What was the worst job you've ever had?

[Chip N Sawbones]

Pretty bad jobs, guys. It almost makes you feel sorry for those kids over in the pre-allo forum. Can you believe that some of them will be graduating med school at 26 without ever having gotten a paycheck before?

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[jsp132]

Pretty bad jobs, guys. It almost makes you feel sorry for those kids over in the pre-allo forum. Can you believe that some of them will be graduating med school at 26 without ever having gotten a paycheck before?

......how is that possible i started working at 17 at wendys

 

[wanderedtoolong]

My worst job yet- research assistant in mouse behavioral phenotyping lab- the research was really interesting but the job was: put mouse in box, wait for test to run, take mouse out of box, clean up mouse pee and poop, put next mouse in box, repeat, export data to excel, send excel sheet to PI, do not think, do not leave the basement, do not do anything which might disturb behavior (talking, listening to ipod, etc). Those were some LONG days.

 

[Torr]

My worst job yet- research assistant in mouse behavioral phenotyping lab- the research was really interesting but the job was: put mouse in box, wait for test to run, take mouse out of box, clean up mouse pee and poop, put next mouse in box, repeat, export data to excel, send excel sheet to PI, do not think, do not leave the basement, do not do anything which might disturb behavior (talking, listening to ipod, etc). Those were some LONG days.

You weren't allowed to listen to your ipod?? Yea I would've gone crazy. I did the same thing (sans the cleaning up part) for a short time and I used to sing to the mice some nights. Poor guys .

My worst job was a lab position which gave me the best training I've ever had and for which I'm very thankful however my coworker was totally schizo. She made it pretty hellish despite how much I loved the work. Taught me that it's all about WHO you work with.

One of the worst DAYS I've ever had was while working as a convenient store cashier in a shady part of town. I was there for about 6 months and can't remember the number of times I called the cops about 1)a stabbing, 2)unconscious body on the railroad tracks outside, 3)getting robbed/stolen from, 4)drunken brawls inside the store. That wasn't what made me quit though. It was this one day where a perfectly sober woman comes in and asks for a bathroom, to which I replied "sorry, we don't have one but there's a place down the street that might" and she says "okay", smiles, and continues to shop. About 5 minutes later she walks up and grabs this small plastic trashcan from near the checkout area and carries it over to a more convenient location of the store--where there happened to be open food nearby--and she proceeded to undo her pants, squatted right on top of that trash can and relieved herself.

For some reason I was just so shocked by it I didn't know what to do. I had done some work with the health inspector/public health office a few weeks earlier so the only thing I could think to do was yell out "Ma'am, that's a health code violation!".

 

[n3xa]

Waitressing at a diner when I was 17.

The work was fun, especially when it was packed. Managing tables became a timing issue and if you play your cards right your customers will either enjoy you or at least sympathize with you (the diner small).

The crappy things about that job was my 40-something year old manager hitting on me, the drama with all the other waitresses that slept with him, and co-workers not figuring out that you can't leave customers sitting at their table for 15 minutes with no water, no menus, nothing.

I'm harsh, but fair when it comes to my peers.

 

[BPlaysItCool]

Sorry. Not interested in reading the thread. Just a drive-by, self-indulgent monologue, but....

You know the best thing about all these miserable gigs. I'm gonna be a doctor. Took a year to sink in. Still thinking like a pissed off janitor the whole way.

I'm never goin back. And I'm on board. No more anti-med school, self-hating bull****.

Feels f'n good.

It will for yall too.

 

[Wolverines83]

It's gotta be my current one as a "service manager" for a uniform company. That's code for:
"When your employees call out sick (which will happen three times a week) you cover their deliveries. The delivery of clean clothes is not a problem, provided you know how to drive a 20 foot truck (we don't train you but expect you to do it) through the streets of Brooklyn and the Bronx and can speak English, Spanish and any combination thereof (again, we don't provide training).

After delivering the clean clothes, you will need to pick up and hand carry the dirties (and dirty floor mats) which are covered with dirt, dust, grime, animal hair, food scraps and sometimes full of cockroaches and other insects (sometimes even crushed mice). Bedbugs will follow in warmer weather. Oh and most of these guys who wear these uniforms don't shower and seem to fart profusely. We don't provide you with gloves or masks, so get used to being dirty.

Some accounts also require you to pick up their soaking wet kitchen towels and aprons which normally hold about a week of sour milk and decaying food matter. After you get this all over yourself you need to ask the manager to pay. They usually tell you they'll pay you next week, but after 4 weeks of this they never pay."


Can't f-in wait to start med school.

 

[Catburr]

Pretty bad jobs, guys. It almost makes you feel sorry for those kids over in the pre-allo forum. Can you believe that some of them will be graduating med school at 26 without ever having gotten a paycheck before?

When I meet these kind of people in real life and they aren't f***ing grateful for their blessings, it makes me angry. One of the only things that just really irritates me.

For some reason I was just so shocked by it I didn't know what to do. I had done some work with the health inspector/public health office a few weeks earlier so the only thing I could think to do was yell out "Ma'am, that's a health code violation!".

That's hilarious, in retrospect, but I'm sorry you had to deal with it.

 

[ColinB]

Pretty bad jobs, guys. It almost makes you feel sorry for those kids over in the pre-allo forum. Can you believe that some of them will be graduating med school at 26 without ever having gotten a paycheck before?

Different reality for those kids, for sure.

Worst/best job for me was the 2 years of commercial fishing I did up in Alaska and down here in Oregon. Got on my 2nd boat only because the last deckhand snapped at the captain and stabbed him a bunch of times. Plus there was always the one deckhand who was cranked out of his mind and you thought he was gonna sink the boat. Hell of a work environment. Even when I have patients throw up on me now, I think back to puking my guts out while picking up crab pots that weighed as much as me and 16 ft seas.

