Worst Job Ever

From Loretta:

I’m just back from a writers' conference, which reminded me, once again, that I have one of the best jobs in the world.  My personal favorite best job ever of my whole experience was being an English major in college, which is at least partly because of the Lack of Responsibility Factor.  But being a writer definitely qualifies as a Best Job. 

I have had worse jobs, believe me.

As some of you already know, once upon a time, many, many eons ago, I was a meter maid.  People screamed at me, made fun of me, and some even threatened me with bodily injury.  The downtown characters--the drunks and extremely demented people--raved at me or demanded money or insisted I arrest figments of their imaginations.  We had to wear polyester--and this was the old style polyester that did not breathe at all--and we courted heatstroke in the summer and frostbite in winter.  Downtown Worcester, wherein lay our “beats,” is small but very hilly.  In the beginning especially, I ended the day with aching legs and feet so sore I wept .  I wore the ugliest possible shoes for the comfort factor.  No matter.  I still got blisters.  I got sunburned and windburned and broke out in mysterious rashes.  When people fought their tickets, I had to go to court, which terrified me.  And I had to communicate with police officers almost daily.  I was in one of my college dropout phases at the time (these went on for about a decade), and in those days college youth tended to view the police with extreme mistrust.  Trusted or not, they were a species of which I had no experience, let alone understanding.  For me, it was like talking to Extra Terrestrials, all of them heavily armed and some of whom thought meter maids a far lower and more repellent life form than the drunks & crazy people.

This, however, was not the worst job I ever had, not by a long stretch.  I actually kind of liked it a good part of the time because our bosses and the office staff  were really nice and the other meter maids were fun to hang with.  Bonus:  Within a few months, I was in amazing shape.  With very strong legs.

The worst job I ever had looked really glamorous.  I was hired to sell groovy clothes and shoes in a boutique.  I loved fashion magazines, so this seemed to be the ideal job for moi, at the time, a college dropout (again).  But as those who’ve watched the reality shows know, what goes on behind the scenes is not always pretty.  I got blisters from having to wear fashionable platform shoes for 8-10 hours a day on a concrete floor thinly covered with carpeting.  We had to climb up and down ladders while carrying stacks of jeans for the shelves.  We used seam rippers to take out the manufacturer’s tags from the clothes and then we hand-stitched in the store’s tags. 

But hey, I worked in a jewelry store over the course of several years, and learned the art of writing codes & numbers on price tags barely visible to the naked eye (the kind that went on expensive jewelry of the type my heroine in Your Scandalous Ways would wear).  That was tedious, too, but I didn’t mind.  It appealed to the fussbudget (now called OCD) in me.  I don’t mind detail work.  It’s retail that gets to me.

The problem, in short, was Dealing with the Public for 6 days a week, 8-12 hours a day.  I’m not an extrovert.  In fact, others would find it a considerable challenge to be less extroverted.  My Personality Type came out INTJ--at 93% Introverted.  Let’s add in the facts that I was still more or less college age (read Immature) and had an Attitude.  So I didn’t deal really well with people who needed size 12 and insisted something was wrong with the clothes I was selling because size 8 didn’t fit or the ones who tried on ninety-eleven sweaters only to leave with nothing, telling me the clothes were too expensive or the ones who flung silk blouses on the floor for the menials (us) to pick up, etc., etc.  Then there were the shoplifters.  And the drunks & crazy people who wandered in, thinking we were--what?  The bus station?

Plus, I really didn’t have confidence in my ability to put the right shirt together with the right tie, so I always had a small panic attack when I had to wait on a male person, even though they were less likely than female persons to infuriate me.  Too, we had to keep the place shipshape, folding clothes, endlessly folding & even ironing.  We had to keep the glass display cases sparkly clean and dress up the dummies.  Then there was the behind-the-scenes backbiting and stabbing and alliance-shifting.  All of which happens everywhere, but for some reason it felt more like Purgatory there.  Looking back, with the advantage of age and wisdom, I think it was simply a matter of a horribly wrong personality fit. 

It was useful in terms of giving me a degree of understanding of what it was like to be a servant in early 19th C London. 

But it was MY WORST JOB, ever. 

