Worst job you've done?

[Sonikkumania]

What is the worst job you've ever been involved in?

 

 

I did telemarketing once.. For a day. I was young and in need of cash. The next day I quit. Still don't understand how people there had stayed for months.

[Biodegradable]

Years ago before I started my freelance business, I was schlepping through dozens of shitty, low-paying casual labour jobs that would forget about you after a week hosted by various "recruitment" companies. Zero job security. Odious and thankless work with no real future. The absolute worst of these shitty jobs was a janitor position for a... mechanical plant? I'm honestly not sure what to call it. It was a fairly big warehouse housing lots of hulking machinery used to make mining parts for other big hulking machines located elsewhere. I was there for maybe a little over a month before being fired for doing an unsatisfactory job. Allow me to enlighten you as to how the odds were very much stacked against me from Day 1.

 

Firstly, both the recruitment company that represented the job online and the warehouse people knew I had zero experience but neither of them seemed to think it was an issue. I figured they would teach me the ropes so I would know what I was doing and how to do it effectively. I was wrong. They left me to my own devices and provided very little in the way of help, guidance, cleaning supplies and equipment. They had me using an ancient vacuum cleaner that looked like it belonged in The Smithsonian. I swear, this thing was probably almost as old as my father. I had to ask them over and over and over again to provide more adequate materials and tools, but they never did and would look at me funny when they would see me using expired cleaning chemicals and ratty old equipment that they've neglected to look after for months, perhaps even years! The microwave in the kitchenette had a dial on it, for fuck's sake. Everything in the place looked like it hadn't been updated in the last 40 years. This neglect on their part was a huge hindrance in regards to me being able to work effectively or efficiently.

 

From what I could discern, the time between the last janitor leaving and my arrival must've been approximately six months. In that time, apparently nobody else who worked there made any effort to clean it. EVERYTHING was covered in dust and spiderwebs, the toilets were a nightmare and-because these bastards use big hulking machines that use saws and things to shape big metal parts-the factory floor was absolutely covered in billions upon billions of tiny metal shavings as far and wide as the eye could see. There were also MASSIVE piles of the stuff next to every machine that looked like this:

 

^{Imagine a big bitch like this sitting next to 9 different machines being used every single day, causing them to only grow larger.}

 

It was the kind of situation where, realistically, you needed a clean-up crew of at least 5 people with their own load of tools, machines and a big dump-truck to clean it all up. Instead, they've got little old me armed with nothing but a mid-sized bucket with holes in it and a small shovel that looked like it was salvaged from a World War 1 trench. What I really could've used was one of those miniature bulldozers, but those bastards would've been too lazy to train me to drive one. What also didn't help was that these clowns were still regularly using the machines every single day, yet they were expecting me to clean up 6 months worth of the metal slag in a single sitting. Naturally, the task was basically impossible. While I was able to clean out the office, the kitchenette, mop the customer floor entrance and made those fucking toilets sparkle daily all within the first hour of my shift; I found myself trapped at the first machine for days on end desperately trying to clear the gargantuan pile of metal shavings that was almost as tall as me (around 5 feet). Just to remind you, these morons would still use the very machine I'm trying to clear, undoing what little progress I was able to make every day. There were 8 other machines I never got anywhere near because they continued to perpetuate the first giant pile by using the first machine.

 

It was absolutely ridiculous and whenever one of them would say something akin to, "The bloke we had before could clean the whole floor in one afternoon" it took every ounce of strength for me to not tell them to blow it out their arse. What could I say? This was my very first job at the time after being unemployed for years. I didn't want to fuck it up. Eventually, I got a phone call from the recruitment company telling me I was let go and that was that. I pity whoever wound up replacing me. Who the hell knows how many other poor sods they've burned through since thanks to such a moronic situation their negligence and carelessness had created.

 

Phew! That was nice to get off my chest. :^)

[ducon]

Maybe teacher…

[Sonikkumania]

@Biodegradable lmao that sure sounds like bullshit. I've done the same work as you have except in less demanding shitty conditions, I was working in a hospital. To be honest it was chill asf when you just learned to close your ears and eyes from the patients enviroments, but I'm fucking glad I never got stuck there unlike some others, lol.

