The Crappy Job Thread!

[Kortez]

Hi, I know for a fact that not all of you are concept artists, modellers, art directors and art related stuff like that. If you have a crappy job which you would give up on in a second if offered a job doing art, I want you to post it!

I myself am a student but I'm also ...

A gardener - This is probably as dull as it gets, I'm actually a low level gardener and sit around cleaning flowerbeds and raking the grass 9 hours a day

Coke distributor - This isn't as pointless as the gardening thing, and the people who work here are really cool. My job is basically to move the Coke from the Stock-room into the shops.

Babysitter - That's right! I babysit children, which can be nice at times, and can also be hell at other times.

Having 3 jobs sucks but usually fits quite well into my schedule, except this weekend, and I just wanted to bitch about it. Today I worked 14 hours and yesterday I worked 22 hours straight!!! and started working 2 hours later for the 14 hours. So I'm pretty much dead tired and have no idea why I'm not fast asleep. But I know that there's someone out there with less time and crappier jobs than me so... hit me!

[Kortez]

Oh and I forgot 2 things.

1. The crappy thing about the Coke distributing is that sometimes the trucking company that drives the Coke from the warehouse to the stock-rooms often accidentally break holes into the bottles so when you're taking it from the stock-rooms to the stores, you'll get 2 liters of coke all over you. Truck drivers.:mad:

2. If you've have a good job, but USED to have a crappy job, I would love to hear about it :D

[DragonGX]

I was a cook at Bennigans and Bonefish Grill.. I quit Bennigans about 7 months ago and Bonefish abotu a month ago.. I got sick of the restaurant industry..

I dont know what Im going to do next.. im on vacation in Utah and when I get back to Florida, Im going to have to start looking for a new job.

I was thinking about applying to be a coke or pepsi guy who drives around delivering to stores..

[Bloodstone]

I used to do 3d modelling/animation for a local drafting company. I had fun, the pay was great, and my boss fed me CHEESECAKE. Now I'm a shift manager at a video store, and I hate my life.

[nardfrog]

Do you distribute coke as in cocain?! Cause if so, thats cool.

I work construction and i hate it more than i hate anything else i can think of. I work about 9 extremely hard hours a day and i get yelled at non stop. When i get home im covered in contrete so i take a shower, eat and go to sleep. I do exactly what im suppost to and i get yelled at anyway. Why do i get yelled at then , you ask. Because my dad is my boss and he feels that if you scream at people all day long they will work harder and know what to do better. Pretty messed up shit. Why did i go to college again?

But at least i get paid for it. Thats the ONLY possitive thing i can think of.

[celes]

hiii o.ov (whee, my first post and i'm whining already ^_^; )

there was a damn good reason i always said "anything but fast food" when job hunting... o_o and i think i was stuck doing the graveyard shift at the worst location ever.... living nightmare.... *has traumatic flashbacks of burger king* ;. ; i'm never ever ever going back.... you can't make me! i like poverty! really i do! *runs away in terror*

[pconsidine]

I used to work at a deli in NY. I got up every day at 4:30AM to be to work by 5, and then worked till 3PM. It sucked beyond sucking. Not only are people hugely grumpy most of the day, if you screw up their food, they get a hundred times grumpier. Fifty hours a week of grumpy-ass people can make a person ... well ... grumpy.

Food service sucks –_in all possible variations.

[strych9ine]

Even though I had shitty jobs, the most enjoyment came from me trying to get fired from them. My boss at one job was just a big, whiny pussy, so eventually I would deliberately argue with customers, show up late, and in general do whatever the hell I felt like. The worse of an employee I was, the more my boss let me do what i wanted.

It was heaven, man.

[cotron]

I used to wait tables in the most ghetto Applebees...it was 2 years of shitwork for not so great pay...now I draw caricatures at a theme park...which is so much better because I hang out and draw and get paid decently for it. It's still a ghetto crowd though.

[rimwalker]

I currently clean hearing aids and do minor repairs on them. Seriously, that's my job. It's very boring.

[helix7]

Right now I'm unemployed... which is the shittiest 'job' there is. But before this I was working for a design studio in NYC. Now that probably sounds pretty good, but I wasn't doing any designing... I was basically a code-monkey. I checked lines of html and css for the web-design team. I hoped to eventually move up to doing actual design work as part of the graphics team, but I got let go (fired, downsized, laid off, whatever) before I could move up.

Then I worked for two days drawing property maps in Illustrator for a design studio that deals only with real estate jobs. I thought I was doing good work and I'm pretty fast with Illustrator so I was pumping out work pretty quickly. But at the end of my second day the boss handed me a check and said he'd call me next week... That was two weeks ago.

So in between sending out resumes and practicing my Painter skills, I'll probably go back to valet parking.

[sic1]

my current job: Student :(

Worst possible job for me, because I don't get paid, and I'm forced to do tasks which I don't want to do because they're not really helping my art career. Luckily I am taking a drawing class this semester. If nothing else, hopefully I can just sit and draw for hours!

[gasmask]

Drug store and student

[Szyslack]

i am jobless as well. its no fun. i pray for the end of summer so i can get back to school. Yay school!!! Though while i'm there i still have to try and find a job for after i graduate. good grief...

[DustinTrimble]

I test games, it's pretty cool, but it's so hard to make time for playing the games you really want to play, try and have some kind of socail life, and try and do art too. Not to meantion other hobbies... It's a pretty cool job compared to say, working at Target, or as a Bank teller (both of which I've done.)

[skrubbles]

Every job I've had has been crappy.

