[Fortis]

Manager for a tutoring center. Parents are a fucking nightmare and everyone wants to reschedule all the time. And sometimes people would complete a tutoring package and not pay the final installment. Brutal.

[ElFlaco]

(10-05-2016 06:36 AM)JohannesAusPrag Wrote:  

What I can consider worst job experience was when I had internship at Accenture as SW tester, terribly managed project, 15 people in two rooms, constant nagging from boss that I have to work continuously without break apart from lunch one, constant press to stay afterhours, lunch break was not included in work time and worst from all absolutely incompetent project manager and colleagues (few exceptions).

You've perfectly described an Andersen/Accenture project I know of that who's internal code name was the SOFTWARE FACTORY, with no sense of irony. The name must have been chosen to remind everyone that they could easily be replaced, like a cog in a wheel. Every few months there would be a major 'rearchitecture', requiring tons more man-hours. They would hire kids green out of school and bill them out at outrageous rates to the unsuspecting client. What a business model.

[Private Man]

(10-05-2016 08:07 PM)ElFlaco Wrote:  

You've perfectly described an Andersen/Accenture project I know of that who's internal code name was the SOFTWARE FACTORY, with no sense of irony. The name must have been chosen to remind everyone that they could easily be replaced, like a cog in a wheel. Every few months there would be a major 'rearchitecture', requiring tons more man-hours. They would hire kids green out of school and bill them out at outrageous rates to the unsuspecting client. What a business model.

That's the "burn and churn" model. Hire 'em young, work them to death, expect them to quit after a couple of years experience when they can get better jobs.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

It works, after a fashion.

[XPQ22]

Movie theater food service/sweeper for two summers in college. Coming across a pile of soiled disposable diapers on the floor during cleanup after a show was one of the low points of the job. Or someone's bloody maxi pad. Being able to watch Men In Black or Spawn for free repeatedly for six weeks gets old fast. Occasionally you'd find a $10 or $20 bill someone dropped; that part was nice.

They ran a Jimmy Fund fundraiser each summer, at the end of the week the greasy fat slob manager and his slob wife would empty out 70% of the haul and take it home.

Don't eat the popcorn. Bring your own.

[Diop]

(10-06-2016 01:50 PM)Private Man Wrote:  

(10-05-2016 08:07 PM)ElFlaco Wrote:  

You've perfectly described an Andersen/Accenture project I know of that who's internal code name was the SOFTWARE FACTORY, with no sense of irony. The name must have been chosen to remind everyone that they could easily be replaced, like a cog in a wheel. Every few months there would be a major 'rearchitecture', requiring tons more man-hours. They would hire kids green out of school and bill them out at outrageous rates to the unsuspecting client. What a business model.

That's the "burn and churn" model. Hire 'em young, work them to death, expect them to quit after a couple of years experience when they can get better jobs.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

It works, after a fashion.

That sounds exactly like what they do in Public Accounting, which happens to be my worst job experience ever. I've spent time working for a call center, had a brief stint in high school working at Staples, and even shoveled shit all day all throughout one blazing hot Texas summer when I was younger and none of them were as bad as my experiences working for one of the Big Four accounting firms.

Burn and churn indeed. During busy seasons 80-90 hour weeks were not only routine, they were expected. It's tedious, stressful, and you're surrounded by shamelessly conniving coworkers and sadistic "seniors" (managers) with no good looking women among them (at least in my case. I've heard the opposite elsewhere). All of that essentially negates any semblance of a social life while causing you to gain weight, become depressed, and age rapidly for shit pay all for the promise of it "looking awesome on your resume!"

I should note that a small percentage of people not only enjoy the above but manage to thrive in that type of environment. I got the fuck out of there after a year, as did almost everyone else in my group. A few lasted another year longer, but no more than that.

[AFS]

I thought working in a restaurant was pretty bad, but the last FT job I had took the cake.

The pay was good, but it required me to sit alone at a computer for 10-11 hours a day, at least 6 days a week. In spite of this intense regimen, my boss would randomly (about 2-3 times a week) go on a completely insane rant about something I was doing. For example, I'd be working on important international projects, and he would go on a 3 paragraph tirade about a typo I sent him in an email and why that means I'm a horrible, good for nothing POS.