 

It's funny how these old geezers who've done the same brainless job for 30 years always have a need to put their shit on newcomers and janitors. I guess their life is nothing more but shitty work, being drunk and hungover 24/7. Poor bastards.

 

17 minutes ago, ducon said:

Maybe teacher…

Who and what did you teach?

[ducon]

Mathematics, children from 11 to 18.

[leejacksonaudio]

It's a toss-up between telemarketer and night shift at the 24-hour bowling alley. It was my job to hot-wash and then wax all 36 lanes, followed by doing a buff of the floors of the entire building. I hurt my back doing that job and actually quit at one point, only to come back after the boss practically begged me. Then, one night, after my co-worker told me he was "putting up the big bills," I was accused of stealing and banished from the bowling alley for life. I'd practically grown up in that bowling alley, so that was a kick to the balls when the boss did that. Didn't even give me a chance to prove my innocence. My only solace is that the bowling alley is now an Office Depot.

[vyruss]

Wal-Mart janitor.  'nuff said.

[Wyrmwood]

Day I'm having in work.....this one!

 

Actually, desperate for work during the 90s recession I tried a job doing door to door sales, it was horrible, the guy showing me the job was basically telling me to target old ladies which I hated him for, I have slight social anxiety so knocking on strangers doors was nerve-wracking and it absolutely pissed down rain all day. Stopped off a bar for lunch, had to remove my boxer shorts and wring them out in the toilet but the guy insisted you get more sales if your soaked. Finished the day off but missed the bus home, had to catch a different one that dropped me off 3 miles from my house and on the walk home the rain must of loosened the glue on my (cheap) dress shoes and one of the souls came off. Needless to say desperate for work as I was I didn't go in a second day.

[Smoothandz]

@leejacksonaudio

Damn Lee, I don't know what's worse. The being accused and not given a chance to prove your innocence, or being banned from the alley. I grew up in a bowling alley as well and it would kill me not being able to go back to Timberlodge Lanes. (And I still play today, love bowling)

 

@Biodegradable

Wow, all I can is wow. You so far take the cake for worst job ever. I mean, how dare you ask for supplies to actually do your job. 

 

For me, I worked at an AutoZone (car parts store) that wasn't in the best neighborhood. I transfered to that store from a small town store when I moved to "the big city." Only lasted one month after working at the other store for years. At least once a week, windows were broken and parts were stolen. Every other customer complained about something stupid. But the final straw was we were robbed at gunpoint about 30 mins before closing. Needless to say, I quit the next day. 

[MrFroz]

I wrote about it on the comments section of a Deftones song in YouTube:

 

[Snark]

Flower picking...

 

Sounds nice doesn't it? And easy, right?

 

It's 42 degrees celsius, no shade wherever, you're alone in field that just stretches on past the frontiers of infinity trying to concentrate really hard to properly harvest one of the 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 flowers you have to pick that day, surrounded by a tyranid legion of bees and bumblebees that don't take kindly to being interrupted in their business, for less  money than you get flipping burgers. 12 hours and 18 bee stings later, I gave up and left without pay.

[Mr. Freeze]

Comcast salesman. Literal door to door shit, only paid on commission. Lasted only two days, on the third morning I invented a phone call from my grandmother about my grandfather falling down and being rushed to the hospital and GTFO of our morning sales meeting. Sorry gramps!

[CittyKat112]

Mapping for Doom.

[Chezza]

Honorable mention is being a sales telemarketer for 4 years and I had a sociopath of a call center manager who matches the generalization of a terrible micromanager. There was also a inner-circle of corrupted salesmen and managers who would quietly hand the best leads to their favorites. I was treated like a child there and my strengths weren't appreciated. When I shared my goals and how I like to move into Marketing, they scoffed at me. Not until I built networks behind their backs and volunteered my time supporting other departments without them knowing, did I get the job I wanted in the company. Within one year in the new role I won a award while in the sales role they looked down on me.

 

But I think the worst job is being a door-to-door salesmen for a business with a pyramid scheme like structure. Only commission pay. I was more of a hawker bothering business owners (and without permission, turned out my managers wanted us to hawk until we get kicked out). I was once caught by a councilmen (I wasn't aware what I did wrong) for selling in a area I shouldn't. I called my managers to tell them about it and they just said "go in another area where he isn't hanging around". I quit my job the next day.