FARM-

I used to work on my grandfathers farm... started doing that at age 8, and basically continued every summer till about 2 years ago when I moved to WA. I had to be out in the hot-ass sun all day bailing hay and stacking hay in the huge/oven-like loft. while I was a teen I stayed up pretty late with my friends and went to bed around 3 in the morning, and around 6-7am I'd wake up and deliver hay with my grandfather. Oh, and in the fall/winter I had to shovel corn in a dark, dust-filled barn, to the holes of a pipe that had an auger running through it... and being carefull not to fall or else I'd loose a hand or foot... then when coming out of the barn I'd have corn dust in my hair and all over my work clothes, and corn in my shoes, and my boogers would be black for a few hours after.

GAS STATION-

I was born and raised in Jersey, where gas stations are full service. I got a job their one winter (quit for the summer and returned for the following winter). I was in high school and my parents didn't want me working after school because they didn't want my grades to slip and they didn't want me working at night, which left me working the morning shift on weekends. So basically I had to get up early every morning for school on the weekdays and on the weekends I had to wake up super early (4:30am). I had to wake up get my cover-alls on and ride my lil POS bike that had no brakes to the gas station a few blocks away and open it up at 5 in the morning... being cold, grumpy, and half asleep is how I spent every weekend of those winters.

CONVENIENT STORE-
The summer after I graduated high school I spent working the graveyard shift at a local convenient store. I worked this shift because the pay was better and I cold also hang out with my friends in the afternoon... I didn't want to work the morning shift because I HATE waking up early in the morning. The job sucked... I switched between being the clerk and the deli person ever other night... when I was the clerk, I had to also be the janitor and clean the entire store and even the bathrooms (which got pretty nasty). And when I was the deli person all I'd get were screwed (forget if I can use the f word on this forum) up orders by stoners and drunks who didn't know what the hell they wanted and ended up not even having the money to pay for what I made for them half the time.

I worked all summer and managed to save about $2700. I then bought me a then top-of-the-line computer that I peiced together myself (cost $2500), and then moved to WA for college).

MCDONALDS-
This is where I'm currently employed. The one main thing that sucks about living in WA is that the unemployment rate is insanely high. After seeing how working at a fast food joint affected my brother I swore I would never work at such a job... unfortunately that was the only job I could land. Its not so bad working here... its actually quite easy. Only drawback is that I don't really have much time to draw and when I do have the time I'm too exhausted/lazy to do anything. Also, some of the workers get on my nerves. There's this one manager... gah... I just wanna punch her in the face!

Hopefully I can build a decent portfolio and get a job some where doing artwork... I do get commisions here and there, but I want the stability of a full time job and the assurance of a paycheck.

[Jason Manley]

well my gig at impressions games tops my list....i had more fun working the fishing docks of alaska than working there.

if you dont count that....my salmon fishing gig on the shores of the bering sea is the worst...20 hour days and minimum wage pay...with all the food you can eat...and the most disgusting sleeping quarters you can imagine...my bed was so old (they provided it) that it was nothing but springs...all the cloth had rotted off of it...i had to sleep on my army bag on top of the springs.

next on the list was subway...workin til three on schoolnights for jack nothing about killed me...

oh wait...i forgot...corn detasseling...i did that too...summers plucking corn flowers in the heat....and then bailing hay....bailing hay is the absolute worst....even beats gutting fish on this list...


j

[skrubbles]

cool, manley's just like me... bailer of hay. lol

[mcotie]

I was in the military (Air Force) for 14 years, (17 total). I hated the job and the military itself.I've still got 3 years left in the guard and then the U.S. Military can kiss my Veteran Ass right in the middle. But I have been to some really great places around the world, and met some great people. I think Germany and France are the coolest places on the planet (and yes I've been all over it).

I was a security guard in Dallas while going to school. It frickin sucked the ass of hell.

I worked on a Farm in North Dakota. That's some downright rugged shit. I did all kinds of crazy stuff like castrating pigs, dehorning cattle. I saw a calf that had half of its body was literally frozen solid and it was still alive. that's some crazy shit. I also spent 20+ hours a day driving a combine during harvest, bailing hay, and rebuilding combines, and tractors and shit. all of that while still working fulltime for Uncle Sam. I learned alot about life then and had plenty of time to think while driving tractors and shit. Even though it sucked for the most part, I have the utmost respect for farmers around the world, because it's got to be the most intense lifestyle.

mitch

[DragonGX]

Originally posted by Jason Manley

oh wait...i forgot...corn detasseling...i did that too...summers plucking corn flowers in the heat....and then bailing hay....bailing hay is the absolute worst....even beats gutting fish on this list...


Man I had to do that a few times. It sucked. I worked at a movie theater when iwas 13-16 and the owner was a rancher.. he paid us like $8 an hour under the table (pretty good considering i was making like $5.15 an hour at the time) but it sucked. lifting those heavy bails of hay onto a truck adn then off the truck and stacked into a barn... :mad:

[nova]

the worst part about working for a temp agency is you never know where you're going to work, it's the best part too but this thread is about the crappy, so i'll explain it :) filing. filing is the worst. for 8 hours a day. tight folders, not enough room. fingers, right around the nails, they get red and bleed from rubbing against the folders inside. yeah.

that was my first job at 15.5. my junior year in high school i was employed at a company that created graphics for golf courses. they also did 3d work making fly-throughs of future golf courses based on gps data. anyway. that was my first art job so i shouldn't complain, and i probably wouldn't if it had to do with golf, but mostly golf people. my boss often brought our clients into the office, to look over our shoulder and make changes right there. golf people, especially old, bitter rich golf people and geeky highschoolers on a computer don't mix. nuff said.

good thing the company went down right after i left to work on games :D God is watching is.

