Delivering Four Inch Thick Shopping News to 15o homes was more than a skinny kid on his bike could handle, but I tried. Ten of them seemed to way a ton. I had to make several trips.
The worst job I ever had was a summer job on the air force base here. I was on the flight line which was away from any activity on the base. I had to ride the Base bus from area A to area C. Boring. Sit at a desk with typewriter for 8 eight hours 1/2 hour lunch which I discovered there was no where to go to eat so I had to bring my lunch. I was completely isolated from the world until 4:30 ride the bus from area C to area A. Oh, I forgot a school bus transported students to and from the Base a 60 minute ride round trip. I started out dressing professional then I thought what the heck I'm wearing pants and flats. I did come to like the military green jumpsuits that I saw the airmen wearing or maybe it was just 'a man in uniform' that I liked.
Man, there have been a few. I once cleaned out rental property in between tenants when laid off of my white collar job. There's nothing like cleaning up a 2 foot sea of wall-to-wall garbage from a living room floor, only to find that the base layer is a pile of used diapers. Or to remove aluminum foil that covers the walls like some type of Area 51 wallpaper. I got others, but won't double (or triple) dip.
I remember seeing scenes like this from Derek & Christina's old show Flip or Flop. They would go inside of a house and it was a total disaster. I couldn't believe that anyone would move out of a house and leave it looking THAT bad.
That's why I boarded my horse at a stable. Stall cleaned, horse fed and water. But, cleaning up the dog poop in the backyard of our old house wasn't great either.
Since I was much more of a "clerical" type guy, taking a job in the fence building industry, definitely didn't work out for me! Less than one day and I told the guy I was working with "I'm done, take me back to the office". He said "sure enough, and by the way, I was pretty sure you wouldn't be able to handle this kind of work." Boy was he right! I helped a guy do drywall once. Less than 4 hours later, I was cleaning up.........not hanging anymore.
When I started out at a junior college, I needed money, so I worked in the college cafeteria "slinging slop" in the basement. Trays came down two small elevators, side by side, so we had to take off the plates with leftover food, separate it for edible and non-edible, then paper such as napkins and wrappers had to be removed. The farmers bought the edible for their their pigs, and we sent the rest to the garbage. We then racked the trays and sent them through the washer, along with plates and silverware, etc, so we scrambled all during our time slot to keep up. It was not an easy job, but the money helped those of us who were skimping by on a shoestring budget. One good thing is that if a dessert, such as pie or ice cream looked as though it hadn't been touched, we would sometimes take a chance and gobble it down. (that's because they issued "meal books" and one had to be careful not to run out, as sometimes happened) It's amazing what one will do if hunger gets to you. I cringe now when I think back on it. I once ran out of meal tickets and had no money, so I sneaked out to a farmer's apple orchard, and picked enough apples to last a week, and along with a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread I had, I survived for over a week on just that.
One summer I worked as a mechanic for a Harvester International dealership. -Other than basic tune-ups, my work sucked. -I knew it. The owner knew it. -He eventually put me out of his misery. A week or so after that another company when my application finally bubbled to the top of the stack. I eventually started my purchasing career with them.
After the Air Force I could not find work in electronics so I got a job as roofer's helper ripping shingles off of roofs and cleaning it all up on the ground. The kicker was when I looked down to see a dog looking up at me in the shade of an adjoining house on a hot day. Who was the dumb animal? I eventually got fired and rightly so. That job showed me the value of an education and it was then pursued.
Worst for me was working for the school book depository for the city of Boston. working there in the summer was brutal because this was before air conditioning was in vogue. But when the temp hit 90 rest of day was paid time off.
I have been mulling the answer to this question. Is the worst job the one that was the hardest, or the one I disliked the most, can’t decide ? The one I had to work hardest in was working on a Christmas tree farm. We started in the fall, and the trees had to be trimmed and ready for harvesting, and in November, when it was already pretty cold in north Idaho, we started harvesting the trees. We started when it was barely daylight, around 7AM, and worked until at least 7PM, and sometimes until almost midnight if a Christmas tree truck was coming in, and we had to load up the semi trailer with trees. I worked with a sawyer, who cut the trees, and my job was to put a long board under the bottom branches and lift them enough that the tree trunk was visible, so that he could see where to cut the trunk. (We were called “pimps”) Once trees were cut, they had to be dragged to the bailing machine, and then once they were baled (wrapped with string), we dragged them and sorted them into piles of the same size and type of tree. Little trees were easy to drag over the frozen ground, the 10-12 foot trees, not so easy. Even with the warmest clothes that I had, I was freezing all day, and my hands and feet were hurting from the cold. By the time I got back home at night, I was ready to just collapse and sleep until the next day, but my family thought that supper was in order, and they were hungry; so that came before sleeping. Even so, I enjoyed working out in the cold and snow, and loved the smell of the Christmas trees, and learning which kind of tree was which. As a contrast, the job that I disliked the most, was working in the kitchen of a boarding school, where we had to cook for around 100 people each day. It was 12-15 hours a day usually, too; so I was always tired when I got home, did the farm chores and went right to sleep. I always looked forward to my day off (we worked 6-7 days a week), and then I went horseback riding and enjoyed being outside for the day.
I don't know, really, all my jobs I couldn't wait to get away from. I was so glad when retirement became an option. Retirement has been great. I sit around all day thinking of all the working people out there, then I have some desert.
I worked for a year on an hourly basis with an organization that did statistical analyses. Contracts were awarded to the lowest bidder, so budget was always tight. You had to keep a log of what you did for every 15 minute period while you were at work, and which project. Everyone worked on at least 3 different projects. Since I was new I was slower than most, so I ended up taking a lot of work home and finishing things nights and weekends so as not to put them over budget. Decided that wasn't for me early on.