Many times I would get chewed out for doing things that he specifically asked me to do. It came to a point where I literally spent 2-3 hours a day arguing with him over email. After a few months it was like being in an insane asylum, where you no longer knew if up was down or what 2+2 was.

Normally I would quit after the very first incident, but it was a really difficult situation as my mother had broken her leg and my LTR was out of work, and I had to support my entire family and couldn't leave my job. On top of that, I was sick and without medical insurance would die.

Lesson learned: work toward not having to rely on other people to satisfy your financial or emotional needs. There is nothing worse than being a grown man, accomplishing so many things in your life, and still have some office retard demean you. In many ways I envy the samurai of old, who could simply decapitate someone if they showed them disrespect.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

Administrative position at a tech company that had 4 CEOs with equal authority who hated each other's guts. I couldn't believe that filling out some contracts or updating a website could be something hard until I got into that mess.

There's nothing worse than boss #1 screaming at you for writing a simple document the way boss #2 wanted while busy with bullshit make-work for boss #3 who wanted to fuck over boss #4 who had previously spent all the morning in your office arguing with both #1 and #2 over something #3 did. That shit lasted for almost a year. I eventually broke down and left after I started having nightmares and cold sweats at night.

That experience is half of the reason why I appreciate dictatorships more than democracy. And as unbelievable as it was, these people were all male.

[Laner]

When I was 16 I worked part time in a lube shop where we changed the oil and greased up oilfield fleet vehicles.

I spent a whole winter down in the pit with some of the funniest and craziest characters I had ever met. The boss up top was an Indian with the most deadpan humor, and the guy that I helped in the pit was a Chris Farley character. There were moments that I would be gasping for air as I was laughing so hard. They played each other beautifully.

The work though, was brutal. Frozen steel coming in off the lease roads into a semi warm lube shop. All the warm air was up top, which was just enough to melt the snow and ice from the trucks and onto us below in the near freezing pit. Icy cold road crud dripping down our backs, which did not help the body temp. Every time the bay door opened, the -40 air from outside would rush into the pit. My hand could barely hold a ratchet or a grease gun, but we made do.

Because our hands were so cold, our fine motor skills were terrible. Many tools were dropped down into the sump. The sump contained the used motor oil, and me being the kid got the job of going in and fishing. We tuck taped heavy duty garbage bags to me and I would wade into the near zero degree oil and fish around for the tools. After 20 minutes I was nearly purple with cold.

But you know what, I never minded it. I had the respect and acceptance of the other men, and after going fishing in the sump the boss would match tool prices with beer. I fished $40 in tools, he would buy us $40 in beer. I have long arms and have good sensory skills so I got us lots of beer.

This is the thread of the worst jobs, and indeed these are. But at the same time, I love and cherish these memories.

[numanist]

I worked a job at a upscale luxury hotel. I made very little money, and I had to deal with some guests that were extremely particular with what they wanted. The computer software we worked on had to be at least 20 years old, and I also had to deal with fluctuating room fares and issues with no vacancies. The bellman and the manager were nice people, but I can't say the same about some of the female co-workers there. One of them poured an alcoholic drink down my male-coworkers suit while off the job at a bar. The other one was a post-menstrual 20 year old 6 foot 2 inch alpha female who tried to domineer over me. Needless to say, I lasted just shy of two months before I put my 1 week notice in. What have your experiences been?

[bbgun]

In Wisconsin ... during the winter.

[Off The Reservation]

(07-21-2017 08:36 PM)numanist Wrote:  

I worked a job at a upscale luxury hotel. I made very little money, and I had to deal with some guests that were extremely particular with what they wanted. The computer software we worked on had to be at least 20 years old, and I also had to deal with fluctuating room fares and issues with no vacancies. The bellman and the manager were nice people, but I can't say the same about some of the female co-workers there. One of them poured an alcoholic drink down my male-coworkers suit while off the job at a bar. The other one was a post-menstrual 20 year old 6 foot 2 inch alpha female who tried to domineer over me. Needless to say, I lasted just shy of two months before I put my 1 week notice in. What have your experiences been?

It took me until 35 to find something I like doing that I actually did for more than a couple years. (Don't ask what I don't post it, it's too rare and there are only a few hundred of us worldwide. Generally speaking I am a business owner not an employee.)

