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What's The Worse Job You've Ever Done?

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I'd say working in the mail room of a big company for a month in the summer between Uni.

Was so boring and you had to stand up all day - first and only chance to sit down was at Lunch time.
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Working in a 'high end' shoe shop fetching and carrying 8 pairs of shoes, for the woman to just say 'none of those, thanks'. Arrrgh. I'll never ever work in retail again.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Working in a 'high end' shoe shop fetching and carrying 8 pairs of shoes, for the woman to just say 'none of those, thanks'. Arrrgh. I'll never ever work in retail again.

    I've never worked in retail before - would love to give it a shot though - it's Business in it's purest form .. I went for a interview with one of the main offices in McDonalds to work in their IT Dept. and they said if I got the job I'd have to spend the 1st month actually working in one of the chains so I got a feel for the business, that's the closest I came but didn't get the job ..

    I wouldn't mind working Christmas at PC World - I'd probably be the only member of staff there that actually knew anything about computers .. :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    DG wrote: »
    I've never worked in retail before - would love to give it a shot though - it's Business in it's purest form ..

    I really wouldn't, the general public as a whole a ****ing morons.

    Worst job would have been handing out free jobs newspapers in autumn/winter, fecking freezing and i swear if i had heard one more person say "no thanks i already have a job" or "why don't you look through that for a job yourself" i'd have murdered someone.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I dunno I find a lot of sales staff are morons and don't know what providing good service is. however I'm sure they never had any real training either.

    So many times you'll pay at a counter and the member of staff don't event look at you, or they'll be carrying on a conversation with another member of staff.

    Lots of times they have no idea about the product they are selling, etc

    When you go to the USA or Canada they're so polite out there, ...here everyone is miserable - when my friend's wife worked at M&S she was so kind and helpful people kept asking her if she was on commission.

    Several customers even wrote letters to her manager to say how good she was.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    My current job, its the pits.

    Everyone who works in the McDonald's office has to do work experience in a restaurant. Good idea me thinks. Its only once you work inside a restaurant you understand what works and what doesn't.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I've had loads of awful jobs. Working in the kitchens of a holiday camp was pretty bad, especially when I had to clean out the deep fat fryer. Urgh. Also, pulling out staples from benefit forms all day isn't exactly a high point in my work history.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    DG wrote: »

    When you go to the USA or Canada they're so polite out there, ...here everyone is miserable.

    That's because a large majority of them are working for tips.

    I should say the worst for me was packing eggs off a conveyor belt. It stank and every so often you would get a dead mangled chicken come through which would scare the shit out of you.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A chambermaid.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    When I was an 'Appointment Maker'.
    I was given a long list of phone numbers to call up. I was told that I needed to convince people to let someone visit them with a sample of a bed that was about to be advertised on tv and we needed the opinions of the general public first.
    After a few hours of working there I realised that all the people I was phoning were very old and vulnerable and infact I was making appointments so that a nasty salesperson could enter their home with this bed sample and not leave until they had made a sale worth thousands.
    It's actually been on watchdog it's that bad..
    When I realised I quit and told them the job was immoral. Their response was "what's up with you students, always worrying about morals".
    Bastards!!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    lipsy wrote: »
    When I was an 'Appointment Maker'.
    I was given a long list of phone numbers to call up. I was told that I needed to convince people to let someone visit them with a sample of a bed that was about to be advertised on tv and we needed the opinions of the general public first.
    After a few hours of working there I realised that all the people I was phoning were very old and vulnerable and infact I was making appointments so that a nasty salesperson could enter their home with this bed sample and not leave until they had made a sale worth thousands.
    It's actually been on watchdog it's that bad..
    When I realised I quit and told them the job was immoral. Their response was "what's up with you students, always worrying about morals".
    Bastards!!


    Yaay good for you... :)

    The main reason I think they call first is cos if the person on the phone gives you permission to come over then the 14 days cooling off period doesn't apply compared to if they just knock on your door unannounced ..

    Someone rang once about a free survey and my mum answered and yes and next thing we had a guy around for 3 hours trying to sell windows .. apparently 3 hours is the time it takes most people to break down and sign anything to get rid of the sales man
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    lipsy wrote: »
    When I was an 'Appointment Maker'.
    I was given a long list of phone numbers to call up. I was told that I needed to convince people to let someone visit them with a sample of a bed that was about to be advertised on tv and we needed the opinions of the general public first.
    After a few hours of working there I realised that all the people I was phoning were very old and vulnerable and infact I was making appointments so that a nasty salesperson could enter their home with this bed sample and not leave until they had made a sale worth thousands.
    It's actually been on watchdog it's that bad..
    When I realised I quit and told them the job was immoral. Their response was "what's up with you students, always worrying about morals".
    Bastards!!

    I thought I had seen you on Watchdog. :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Oh, I've just remembered one after reading that. I never counted it as a proper job though.

    When I was 18 and had just done my A Levels, I responded to an ad in the paper asking for college leavers who would be trained up to work in advertising, marketing and PR. Went for an 'interview', in very swish offices with plasma screens and lots of trendy young people around. I was told to come back the next day where I would shadow some other people.

