Crap Jobs

[Mandaloopy]

Worked since 16, so had quite a few jobs; some decent ones and some that were just crap. The crappiest of all? Working for "Daves Fish Bar" in the somewhat charming, somewhat depressing seaside town of Sheringham. The place was not unsurprisingly owned by "Dave" a man of vast proportions with the voice of an alto choirboy. Saw him once at the interview and then never again. Who doesn't love a traditional fish and chip dinner? It took me months to want to eat it again after finally finishing my last shift.

Safety in the kitchen wasn't the biggest priority: after all, giant deep fat friars, buckets of chips to be tossed in them and a miserable harpy of a supervisor is everyones' winning combination. I have never been burnt so many times by hot oil or scalded by curry sauce. Wounds heal quickly, the smell of fried food lingers longer- it permeated EVERYTHING!!!

In second place, telesales for some fly by night company flogging solar panels. With a relatively warm and comfy office and flexible hours it should have been the ideal student job. With one rather major issue: I sucked at sales, I'm not very competitive and couldn't care less about being on the 'leader board'. Lasted a few weeks and planned to quit, I needn't have bothered as the day I planned to hand my notice in I found the building empty and locked. Apparently they had been busted for predatory financing, praying on the elderly and saddling them with high interest loans for the solar panels. They get a mention for being total scummy jerks.

Third place goes to Amazon- all the media stories about working in the distribution centers are true. Physically demanding and mentally draining as I took night shifts.

Enjoyed the rest of my jobs for the most part, wouldn't change my career for the world.

[HuangLao]

TD mod....?

So I've been told.

[Mandaloopy]

TD mod....?

So I've been told.

I have a sneaking suspicion I burnt that bridge some time ago

[YourDaddy]

Third place goes to Amazon- all the media stories about working in the distribution centers are true. Physically demanding and mentally draining as I took night shifts.

When was this?

I have been "working" for Amazon since 2002. Turns out if I just bought $10,000 worth of stock back in 2002 I could be a millionaire while doing fuck all.

[Mandaloopy]

When was this?

I have been "working" for Amazon since 2002. Turns out if I just bought $10,000 worth of stock back in 2002 I could be a millionaire while doing fuck all.

2009? It was through an agency so no benefits like the option to by stock at all

[OhOh]

My shortest and worst job was meant to be a "summer" job.

I worked the night shift at a factory where clay land drain pipes were produced. My role was to pick two pipes at a time off a moving conveyor belt fed from the moulding machine. The pipes had been shaped but not fired to strengthen them, so very fragile.

Once I'd picked two pipes up, maybe a Kilo each, I had to turn around and stack them on a trolley, which when full was rolled off to the oven and baked.

The problem was the conveyor never stopped. I suppose with time I would have sped up, but whereas at first, the trolley was ideally placed to turn around and a put the pipes onto the trolley, as I was slower than the conveyor belt, I was having not only turn around but take a few steps back along the line to reach the trolley.

As you can imagine it got to the stage that I couldn't return back to the pipes in time and they started dropping off the conveyor belt. The manager had a stop button but soon realised I was useless. The other guys on the job were well adapted but couldn't make up for my slowness.

I lasted one shift. Most of the time sweeping up the broken pipes.

[david44]

Was offered ghost writer for Dunnyboy, alas declined when learned salary monthly in arrears was in buttcoin

[fishlocker]

Dishwasher at the "Dive Inn".
My pop got me the job as he was a master diver. Roach took on a whole new meaning and perspective.

Built solar panels and installed them as a young man (a boy in my eyes now) may have been all of fourteen. Welding and fabricating the fixtures for each individual home installation.
I earned three dollars and fifty cents for each coil I produced.By coil I mean a four by eight solar panel made of copper tubes. We bought the parabolic curves from Alcola.bla bla bla. Then loaded them in a van and took them to the factory where we painted and baked the coating on in an oven.
Best part was being in your attic crawl space chasing the pipes down to your basement. That was a" hot job".

Been on a few barns ect.
Looking back I'd call it the best job ever. I'd even say we were ahead of our time.

Then I opend the door to more opportunities. Stay tuned for more fish tails.

[Mandaloopy]

Not the worst, just the strangest; I worked in a crab processing plant in Cromer. It was my job to make sure the dressed crabs were correctly packaged- a total doddle and it paid better then minimum wage, something of a minor miracle at the time. No obviously the crabs had to be dispatched to the next life. This fell down to one deranged individual who screamed and yelled- his favorite part was smashing the tiddlers that were too small to make the grade.

The only job I got the boot from was the Merriville Model Village in Great Yarmouth- the calm and twee atmosphere model village did nothing to dappen the mood swings of the owners.