Meanwhile, there  are those, I know, who’d run screaming from my present job:  Sitting alone all day in front of a computer listening for voices in your head?  There are people who couldn’t, wouldn’t do it.  They are not tempted, even though it means not having to wear pantyhose and being able to work in one's pajamas.

My best job could be your worst job and vice versa.

So RevMelinda gets a Loretta Chase book because she asked the question, “What was the worst job you ever had?”

Everyone else:  Let’s see who suffered most.  What was your worst job ever?

Comments

[Maggie Robinson]

When I was in college, I had to drag customers into a mobile screening room for cigarette commercials, pass out free packs of cigarettes, and give them a survey. I know I am going straight to Hell.

[Janice]

When I was in college, the only thing I could do to earn money was type. I had a part time job at a small local printing shop, typing stencils for mimeograph. The blue corflu gave me a headache and I had a bad chair in front of a glaring window. There were cutters and printing presses in the cramped shop that were dangerous to be around when in operation; one of the two owners, the sales guy, was a lech and would push me up against them and pinch me. But that wasn't the worst thing - well, he had bad breath too - the worst part was having to leave all the mistakes in the copy I typed because it had to be typed exactly the way the customer had written it, mistakes and all.

Part time jobs that I could get to without a car were hard to find, and there was none of this equal pay stuff then; since this one paid a few cents more per hour than sales, I hung on until the sales guy fired me in favor of a blonder non-English speaking typist with bigger boobs.

So now, when I read about poor servants of the wealthy getting pinched and fondled by jerks in power "just because they can", I know *exactly* how that feels :)

[piper]

My worst job?

I think it has to be cook's assistant at a summer camp. I washed the dishes by hand, I peeled potatoes for 40 by myself, I had to set the tables, clean up, make breakfast, etc. Mostly it was the potatoes. I hated peeling potatoes after that for years. Plus every Thursday was banquet day and we ate Turkey. Again, I couldn't eat turkey for years without nausea.

[Janga]

I was a waitress during summer vacations for part of my college years, and I loathed it. While I did serve many genuinely nice people, the ones I remember are the rude ones, the ones who blamed me if their food was cooked improperly, the ones who insisted they had ordered something they had not, the ones with bratty kids who left incredible messes and no tip. I was incredibly shy and had been pretty sheltered, so I was totally unprepared for the creepy males who felt free to make outrageous comments.

Two good things came from the experience: some great characters to use in my writing and the habit of generously tipping. :)

[kay]

I had two jobs that were the worst jobs ever. They were both summer jobs, so I could earn money to go to college and play. One was a carhop, notice I said carhop not waitress. That job lasted one whole week, in which I screwed up many many orders, couldn't make the correct change and broke a number of really heavy frosted root beer mugs. Thank goodness this wasn't the kind of drive-up that one had to wear roller skates.

The other one was once again a week long, but this time it was a factory job and it paid really well. But I found out that I was not really factory material, I didn't get along well with the people there and I didn't work well with sharp glass. It was a door/awning factory. All of my doors were crooked and had to be rebuilt. Thank goodness for parents who are able to partially support their children when going to college.

[shscott21]

My worst job was also in retailing, in a small card/gift/book shop. The store was owned by a bulldog of a woman who thoroughly cowed the other employee, an older woman who quivered, esp. after lunch, which I always suspected she drank.

These women didn't trust boys, but they needed lots of brute labor *g*, so as I learned later, I was hired because I was tall and appeared strong, not becasue I loved books. The owner never wanted any delivery men in the store, and so I had to meet the UPS man and carry all the boxes down rickety stairs into the basement. In August, that meant literally SCORES of boxes each day as the Christmas stock began to come in. And the basement itself was unbelievable -- dusty, crammed high with old "stock", a fire-trap waiting to happen.

In retrospect, probably the worst part of that job was stripping books. The owner told us that we could have any books we wanted, so long as we stripped the cover first so she could claim it as a return. At the time, this seemed like a swell deal, but now as an author---!

Thanks for a great blog, Loretta. And how cute you look as a meter-maid!