[brasshorsekiller]

Delivering Bread.

It sounds easy, and thats why I went for it. But friends, do not fall into the deathtrap that is bread delivery.

3am. Wake up..

Get to work at 4am. Load truck for 2 hours full of huge-ass palletes, stacked about 10 feet high, while counting brands and inputting them in a crazy, whacked-out hand-help computer.

Drive for 1 hour to another city and then deliver bread to EVERY SINGLE STORE THAT CARRIES IT. This means grocery stores, 7-11, tiny shacks in the woods..everything.

Now, you don't just 'deliver'. You memorize a 4-digit code for every kind of bread, and then type in how much each store has, how much they need for the next 2 weeks, how much is expiring soon, etc..all into this hand-held gizmo that looks like it was made by chimps who got a hold of some spare PC parts in 1962.

Oh, then you have to lift 200+ lb. stacks of bread about 4.5 feet up into the truck and organize it. That's right - you have to be a weightlifting linebacker with the IQ of a rocket scientist. Then you drive to about 10 different towns/cities and do this. In every store.

By the way, you finish at about 5pm or so, and then go home, collapse/sleep until you wake up at 3 to do it all over again. 6 days a week.


Bread delivery, A.K.A. - The Living Death.

[LiL QoH]

I was an evvvvvvil person who solicited on phones at night.:evilbat:

[Android]

i used to wash dishes for almost 5 years, i also moonlit as a janitor at an elementary school. that was actualy a cool gig. I would come in late at night and vacum for 8 hours. I got fired when one of the teachers came in late to pick something up and caught me and my girlfriend making out on the bean bags in the nap time area. it was fun while it lasted.

[jwo]

taco bell- my first job, it was pretty awsome, but the people I worked with were horrible and the fatass manager fired me.

hardees- second job, they cut me down to like 10 hours a week pffffft and i left.

Shoney's- i moved and i needed a job, that only lasted 3 days cuz after working 12 hour shifts...i had to stay an extra two hours to cook the fatass managers their dinner and do "chores".

7-11- Omg whats sleep? i was spose to take bullet for this womans money, when theres more cash in the register than i would make in 3 months.

then i took a vow to never work in the food or convenient industrys again, and never trust fatass managers.

[jmascho]

I took a year off from school, now I dig holes, mow grass, drive backhoe, and bury dead people at a cemetery. A lot of thinking going on there heh. I should be working another part time job to save more money for school, but if I can't draw all day I get grumpy.

btw: zombies are real

[Blackhawk]

I did data entry for an insurance agency. The most mind numbing work in the existence of mankind. Come to work, look at 6 foot stack of policies, sit down for 6 hours and enter each one into system doing the exact same keystrokes. Then file them. I don't know how I lasted a year there.

I then refereed ice hockey and roller hockey. Now this gig was fun for acouple years, but after awhile all the yelling and bullshit mentally breaks you down. It got to the point where I didn't even want to get in the car to go to work because I knew I had 6 hours of mental abuse ahead of me, lol.

Now I serve tables and bartend, the money is alright for the hours I put in, but I'm ready to move on.

[Kortez]

Let's talk MONEY people ! :)

2 years ago I was doing the same exact shit that I'm doing now... gardening, but back then I had a dollar fifty an hour... that's right $1,50! I was 16, and I was all "I'm so lucky! I have a job!" and didn't really care what I was getting paid.

Now I get around $6,60 an hour for the same work... next year I'm gonna apply for a better place and I'll probably get around $8,50 an hour, which sucks less.

The only art-related work I've had wasn't actually work, it was a small thing that I got in relation to school. You got to choose a type of company you would like to work for in the future, I chose Graphic Design but they sent me to a print shop. I was like, I can make this work. And I told the manager that I actually signed up for "graphic design" and he was all cool about it, and said something along the lines of "Johnny here is our graphic designer, you just spend the day with him".

Johnny turned out to be an asshole, he was like "The most important thing to remember before printing is that you should always print in CMYK. And then he made me change pictures from RGB to CMYK for 4 freakin hours, and it was obvious it was just something he couldn't be bothered doing and he just wanted to keep me busy. After 4 hours of hell I walked over to the oldest guy in the print shop and said "it's obvious that you have some experience in this field" and then he told me stories about how much of a difference the computers made and stuff like that, and everytime Johhny tried to get me back the old guy said "wait, I'm telling him a story".

Going over to the old guy is probably one of the most clever things I've done! :)

[Lono]

in highschool i worked as an all around towl monkey at a Carwash.. my breaking point was when i had to clean the interior of some rednecks pickup truck who had knocked over his chewing tobacco spit cup spraying its revolting contents on every piece of fabric in the mutherfucker.

id like to return every ounce of horrable yellow saliva that i soaked up with my rag to that assholes smelly mouth hole...


-Lono

[tyboogie]

food service--never again.

retail industry--never again

stockboy--never again

OH!! one of the worst jobs i ever had was at this huge arcade--but there was a dance club in it. on the weekends they would have it open for highschool kids. (this was in katy tx). I just walked around and made sure kids werent smoking, starting fights, or just being spoiled white suburbanite shitholes. the worst part was watching 14 year old girls getting grinded on to the latest crap rap on the radio by young boys. it was really wierd and depressing to see our cultures youth acting like fucking cloned zombies out of the latest jay Z video. i got the fuck out of that twilight zone episode real quick.

pretty much any job i ever had where i had to deal with people sucked

im doing construction for the summer before school starts again in the fall and i actually like it.
NARDFROG--yea i know exactly what you mean--go to work for eight hours --go home, eat, go to sleep and do it all over again. I have a kick ass boss though--and i am working on his recording studio so i got lucky there.