[DJ Pat]

Wasn't crap.....but interesting

Age 14 Worked at a big wholesale butchers, Corrigans in Seven Sisters Road, Holloway. Money was ok for the time 15 quid a saturday 6am-7pm included two gut busting fryups and as much tea all day. The blokes were mostly Irish and hungover, full of wisecracks, great fun it was. Radio playing all day.

We cleaned the floors and kept them sprinkled in sawdust and 'sterilised' the stinking meat in Milton sterilising fluid to be sold off cheap to the indian restaurants at the end of the day. Often we were rotating the huge cuts of meat hanging in the walk-in fridge which was about 12sqm.

The legs of beef were used as punchbags by most of the staff and all the shit offcuts went into the mincer for the budget packs of minced beef, all the shite went in, even the odd ash tray and rags used to wipe up the blood, all for a laugh.

Was there for about 3 months.

DJ-ed in some real shitholes in my early days, you had no choice, gaining experience was the key. Irish Centre in Camden, did a party for some travellers and it kicked off big time, all in good humour of course, Irish didn't kick off like the Brits, they did it with a twinkle in the eye. Was glad to get out of there with my 90 quid. They phoned up the agency on the monday and said they really liked my selection of songs and could I do another. To them I was ''a good man, one of us'' as the big man said. I did about 6 gigs in all. They had a whip round twice for me after a gig and I got an extra 30 quid.

Looks are decieving, they were nice.

I did a wedding for one of the old Guildford Four in 1997 at the Red Rose Labour club, Finsbury Park

[Chittychangchang]

Blagged my way into a job at Garden Island Navy base, Sydney as a carpenter/boat builder was on about 30 AUS $ an hour.
Lasted about 3 months as I was skint and was backpacking the world back in 2001.
Most of the work involved fibre glassing in a controlled environment, fooking horrible stuff.
Use to be permanently itching from contact with the chemicals and no it wasn't the dirty backpacker slappers in Kings x.....then again it could have been

[YourDaddy]

DJ-ed in some real shitholes in my early days, you had no choice, gaining experience was the key. Irish Centre in Camden, did a party for some travellers and it kicked off big time, all in good humour of course, Irish didn't kick off like the Brits, they did it with a twinkle in the eye. Was glad to get out of there with my 90 quid. They phoned up the agency on the monday and said they really liked my selection of songs and could I do another. To them I was ''a good man, one of us'' as the big man said. I did about 6 gigs in all. They had a whip round twice for me after a gig and I got an extra 30 quid.

Looks are decieving, they were nice.

I did a wedding for one of the old Guildford Four in 1997 at the Red Rose Labour club, Finsbury Park

This reminds me.... after graduating I had no job and was in an Irish band. I couldn't play Irish bass lines for shit (even they are one of the easiest to play) and I could not sing. Fortunately, no one gave a damn as the pub (including the owner) was plastered way before out act, so it was 100 bucks plus tips for a job not well done.

Those six months of my life were about the only time in my life where girls showed some interest in me. Once I got home with 2 French sisters, but suffered from a limp dick syndrome. Ended up eating eachother out. It was great because you can always blame your limp dick on alcohol and no one really cares or remembers afterwards.

I quit this gig because it was "too stressful".

What an idiot.

[Davis Knowlton]

I worked on the grounds crew of a college football stadium for a few months between the Army and college. Cleaning the stands after a game was disgusting. Dumped food and drinks all over the place. Hornets and raccoons feasting. Amazing stench, especially in the concession areas. Cured me of aspirations to be a garbageman.

[DJ Pat]

A self important hotel manager did the classic judging a book by its cover at one crappy Swiss Cottage hotel when me and my roadie turned up looking a bit scruffy. We always did because you don't hump a load of disco gear wearing a tuxedo.

He literally told us from across the room loudly "kitchen rubbish collection isn't on this floor"
"Excuse me mate?" l replied
"I am not your mate" he yelled while striding over to us. I thought he was gonna have a coronary. "We got the disco stuff"
"I do not care what you have, can you leave please?"

I was losing respect for the guy.
"ok so you don't need the dj then"
He glared at me and said "what dj.....?" As he said those words a blob of saliva landed on my arm from his mouth.
I now had a reason to argue back.

"You just spat on my arm"

At that moment the brides father came in. He was my contact for this gig, my employer for the night. He was paying.

"Oh Pat it's wonderful to meet you again, you look well, did you get the running order and list? Sarah's really looking forward to this evening, anything you need, a cup of tea, plenty of food later, the manager will look after you"

He looked at the manager next to me, who was now a bit sheepish and said "Can l help you at all? And you are?...."

"Oh yes, he just told us to leave, not sure why really but l'm sure he can explain" l walked off to get more stuff from the van.

The wanker hotel manager tried to be nice all night. I'm not a bastard but could've been. I was nice and civilised back. After all, you gotta be professional and do the job together. I was sure he'd learned a thing ot two about dacorum already. And not to spit when talking.