 

Sad thing was, I had a university degree in business while I had those jobs. I took them on because no place would accept graduates without 2 years of marketing experience. The irony in calling them graduate jobs.

Edited October 28, 2022 by Chezza

[7Mahonin]

I worked security at a poultry plant and there was a room we had to make sure the door was locked at all times because the stuff inside could be stolen to make meth. Not sure what was inside but it was pretty spooky at night all alone in a massive facility like that, and the pay was absolutely not worth it. It was at least a stepping stone to move further into the physical security field. 

[MrFroz]

2 hours ago, 7Mahonin said:

I worked security at a poultry plant and there was a room we had to make sure the door was locked at all times because the stuff inside could be stolen to make meth. Not sure what was inside but it was pretty spooky at night all alone in a massive facility like that, and the pay was absolutely not worth it. It was at least a stepping stone to move further into the physical security field. 

 

Gotta be constantly on the watch for these two

 

[StodgyAyatollah]

My very first job as a teenager was for a Christmas tree farm. We traveled to small plots of land all over the state owned by the business to trim and maintain pine trees so they would be ready for the holiday season. Spinning in circles for 8 hours waving what were essentially three foot razor blades at the trees (to promote their cone shape) was exacerbated by the fact that 99% of the staff were on varying levels of drugs. Ranging from meth, coke, pot or booze. Being nothing but young men, mostly unsupervised who had a tendency to pull pranks on each other. I saw a lot of gruesome injuries. It was often in scorching heat so the sap from the tress would liquify and cover everyone. Any dirt or debris would become glued to it. Once it dried it couldn't be washed off without hours of scrubbing. I imagine it wasn't a dissimilar sensation to being tarred and feathered. One day I was sun burnt so bad I suffered 2nd degree burns over 25% of my body according to a doctor. I had gulf ball sized blisters up and down my arms. I wrapped myself in gauze and left a trail of dripping puss everywhere I went for a few weeks. I thought it must be one of the wort jobs ever so quit and found another a short time later and discovered I was very wrong. Things could be much, much worse. 

 

I started working at an egg ranch. The initial presence of ammonia when entering any of the buildings housing the chickens was suffocating, like a punch in the chest. I did many varying odd jobs as they were desperate for workers and a lack of training or knowledge didn't bar me from anything. Variously daily tasks involved handling the chickens and a lot of maintenance. The buildings were thousands of feet long and housed countless chickens. Rows of cages layered on top of each other. Each cage was roughly a foot and a half square and held five chickens, which had little room for them to move so they were missing most of their feathers from trying to move in the tight space and often caused each other serious injuries. Everything was covered in so much dust and shit it's hard to comprehend and there was a lake of shit beneath. You would walk on narrow, creaky beams between the rows of cages to get to them. The cages were angled so eggs would roll out onto narrow conveyors that were in constant need of repair. The chickens were transported from building to building at different stages in their life. The final building was were they spent their final days before trucks would pick them up to bring them for processing to be used in soups or other things where the quality of their meat wasn't important. This process involved quickly grabbing the fragile, aged chickens from their cages and slamming them into a stack of transport cages to be loaded on the truck. The entire time while doing this you had to listen to and feel their brittle bones breaking and were constantly being shit on. I actually washed my eyes out with bar soap those days because of the insane amount of shit that would get into your eyes. Any clothes you wore were ruined and would permanently carry the smell. A few other unpleasant tasks were putting on hip waders and going into the lake of shit to perform maintenance on the industrial fans. Vaccinating the young chickens because you were essentially sitting on the floor and reaching past your toes for multiple shifts and needles scraping on bone is a sensation that still makes my hair stand on end when remembering. Sweeping the ceilings was particularly god awful. The ceilings would accumulate around four to six inches of dust and debris caked into a thick mass of spiderwebs within a couple weeks. The cleaning method was to hold a corn broom straight up above you with just enough reach to touch the ceiling and walk forward, knocking a cloud of filth and spiders straight down onto yourself. Keep in mind these buildings were thousands of feet long. We had masks and goggles but you could not wear both because the googles would fog up too bad. We all opted for masks because breathing everything in sounded like a worse fate. So we would have thick masses of filth working it's way out of our eyes for days after. I also washed my eyes with bar soap on those days. Once I messed up my rotator cuff and couldn't lift anything more than five pounds without my arm turning to rubber so they put me on light duty. I had to go up and down the rows of cages with a children's snow sled looking for dead chickens and remove them from the cages. There are a few stages for them to have been in. Freshly dead where they are starting to bloat and can explode on contact. Decomposing, when they are just a gelatinous mass oozing through the cage floor while being stomped on by the other chickens. And dried, where they are nearly petrified, melded to the cage floor and covered in shit. I worked there for around six months before quitting, burnt all my wrecked clothes and wouldn't eat chicken or eggs for a few years after. Fortunately I've also experienced the other side of things since then and had some jobs on the complete other end of the spectrum.