STAY STRONG brothers and sisters!!! keep faith in your dreams and keep your heads up!!

[Sammy]

I was a Janitor for 3 years in Highschool... and I'll let you in on a little secret.. Girls somehow manage to piss on the underside of toilet seats (think about that the next time your girlfriend tells you that you're the one that should be raising and lowering the toilet seat)...........
It wasn't so bad 'cause in highschool any money I made I got to pretty much spend it all.. so my videogame collection grew a TON.. and made me into the gaming conosour I am today..

Now apart from being a student I work at a toystore.. which is pretty damn awesome! I get along great with my boss and I get to play gameboy (trade some pokemon with kids), squirt kids with waterguns, flirt with college girls, hear tourests ask stupid shit.......

This one time some people came into the store and were brousing... there was a half empty coke bottle on one of the shelves....... they got to it before I did and said "OH LOOK HONEY! A trick coke bottle!!".. they poured the damn thing all over the floor....... they were pretty ashamed of themselves...

[ClocktowerArtworks]

I used to have a great job as a tattoo artist, but had to give it up when my daughter was born. I'm glad I did because I get to spend more time with her and our financial situation was never certain when i was a tattooer (i had just finished my apprenticeship when she was born), but i still miss it every day. now i'm a graphic design student and i pretty much hate the work, but i usually end up zoning out in class and drawing my own shit the whole time. but anyway, yeah...that's my story. i've worked in warehouses, a flowershop, restaurants, security, delivery...and a whole slew of shitty jobs.

[Octave13]

I used to work at a Warner Bros Studio Store in the mall here in Atlanta. It didn't help that I was the only straight guy working there. What really sucked about that job, though, were the occasional asshole customers who thought themselves so far above a lowly "sales associate" that they couldn't even hand me the money, opting instead to toss it on the counter and watch my untouchable hands scurry about to pick it all up. That, plus I was constantly hit on by the gay guys. :barf:

Now I'm the lead digital artist at a casino gaming company and while it isn't the best job I can imagine, it's the best I've ever had, so I'm in no position to complain.

[Joeslucher]

Soccer referee. I hate parents.

I worked as the ONLY waiter at this Chinese Restaurant during lunch hour and it was located near a hospital. It was the most stressfull job ever and I only got payed two dollars an hour. I'd show up at 9 and work til 2 then I'd have to do all the janitorial work as well. I had to vacuum, wash the tables, wash the dishes and clean the bathrooms. That would take about an hour. AN hour which I only got paid 2 bucks for. The rest of the employees were all family and they grandmother who ran the place always gave me looks like "stupid American". They'd get in crazy yelling matches with each other that rocked though but I couldn't understand them because they were speaking Chinese.

Next job was factory work. Pay was so friggin good I could ignore the crap.

Latest and best job. Driving a blind piano tuner for 9 bucks an hour (under the table too) and having my gas and lunch paid for. Only 20 hours a week but it was sweet.

[RONIN]

CHIMNEY SWEEP - (Hilarity ensues)

Yes CHIM-CHIM-CHER(FREAKING)OO!! WORST, and dirtiest, job on the planet. I always dreaded the calls every Spring "There's an animal in my chimney I think.", and every Fall "There's a smell like something died in my chimney".

I was once chased off of a roof of a 1-level ranch house by a racoon the size of a dog. I threw a smoke bomb down the chimney to scare it out ... Well it came up, smoldering from the flame of the smoke bomb, with malice in it's eyes. I ran and dove on the ladder and let it separate me from the house, so the freaking thing didn't jump on my back.:bash:

[fish~]

ohh i got some good ones
.. i used to walk around waikiki with a large parrot and try to sell pictures of it with a tourist for 20$ a pop..i got 25% of the sales

then i was a telemarketer

then i dressed up in a lioncloth and a hawaiian headdress and took pictures with tourist in waikiki at luau's and other events, then we had to go develope them and sell them before the costomers left the show.

well that job kinda rocked too...there were 2 males models and 25 fremale ones. + we made about 85$ per 2 hour shift

then i was the manager @ orlandos grill in the centerfeild bleacher of pac bell stadium(near the big glove)
orlando sepada would come behind the counter and just start giving away free beers to chicks..and then id have to explain it to my boss.

bussboy->waiter->bartender->manger @ a resturant in hawaii and S.F

masons assitant carrying cement blocks all day
contractors assitant carryin 2x4's all day

and my all time favorite
i worked on a shark tagging boat pulling up rope and coiling it in a barrel..taking large fish heads off hooks, and occasionally seeing 15' tiger sharks no more then mile ofrom my favorite surfing places

then was a t.a for the 3d animtion courses @ berkeley. along with a modeling gig for a museum content designer

now. im a junioir architect and model 3d on a contract basis in my free time

[al-x]

Used to work as a bartender, you may think it sounds good, but it really sucked. In this club/pub that I worked the average age was pretty high. And costumers use to flirt with the bartender, but as a 20 year old bartender it isn't very fun to have a 50 year old woman flirting with you.

And working late nights really kills your creativity so trying to get something done during the day was impossible.
To make things even better the boss (a 40 year old lady who looked as a pitbullterrier) enjoyed bulling her staff, nobody on this place liked her.

..and neither pay or tip was very high:mad:

[ceenda]

Research Associate - yep, like Gordon Freeman. Just without the crowbar-related violence.

The worst job I took was in the records office of the largest Health Centre in Glasgow. People would wander in and ask to see a doctor, to which I'd reply "Sorry, this is the records office. The reception is over there.". To which they reply "JUST GIVE ME MY METHEDONE!!!". To which I start pressing a little red button under the desk.

