defense lawyer for indigent defendants -  I picked up conflict work for the county at a ridiculously low rate per client.  Say two idiots hold up a convenience store.  Both are poor, and cannot afford attorneys.  The county public defender picks one up, but there's a conflict of interest for the PD to represent the other guy.  So contract counsel comes in  - that'd be me.  And so I would facilitate the chewing-up and spitting-out of bonehead poor folks who have no viable economic alternatives, so turn to meth manufacture, smalltime crime, and various of the usual substance-abuse related offenses.  It nearly killed me.  Destroyed my marriage. Convinced me I cannot be a lawyer in the traditional sense.

3 - Live Meat On the Hoof, US Army Intelligence Center and School - I was trained as a battlefield signal intelligence collection and jamming op, which was pretty awesome training to get.  But in the late 1980's, the actual mission was to do training exercises with armored cav units in the mud and ooze of northern germany (or north texas, or north carolina), or be attached to a school (as I was).  In almost every respect, it was the easiest duty you could imagine.  But absolutely, mind-crushingly BORING.  And I don't drink, and I don't fight, and the duty station was in the middle of nowhere, so my options were limited.  Also, my roommate was gay and fell in love with me (not gay), which was heartbreaking for him and kind of awkward for me.  We're good friends now, but it was a tough time.  One of my drill sergeants put it thusly:  "Life is hard, war is hell, and a peacetime army is a motherf*cker."

Best job?
-- Live meat on the hoof, US Army.  Easiest duty ever.  When it wasn't boring, I got to spend a lot of time travelling around the desert southwest, and made a couple of awesome friends.
-- Scooping ice cream at a Carvel shop when I was 17 and 18.  I was the only male on the staff, and worked with a lot of cute girls.  The girl at the hamburger joint across the parking lot stole my heart.
-- My current job.  I'm the boss and have a lot of autonomy and folks whom I respect working for me, and I get to build the department I want with full management backing.

Current job:
I am the director of client services/project management for a litigation support technology company.  Long hours, high demand, but a healthy institution with respect for the human beings that make things happen.

 

[Torment Leaves Scars]

Worst:  Intern for a summer stock rep theater company.  We worked 13 hour days 6 days a week, building scenery in an asphalt parking lot.  It was so hot that a number of our build team members ended up in the hospital with heat stroke and extreme sunburns.  I missed a spot with the sunblock and got a second degree sunburn on my back.  On top of that, our boss was completely incompetent and only interested in saving money on building materials and constantly ordered us to make unsafe scenery, which inevitably led to a pretty insane accident during a sold-out performance that could have easily led to several deaths (a platform carrying an actor rolled off the stage into the orchestra pit, nearly killing several musicians).  Luckily nobody got hurt, but my boss at least got fired.  At some point towards the end of the summer, we decided to figure out how much we were getting paid to go through hell with that guy for 3 months, and it came to $0.14 an hour or something ridiculous like that.  I think several of us started crying. 

Best:  Working at OCHSA, which I do currently.  There's just something awesome about coming home and when asked what I did that day, being able to say "I showed a bunch of kids how to shoot a blood cannon."

Current:  I have another job right now at 2 comic book stores.  It's definitely better than some jobs, but I would rather work at OCHSA full time.  I hate working with about 80% of the customers though.  We have some really creepy people who come in all the time.   

Wow, that job sounds like it was pretty horrid.  At $0.14/hr, that's nothing more than a bad slap in the face.

 

[hannaugh]

Yeah, they made it sound like an internship where we would get all this great experience and learn tons of stuff in a positive environment, but it ended up being more like indentured servitude.  Because we were interns and not employees, they were allowed to make us work long hours without overtime and pay us practically nothing.  There were a lot of injuries and illnesses on our team too.  It was not fun. 

The most amazing thing that I remember from it was that my friend and I noticed that we were losing weight while we were there, so we counted our calories to see how much we were eating... we were averaging 3,000 calories a day and we still weren't getting enough for the amount of work we were putting our bodies through. 

 

[Torment Leaves Scars]

Yeah, they made it sound like an internship where we would get all this great experience and learn tons of stuff in a positive environment, but it ended up being more like indentured servitude.  Because we were interns and not employees, they were allowed to make us work long hours without overtime and pay us practically nothing.  There were a lot of injuries and illnesses on our team too.  It was not fun. 

The most amazing thing that I remember from it was that my friend and I noticed that we were losing weight while we were there, so we counted our calories to see how much we were eating... we were averaging 3,000 calories a day and we still weren't getting enough for the amount of work we were putting our bodies through. 

Isn't federal law that they need to compensate you time and a half for anything over 40 hrs?  It shouldn't matter if you were interns or what.  If you weren't employed by them, you had to be employed by somebody else...

 

[ptirman]

1.  What's the worst job you've ever had? My first, busboy at a bonanza steakhouse in 1976. I was fired for eating some of the peach cobbler that I was about to throw away. I remember crying on the car ride home because I thought I'd never get a job again and my dad said, don't worry don't tell anyone and you'll have no problem.

2.  What's your favorite job you've ever had? Tie between being in a band in the late 70's and also in the 80's and my current job which is a Radiologist specializing in musculoskeletal MRI.

3. How does your current job rank between them? Life is good and I love my current job although stressful. That's why I'm on guitar fora, great stress relief.

Thanks for asking.
Cheers

 

[pabloman]

Hey bagman my dad was a 97 bravo. He was an instructor at Ft.Huachuca when he retired.

 

[hannaugh]

Yeah, they made it sound like an internship where we would get all this great experience and learn tons of stuff in a positive environment, but it ended up being more like indentured servitude.  Because we were interns and not employees, they were allowed to make us work long hours without overtime and pay us practically nothing.  There were a lot of injuries and illnesses on our team too.  It was not fun. 