 

[Wyrmwood]

50 minutes ago, StodgyAyatollah said:

My very first job as a teenager was for a Christmas tree farm. We traveled to small plots of land all over the state owned by the business to trim and maintain pine trees so they would be ready for the holiday season. Spinning in circles for 8 hours waving what were essentially three foot razor blades at the trees (to promote their cone shape) was exacerbated by the fact that 99% of the staff were on varying levels of drugs. Ranging from meth, coke, pot or booze. Being nothing but young men, mostly unsupervised who had a tendency to pull pranks on each other. I saw a lot of gruesome injuries. It was often in scorching heat so the sap from the tress would liquify and cover everyone. Any dirt or debris would become glued to it. Once it dried it couldn't be washed off without hours of scrubbing. I imagine it wasn't a dissimilar sensation to being tarred and feathered. One day I was sun burnt so bad I suffered 2nd degree burns over 25% of my body according to a doctor. I had gulf ball sized blisters up and down my arms. I wrapped myself in gauze and left a trail of dripping puss everywhere I went for a few weeks. I thought it must be one of the wort jobs ever so quit and found another a short time later and discovered I was very wrong. Things could be much, much worse. 

 

I started working at an egg ranch. The initial presence of ammonia when entering any of the buildings housing the chickens was suffocating, like a punch in the chest. I did many varying odd jobs as they were desperate for workers and a lack of training or knowledge didn't bar me from anything. Variously daily tasks involved handling the chickens and a lot of maintenance. The buildings were thousands of feet long and housed countless chickens. Rows of cages layered on top of each other. Each cage was roughly a foot and a half square and held five chickens, which had little room for them to move so they were missing most of their feathers from trying to move in the tight space and often caused each other serious injuries. Everything was covered in so much dust and shit it's hard to comprehend and there was a lake of shit beneath. You would walk on narrow, creaky beams between the rows of cages to get to them. The cages were angled so eggs would roll out onto narrow conveyors that were in constant need of repair. The chickens were transported from building to building at different stages in their life. The final building was were they spent their final days before trucks would pick them up to bring them for processing to be used in soups or other things where the quality of their meat wasn't important. This process involved quickly grabbing the fragile, aged chickens from their cages and slamming them into a stack of transport cages to be loaded on the truck. The entire time while doing this you had to listen to and feel their brittle bones breaking and were constantly being shit on. I actually washed my eyes out with bar soap those days because of the insane amount of shit that would get into your eyes. Any clothes you wore were ruined and would permanently carry the smell. A few other unpleasant tasks were putting on hip waders and going into the lake of shit to perform maintenance on the industrial fans. Vaccinating the young chickens because you were essentially sitting on the floor and reaching past your toes for multiple shifts and needles scraping on bone is a sensation that still makes my hair stand on end when remembering. Sweeping the ceilings was particularly god awful. The ceilings would accumulate around four to six inches of dust and debris caked into a thick mass of spiderwebs within a couple weeks. The cleaning method was to hold a corn broom straight up above you with just enough reach to touch the ceiling and walk forward, knocking a cloud of filth and spiders straight down onto yourself. Keep in mind these buildings were thousands of feet long. We had masks and goggles but you could not wear both because the googles would fog up too bad. We all opted for masks because breathing everything in sounded like a worse fate. So we would have thick masses of filth working it's way out of our eyes for days after. I also washed my eyes with bar soap on those days. Once I messed up my rotator cuff and couldn't lift anything more than five pounds without my arm turning to rubber so they put me on light duty. I had to go up and down the rows of cages with a children's snow sled looking for dead chickens and remove them from the cages. There are a few stages for them to have been in. Freshly dead where they are starting to bloat and can explode on contact. Decomposing, when they are just a gelatinous mass oozing through the cage floor while being stomped on by the other chickens. And dried, where they are nearly petrified, melded to the cage floor and covered in shit. I worked there for around six months before quitting, burnt all my wrecked clothes and wouldn't eat chicken or eggs for a few years after. Fortunately I've also experienced the other side of things since then and had some jobs on the complete other end of the spectrum.