[NOOSE]

I have done lots of crappy jobs, and had one or two good ones but the worst was working as a carpet cleaner for a company run by a guy who was like 17/18 and he was a REALY succcesfull cocky prick!.. after a month of working for 20% of the calls I realized that driving between the towns we cleaned in my own van minus the wage I paid my partner and my gas plus food and misc repairs and minus tax, it COST ME!! 2$ a day...ya thats friggen right !!..it cost me 2$ a day, 16 hour shifts, beating the crap out of my NEW friggin van on dirty farm roads that I saved up for off the previouse 5 years working at a crappy video store in a redneck infested hell hole of a town,

things worked out after that! , but its a long story

[OLSEN]

Industrial manufacturing. I was one the guys that attached the 2mm springs to the selfopening plastic naptkinboxes the company was shipping to Italy. Work started at 6 in the morning and ended 6 in the evening. The pay was good but life was hell. After 2 months i kicked in my locker and left the factory without informing my boss. I never came back but i stll got payed for another 3 months, dont know why, but im not complaining.

Second worst job was renovating a bikeshop with my father. The pay sucked, only a fifth of what i have earned in the factoryline. There was a few cool moments of total mayhem, involving sledgehammers, massive powertools and being suspended from large lifts by rope and harness. Other then that it sucked ass.

All my other jobs has been artrelated in one way or another. Best one of those was as a setpainter/propdesigner for a small indie productioncompany here in my hometown. Worst of those was as a post production grunt for that same company, i hate fixing other peoples mistakes.

Im currently doing freelance rpg illustration for an upcoming release. Its low pay, but the people i work with are great and im getting my work printed, so im as happy as i have ever been.

[Dosadi]

Let's see.....

Waiter (in a restaurant where the employees regularly microwaved cat shit and my girlfriend's dad got beat with a shovel by the owner),

Busboy (self explanatory)

Computer Store (service and sales... good job)

Fingerhut phone jockey (watching people who lived in the ghetto racking up $1000s in debt becuase of "low monthly payments")

Driving around selling coupon books to rednecks

Record Store / Head Shop (cool selling records to DJs, not so cool selling crack pipes to twitchy crackheads)

Unpaid Internship at video game company (Do all our work! For free! Watch us not hire you afterwards because we're broke!)

Freelance Graphic Design (decent money, fun work, annoying clients)

Now I've got a pair of twins on the way..... My new answer to unpaid work "for the experience"? I GOT KIDS TA FEED BIATCH!!!

[bRyaN]

I work as a Customer Service Rep for the Department of Education in New York...

The pay is decent but it is depressing as hell...any creative energies i can muster, are effectively shot out of my body after listening to parents complain and ask silly questions all day...

I no longer wonder why kids act the way they do, because they have stupid ass parents who act the same damn way...

I also do freelance illos for friends requesting tattoo designs which is cool...

[Neil]

Man i worked at Bob's clothing distribution center in connecticut for like 3 years and man it was hell. Getting paid like 6.75 and only got those .75 after 3 years. Had to hang clothes, life 70lb boxes, get crazy dirty and really repetitive stuff.

Then next summer I worked in Injection MOlding place which was hell part 2. It was literally over 100 degrees in there with just a couple fans and the parts were really hot and you had to handle them and there were toxic fumes. To make it worse most ppl didnt speak english and the bosses were always on your ass.

After that I decided to just go freelance and here I am. Much better situation, can pick and choose clients, and much better pay.

I guess we all had to start somewhere.

[talmir]

Fish filleting sorter:
Not sure what else to call this.. I used to stand in a freesing house, freesing my arse off, everything was wet, next to a giant deep freezer stackinf filleted fish in trays to be frosen.
job length > Summer job.

Store:
It was a small little store, similar to 7-11 only not.. Always fun to come in, stand in the exact same spot for nine hours smiling my best fake smile and taking all sorts of abuse.. Well, and some mild mannered people. But I quit after I started dreaming the little beeps the cash register does when you move something in front of the red beams.
job length > 1 year.

Pizza delivery:
I worked at dominos which was ok except for the fat managers, stupid co-workers and lousy pay.. Evening job, kind of relaxing. Always fun to be a under paid advertisement (The uniforms were uncomfortable as hell). I quit after not getting paid for my work.
job length > 3 months.

Pizza delivery:
Pizza 67. A small pizza company on iceland. It was great. Great co-workers, relaxing job, free pizzas, no uniform and great boss. Only downside was the working hours, 13 hours a day six days a week. But it was still a good job.
job length > 1 and a half year.

Video rental:
Great job, had heeps of fun, too bad I was only hired for the summer.
job length > Summer job.

Gas station:
I worked for shell making hot dogs and arguing with customers about how they are not supposed to drive off without paying... othervise it was exactly the same as the first job above.
job length > 1 year.

Gardening:
I cut grass and trees. Summer job, good pay, good boss.
job length > summer job.

And now I work in telemarketing (I talk in the telephone all day selling insurances, subscriptions, books and such stuff I would never dream of buying).

Future plans is getting to denmark, go to school, get my certificates and get rich :)

[PT Osborne]

brief history of employment

soccer referee

home remodeling assistant (saw a my boss shoot a nail through his hand and pull it out without flinching)

dishwasher

buss boy

cook

stanley steemer carpet cleaner

highschool summer counselor

animation intern

character animator


I think it all was kind of worth it in one way or another
stanley steemer was an adventure

but thank god for animation!
later all

[Redder]

Assistant crime scene cleaner.

[NOOSE]

ewww....thats alsmost worse then the goats blood and semen
I had to clean up at a call...

or..


man dont ever bring a black light into some guys 15/16 year old daughters room to search for puppy pee stains..