Those were the days

[Simon43]

Worst job I ever had (might have recounted this previously), was when I was about 17 years old. I was heavily involved in land-based pirate radio in the UK, occasionally as a DJ, but mostly as the transmitter engineer. I designed and built the medium wave band transmitters, which in those days meant using glowing yellow valves with about 2000 volts DC coming off the top cap.

A call went out from an offshore pirate station anchored 20 miles off Belgium for a transmitter engineer to go out and fix a technical problem. The pay was good for this short job and I found myself one cold, windy morning on a small tender vessel heading out into the foggy North Sea. After about 2 hours, we reached the radio ship, which was actually a 'hulk', meaning that it had no engine and was simply a barge anchored by a large steel cable to an anchor. (Update - I had spent the previous night in lodgings at an illegal abortion clinic somewhere in Belgium!).

I scrambled on board and went to work on the 1,000 watt transmitter, which was in a sorry state. I temporarily fixed the problem, but a more permanent repair would need some new components.

"When will the tender vessel come back?" I asked the skipper.
"In about 3 months" was the reply..........

And so there I was, marooned on a rusting hulk bobbing around in the middle of the North Sea, with a skipper and one drunken DJ...

It got worse. The only food supply (lots of it!) was rice, peanut butter and cans of Heineken beer. There was not even a ship-to-shore radio and this was before mobile phones existed.

I spent 3 months on that boat drinking beer all day and cooking rice for every meal with molten peanut butter poured on the top.

Finally, the tender vessel returned and I couldn't get off the boat quick enough. But as the boat approached the shore, the Belgian coast guard stepped in and arrested us all. When I got to dry land, I walked and rolled like a hardened sailor.

The coast guard guys took me to Ostend and put me on a ferry back to the UK. Good old Blighty never looked as good as it did to me that day...

Here's the radio station ship - Radio Delmare on 192 metres. Somewhere on the web are some photos of me in the studio doing a DJ stint.

[Latindancer]

Jeez....it doesn't look that large, and the swell out there must get pretty big. Did you get seasick much ?

[Mandaloopy]

"Street" Cleaner: Could have been a crap job, but turned out be be a nice and very very easy gig. Summer of 2005, I was tasked with cleaning up the riverside walk area of Norwich, a time when it could somewhat claim to be a 'fine city'. I saw my 'boss' once and then he buggered off to Spain on holiday. I spent the day sitting by the river, cleaning and little bit then returning to bask in the sun. Surprisingly good money, this was pre financial crash and the council was flush. Lunch was often and sandwich plus beers followed by a afternoon joint by the river. Pretty much the ultimate student job

[Simon43]

Did you get seasick much ?

This was an unballasted hulk - it bobbed around like a ping-pong ball in a bath. I was marooned out there during the Autumn storms.

Yes, I was seasick, several times a day...

[Latindancer]

For 3 months ? Christ, you must have had a slim and svelte figure at the end of it

I got seasick on a boat for 5 hours and I wanted to just shoot myself.


I have avoided work for much of my life. But I guess my worst job was (when I was young) hosing out a cattle truck for 3 mornings. After that I got tropical ulcers in my legs and had to take antibiotics. They are basically really painful boils.

[Simon43]

The catalyst for throwing up were the fumes from the diesel generator, which had been installed below deck, next to the transmitter and the studio, and which vomited exhaust fumes throughout the interior of the vessel.

Looking back on it, I'm surprised that we didn't all jump overboard...

[Latindancer]

Oh jesus.....that was the catalyst for mine. I couldn't stand the smell of diesel for 20 years after that....it gave me flashbacks. Now I only hate it. I always comment to my wife if we are following a diesel vehicle 100 metres ahead. Hence my now notorious comments here on TD about "valving" electric car windows up and down accordingly.

[SKkin]

But I guess my worst job was (when I was young) hosing out a cattle truck for 3 mornings.

My favorite job in my life was working on a dairy farm when I was teenager and then later in my early 20s. No money in being a farmhand tho...$4.00/hour. My least favorite duty was on that same farm. The farmer always had a herd of feeder pigs to supplement his milk income. Cleaning out the pig pen was brutal. It takes at least a week for the smell to dissipate from your body/clothing. Many times worse than cattle poo...

[Simon43]

SKkin, did you have to help the bull when it was time for him to bonk the cows? (Or maybe dairy cows don't get bonked).

Mandy - any illicit activities with the animals??

[cyrille]

[SKkin]

SKkin, did you have to help the bull when it was time for him to bonk the cows? (Or maybe dairy cows don't get bonked).

Artificial insemination...first you have to fist the cow....anally. The farmer's son where I worked did this sans glove. Not for the faint hearted.



Luckily that was above my pay grade.