Before I had my first child i used to work in a very busy downtown restaurant as a waitress. I worked there for about seven years. It wasn't a terrible place to work, it could get busy and occasionally you would have a nasty customer, but overall it wasn't bad. I used to work a three nights a week double shifts 2nd to third shift and leave at about 5am in the morning. the only thing that sticks in my head is my feet would hurt. To this day I still have nightmares about this place, it is always the same, I can't find the tables or the food takes forever or something along those lines. Typical stress dreams I suppose. I thought maybe if I go visit the restaurant the dreams would stop. They didn't, although it has been awhile since I had one. Saddest thing is back then I worked with a few older woman that have since past on as in died. They say you can never go back and I guess thats true. But when I dream about this place it feels like a nightmare.
I often have stress dreams about the time when I worked in retail. I also have an occasional dream when I'm back in the office job I had when I was in my teens. I think it's like dreaming of someone who has died and they seem very much alive in the dream. I don't know if there is any way to stop having bad dreams about previous jobs. It might be possible if you can deal with whatever is causing the stress or by using some relaxation techniques.
It seems fairly common that we associate something stressful with a previous stressful experience. If I was worried about something I could bet on dreaming about my first job. We used a narrow staircase to get up to the office as it was big shortcut rather than going right around the building to use the lift. I dreamed of being trapped in that stairwell soooo often. Then I never had it again after I changed jobs. The dreams switched to being buried in ticker tape as I worked in telecommunications then. I had them for years after I left that job, decades really, but the later jobs not at all.
I worked for years as a server hard work, but I never had nightmares, than goodness. I was a real estate agent, a client tried to sue me over something they did not understand saying I did something wrong. I still have night mares about that, it will come out of nowhere. It was not a good time for me. I did not do anything wrong but I make sure anyone I deal with now on a contract has signed that they understand what to expect so that does not happen again.
I think that our jobs often have us dreaming about them in our sleep, whether they are good jobs or bad ones. The job that i hated the worst was working in the kitchen of a large school that was a kind of a reform school for the rich kids. I had to make meals for about 100 people , and there had to be special things for both vegans and vegetarians. The veggie kids thought that vegetarian food meant a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. Most of them would not touch an actual vegetable. Some of the kids were at kind of a camp where they lived in tents, and they had to have their food prepared so that they could carry it back to camp in the large cooking pans. It was a lot of heavy work, and I hate cooking anyway; so I was always glad to get home from there at night. All of the other staff left after about 3PM; so I was always alone. I think that some nights I was still cooking in my dreams, and trying to get a meal done when the supervisor had forgotten to order the food items I needed to make it. (one of the things I dreaded when it happened) Sometimes, they would give me a recipe that served a family of four; and then tell me to use that to make enough to serve 100. Even though I have had jobs that were more difficult than this one; this is the one that I disliked the most.
There are two jobs I worked that I really hated. The first was working for Krispy Kreme Donuts. I had to be in at 230am and got off at 11am. I stood the entire time, taking donuts off of the moving conveyor belt and boxing them to be delivered to stores. My feet hurt the entire time I worked there,,, 2 yrs. The other job I really hated was working for a company called West. The did telephone customer service for several different companies. I was unlucky enough to work for the section that did support for American Express. I had to know everything about the 2 dozen different kinds of cards that American Express carries. It was just impossible.
I remember working as a soap maker which was terrible; One time the boiling hot fat was sprinkled all over me and my face got burnt really badly. That was the last time I touched jobs like that. Still to this day I keep having nightmare about that one, dark day.
What a great thread! It's interesting reading about the various types of work you've all had. I'll probably write in here more than once, because I've had a few bad work experiences, but the top anxiety-provoking one was one particular incident, not necessarily the job. I was working as a dispatcher for a security firm. The company provided security for the downtown district, a major mall, and also the suburban buildings surrounding the mall. Most of the properties were owned by the parent company of the firm where I worked. My then fiance was one of the responding officers, as were his brother and best friend. I was close to all of them, and one day, I had to dispatch them to a call about a burglary in one of the suburban buildings. The act would now be called an office invasion. The 'burglars' were armed with Uzis (this was back in the 80s), and our officers were unarmed. The intruders had invaded a corporate office and shot it up. There was a large portrait of the company president or CEO, I don't recall which, and the gunmen shot through the portrait. Basically, I felt as if I were dispatching my fiance and close friends to their deaths. Although I was a very conscientious employee, I held the call for a minute or two, and made sure the police were dispatched as well, giving them a head start. Despite protocol, since the police were armed, I felt they were a more appropriate response team. I still have nightmares about that incident, especially when I'm under a lot of stress.
I haven't had nightmares but I still have bad remembrances of one job that I resigned from. I worked as an enrollment clerk for an insurance company. The pay was good, good working conditions, some overtime until the manager realized that all of her staff were Christians. Then every thing changed. I was the first one to be hired in the department and then three others. We were a very good team and shared the gospel a lot. We didn't think anything about our boss overhearing our conversations. Then the challenges came and the nick picking and then the ultimate effort to divide and pit us against one another. It became ugly. Since everyone saw me as the team leader the manager tried to turn everyone against me. I eventually filed a grievance but that didn't help but only made things worse. I was called to the assistant director's office and after that joke of a one sided conversation I right then decided to resign. I went downstairs wrote out my letter of resignation and handed it to my supervisor who was really shocked. I got called back to the assistant director's office and was asked what could be done to rescind my resignation and I said 'nothing.' The company folded a few years later.