[empyrean]

During college @ FSU I worked at a Marketing place. Called old ladies all day to get their feedback on stores we represented. Kmart was one of those companies. It took 10 minutes to get 30 seconds of information. Basically, 85% of my day was spent listening to old ladies ramble. Cute for the first ... well, never. Really fucking tiring. Shut the hell up, grandma, I don't need to know about how they raised the price on adult diapers 30 cents over the last four months and no I can't do anything about it.

As bad as that was, I managed until I was accused of being a racist for asking who messed up everything on my desk over the weekend (?!!!!). I pulled an Office Space and just ... stopped going. Idiots, every last one of them.

- empyrean / Rich

[Erik]

After reading all of the above i consider myself extremely lucky in my experiences. However, i did have one pointless job as a student i'd like to share:

Counting cars.

Yes, counting cars. At the freeweay. Sitting in the exhaust fumes for 8 hours straight, with a little counting device where you have 5 buttons, and the first one is for sedans, the next for vans, the third for trucks, etc... I did it in summer and in winter. Once we were lucky because when it rained we were under a flyover. Once it was well below zero too. We did not get any food, basically we were driven over in a van, unloaded and picked up in the evening. In the middle of nowhere. Well, i did get back one day by counting cows moving right or left in stead of cars...

But i must say this thread is an eye-opener.

E.

[OLSEN]

lol@erik

I had my days of counting cars too. All males in Sweden above 18 years old has to do military training for 7,5 to 15 months if they are fit enough for the task. During my service the platoon was caught with alcohol within the wrong area. Punishment: Counting cars in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of winter at -30degrees Celcius for 72 hours straight.

[Skank]

First job @ age 15, Wendy's...
dear lord, i vowed from there on out NO more food service work.

Second Job @ age 16, working at the local comic shop..my dream job at the time...was fun for the first 2 years then became oooooold the next 2. combine asshole owner who likes to stick his fingers in everyones cool-ade, and countless finklestien shit kids and it gets old pretty quick. was pretty cool to get paid to play games tho, i got to run demos for wahammer and such.

Third job @ age 20-21, construction, renovating appartment complexes. this is probly my all time favorite job. i was on the demo crew ( got to break everything) and got to drive the forklift, smash things and basically got to be as destructive as i wanted to be :D only drawback was being in some peoples appartments..dear lord i dont see how people can live in such detritus....dog shit on the floor, bathrooms and kitchens that havent been cleaned in god knows how long, urine soaked carpet...yeah..some nasty shit. but overall a great job:)

Fourth job @ age 22, pressor @ a drycleaners. not too bad, was on my feet all day tho and had to get to work by 6. but i was working for a friend so it wasnt too bad, i was the fastest presser they ever had!! :rolleyes:

Current job @ age 23,
i ship loans for a mortgage company/....its dull, boring, and pointless.. but it pays decently and its a good company, so i can hold on another year till i move next fall :D

this is an interesting thread btw, interesting to see some other peoples life experiences.

oh and if jasen manley reads this, im from alaska, i and i have mucho respect for anyone that can work those fishing docks/ boats, thats some crazy shit, my roomate did that in homer for a summer.

[F3nix]

I'm still a youngin so, I got plenty of jobs to experince... But as of rigt now.. here the notches i got on my belt so far..

first job: worked at my aunt's deli, worked for food. I moved goods in and ot of the store, worked the register, did deliveries and cleaned and closed up.

next job: worked at a comic book store in manhattan, it was off the books, paid $5 an hour. Basicially, I catalogged the comics, kept track of sales. sold them. It was neat, the owner let me pick out alot of stuff at the end of the week, so I got lots of free stuff.

THE JOB: when I started High School ,they introduced me to CO-OP program, where yo uwork while you go to school IN school. Me and my frends got real buddy buddy with everyone on teh faculty and by the 2nd semester of freshman year, we worked 1 hour a day, for minmum wage. But we had timecards and punched in abot 45 hours a weak. got paid every two weeks. We kept this up for 4 years until we graduated.

also worked in summer school. worked as an office aide, if I was lucky they gave me paperwork... but usually it was buying the faculty lunch, getting lunch, getting kids, fighting off angry non-english speaking parents, break up fights, go find the vomit/piss/shit/etc. that the kids are cmplaining about, get the janitor, find the janitor, clean up the vomit/piss/shit/etc. AND there was no air conditioning....

Another job: worked retail at EXPRESS clothing: great job, although I had t pretend I was gay at the interview to get the job. and eventually after a few months, I slowly became heterosexual. I liked working there, no comaplins they had me working on the salesfloor, mainly pitching and selling clothes. and the 40% discount's great.

now: I help my friend dj private parties and i do freelance graphic design. it's good pay, but like all freelance work, you dont always have work to do, so you dont get paid ....

i'm turning 18 this december btw :D

-ant

[TheDirtSyndicate]

damn have i laughed reading this thread. fucking great.
i think the bread delivery so far has to be the worst. at least
for me anyway.

my worst job was helping my grandfather on the farm in Kaufman tx.
he had cows. about 150 of em. and we had to feed em and stuff
every fucking day.
i hated it. i hate cows. and him. he was very abusive, actually broke a pvc
pipe over my head once. he even pulled a gun on me.
i had to put up with it for a year, until my probation was up.
but at least my probation officer cut my comunity service
in half because he knew how hard i was having to work for my
grandfather. and all that without pay.

[Presence]

Ok I have to put mine in....

First off it is nice to know that I am not the only struggling waiter in the world trying to get his artistic level high enough I can make a living out of it.