 

 

Holy fucking shit man, don't think anyones gonna top that!

 

I remember hearing some horror story pranks they used to play in the local slaughter house though, so maybe.......

[Doom_Dude]

I had this construction / manual labor job when I was young. The boss wanted me to dig out the trench for the sewer line with a pickaxe, in the basement of this house that he was building for his mother. On top was gravel, then chunks of large stone and then hard-pan which is as hard as concrete. All damned day, I dug that shit out and had to dig out under a wall for like 100 feet or something mental. The next day he tells me he wants it in a different place. That was fucking brutal. I wanted to kill that guy. The next day he took everybody but me to go move his plane. It was hot as hell and he had me digging out the gravel and rock around a well crock with the pickaxe again. I sat on my ass most of the time and they were gone for ages. My buddy comes back and tells me they moved the plane and they were drinking beer and sitting around and shit. I didn't get a beer, the bastards. My buddy's dad also worked with us and one morning they got into a yelling match on the work site. Buddy decides to leave so I got the fuck out of there and went with him as he was my drive. His dad was Dr Jeckle / Mr Hyde... and he could be a real prick. He told me to throw his dad's lunch out the door of the truck, so I complied and we went home and played Atari 2600 games. Never went back to that hole. heh.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Doom_Dude

[StodgyAyatollah]

10 minutes ago, Wyrmwood said:

 

Holy fucking shit man, don't think anyones gonna top that!

 

I remember hearing some horror story pranks they used to play in the local slaughter house though, so maybe.......

I'm sure there are a lot worse jobs, particularly in the commercial farming or slaughter industries. Or anyone who has been to war. For the average person though I think I had a pretty rough introduction into the workforce. Made me a lot more resilient in the long run but It's debatable if it was worth it. 

[Lizardcommando]

7 hours ago, vyruss said:

Wal-Mart janitor.  'nuff said.

 

Ugh, I've been there man. Grave shift janitorial sucked ass.

 

Worst job so far: patient service technician for a medical supply company specializing in respiratory functions. Having to deliver and bring back concentrators, oxygen tanks and (worst of all) hospital beds, especially during COVID (thankfully not at the height of it, but towards the general rollout of the first vaccine injections). Having stops being added to your route non-stop throughout the entire day. It was super stressful. Worst was having to be on the on-call schedule. I ended up getting let go due to having too many accidents on the road. I was deemed a liability because of insurance.

[bofu]

I've worn a lot of hats. Some of my best jobs include teaching university music theory and aural skills courses, working at an independent musical instrument store, and working at a restaurant in a college town that pretty much just made calzones.

 

But you're not here to hear about my best jobs. You're here to hear about my worst job.

 

I was in grad school at the time, living in a college town (different college town than the one previously mentioned). There's a local chain of restaurants in that area that specializes in chicken wings and tenders, as well as appetizers and their bar. They have some pretty good food. When I applied and got interviewed for this job, there were a number of caveats: first, you have to supply most of my own uniform. Second, you weren't told when your shift was scheduled to end, only when it was scheduled to begin. Third, you had to take some tests to prove you knew the menu. On the other hand, I also told them well ahead of time that I'd be on a trip out of the country for two weeks in June, several months from the time I was getting hired, which they said was fine.

 

The job started off okay, but as it got busy, it got to be a real pain in the ass. The worst bit was showing up at 5:30 PM for my shift only to find out that I would be closing — which meant not getting out until well after 3:00 AM (the place stayed open until 2). For the record, I had an 8:00 AM final the very next day (next day? more like same day).

 

Then, there's the injuries. While cleaning the fryer, which could only be down for a very limited time because of how often they needed to be used, I used the oven mitt to grab the grease tray, which was still hot, but the oven mitt should have protected me. It did not, as the material inside had worn, and I ended up with a massive burn on my hand that quickly swelled into a water-filled blister the size of a softball.