Susan/Miranda

[Jen Read]

When I was about 17 I worked at a local Woolworths (not sure what the US equivalent is). I worked after school from 4-5.30pm every day. My job was to top up the pick and mix sweet (candy) counter. Being a teenager, I never ate much during the day so by the time it got to the end of school I was starving. My job was absolute torture each day. The sweets smelled very strongly of cola, strawberry, banana and other assorted fruity smells and yet I wasn't allowed to eat any of them despite my rumbling tummy. A rather strict supervisor was always around so I daren't try and sneak a couple of sweets. Looking back it's probably a good thing I didn't indulge, as I would have grown very fat indeed! However, it is the worst job I have had - so far!

[liz]

Collections. I've had a pretty diverse career, but I loathe collections. I've done it for a medical office and a jeweler. People simply cannot be honest. If a collection agent is calling you, it is not a secret that you cannot pay your bill and it really doesn't matter why. What matters is you and I dealing with this situation in some fashion so that it will go away. Ostrich doesn't work.

Collection agents are evil because a) no one can actually do that job long unless they hate people and b) they've been made that way by losing all faith in humanity.

[Marissa]

+JMJ+

I may be cheating a bit, because the worst job I ever had was also the best job I ever had. (And of course I've just resigned from it and am now out of work!)

Until very recently, I was a high school English teacher in an all-girls school. While I loved my students and did everything I could to transmit some of my passion for language and love of books, I really couldn't handle the administration any longer. Last school year, they moved the Senior class into a new building that was had been built in such a hurry that it really wasn't fit for students.

The week we settled into our new classrooms, the airconditioners broke down. As if the heat hadn't been bad enough, the fact that the vollyeball courts and swimming pool were right under our windows made it impossible to teach anything. Then, when they finally got the airconditioning working again, it rained all week and the ceilings of all but two classrooms started to leak!!! Soon, one classroom even had mushrooms growing on its ceiling!

The next travesty was the breakdown of the computer network, which meant that all of the presentations and media saved on the school server were rendered absolutely useless. After spending hours lovingly balancing colour schemes and finding graphics to go with my texts, I wasn't able to show a single student any of that hard work! I should mention that the overpriced whiteboards that the administration had ordered especially for those classrooms were impossible to use. The markers smudged whenever we tried to erase our writing--and if we left it for two long, it wouldn't rub off at all! Soon, the students were just using them for graffitti! The teachers ended up taping clear plastic sheets to the walls so that we would have "boards" to write on.

Throughout this ordeal, we received absolutely no support from the administration. The staff seemed to think that the defects in the building were the fault of the students and the teachers--and the other students and teachers who didn't have to put up with any of that must have thought our stories were greatly exaggerated. Then a few sinks collapsed in the bathrooms, and suddenly Admin took us seriously!

Yet it's also the best job I ever had because of my students. I'll never forget guiding them through George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" or staging a reenactment of the train scene in "Spider-man 2", with myself as Spider-man! =P I'm sure it was also the worst school year of their lives, but I hope that I helped them laugh a ltitle while we got through it. =)

[Patricia Rice]

I thought I'd beat everyone hands down, but our readers are apparently as experienced in evil employers as the wenches! Agreed, retail is physical and emotional torture, but collections is hands down the meanest thing I've ever had to do. And when I became credit manager, not only forcing money out of people who didn't have it or repossessing their stoves was bad enough, but then I had to turn down the credit applications of people desperately needing a/c in heat waves or furnaces in winter or tires for the car they needed to get to work. I'm not talking frivolous purchases here. Maggie, you may go to hell for pushing smoking, but I'm going for cruelty. Horrible to say that I can relate to the Scrooges of history.

[Stephanie J]

Two words: Victoria's Secret. I'd have to say that job holds both best job and worst job titles! Gawd, the stories I have are priceless! But what stands out is how OPEN people are at VS. One lady whipped up her shirt in the middle of the store, stuck her armpit in my face, and asked me to take a look at the rash she thought she was getting from a bra. And there were the guys who'd come in and have no clue what size their gfs wore. I'd ask only to have them sizing me up in comparison. AH! But perhaps the funniest and most embarrassing was the woman who was buying lingerie for her birthday while her husband stood nearby. In a loud voice she exclaimed, "Isn't this so pretty! It's my anniversary and this doesn't happen very often if you know what I mean!" I've never seen a man turn so red.

