My shortest job was about four hours back in the 1960's. I was sent as a temp to the construction headquarters of a national fast-food chain to work as a secretary to one of the managers. Our desks were in an office off the main office and had a large glass window looking into the larger room. He seemed to have a very bad temper and spent most of his time yelling into the phone. At about 11:30 a.m., at the end of a particularly bad phone call, he picked up the phone and hurled it at (and through) the window, scatting glass all over the place. Then he stomped out. I figured that if I made a bad mistake, I could be the next one thrown through the window, so I picked up my purse, announced to anyone who was listening that I was going to lunch and headed straight to the temp agency office. I said I wasn't going back and please find me another job. They apologized and said they wouldn't supply any more secretaries to that company (sounded like this kind of thing had happened before) and assigned me to another job.
My shortest job only lasted a morning. I got a job putting up fencing. Thought I could physically do it, but that sure turned out wrong. When I was "trying" to dig a hole with a posthole digger, and not getting very far, I'd remembered how much I hated using one on the farm. I could drive a forklift, do clerical work, including using a computer, but, beyond warehouse/shipping/receiving work, other physical work just wasn't in my DNA. I didn't get paid for it, because I was just helping a neighbor, but I went with him to a construction job. Putting up drywall, with a hammer and nails. I could barely lift the sheet of drywall and my nail hammering skills weren't that good either. Come to find out, any kind of construction work, other than some cleanup, wasn't part of me either.
@Cody Fousnaugh you should have had one of these: https://kencove.com/fence/Kencove+Post+Drivers_detail_PD80SS.php
My shortest job was 4 hours. I was brought in as a temp and 4 hours after I got there the building burned to the ground. FYI .. I didn't start that fire LOL
My shortest job was for the Social Security Administration in the City I live in now. My first day there I was given the task of typing Social Security numbers on the SS blue cards in a large, open room filled with desks and lots of other workers. By the end of the day I knew I did not want to type any more numbers on SS cards or work with so many people in one large area so I told my boss that this job was just not for me. Two days later I got the job that was for me...an Administrative Assistant in a one "girl" office.
Mine also was just 4 hours. I was between office jobs at 17, and took on a job in a bakery shop that sold sandwiches to hungry workers at lunchtime. My job was to sell bread and cakes , and to help make sandwiches in the back.. I did a couple of hours in the back, then was pushed out front to sell, without any training on the Cash till or anything...so when a customer asked me for a cake of which I'd never heard the name, I asked the manageress which one it was, and she went ballistic right in front of a shop full of customers .. how stupid I was not to know etc... so I walked out!! Fortunately I found another job a couple of days later
My shortest job was after I filled out an application for the post office. I was accepted to work at one of the offices in the Bronx. During the walk thru to show me where my work station would be I saw that this was not the kind of place or job I wanted to do. The supervisor that was showing me was surprised when I said no thank you I quit. I told him not to bother trying to figure out what pay I should get for the few minutes I was there.
About 3 weeks. Very dull story. Applied for two jobs one summer---a waitress at a steak house, and handling the fountain at a drive-in. They took me at the drive-in immediately. Two weeks later the steak house called. Gave the drive-in a week's notice. No hard feelings. Both fun experiences. Win, win.
Not sure how long I was there, a few weeks maybe. Dairy Queen,is small town. Oh Lord, I like Lucille Ball could not for the life of me make a damn squiggle on top of the ice cream. Only ten minutes for lunch, very very fast paced, and after slinging a huge industrial mop at two in the morning.. ..I be like- um I is outta here!
I think my shortest job was with Trane Home Comfort Center. I took a job at their call center, cold-calling people who weren't interested in setting up a free estimate on a home heating and air conditioning unit. Nearly everyone on my list of numbers to call lived in apartments, so I never set up a single appointment in the month or so that I was there. Still, they tried to talk me out of quitting, telling me that new hires are given the D list or something, so they didn't expect any of the calls to be successful. Perhaps my term at another job was even shorter, but I don't remember for sure. Before moving to California, I had worked for a fiberglass boat manufacturing company for a few years and was very good at my job, which was as a chopper operator. In fact, they had canceled an idea of a night shift because they couldn't find anyone else to operate the chopper. Yet, when I took a job at another boat company in California, they already had a chopper operator (who wasn't doing a very good job, IMO), and they kept complaining about the entry-level job they had me doing, and wouldn't listen to a thing I was telling them. I hated that job, and may not have stuck it out a month.
I had two jobs that only lasted till lunchtime. Went to lunch and never came back. They were decades apart.
I worked for 2 weeks in a muffler factory at minimum wage, 10 hours a day, 4 days a week. I had a 5 week old and a 2 year old. Two women quit their first day at lunch time. Everyone moved from one station to the next. The most dangerous station was pushing the sheets of metal across a table to get sliced off. I spent my breaks in line to use the phone, trying to get an office job. It happened within a few weeks of leaving.
I was fresh out of high school and got a job as a car dealership. I thought I was going to be answering phones, but they put me on a window taking payments for car repairs. I think they only hired me because I looked snazzy in the dealership polo shirt, but they were soon to find out I had spit for brains and was totally uninterested in learning this particular skill. (This is when I hatched the idea I should just get married and let someone else pay the bills....as per a previous post.)