    I wanted to impress so wore a smart coat, fitted work trousers and high heeled boots. We met in a cafe for breakfast, and then were told we were going to Coventry. I only had £5 with me, and had to spend nearly all of it on the train ticket.

    Once we got there, we got on another bus to an estate, and I realised that the job actually was: knocking on people's doors and trying to get them to change their electricity supplier to NPower. For everyone that you got to change, you got £10.

    I traipsed round with this guy for hours in the hot sun, having doors slammed in our faces. He didn't make one sale, and I felt embarrassed to be out.

    We eventually stopped off in a pub for them to eat some food. I was famished, but had no money, so had to just sit there as they ordered. I said I was going to the loo, and then ran away, and went home.

    My feet were absolutely killing, and my belly was grumbling, and I cried!

    So avoid answering any job adverts in the paper that say things like enthusiastic people needed for marketing jobs! They are all bullshit!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    katchika wrote: »
    When I was 18 and had just done my A Levels, I responded to an ad in the paper asking for college leavers who would be trained up to work in advertising, marketing and PR.

    So avoid answering any job adverts in the paper that say things like enthusiastic people needed for marketing jobs! They are all bullshit!

    Argh I see so many of those 'jobs' advertised! I applied for one and got an interview. I thought it was probably going to be something dodgy but I went along anyway...well I got as far as the front door of the building -it looked like a shit hole! So I ran away.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    squeal wrote: »
    I should say the worst for me was packing eggs off a conveyor belt. It stank and every so often you would get a dead mangled chicken come through which would scare the shit out of you.

    Lol My mate did that for a while on a local farm. Then he got a job in the Donut van for the town carnival....

    My worst job was working for these Pakistani guys, who were absolute cunts, packing envelopes in some warehouse in the Industrial estate. All my fellow employees were illegal Eastern Europeans, didn't speak any English, and treated me like shit. I was only like 14 and they might aswell have paid me in dog shit because that's basically all I could afford after a week's work there.

    I was only there for like a couple of weeks. One day one of the eastern european guys was shouting at me again and I just flipped. Went absolutely mental at them all and walked out. lol
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I never had any really, really bad jobs.

    But there is no chance of me ever working in retail and/or customer service jobs again!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    squeal wrote: »
    That's because a large majority of them are working for tips.

    I should say the worst for me was packing eggs off a conveyor belt. It stank and every so often you would get a dead mangled chicken come through which would scare the shit out of you.

    You don't get tips in retail in the US and only a small few (usually at the makeup counters or personal shoppers and such at higher end department store) get paid on comission.

    I always say I'll never work in retail again, but then I think back, minus the shit wages and the very few hours they'll give you, it was such a breeze. Sit for a few hours in a dressing room sorting bras and get paid, avoiding absoutly everybody. Considering other jobs, it really wasn't too bad if you could get away with it! But working on the register was evil. All the old bitches whining over 5 cents because they can't do the math to figure out sales tax!

    I think the worst one I had when I worked for a auto health insurance thing. One of my first calls was "I'm going to divorce my wife, if she kills herself, is that covered?" Scary freak. I worked there about a week! Went on break, grabbed my chips and never came back.
  • SkiveSkive Posts: 15,282 Skive's The Limit
    Tescos. No doubt.

    I enjoyed working at McDonalds actually but that was more to do with the crowd I was workign with than the actaul job.

    Best job I had was greenkeeper, though probably one of the lowest paid jobs I've had.
    Weekender Offender 
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Working for a small local cleaning agency. I had to ring in sick one day and from that day on she just stopped collecting me for work, so weird. She was a horrible cow though, it was no loss to not be working there.

    Co-op was fine after the initial year, Morrison's is good too but that's because of the crowd like Skive said, it makes all the difference. Generally Morrison's are a stingy rubbish employer but at the moment I enjoy working there because of the people and the fact that it's easy because I did it in the co-op anyway.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Labouring to two brickies.

    Lifting all sorts of shit, tired me out no end!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The worst job I ever had was working in the women's clothing department of M&S. Nobody told me who my manager was, where I was supposed to go, what I was supposed to do, who I had to report to or when my breaks were. I got into trouble for talking to another member of staff and was asked on more than one occassion who I was and what I was supposed to be doing by other colleagues. It was sooo badly organised. One day I cut my hand and it wasn't even put in the accident book. Nobody cared that it wouldn't stop bleeding so I simply went home four hours early. Nobody ever found out, which is how much notice they took. After being sent to the children's department because I had been talking to a colleague whilst working I just decided not to turn up for work the next day. It took them 6 hours to call and ask where I was.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    DG wrote: »
    I'd say working in the mail room of a big company for a month in the summer between Uni.

    Was so boring and you had to stand up all day - first and only chance to sit down was at Lunch time.