[Melissa]

My worst job was at McDonald's. Our location was on a busy corner in a mostly-residential area, and we got some of the biggest jerks in the world. I got stuck with bad managers, racist co-workers and arrogant entitlement customers. But it was my first paying job, so I stuck it out for six months, then gave my notice.

Unfortunately I gave it verbally, so the manager who took it never told anyone else. He cut my hours down to weekends (closing shifts!) only for those two weeks, and then acted like I just walked out. If I hadn't bumped into another manager at Publix who asked me about it, I'd never have known. It taught me the importance of documenting EVERYTHING when dealing with a bad job, and how it can bite you in the rear years later if you don't.

[maryjoputney]

LOL about your experiences, Loretta! The replies are showing how widespread bad jobs are.

As you say, being a writer is the greatest--sitting and waiting for the voices and not having to deal with other people. What's not to like? :)

My worst job was working for a smallish manufacuring company with a sadistic sweatshop mentality. People were chopped with such abandon that if you didn't see a friend Monday mornings, you were afraid to ask where they were.

As head of design and advertising, I would receive ad invoices to approve. One day I got one for the sales manager, a position already occupied by a guy who had moved his family from another state, selling and buying houses, for his job.

After a fairly brief tussle with my conscience, I went to him and showed him the ad. He didn't say a lot, but he looked unhappy. When the ax fell a few weeks later, at least he wasn't caught be surprise.

I'm not sure if this figured into why I was fired (maybe it was because I walked into the CEO's office and told him to quit the sexual harassment of my assistant.) I was glad when I was fired--oh, lordie, free at last!

I was told I wasn't corporate enough. Which was absolutely true.

Mary Jo, who has never had a "real job" since then.

[Jane George]

You all are making me feel so much better, as my current truly awful job keeps me motivated to work on my manuscripts every night!

But as one can get fired for discussing one's current employer on the Internet, I will share my previous worst job.

I painted mannequins in New York. Huddled on top of a stool, I grabbed armless fiberglass torsos and gave them eyes, eyebrows and lips. The brick warehouse leaked and rain would run down the wall behind me. The spraypaint fumes were so strong I'd leave work high. Pretty Dickensian overall. And I've already used it in one of my mainstream books. :-)

[talpianna]

Loretta, I know what you mean about being a student. A friend of mine in grad school's ambition was to be the first tenured graduate student.

Worst job: Selling Avon door-to-door.

In Arizona.

In August.

I lasted three days.

[Beth]

One of my best jobs ever was as a seasonal worker in a chocolate factory! Because I only did it for two months, I remember it with great nostalgia. I'd come home smelling heavenly, which my DH and kids loved.
My experience with JC Penney's and McDonald's echoes everyone else's. There's nothing quite as bad as standing all day catering to the whole world's whims.
I'm a teacher now. Love it. Most days.

[RevMelinda]

My very worst job was waitressing in college. In those days each dorm had its own kitchen and dining room, and dinner was served "family style"--all the serving dishes placed on the table by a waitress and passed around from one girl to another to dish up her own food.

So when I was a freshman my very first work-study job was to be one of those waitresses that brings the food from the kitchen--and then gets everyone at the table her drink of choice, etc.

It wasn't hard work, just humiliating-- because I was having to serve my peers and cater to their whims. Some of them, while perfectly nice dorm neighbors or classmates, became real jerks at the dinner table and seemed to enjoy ordering me around. I also felt "different" and excluded because I couldn't share dinner and conversation like the other girls.

I do think that with any job it's not so much the work itself as the way you're treated, and the emotional fallout from that, which makes the job miserable or humiliating.

One of my best jobs in college was also kind of menial--being a slide projectionist for Art History classes (oh, the olden days before power point!).

I loved it, though, mostly because I was good at deciphering each art professor's arcane way of organizing trays of slides (show these two together, then change the one on the right, then the one on the left, then. . .on and on for an hour). The professors, who liked their lectures to go smoothly, would request me as their projectionist which pleased my vanity and made me feel important and appreciated! Plus I got a great art education without having to worry about tests or papers.