Makes working/going to school/studying for MCATs/etc seem downright leisurely.

Nothing quite like bitching about work to make me feel welcome here!

 

[FiremedicMike]

I used to be a cop. Don't get me wrong, it was super COOL.

However.....

Imagine that every person in your city thought they knew what you should be doing and they felt they had the right to tell you what to do. And, you got spit on. And, you got shot at. And, you got sued once or twice a year for hundreds of thousands of dollars. And, your supervisors were completely incompetent (ok, that happens at most every job). And, people spit in your food purposefully trying to give you Hep. And, .... Ok, you get the point.

Man, I loved that job like crazy but for the love of Pete (whoever that is) it sure did defile every part of my being.

Yep, all of the above, but I was/am doing it for free. On my off days from the firehouse I'm an auxiliary officer (In Ohio there's only level of certification, I paid out $2000 for the academy, I just don't get paid a dime), formerly of a total ghetto department. That place was a neighborhood that many don't see save for rap videos, and let me tell you, it's just as terrifying as you might expect. Being in a marked car with a uniform made you a target in every sense of the word. The only advantage to that particular environment is that the area is pretty well saturated with officers who are aggressive about backing eachother up.

Every time I see a photo of someone under arrest with a black eye, and all the people cry out "police brutality" I think to myself "these people have absolutely zero perspective on this scenario as a whole."

As I watch my governer rape my pay and benefits to the joyed tones of the masses, I realize that it's definitely not worth it. I quit that department for a much slower and nicer area, and turned my focus from moving to full-time law enforcement to medical school (again...)

 

[Torr]

Every time I see a photo of someone under arrest with a black eye, and all the people cry out "police brutality" I think to myself "these people have absolutely zero perspective on this scenario as a whole."

As I watch my governer rape my pay and benefits to the joyed tones of the masses, I realize that it's definitely not worth it. I quit that department for a much slower and nicer area, and turned my focus from moving to full-time law enforcement to medical school (again...)

That's the truth. The general public has no idea. I honestly didn't appreciate my city's PD until I worked in the "ghetto" of it and needed them on a regular basis. I love cops now (highway patrol not included ) because I know what they have to deal with.

It will remain to be the case, however, that anytime a cop uses force to restrain someone the terms "excessive" and "brutality" will be thrown out.

I think, in California at least, police will have a newfound value once the order to release some 40,000 prisoners is carried out! People are gonna feel a lot less safe very soon.

 

[felixthekat]

My worst job ever was in a ball-bearings plant. I worked there after my freshman year of college. My job was to take these piece of metal from a gaint box and place them on the assembly line. I think I had to do 400/hour. It was greasy, dirty work. Loud. Solitary. Mind-numbing. I worked 4p-12a. It was too fast paced to read a book or do puzzles or anything. I couldn't talk to anyone during the shift. I lasted 10 1/2 weeks, and made $5.50/hour. Truly awful.

 

[MedMommy]

Retail Sucks. That should be a bumper sticker if it isn't already.

I was 14. First job... working in the shoe department at JCPenney's with a 42 yr. old slob who touted himself as a member of MENSA (yet worked as an associate in a shoe department on near minimum wage) and a gross 55 yr old boss who conveniently left his fly unzipped a lot around women. He would bend down to help someone put a shoe on and there in all his glory, you saw his underwear choice for the day.

 

[Prncssbuttercup]

That reminds me of a job I had loading crop dusters in California. My co-workers were the roughest crowd that I have ever hung around - and this includes oil field roughnecks. I finally quit when my boss got drunk and threw a beer bottle at me, bouncing it off my neck. Had he been less drunk he would have hit his target - which was not my neck.

Before this, I was an assistant to a loader who had received an inheritance and gone on a 3 day bender with crack cocaine. When he got back, he was crashing from the crack high when one of the pilots cussed him out. Fortunately the druggy was too messed up to do much damage because we were far out in the farmlands and there is no way that the police could have gotten there and I am physically small and an inexperienced fighter, so I couldn't do anything to protect the pilot. I got an instant promotion to loader.

As an assistant they gave me an immigrant of uncertain documentation status but imposing physical appearance. I was a hard worker and expected my assistant to follow my lead. He did not appreciate my supervisory skills and so told me just what he was going to do to me if I didn't ease up. I shrugged, told him that if was going to attack me, then he'd better start the beating and get it over with, because we had work to do.

My husband worked for a union car shop, a guy got pissed at him and chucked a box of razor blades at him... Company wouldn't do anything because he had seniority... WTF? He quit... Love jobs where people can be abusive and get away with...

 

[spiderpete]

Nose picker on a pirate galley.. 'specially bad in pollen season

 

[Beandog]

I'm starting to realize I belong in the nontrad section (Will be 28 by the time I enter D.O school) ...

Worst job was working landscaping for a topsoil company that managed the parking lots of the W-marts, home depots, malls etc. The properties were absolute crap, the pay was $12/hr, which wasn't the worst but I simply could not stand my idiotic coworkers and the barrels of cigarette smoke that filtered through our trucks everyday...
I loved driving the loaders and bobcats though...good highlight of that short 5-week experience.

BEST job - as far as love, working at a medical clinic for again, $12/hr. Got to do phlebotomy, admin. shots, etc...loved the people.

I was/am self employed while I got though my last 2 years of undergrad and now post-bac, premed I suppose I'll continue it. I work my own little landscaping/exterior cleaning business and hang Christmas lights for my real $$. It's crappy work, but the pay and schedule is absolutely tops.

 

[mafunk]

Sorry. Not interested in reading the thread. Just a drive-by, self-indulgent monologue, but.....

Love the honesty