1--The first and foremost horrible job that has scarred me for life was working as an accidental death and dismemberment insurance telemarketer. Yeah, my sister and a couple of my friends worked there too, which helped ease a wee bit of the pain...but have you worked in telemarketing? Then you know how awful it is.
And not only is the job awful--calling and hounding people to just talk to me on the phone and not hang up or cuss me out--the product itself was not the most cheery thing in the world. "Hey, total stranger, if you buy our insurance and lose an eye and a limb in an accident, you get XX dollars. However, if you lose two limbs, you get XXX dollars. And if your accident results in death, you get the maximum price of XXXX. And all for the bargain price of X a month."
As you can imagine, most people didn't want to talk to me. LOL. I can't really blame them...no one wants to be reminded of their mortality, or their natural frailty as a human being--much less by someone who interrupted them at home in the middle of the day.
Yeah, I didn't last long at that job.
2--My second horrible job: I managed to snag a position at a place I thought would be super awesome...working as a tennis court attendant. The place I worked for had like 10 courts, with 4 of them indoors. I thought I'd work inside the snack building, selling tennis snobs and sweaty teens some Gatorade and signing them up to rent the courts, and that would be the extent of it. Totally cushy, right?
It wasn't until I started working there that I realized it was rather like being in a prison movie.
My first daily task was to use a big, awkward leaf blower to clear off the courts every morning. Anyone who knows me knows I have the most horrid allergies. So after complaining (and even having to leave work early because of utter facial misery), the company begrudgingly provided me with a face mask while I did this job. As you can imagine, I was sooooo attractive.
Yes, I did have periods of time working inside the air-conditioned building, selling Gatorade...but the bulk of my time was spent outside, doing manual labor/maintenance on the grounds. See, I was usually working with this woman who had to be in her eighties...like I was going to make her go do the back-breaking, craptacular work, which included such fun tasks as:
--pulling the weeds out from the cracks of the sidewalks and in/around the outdoor courts (my boss didn't want to use pesticides, so we had to HAND-PULL THEM OUT).
--weeding the gardens
--squeegeeing the outdoor courts off after the rain (absolutely horrible...we had these MASSIVE squeegees we had to use on the courts to push the rainwater off the courts)
--power-washing the courts
--DIGGING A DRAINAGE DITCH. That one was the worst.
After this, I knew I had to quit. I was tired, crabby, and pretty much hated the job with every fiber of my being.
Okay, so those are my worst two jobs. What about you? Any horrible jobs? Share, share, share!
I guess those are better than being the class clown and pulling the chair out from under an unsuspecting individual.
ReplyDeleteI fried donuts at a grocery story bakery. Twice. NEVER again.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, I was a proud owner of a polyester uniform for Mickey D's as a wee teenager! It was a very entertaining job but I didn't see a future in cashiering at a fast food chain forever.
ReplyDeleteThe ultimate worse was being a personal assistant to a multi-millionaire who was totally eccentric. I had to endure some crazy stuff but I'm keeping those secrets for my fiction pieces. Let's just say being on call 24/7 is SO not fun! Thinks Swimming with Sharks meets Hugh Heffner.
Jax, can't wait to read THAT book!
ReplyDeleteI briefly drove a hot truck. That's like a lunch wagon that goes around selling food to construction workers on job sites. That job started at 3AM. It was...not fun.
ReplyDeleteanonymous, are you AJ? ROFL. I said I was sorry--I didn't want you ignoring me for senior blackout day! hahaha
ReplyDeleteGwen--was doing donuts THAT bad?
Jax, I worked at McDonalds in high school too! LOL. But I never assisted a millionaire...LOL sounds like I should be glad I didn't!
Kristen--OMG that sounds AWFUL.
One of the first summer jobs I had was at a drive-in called Hi-Spot. The manager was this bowling ball with arms and legs who took the calling of food service much too seriously. I was embarrassed to tell anyone where I worked, so if they asked, I would say my workplace was H&S Enterprises. One night I met this ridiculously cute guy at a dance and I gave him the H&S bull. And who do you think came through the drive-thru the very next day? (With a leggy blonde in the passenger seat, no less.) Total humiliation.
ReplyDeleteLinda--OMG that would suck so hard...I can totally see that happening in my head!!
ReplyDeleteOoh, Rhonda, what awful jobs! I'm lucky that none of mine were quite as bad. My worst was probably working in a college cafeteria -- insisting that the basketball players bring their IDs, and picking the goldfish crackers out of the salad dressing before scooping off the shiny part and then dumping what remained back into the big bin... :-)
ReplyDeleteIn Los Angeles, you have to be extremely cautious of people posting job ads on cragislist. A lot of them are creepy/insane. Imagine my luck when I got hired as an assistant at a marketing company.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it wasn't so much marketing. When I showed up to my first day (at a house in the Valley, with the dilapitated garage serving as office headquarters), I discovered that the company was actually nothing but spammers. Yeah, those guys that send you annoying e-mails about increasing the size of your junk? That was my new boss.
So here I was, pretending not to be appalled at the whole thing and just hoping to get through the day unscathed. Did I mention that my new "boss" was explaining my job duties while lighting up a bong fashioned from a beer can? True story.
At 5 p.m. I was given five twenties and told to come back tomorrow for more spamming. Don't hurl tomatoes at me, but I came back. Hey, I needed the money. And since he was paying me under the table, I figured I'd stay on for a few more days and make some tax-free cash.
Day 2 was the last day. That was the day I discovered that my boss actually produced porn as well. Shocking, I know. So, as his new assistant, he expected me to come with him to the shoot. In Long Beach. In his car. Which was a very expensive car, by the way. I made up an excuse about not feeling good, took my hundred bucks, and left.
McDonald's was looking pretty good by the end of that week. I'd rather make a happy meal than wipe bodily fluids off my shoes.
OMG I totally don't feel so bad about my crap week working at KFC where I had a customer yell at me for not taking the order fast enough.
ReplyDeleteI shortly decided being broke wasn't that bad.
Minx
I always thought working in a dog kennel would be fun - especially after the owner told me one of my duties would be walking the dogs. Umm, not. I think I walked one dog once. Otherwise, I was cleaning kennels and washing dogs. One Memorial Day weekend, I had to wash a boatload of dogs before their owners came to pick them up. By the fifth dog, I so close to hating pooches and myself, I quit.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I've worked in telemarketing - both as a telemarketer and as a manager of said people. The whole industry just blows chunks, but it paid the bills.