The most amazing thing that I remember from it was that my friend and I noticed that we were losing weight while we were there, so we counted our calories to see how much we were eating... we were averaging 3,000 calories a day and we still weren't getting enough for the amount of work we were putting our bodies through. 

Isn't federal law that they need to compensate you time and a half for anything over 40 hrs?  It shouldn't matter if you were interns or what.  If you weren't employed by them, you had to be employed by somebody else...

You would think, but alas, it did not work out that way.  Maybe because the theater company was owned by a college and we all had student status, even though none of us were actually enrolled.  :dontknow:

 

[Torment Leaves Scars]

Yeah, they made it sound like an internship where we would get all this great experience and learn tons of stuff in a positive environment, but it ended up being more like indentured servitude.  Because we were interns and not employees, they were allowed to make us work long hours without overtime and pay us practically nothing.  There were a lot of injuries and illnesses on our team too.  It was not fun. 

The most amazing thing that I remember from it was that my friend and I noticed that we were losing weight while we were there, so we counted our calories to see how much we were eating... we were averaging 3,000 calories a day and we still weren't getting enough for the amount of work we were putting our bodies through. 

Isn't federal law that they need to compensate you time and a half for anything over 40 hrs?  It shouldn't matter if you were interns or what.  If you weren't employed by them, you had to be employed by somebody else...

You would think, but alas, it did not work out that way.  Maybe because the theater company was owned by a college and we all had student status, even though none of us were actually enrolled.  :dontknow:

Sounds a bit shady...and strange.

 

[Cagey]

Wow. I'm almost ashamed to say that all my jobs have been great. Some I enjoyed more than others, and some paid more than others, but overall I always came out ahead. Once I got out of school and past about 21 years old or so, most of them paid like crime, although some required a heavier personal time investment than others.

The only experiences I would not necessarily want to repeat would be a couple times where a company's HR department and the department asking for help didn't communicate very well, but even those were enlightening, even if they were largely a waste of time for all involved. They were also very short-lived, so no harm, no foul.

Of course, when I was just a kid I had some hard jobs that weren't very fun and didn't pay well, but whaddaya gonna do? You're just a kid. Back then, if you could make $12/wk, you were in fat city. Didn't matter how much work you had to do, there wasn't anything else you had to do other than make passing grades in school, which was puppy chow. Then, with the money you made you could buy a new model or H.O. racecar or fancy seat for your bike when other guys couldn't. Downside was, then mom & dad decided they didn't need to support you any more. "You got money! You owe us rent, fer crissakes!" That's when you learn about socialism. Under that philosophy, what you earn isn't yours, it's everybody's. If you're not careful, you learn not to work, as there's no point in it. Of course, then nothing gets done, and we're in hell on Earth.

 

[hannaugh]

I just realized... I don't think there has been a time since I was 14 or 15 that I didn't have at least one job.  That's kind of crazy. 

 

[Cagey]

I just realized... I don't think there has been a time since I was 14 or 15 that I didn't have at least one job.  That's kind of crazy. 

Not really. If you want control over things, you gotta take control over things. You can't ask other people to satisfy your urges and whims. They're yours to satisfy. Others have their own agendas, and it's wrong to interfere with them. They work for their money, let them do what they want with it. Earn your own, and you get to decide.

I started a bit earlier than you did, at about 11. Simple stuff like mowing lawns, shoveling snow, raking leaves, cleaning, paper routes, stuffing envelopes, pet care, etc., but they were all on regular schedules so I could make plans. Do this much work, get this much reward in this much time. I knew how to budget long before most kids could even knew what a budget was. I lived deepinahearta Detroit, so I had a huge market. Simply going door-to-door on a single street would often bring you more work than you could do. The real trick was keeping it all secret from the parents <grin>

 

[hannaugh]

I think I actually started working at 12 now that I really think about it, but I worked at my mom's work doing data entry, and the boss paid me in stuff I wanted from the store.  I started working for money at 13 to save up for the 8th grade Washington DC trip. 

This is of course unless you count when I taught myself how to draw cartoon characters (Looney Toons, Disney, Ninja Turtles, etc..) fairly well when I was in kindergarten, and I would sell drawings to the other kids for their milk money.  My teacher put a stop to it after they noticed half the class didn't have their lunch money.  I was a pretty industrious child. 

 

[Cagey]

I passed on the 8th grade DC trip. I'm not sure, but I think it was $75 round-trip, including meals, lodging, transportation, etc.

Helluva deal, really. I wanted to go, just to say I did - our family never went on vacations. The idea of going to a whole 'nother state was intriguing. Would've put me miles ahead of most of the neighborhood brats. But, $75? I could think of dozens of things I could have for that kind of money that would last far beyond the memories of looking at some old statues in front of old buildings in a city that was worse off than the one I was in.

Lucky for me, my career led me into jobs that required travel all over hell's creation, so I didn't miss out. I did finally see DC at one point, where I got stopped and frisked by the cops (racial profiling at its most perverse), got mugged, inadvertently spent the night in a whorehouse, nearly starved, on and on. Quite an adventure.

Wish I was younger and could do it again <grin>

 

[llmtelecaster]

Worst: Cart boy at a golf course. Worked for and around some of the biggest drunks and dickheads on earth.

Best: The industrial supply company I now own and work at. Started working there in 2006 when my dad owned it. Liked it enough to stay there and eventually purchase it from my parents. Funny thing is it's the last thing I ever saw myself doing. I was in rock bands all through high school and college, went to art school, wanted to tour, etc. And now here I am doing the total opposite and loving it.