 

I still had to go to work the next day.

 

That wasn't the only safety fail at this place. We were told that if we slipped and fell, we had to tell the manager because it was a safety violation. Well, while cleaning up dishes, I slipped and fell because the floor was greasier than the inside of a jar of Vaseline. Hurt my butt pretty badly, too. When I went to tell the manager, she just looked at me and said "so, what do you expect me to do about it?" and made me get back to work.

 

So, by the time I have my two week trip in June, I'm ready to be gone. I had put in my availability weeks ahead of time, so they knew I would be gone. I double checked my schedule before I left to make sure that I wouldn't need to offload anything (the schedule for those weeks had been published, and I was indeed listed as off) and left for my trip.

 

About the start of the second week of my trip, I receive an email notification indicating that my schedule has been changed. I figure that they've just posted the schedule for the week I get back, but when I look at the schedule, I see that they've scheduled me for a shift three days before I get back. I try emailing the manager, but they tell me in a very hostile manner that "you were never approved for that much time off" and that I was required to find someone to cover my shift if I couldn't make it.

 

I spend a lot of time making international phone calls to the various cooks in the restaurant to see if any of them can cover my shift, but most of them are already working that day. One agrees to cover it, and I let the manager know. She responds, however, saying that he can't work that shift because it would make him hit overtime. So, I'm pretty much screwed.

 

I'm panicking at this point. I call my mom (my parents were helping me out through grad school financially on the condition that I held a part-time job), and I tell her the news that I'm probably going to lose my job. When she hears about the situation, she tells me that I don't owe them a damned thing and that I shouldn't worry about it, because no job is worth the crap that place put me through.

 

So, I no-called no-showed. I didn't give them any notice, I didn't try to find anyone else to cover my shift, nothing. And it was the most freeing experience of my life, because it was the first time in my life where I'd been jerked around like that and could just walk away from it.

 

Apparently, the restaurant really struggled that week and remained understaffed for some time afterward. Managers had to cover the shifts I was going to work because I simply ghosted them. And the best part is, the day before my trip ended, I was contacted by the music store I mentioned above (I'd put in my resume with them around the same time I'd applied for this crappy restaurant job), and they wanted to interview me once I got back.

 

I got back, got the interview, and enjoyed the hell out of the new job. Picked up the last paycheck from the old job and left the uniform they made me pay for on the counter.

 

Went from a stressful job that paid like crap, treated me like crap, caused me physical injury, and didn't respect my time to a much better job that was more relevant to my interests, I looked forward to going to each day, and paid about a dollar an hour more, without making me buy my own stupid uniform or anything like that.

[Dubbag]

I used to work at a Purina plant like 5 years ago. One day a pipe containing pet food moved by an auger conveyor broke open and no one in the plant noticed for hours. When they did find out, a room the size of my apartment was filled with cat food up to our knees, at some points to our waists. I worked for a temp agency in that plant and the actual company workers sent us to do their dirty work and clean their messes. A team of 4 of us spent 12 hours with shovels and three 20 gallon buckets cleaning it up. Oh yeah also there was a door open to outside they told us we couldnt close, it was 10 degrees out in the middle of December. Two guys in our team were lazy and slow as hell too. And this kind of shit happened all the time.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Dub Bag

[RHhe82]

Damn, I think I've had it good, as I can't think of a job I've loathed. When I was a teenager, my hometown offered summer jobs, and I guess the worst one I had was also the first one, where I'd be trimming bushes and thickets for two weeks. Most of the days I was just left alone, it was hard work for a nerd like me, summer was hot, burnt my skin in the sun and so forth. If it wasn't clear to me by that time, after the ordeal I knew I'd be going for an office job.

 

But as for the rest, nothing bad. When I graduated, I was forced to apply for jobs (in order to receive unemployment benefits) I probably would have hated, but luckily (though it didn't feel so at the time) I was rejected for being over-educated. A bullet was dodged, as I'd land a job I was educated for in a few months.