    Working for a bar called 'The Living Room'. I worked there for one night, spent 5 hours on my feet collecting glasses and the idea of a 'break' was to go and sit outside the fire exit on a bottle rack for ten minutes. The funny thing is it's an expensive lounge that attracts posh clients, yet they treat there employees like dirt
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Summer job at safeways. It was a quiet store and I was on the checkout so when there was no customers you just had to sit there and stare at the wall. I used to get bored and wander off until they called me back over the tannoy :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Some of the shifts at the pools I have worked at have been truly awful.

    We had so few staff (generally only 5 on site at any time) it made a huge difference depending on who you worked with.

    The pay in leisure is shit and as a result they employ utter numpties who don't give a damn as duty managers. I dropped my Sunday shift to every fortnight from every week because I hated working with one of the Duty Managers so much. It was me, two guys and the DM who a was bloke (and a wanker). They thought a fair version of splitting the cleaning was for them to do that male side of the building and for me to do the female side, and then go and pick at what I'd done and make me redo bits, before making me redo the male side too because 'guys are no good at cleaning'.

    The staff room would be covered in lads mags left open lying around and they'd pretty much only talk about who was hot and not, who they would and wouldn't do, and their latest conquests.

    On the flip side, working the same shift, with the same other lifeguards but a fair DM who split cleaning evenly, mucked in and treated us all with an .inkling of respect was a really good laugh.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Co op.

    Don't mind the customers - I've done jobs since in CS and you do get tough ones but I think (from having worked with people like it) that you either do get people or don't like working with people, and people who don't will blame the whole of the population, rather than face the fact they're not best suited to dealing with people face to face.

    But it was the management that got me. We were in a loss making store, and the pressure was on the management to turn this around. All the section managers were sub-par, because co op pays less wages I think, and they were under pressure, and it all came together so the bottom rung was shouted at by everyone.

    We were suposed to get an hour unpaid lunch, but the managers told you to come back after 30 minutes and if you didn't you'd get in trouble (which was annoying if there was a queue for food). I was halfway through my food and had managers (from different sections) being funny with me, asking if I shouldn't get back to work.

    Often I was left with responsibility for a whole department (I was one guy) which wasn't so bad actually, kept you on your toes, but then checkout would call me over and forget I had work to do, and kept me there for my whole shift, so none of my work actually got done (this includes getting rid of / reducing waste stock, restocking shelves, counting all the stock of which there was hundreds - normally took about 40 minutes).

    I got told on one occasion by one of the managers when this happened, that I could not leave until I had finished it. So, after my shift 'finished' I was let off checkout, and then had to spend another half hour half making up the results to try to get home at some reasonable hour.

    Didn't get paid extra for it either.

    There was a culture there of looking out for ones self, and the managers did it worse than the rest. They would 'snipe' each others workers, so often in a day I'd swap job 3 - 4 times, working all over the store - rather than being able to finish my own work.

    When I got my next job, and the one after that, it made me realise that some companies care about investing in their employees, making them feel valued and helping them enjoy work to get the most out of them, rather than middle managers trying to get performance ratings up, so hiring less staff and then 'borrowing' staff from other departments so their profit / productivity looks massive.

    All a bit of a joke really.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The worst job I've had was working for Next. My manager was incredibly abusive towards all her staff including me.

    I've had other jobs but nothing comes close to how bad it was at Next.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    My worst and only job so far was working at my local shop. People are very odd up here - if you or your relatives havent lived here for past 20 years (or there about) then no-ones going to accept you cos you're an 'outsider'. My boss was no exception to this, and was nice enough to my colleague (who at the time was my best friend.) However she ignored me, and when I needed time off for holidays etc she made a huge deal out of it, and at one point had me working an 8 hour shift as I wouldnt be able to work the next day. It was slave-driving, as all I was doing was scrubbing the floor, and unpacking boxes, and dragging crates of beer around. I was intending to leave as the pay was rubbish - £3 an hour, however she paid me off saying she could no longer afford to pay me. However, within a week, my best friend/colleague - who was still working there was being paid double what she used to be, and was working more hours than she was before - in other words the woman had no reason to sack me!

    The worst part? I need to approach her soon, and ask her to be my reference for the job I'm applying for - function staff at a hotel. Can't wait :lol:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Working for a supposedly big law firm as a remortgage conveyancer.

    The managers were cunts, the customers were cunts, the agents were cunts, the bank were cunts, the pay was insulting. It was only the people I worked with that kept me sane, that and whiskey.

    Apparently I was a shit to live with I was so stressed.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Part time shop work

    I'm expected to do everything while the people who've been working there longer are just having a wee chat at the back of the store, i get ignored when i ring my bell for someone to get something for a customer and they never listen when i tell them what hours i can and can't work

    ETA: However i'm a teenager so of course im going to moan about my job
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Randomgirl wrote: »
    The worst job I've had was working for Next. My manager was incredibly abusive towards all her staff including me.

    I've had other jobs but nothing comes close to how bad it was at Next.
    I had the same thing happen to be in the Body Shop - I think looking back that manager helped me to slip back into my depression. She was a horrible and evil woman and I had a realy miserable time there.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Glittery wrote: »
    A chambermaid.


    :yes:
    once I found an incontinance pad in the sheets :yuck:
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