I've stuck with it for a decade. Ups downs etc, and now being completely re-invented.

But I want to point something else out in your post, with the text in green. Yes the abuse and pettiness of hotels and restaurants and many offices can be annoying but back to the green.

You have something special if you don't want to put up with badness. Stupid ways others run businesses etc. What you should do with that is set the goal of owning your own hotel and running it better or ___________________________. Come over to the entrepreneurship thread for ideas and ask some of those guys.

Someone has to do it so if you put up with shit and swallow it when you could be doing better then you are no different from all the others. But if you set another type of goal then your life will be drastically different from the cuck who gets a drink poured on him.

Literally.

[Soundbyte]

I worked on a very small farm when I was younger. The kind where you only use hand tools and sweat. I hated it, but I had to.
I hated it then, but I appreciate the fact that I worked there.

[Screemingdead]

Hate roofing ahaha but decided to make a career out of it because its good money.
I just keep sane after work by training jujitsu and smoking up.

[Sonoma]

Hated working in an office. Some of the best money I ever made, but it wasn't worth it

[John Michael Kane]

Used to be a worker in a loading dock in a grocery store unloading pallets from the truck and stacking the shelves. Face paced work, back breaking and the wages were slightly higher than slavery. Oh, and the boss was completely ungrateful. The only job in my life that I quit without giving a two weeks notice, I didn't want their reference.

[Veloce]

-Blockbuster. They played some looped video in the store that was the same every day, featuring videos like Sugar Ray and that one song between Santana and Rob Thomas. This was at peak "teenage angst" years and I wound up stealing 30 or 40 VHS tapes.

-Ritz Camera. Shitty photo lab/camera shop in a mall. I would get so pissed off I'd intentionally process customers' photos with the saturation settings all fucked up so pictures would come out super magenta or cyan. I walked off the job but not before opening up a panel on the C-41 processor and yanking out a bunch of wires.

Funny that both stores are completely obsolete now.

-one of my worst cooking jobs was something right out of "Kitchen Confidential". Some shitty French bistro in the valley. Our paychecks would bounce but then the browbeaten owner's wife would waltz in with 6 shopping backs from Prada, Gucci, etc. So we all stole everything that wasn't bolted down. Meat, champagne, cooking equipment. There was no AC or any ventilation of any kind in the kitchen, and in the 100F+ valley summers I'd go to work in a wifebeater with a bandana around my head and would be dripping sweat into customers food. I'd get stoned at work with all the Tunisian illegal labor and fuck up horribly, the sanitation was awful, and I wound up getting into a screaming match with the owner one night during service and walked out. In retrospect it's pretty funny but at the time it made me really question whether or not the restaurant world was for me.

[JayR]

Housekeeping (janitor) in the local hospital while I was in high school. It paid more than my friends were making at Friendly's Ice Cream or at the gas station kiosk, but it was disgusting work. Cleaning toilets, mopping up puke, etc. I remember thinking to myself, "I don't want to end up like the full-timers here...I gotta go to college."

It sucked, but I don't regret the experience. Hard work shapes the man.

[eradicator]

Washing pets at a pet store.

Working in a kitchen making sandwiches and a bakery. The pay was shit and the hours sucked and it was draining. The owners kept shrinking portions and the customers would blame me for it. I lasted like 3 months, they went out of business a year later

I worked retail furniture, had a boss that everyone hated who just screamed at everyone for no real reason. The rest of the staff was ready to mutiny but then the manager's mom got sick of cancer and that was put on the table.

I don't know or care how any of that turned out. I lasted like 6 months, at least the pay was a little better.

[roberto]

(07-21-2017 08:55 PM)Off The Reservation Wrote:  

(07-21-2017 08:36 PM)numanist Wrote:  

I worked a job at a upscale luxury hotel. I made very little money, and I had to deal with some guests that were extremely particular with what they wanted. The computer software we worked on had to be at least 20 years old, and I also had to deal with fluctuating room fares and issues with no vacancies. The bellman and the manager were nice people, but I can't say the same about some of the female co-workers there. One of them poured an alcoholic drink down my male-coworkers suit while off the job at a bar. The other one was a post-menstrual 20 year old 6 foot 2 inch alpha female who tried to domineer over me. Needless to say, I lasted just shy of two months before I put my 1 week notice in. What have your experiences been?