[IcarusOfDaggers]

20 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

Years ago before I started my freelance business, I was schlepping through dozens of shitty, low-paying casual labour jobs that would forget about you after a week hosted by various "recruitment" companies. Zero job security. Odious and thankless work with no real future. The absolute worst of these shitty jobs was a janitor position for a... mechanical plant? I'm honestly not sure what to call it. It was a fairly big warehouse housing lots of hulking machinery used to make mining parts for other big hulking machines located elsewhere. I was there for maybe a little over a month before being fired for doing an unsatisfactory job. Allow me to enlighten you as to how the odds were very much stacked against me from Day 1.

 

Firstly, both the recruitment company that represented the job online and the warehouse people knew I had zero experience but neither of them seemed to think it was an issue. I figured they would teach me the ropes so I would know what I was doing and how to do it effectively. I was wrong. They left me to my own devices and provided very little in the way of help, guidance, cleaning supplies and equipment. They had me using an ancient vacuum cleaner that looked like it belonged in The Smithsonian. I swear, this thing was probably almost as old as my father. I had to ask them over and over and over again to provide more adequate materials and tools, but they never did and would look at me funny when they would see me using expired cleaning chemicals and ratty old equipment that they've neglected to look after for months, perhaps even years! The microwave in the kitchenette had a dial on it, for fuck's sake. Everything in the place looked like it hadn't been updated in the last 40 years. This neglect on their part was a huge hindrance in regards to me being able to work effectively or efficiently.

 

From what I could discern, the time between the last janitor leaving and my arrival must've been approximately six months. In that time, apparently nobody else who worked there made any effort to clean it. EVERYTHING was covered in dust and spiderwebs, the toilets were a nightmare and-because these bastards use big hulking machines that use saws and things to shape big metal parts-the factory floor was absolutely covered in billions upon billions of tiny metal shavings as far and wide as the eye could see. There were also MASSIVE piles of the stuff next to every machine that looked like this:

 

^{Imagine a big bitch like this sitting next to 9 different machines being used every single day, causing them to only grow larger.}

 

It was the kind of situation where, realistically, you needed a clean-up crew of at least 5 people with their own load of tools, machines and a big dump-truck to clean it all up. Instead, they've got little old me armed with nothing but a mid-sized bucket with holes in it and a small shovel that looked like it was salvaged from a World War 1 trench. What I really could've used was one of those miniature bulldozers, but those bastards would've been too lazy to train me to drive one. What also didn't help was that these clowns were still regularly using the machines every single day, yet they were expecting me to clean up 6 months worth of the metal slag in a single sitting. Naturally, the task was basically impossible. While I was able to clean out the office, the kitchenette, mop the customer floor entrance and made those fucking toilets sparkle daily all within the first hour of my shift; I found myself trapped at the first machine for days on end desperately trying to clear the gargantuan pile of metal shavings that was almost as tall as me (around 5 feet). Just to remind you, these morons would still use the very machine I'm trying to clear, undoing what little progress I was able to make every day. There were 8 other machines I never got anywhere near because they continued to perpetuate the first giant pile by using the first machine.

 

It was absolutely ridiculous and whenever one of them would say something akin to, "The bloke we had before could clean the whole floor in one afternoon" it took every ounce of strength for me to not tell them to blow it out their arse. What could I say? This was my very first job at the time after being unemployed for years. I didn't want to fuck it up. Eventually, I got a phone call from the recruitment company telling me I was let go and that was that. I pity whoever wound up replacing me. Who the hell knows how many other poor sods they've burned through since thanks to such a moronic situation their negligence and carelessness had created.

 

Phew! That was nice to get off my chest. :^)

Not legal advice.

This sounds like a bunch of broken labor laws. Not sure where you're from, but if you're anything close to an EU...well... a call to the inspectors might be in order. 

 

I am also pretty sure there is some wrongful termintation going on in there, as well as multiple other laws broken

This does remind me how half the cleaning crew in a retail store quit on the spot. I was a temporary employee in one of the large chains in my country. Well, one day, veterinary and food safety came to inspect our products, but stumbled upon very toxic strain of black mold. They closed the store down, and the managers tried to fire the cleaner at the work that day. Well, since that person was part of a group chat with other cleaning and sanitation staff, each and every one of them handed in their two week notice. The store has stayed closed for 2 months now.

It was sight to behold, but I am pretty sure my chuckle made sure I will never work for that store again.