I am at Earls in Vancouver, been there for most of my educational life so about four years now with two years to go (I changed majors half way through, from business to film.)

I think it is totally cool to be doing what we do if you have a much bigger picture in mind and you are still making the efforts to get yourself there but there are so many people I meet that have just plain ol given up and it really saddens me.

I am at Emily Carr right now where everyone is beyond cool though it can be a little lax at times. I am doing all of my director's guild and production certification while I am in school while working 30 hours a week while writing three screenplays. Did I mention I am sponsored by starbucks.

Anyway I think we all just need to keep things in perspective because it is super easy for that vision to become a nightmare. One of the best quotes i have ever heard was "If you finish you have already won because 98% of the group quits at some point before the race is even over."

[bizarre]

McDonald's

Easy? Depends. Some nights i get to stand at the window and hand out people's orders to them, put on my stand-up comic act, you know... "you'll find that this cheeseburger contains NO pickles!!!" "(hand customer their coffee) Would you like salt or ketchup?" "Would you like a straw for your drink?"

other nights i'm making hourly trash runs to the dumpster. have to balance myself on the lip with one hand and punch the boxes down so the bags will fit so they won't be left there for weeks... that's about 4.5 feet off the ground. It's not so bad, but... then they put my on grill or assembly... and that's just morally trying my soul. I know someone's going to get a bad burger some day, and that just... it just makes me hate my job.

my next job is most likely going to be a construction and landscaping job, $15.50 an hour, cash, tax free, i'm underaged but i've got a strong back and i'm good to go.

i'm still young, and even though i don't look forward to it i know i'm going to have many, many more shitty jobs. McDonald's will probably end up being one of the better ones.

[nvision]

My last non-art related job was as a stockboy...I've worked as a stockboy at five seperate retail stores, mainly because it involves the least amount of interaction with ignorant customers.

My last stock job took place at a clothing store under the Toronto Stock Exchange. I occasionally had to deal with snotty, stressed out stock brokers, but most of the time I was sequestered in the sub-sub-basement. Oh, the joys of recycled air! No windows, the hum of blowers, and unremovable dust set the scene for hours of unending monotony. Shipping, receiving, unpacking, pricing, hanging, folding, repricing, organizing, and reorganizing.

The only good thing about that job was that I was, for the most part, unsupervised. I'd bring down a cd player and blast tunes far different from the trash aired in the store, and on my breaks I managed to construct a sectional recliner and table entirely from recycled boxes. It came complete with tissue-filled coat bag cushions and cup holders, and broke down rapidly for hiding amongst boxes of merchendise.

I also worked for three months as a security guard in a haunted building owned by my university. Doors would open, a 2nd storey window facing the wall of another building blew out, I followed footsteps upstairs to rooms filled with costumes only to find them empty, and once one of my partners found a bloodstain in the basement that disappeared the next day. That was fun.

[Waster]

Used to work in a metal plant. HOT work. Your clothes are soaked in sweat the entire 12 or 8 hours you work. Pay would equate to 1000 $ for a weekend, and a lot of dough for overtime. work eat sleep work eat sleep. At first I was a secondary ovenopener: Sitting in a chair in a hall so big you can see the earth´s curvature inside it, waiting for something to go extremely wrong with the 3000 celcius metal pouring into a big pot. And of course brushing away some dust. Someone of the old guys had the perverted notion that it had to be superclean , so you WOULD hear them complaining if you didn´t move your dust. Staying awake was the worst problem, but something worse occured quite frequently: The humongous cranes that move about the pots of metal, sometimes has new guys training to move pots of liquid metal about. Envision someone (me) when a big pot of 40 ton liquid metal annihilates the platform im sitting on, dropping a few hundred litres of metal spraying everything within 100 feet. Im engulfed in flames, due to new workingclothes(New workingclothes are supposed to be washed before use, because they contain dust that can cause clothes to burn.) realize Im the Panicing Flameboy.
Sooo I got away from the incident with a few bruises since the clothes are made of material that goes white and smolders when it burns, and said yes when they wanted me to start training as a primary ovenopener. Two days before a crane fell down (Those are BIG!) 20 feet away from me,(It was the second time in 125 years.) so I said yes... From bad to worse...

Primary was less worktime, more muscle, more things going haywire. I simply drilled a hole in a big oven, let the metal pour out, and then I closed it with a big automated tube of goo. I had a powerful cannon I could use to break apart lumps that stopped the flow of metal in the hole. Stressing (but fun) to use, more stressing if you are a secondary. They have to duck and cover, because the splinters that fly about slice easily through flesh. If it was a short hole, I could risk cracking a big hole in the oven when closing it, letting out all that destructive metal, melting all equipment, maybe you too. Then you had to work NON STOP standing in insane heat until every man available have arrived to rebuild quickly. The thing that made me quit, was me trying to pry open the end of the gootube with a metalrod. Unfortunately, there is a current flowing to the outside of the oven, for use of burning a hole when the drill gets stuck in the hole. This thing somehow gets in contact with my metalrod, shooting 40 kV through the rod: BLAM! I went into shock, the secondary said I stood shaking like a machinegun.

The upside was all the crazy dudes working there, and the PAY!(about 2000 $ for 3 shifts in the weekend.)

The pay was high because of the risk of life and limb made you chronically(?) paranoid, and because the work was DEFINED as: "Being available when the shit hits the fan."

[strych9ine]

That is hell of a bad job, dude. The money is great, but there is such a huge risk there... my clumsy ass would melt on the first day of the job.

[pogonip]

Working on a land based oil rig in the winter in Nebraska !! OMG 16 hr days 7 days a week in the bitter cold . It was so horrible !