But I want to point something else out in your post, with the text in green. Yes the abuse and pettiness of hotels and restaurants and many offices can be annoying but back to the green.

You have something special if you don't want to put up with badness. Stupid ways others run businesses etc.

Fuck yes, OTR drops gold again. When I was working my first job, on a farm, the boss told me to change the combine knives. A hundred rusty, low-profile-head bolts, no room to move, and sharp knives to catch your hands on. He gave me a pair of spanners.

After an hour and three knives changed, I went to town and spent my first weeks wages on an impact wrench. I then finished the job in half an hour. After a month, I decided I could run a better business and quit.

Ten years on and I'm in the office whilst my guys are out working. I'm about to buy another impact wrench. This time it's more like a morning's money, and I don't even have to think about it.

[Jeptomf]

When I was 30 I built my first house for speculation in the USA. While waiting for it to sell I ran out of money to live. A small miscalculation on my part. So I called up a concrete contractor who I had initially hired for my own flat work on my spec house... When I asked him for a job he was shocked and replied, "are you kidding me", and hired me on the spot.
After one month of getting up a 3am and busting ass on my hands and knees digging, grading, and pounding stakes into the ground. I received my first paycheck. I thought, "You have to be F'ing kidding me! That's all!"
I was able to pay my bills and I immediately took a "no excuses" approach to finding new work. By the next week I landed a $50 an hour job.
Funny thing. I remember exactly the moment during the interview for my new job where my future hung in the balance. The exact moment where my next words decided if I would go home empty handed or with a new future. I thought, "make you answer count". I will always remember that moment. So now when I hear someone complain that they can't find a job or when I am at a crossroads in my life....I think just one thought..."Concrete".
By the way I now sit in Prague in a flat in the center of town with a girlfriend, 12 years younger, who says she will wait for me while I visit Kiev for a month. "Hard roads often lead to beautiful destinations boys." Keep the faith.

[Thomas Jackson]

(07-21-2017 08:51 PM)bbgun Wrote:  



In Wisconsin ... during the winter.

Did this in the Southeast at Lowe's during the summer one summer during college. Man that sucked.

I'm a firm believer shitty/hard work is good for young men though.

[Mr. D]

Ride operator at an amusement park.

6 days on/3 days off (at first, later it was more like 8 on/1 off), 9 hours a day, for 6€ an hour.
And it was an hour drive away, so half of my measly paycheck went to gas.
Also got kicked out of a band because of this fucked up work schedule.

The work itself was tedious. Check everyone's strapped in, press button, machine does its run, let everyone off, rinse and repeat. As luck would have it, every day off was rainy and every workday was near blistering hot. And naturally the work outfit consisted of a black t-shirt and long pants. Windbreaker if it should rain.

That particular summer one operator had a fatal accident with one of the machines.
I promptly quit after that incident.

[yaku]

I got a job at a car washing place on summer break in college one year.

Left for lunch my first day and never returned. I worked on farm growing up, roofing in 110 temps in high school, all sorts of awful jobs that give you character but nothing else.

None was more depressing than wiping off cars for minimum wage.

[str8_thggn]

This thread makes me grateful for my cushy but tedious office job

[Uhondo]

Tech support.

Worked in a mulinational (not for a multinational) as an outsourced IT technician. Had to support sites in 25 different countries, and a lot of times the phone was the only tool at our disposal, particularly if the remote administration software couldn't work -which it seldom did. Sometimes i would stay on the phone till my ears hurt, partly because most calls were of very poor quality. It felt like telemarketing.

We were only two technicians, and many of the employees at the remote sites understood only other dialects well, not English, so you could be on phone for hours with a native French speaker over a small issue. At times we had to DHL in (quite expensive) "faulty" laptops, only to discover minor problems that might have been resolved locally in a matter of minutes. To add on to that, the local office had 100+ very impatient users breathing down your neck to solve their issues. The pay was shit, and i felt unemployed, doing basic support even though i had multiple certifications.

But reading through others responses makes me realize how good i had it. It was bad, but then again, considering the above, not that bad.