Edited October 29, 2022 by IcarusOfDaggers

[Dubbag]

oh yeah another shitty part of that same job was every week on friday the entire plant would cease operation to be cleaned. Our team of 8 would be responsible for going under giant pet food dryers and sweeping them. This is a picture of the type machine I'm talking about. (They were never this clean BTW)

You would literally be crawling on your hands and knees underneath them in a 110 degree F room for hours with a disconnected broom head sweeping them out and shoveling up the dirt into buckets then taking those buckets to dumpsters. 10 Dryers, one person working on each or some days 2 or 3 of them if someone called off because we had only a team of 8. Oh yeah, you're also getting soaking wet with sweat and hot water from the other side of the room because people are spraying down machines over there.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Dub Bag

[ZethXM]

Warehouse DC for retail. Hired for freight, but sent to pick (pull items from boxes and put them in totes to fill orders which were sent to shipping), because fuck you, do what we tell you.  Picking had a quota.  If you were under quota enough days you were canned.  The thing is, the package management system the company bolted onto your wrist wouldn't send you in a straight line up and down the aisles, it would have you go all over the damn place, putting hundreds of steps of walking time between each pick location.  Unless you were considered "fast", and then you'd get orders next to each other just fine, ensuring you remained seen as "fast".

 

The reason for that was as follows:  the system was designed to get orders to shipping as fast as possible.  The way it optimizes for that was to send the "fastest" pickers (measured by a completely opaque and hidden speed value) to pick-rich paths, so if you weren't on the short list, you were on the shit list, and got run to isolated locations which all but guaranteed you failed quota.  They played this like it was your fault, but the fact is the quota was set to guarantee a certain number of stragglers to put under the gun.  Built-in turnover with plausible deniability.

 

The only way to tread water was to run all day for 12 hours a day and try not to drink enough water to need to piss.  Breaks were at the other end of the building.  If you need to team lift, no you don't.  If you got hurt, you should have team lifted, that's a violation.  Fact is you were in competition with your coworkers to keep your job, and you were up against meth addicts, so good luck keeping up.  But as long as you could keep your quota failures and attendance violations inconsistent enough you fell below a rolling annual point tally, you could defer your eventual firing and keep food on the table.

 

Productivity increases were planned out and pushed every single year, and we only ever heard two things in company meetings:  A. the company is doing better than ever, and B. here's why your back-, hip-, shoulder-, and knee-injury covering insurance is going to pay for less and cost more this year, why you aren't getting a bonus, and why raises have to be small.  Also overtime will be mandatory this year, like every year.

 

Got canned when HR found out I applied for FMLA (I have had a pretty fucky sleep disorder for most of my life).  The small town clinic mysteriously failed to file the paperwork just in time for the company to mysteriously find extra attendance points on my record they'd missed and demand I account for that day or be terminated.  Was too young to properly self-advocate.

 

The state department of labor, however, summarily awarded me the maximum unemployment compensation value possible.

[Arrowhead]

I worked anti-fraud for a large office supplies company.

 

I would start my shift, and do nothing but argue w/ credit-card fraudsters all day. Was VERY tiring - especially when these people were taking advantage of the elderly.

 

I got paid peanuts too...

[129thVisplane]

Being an under 30 with only 3 jobs in my life I haven't been through much work shit but surprisingly I enjoy my current status as a retail shelf restocker. My first ever job experience was a disaster though. Not as much as y'all's but still. The graphic design focused high school i went to literally forced 16 year old me into an apprenticeship at a back alley print shop where i never knew what exactly to do and how, the stereotypical mean girl coworker would harass me constantly, and i had to go out and buy tp and vacuum the whole office for the boss. which was not only a problem because i was a sheltered ass 16 y/o afraid of stores and vacuums, but also the boss routinely forgot to pay me (which i guess was only "fair" considering i had routine meltdowns at work hours), and straight up told the manager of the whole apprenticeship business at school, in front of me, that i was basically an unemployable shitchild. which i guess was semi-true, i dropped out due to being a shitchild (read: untreated mental fuckery amplified by art perfectionism/bitch teachers/being a social outcast, and flunking math), but up yours big guy i get actually paid and treated as an adult now

[OpenRift]

Lidl. Quit about a month ago. Incompetent management, bullshit protocols, dumbass customers. It was insufferable.