Worst job you ever had

I worked the summer of my high school sophomore year at a small bronze and aluminum foundry. My job was primarily shoveling sand into a sifting machine all day long. The older guys did give me beer and shared their pot with me but the work was brutal and I only weighed about 130 back then.

I also lasted a week at a McDonald's in Syracuse before walking out mid-shift.

 

Employee dining at Six Flags.
Had worked in food service in the park the year before and thought it'd be more fun to work in employee dining than in the park itself. Same hours, you get to see some people you know, and you don't have to deal with the idiotic and annoying guests.
I didn't realize the guests were the funnest part of the job.
Employee dining was a large, windowless cafeteria. There was no atmosphere and no breaks. Unlike in the main park, where the customers came in spurts and you'd get a bit of downtime to catch your breath now and then, this place had a steady stream of people coming in on their breaks. Just eight hours of people shuffling past if you were on the register, and hours spent over a hot grill cooking burgers and hot dogs if you were in the back. Insanely boring and repetitive, and no goofy people coming past you could at least laugh at or share a laugh with.
I was there about two weeks before I begged for a transfer back to somewhere inside the park.

Other one was a crappy telemarketing gig. The sales goals were unrealistic and the product was so awful I felt bad selling it. Even as a summer job it sucked ass. I was there two weeks, one of which I had jury duty. I was released from jury duty by noon most days and spent the afternoons looking for another job. Found one in retail that wasn't great, but it was better than the other place.

 

That's just one example of the treatment.

 

Picking tobacco. $47 a day to fill a tobacco kiln.
In the morning, the dew on the leaves would soak up nicotine and splash in your eyes for the first couple of hours. Would be blinded for about 30 feet going up the row, just had to pick by feel (we were sitting on moving machine).
Then when the sun would dry everything up, the tar would begin to stick to your arm, so it would be black by noon. The tar you could wash off, but the nicotine stained my arm for the entire duration and a few weeks after harvest ended.
The irony of that disgusting stuff is I started smoking while working there.
But I was 16, living on a farm with some older British students, so there was the first sense of independence, able to have a few beers after work.
Could make a good chunk of cash in a little over a month, with little opportunity to blow it as we worked pretty much 7 days a week.

 

McDonalds during my juco days. I had about 35-40 hours the first two weeks. The third, I was scheduled for one day. The fourth, I wasn't scheduled at all. The manager asked the person who scheduled. She thought me and another guy with the same first name were the same person (The schedules listed us by first name and last initial and that other guy had the same last initial). I agreed to be ready to come in if someone failed to show up that week and was promised to be on the schedule full time the fifth week.

Check the schedule for the fifth week. I'm not on it. I didn't even bother to tell them I quit. I came in the sixth week only to pick up my last check. I ask the manager if I've quit or if I've been fired. No answer.

 

I would normally agree, but to be fair, when my kids were younger and with me at the store, I didn't put the cart in the corral. I didn't want to be away from the kids, even if it was 50 feet.

 

Worst is a toss-up between washing dishes at Chili's and coming home soaking wet and smelling of foul old food, and working the register at a gas station/convenience story and dealing with jackass customers. Had it pretty good, I guess. Also worked in a printing plant, which was a decent job and paid my way through college. The only bad part of it was periodically having to clean the massive paper shredder with compressed air. The dust and grime was almost unbearable, even with full safety gear and masks on.

Also worked as a bag boy, at Domino's pizza and at a nice little buffet restaurant out in one of the beach hotels busing tables and whatnot.

 

I swear I recall a country song about this.

 

Stompin Tom agrees with you.

 

I am not sure which one was the absolute worst but have had some that convinced on the value of education.

Summer job picking up roadkill for the city I lived in. 6.A.M. start where I had to be at the yard to pick up the truck that was equipped with a 2 way radio. I then drove home and would wait for the city dispatch to call (had to give them my contact number for when I was out of the truck). I would usually sleep or watch movies.

I had to fish out a pit bull torso out of the river that made me barf because of the smell. Also had to wrangle a dead deer into the truck, thing was awkward and heavy.

Variety of soul crushing, mind numbing warehouse assembly line jobs.

Worked the counter a porno store for a couple months, was incredibly boring.

I ran out of money while backpacking in Australia so I made my way to Bundaburg, home of world famous Bundaburg Rum. I picked fruit for 2 weeks and even though it was terrible work I actually had a pretty fun time. It was mostly travellers working so if you were with a good crew it made the day go by, shared misery I guess. Because everyone in the hostel I was staying at was also working the fields people would try to hook up by 8ish in the pub so that you could still get a decent night's sleep.

I lasted 2 weeks and would've gone back to Canada rather than pick fruit again.

 

As far as dealing with people, I worked at a discount tobacco store for right at a year. I'm not a smoker (never really have been) and even though the store was smoke-free, I'd still go home smelling like smoke. And there's nothing quite as irritable as a person coming in for their weekly carton of smokes, especially when they find out the prices went up.

But my worst job ever was working at a stable for racing horses. The work was back-breaking, dusk til dawn type work and I spent the hottest part of the day out painting the rails around the track. I guarantee in one summer I painted that entire track 20 times because the owner wanted it to be bright white.

 

After being laid off from my final job in San Diego, I had to move back in with the folks in Santa Barbara County. Couldn't hook up with any of the local papers right away, so I did temp work for a couple of months and hooked on with the company that produced the Rembrandt line of toothpastes.

I was what they called a compounder. Mainly it was putting in ingredients into huge machines and mixers to make toothpaste. It was backbreaking work, with a lot of working with chemicals and having to fasten long pipelines to transfer the stuff from the machines into the vats. It was mainly tedious, depressing and felt totally out of place with what my previous work history was.

Years earlier, I worked fast food with a pain in the ass manager, but at least then I was just starting college and knew I'd be going on to better things. With the above job, I just felt ridiculous with a college degree and journalism experience and working in a damn toothpaste factory. Fortunately, after about six months, I was able to get a job with a local paper, where I've been ever since.