Crappy jobs?

I'll bet there are some great stories about our first forrays into the workforce,here's mine.......I was 14 and decided to try my hand at driving an ice cream bike.There was a family near me that had a business and a few guys I knew worked for them and made pretty good coin(to a 14 year old).How it worked was that they stocked your bike and at the end of the day,they did an inventory,took the money for the stock and the profit was yours.....sounded easy.

My first day,being the junior guy,I got last pick of bikes.Naturally,all the good bikes got taken first and I was left with the oldest,heaviest and crappiest bike in the fleet....Single speed,bad brakes and a loaded weight of about 9000lbs,.

I jingled my way around my neighborhood for awhile and acted like a big-shot to a couple of girls I knew...."Have one on the house ladies,I got this".Sales didn't go so well so I pedaled/pushed my bike down to a part of town where I knew a lot of kids hung out.When I got there I ran into a group of older guys who strong armed a few rainbow pops out of me and it seemed a lot easier to just pay for them later instead of getting beat up.Leaving the shake-down,all the kids who had no money threw rocks at me because they had no money...."screw you ice cream man" they yelled as I covered up and got out of Dodge .

Later in the day,I ran into a couple of buddies who were taking turns riding a Honda 110 ATC.I had never seen one of those before and I offered a couple of Fudgesickles for a ride."Only one" I said as I rode off trying to figure out the ATC's gears while the boys guarded the bike.When I came back,they both had rings of chocolate around their mouths but they swore they each only had one.

That evening,I returned to Headquarters exhausted,demoralized and with a lump on my head from a rock,looking forward to cashing in.......After inventory,I was told I owed the company $14 which I had to borrow from my mother .

Needless to say,my days of being an ice cream Baron were over.....Day 2 never happened.

Other less crappy jobs included

Video store clerk
Gas station attendant
Camp councellor
Roofer
Half-assed carpenter
Kayak guide
Small biz owner.....

 

Great story Squad!

 

I think my first job was as a bagboy at the local grocery store, Albertsons. I can't remember how long I worked there but when Halloween came around the corner, they scheduled me to work, and this did not compute with me. I said screw it and did not come back. I couldn't miss Halloween for crying out loud! Just one of many job walk outs... hehe.

 

hahaha funny story man, now that you mention ice cream, my mom once bought me and me brother a big box of Popsicles, so we could sell them to our kid neighbors, needless to say we ate them all...

 

X2 Marc!

 

my 2nd job, since my first job at mcdonalds only last a week, was working at kmart. i was the "oh-1" aka buggy/trash/clean up boy. well apparently we had this same shopper who had explosive diarreha and shopped there every week it seemed. just my luck id work on the day she would start shitting before her ass was on the seat, so i had a nice spray pattern of shit on the stall walls. idk how many times i cleaned that crap up

 

That would have definitely been a walk out for me.

 

Yea, I've had to cleanup vomit and diarrhea both one time each. It is disgusting.

 

yeah i finally did 2.5 years later

 

I can't remember if I was still in high school, but I think it was my first summer during college (after freshman year).

I hadn't thought about a job and answered an ad in the paper in NYC looking for sales people/commission based.

When I got there, the place was one of those pyramid type deals where each level of manager got a piece of everything sold below him/her.

The item was a vibrating pillow about 15" square that was actuated by a pressure sensor. The idea being an office worker or someone who sat all day could put it under their feet or behind the small of their back and get a little relief.

The day started off in this loft on the West side of Manhattan with all the managers/door-to-door sales staff doing jumping jacks and yelling motivational shouts.

My first day I was assigned to "trail" this "seasoned veteran" and learn the ropes. So in and out of a bunch of stores on the West side we went trying to peddle these vibrating pillows to hair dressers and other assorted colorful folks.

At our lunch break I said I had to make some phone calls and never went back.

For me, the first and last "walk off".

Other crappy jobs:

Paper route - hated that
Dishwasher (one of my tasks was to empty fryer oil into 55 gallon drum in sun baked parking lot alive with maggots)
Waiter (too many times)
McDonalds (for only a few weeks - quit)
Bank Teller (Chase Manhattan as summer job) - very shitty
Haagen Dazs - scooped ice cream in a frenzy until couldn't open my fist
Had my own retail store for 3 years - $100,000 lesson in what not to do

There are a few others I'm not remembering on orders from my psychologist...

 

As for truly "Crappy Jobs", my tenure in the yachting/chartering business is filled with cleaning up other people's crap/diarrhea from stuffed toilets.

And I had my own experience with shit splatters from the waist down all over the head of a $1.5 million sail boat (boat was $1.5 when built in 1994, same boat today would be $3).

 

List of jobs from before high school until now:
farm labor
oil change monkey for a trucking company
worked at the zoo, several good stories there.
built cubicles in office buildings
was a college tutor (chemistry and calculus)
worked in a lumber yard, have some stories of how shitty a job can be
waited tables at several restraunts
bussed tables and worked as a bar back in some other places.
valet cars and worked as a lot attendant, that was some fun.
worked at Lowe's, that place was alright if you could deal with shitty managers and the politics of over worked employees.
now I work for a construction company in Dallas. I used to be a price estimator but now I am a project engineer.

I'd be happy to tell stories about any and all of these jobs if anyone want to hear them.

 

haha last winter i was pouring concrete in -35*C weather, that sucked!

 

haha yup, not a nice condition to work in!

 

Now that I'm older and look back at it all...the jobs weren't that bad and obviously taught me some lessons along the way.

At 15, I had a newspaper route that went daily, including Sundays. Back then, you had to carry the paper directly to the front door and put it at the door or inbetween the storm door & main door. I had an old orange 10 speed and this crazy sack that you carried over your shoulder. Damn Sunday papers were HEAVY as hell!!!

I used to shovel driveways in the winter for money. My parents had some friends who had a cheesy stand in the center of the mall - they sold glass figurines & etched glasses & stuff. I helped there during holidays. Working with the public sucks!!

Then at 16, I started working at McDonalds. My 9 year career at McDonalds I did everything - counter, drive-thru, cooked, maintenance, and was a Supervisor for a good 5 years. All I can say about that is....I'll NEVER work with the public again!!!! I had customers yell at me to the point I would cry!!
Back then, I was in insecure little teenager and when people yell at you for something you have NO control over.....it's a big slap in the face and you just wanna go run & hide!!

After those long & hard 9 years....started working with my current employer as entry level Material Handler. Got promoted 3X in the first year and have been in my current position for 14 years now. It suites me and there's no-where else I'd want to go right now.

 

Not my first job nor the crappiest but during high school I washed dishes 4 nights a week in a chinese food resturant. It was your typical dishwasher/food prep stuff. The owner/cook had limited english skills and would try to cuss me out in english for the simpliest issue but then got madder when I would correct him on how to properly tell me I'm a "F*&King idiot" american style.

other crappy jobs:
anything my neighbors would pay me to do
Paperboy
Burger king
ditch digger
construction laborer
campground maintenance
orderly
Counselor
Manager to Counselors (worst job ever)