[Kalen Hughes]

Teaching children to ride at a country club. Ugh. These kids were a whole new level of spoiled for me, and their parents backed them up to the hilt.

Little Johnny doesn’t want to ride that ugly old beginner horse, he wants to ride Jet

*Jet is a difficult mount, only for advanced riders. Johnny is only on lesson three. He hasn’t even mastered the trot yet. He can’t ride Jet, and he certainly can’t take him out on the trail.*

Are you saying my kid’s not good enough? Little Johnny is a fabulous rider. Little Johnny wants to ride Jet, and he will ride Jet. If you don’t bring him Jet RIGHT NOW I’ll go to the office and have you fired!

*Let me clear this with the Stable Boss.* Howard says, and I quote: “Put the little brat on Jet and make sure the parents say in front of witnesses that whatever happens, it’s their responsibility.”

To sum up: Little Johnny gets brushed off within 5 minutes, breaks his arm, and his parents demand I be fired for putting him on a dangerous horse. ARGH!!!! But since the parents had demanded Jet in front of about twenty people I didn’t get fired, but this was a typical day.

[LorettaChase]

"I do think that with any job it's not so much the work itself as the way you're treated, and the emotional fallout from that, which makes the job miserable or humiliating."

The way one is treated definitely signifies. That meter maid job was HARD but our bosses and coworkers treated us well. I've done jobs with longer hours and lower pay but would never put them in the Worst category because those I worked with made me feel appreciated. Tops in the category of good treatment was a jewelry store. I started working there when still in high school & continued part-time for years thereafter. The owner was a true gentleman who remains my model of Best Boss, Best Business Owner, Smartest Manager of People.

Of course, reading these posts tells me how much worse my worst job could have been. And oh, Kalen, I had people like that in the clothing boutique. Ick, ick, ick.

[Janga]

RevMelinda, my first work-study job in college was much the same as yours. But my experience was at a tiny women's college and we were called hostesses. I loved it and continued with it for four years. I even turned down a library job to remain as a hostess. But our tables really were like family groups. The first year I had a table of juniors, all friends, who adopted me and got me through my patches of homesickness. The second year I had a faculty table, which terrified me at first, but turned out to be great fun. The last two years my table consisted of my own closest friends, who were terrific about helping. I consider that time one of my best jobs.

[Susan/DC]

My worst job wasn't the job itself but the boss. I worked in the business office of a public TV station, and I might be there still if I hadn't had the boss from Hell. The head of radio even quit because he didn't want to interact with the man. One of my vivid memories is dragging myself to work with laryngitis, barely able to speak above a croak. We had a two hour meeting in the afternoon with some of the creative types. After a brief introduction, my boss said, "Susan will run the rest of the meeting." This might have been okay if he had told me beforehand, but he didn't. I actually managed to do a good job despite the laryngitis and lack of warning. Typical of him he was annoyed -- he'd wanted to watch me fall flat on my face. I fought for that job until the day I had the epiphany that fighting for the job meant fighting to continue working with him, and I submitted my resignation the very next day.

[liz]

It wasn't my worst job, since I already said collections - but moving into 'bad bosses' this also wasn't my worst, but one of my most memorable was a woman at a shoe store who needed more NA meetings than she was already attending and liked to have sex with random people in the stockroom. Including our delivery drivers. I just asked her to use the rows cross seasonally - if it's summer, don't be in the sandal aisle, I've gotta walk through there.

[talpianna]

Liz, you are so damn SOPHISTICATED!

[lijakaca]

My worst...well, I only lasted two months at a lumber factory, making trusses (those triangular frames that make up house roofs). It wasn't the low pay or the 9-hour days on my feet in the sun, it was my coworkers. Though there were several very nice men who had worked there for decades, I got stuck in the young jerky team who used to trade stories about reckless driving, resisting/avoiding/getting arrested and thrown in jail, and who used to get in fights during lunch that would have to broken up by the foreman.
I was in great shape after that summer though, most days after work I went to karate and took out my aggression any way I could ^_-

[liz]

Talpianna - I'm just from Lauderdale. We've seen it all. (Although that happened in Cali)

[talpianna]

Liz--Lauderdale? Isn't that where Travis McGee hangs out?