Now I work as a busboy but someday i'll work my way into a game company !! :help: :cyberguy: :arcfreak:

[Smeagol71]

Oh man, I don't know why I didn't see this thread before. I should have started this thread, what a great idea.

Wel...I could go on and on about how pathetic my current job is, but don't they say that often a picture is worth a thousand words?

http://www.radikinstudios.com/HellHole.jpg

40-60 hours of excruciating boredom a week sitting in this cubicle nightmare.

SOMEBODY PLEASE HIRE ME FOR SOMETHING!!!! ANYTHING!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

[Muttonhead]

Hehe, good thread.

Farm - Stacked hay and straw bails, and sometimes got to wash the combine with the power hose. This was the summer before I went to college and everyone on the farm called me "College boy". But despite being a sissy-city-boy, I think I showed those guys I was just as hard a worker, if not a harder worker than they were!

Allied Advertising - You know those movie ads in the back of the entertainment sections in newspapers? Well, you know how they list all of the theatres the movie is showing at below each ad? Well, I had the fun task of squeezing that text into the small damn boxes provided. Very creative (sarcasm). But at least it it allowed me to move from Northern VA to New York by transferring from the DC office to the NYC office.

Ah well. Those of you still struggling with shit jobs: hang in there. It gets better.

-Muttonhead

[MindCandyMan]

Ok...up until about a month ago I worked for a University in Pennsylvania...I won't name the University but I think you can put it together when I say it is a "University in Pennsylvania"...

Sometimes people say of instead of in....anyways



There were many awful occurences with my boss (insert name of a flower here) (yes...extremely ironic that her name is a flower because she hates everyone and herself). Just to give you an example of what she could do...one day she pulled a sticky tab from her desk...wrote "give to Jim" on it...stuck it to some papers...got up and walked directly past Jim's desk and then planted the papers on my desk at which time she asked me, "Can you give these papers to Jim....yeah....that would be great". Another time all the administrative assistants (my job) had a meeting to voice our "concerns". We were told in no uncertain terms that we would never get a raise and that we would have to leave the department and find another one that would give us a better job...no lie...I pushed my boss on the issue in the middle of the meeting and she actually admitted it...cause she was backed up against a wall...can you believe that. Not to mention that I worked in an office that was 90 % women...I am not against women at the workplace or anything...but if you are one of 5 guys in an office of 50...The women don't like you very much. Not to mention the first week I got there some crazy woman cursed me out for filing something...yes you heard it...for actually "filing a letter"...of course no disciplinary action was taken because she was "going through some hard times"...blah blah blah. Offices suck the very living soul out of you...Smeagol71 and I trade stories so often it would make you sick.

[MGH]

Well, I've done all the ditch-digger type summer jobs while in school, but I'd have to say one of the most disapointing jobs I ever had was working for an animation company in Toronto right after I graduated college.
I thought it would be cool but I've never met such a large group of cynical, depressed people. It's too bad 'cause many of them were very talented. The only motivated ones were the newbies.
I know this may be a subject for another thread but I haven't heard too many good things about the animation industry since then. Biggest complaint is lack of job security.

[Waster]

strych9ine: A new guy once walked across where all the shit from the oven cools of before its moved/sold. Problem is, only the SURFACE of the crap had cooled of. Surface cracked, him sinking into liquid puss with extreme temperature. One leg got melted of a bit. How his leg is now, i dunno.

Anyone know the url to that webpage with the worst jobs in the world? Found it when I went through this www.theweirdstuff.com. More humorous than rotten, and less repulsive. I think human remains cleanup is pretty nasty, but its pretty good pay, at least in this country. Being the assistant must mean... Ugh, not good idea eatin now.

[Oblio]

well.. i won't say much..
i've seen things you people wouldn't believe... and did crazy stuff too.

however.. i loved all my jobs. Including unloading trucks full of cast iron, in the winter - hands were getting sticky and your skin remained there. Ah.. the the light objects were 400kg a piece :)

the one i hate though.. was a sort of Chief Editor for an upcomming magazine - i worked for a BIG company (one of the biggest) preparing all the things.. until the day they said - here are your offices - we'll call you when the furniture arrives - start thinking about your staff. They didn't call and the deal was off soon. (almost 6 motnth without pay - meetings at 11PM a lot of running around, i was realy willing to start this magazine.) Did other stuff with that company - 70% of the projects were canned before start - with me working for free a bit :D

the most fun - Game Producer, Actor, Tourist Guide (extreme sports and all), game designer.


Oblio

ok.. so what if i killed few people? :D

[EmilyROAR]

Well, I've only had one job and it wasnt as bad as some ive read here...

Wendys. As the drive thru pay window person. Also had to wash dishes when the line was clear. It was alright most of the time...except that I worked during lunch rush, and every day this fat lady would come by in her car, talking on her cellphone as she went thru the line. Pretty annoying especially since I hate people that drive while on the phone. And there was one time when some person came by and asked for the manager for no reason I dont know.. and I guess they knew my manager because they got in a fight through the window while I was standing there trying to do my job. Yay. And there was also some idiot teenage boys that always came by...but I wont talk about that. Ugh.

[Jaku]

Not so bad aroud here.
I worked unloding tires from a truck for a while.
Then i was teacher on a computer academy. The people there was great but the boss sometimes (when he was drunk) wasn´t so nice. And the wort thing was that you must not did anything waiting for someone to call you to solve a doubt. VERY BORING, so i quit.
I don´t like my actual job either. I agree with MGH, animation companies are not cool, but i don´t work too many hours and i get paid last day of each month wich is the best and the only reason to stay for a while...

[Rusty Red Robot]

I worked at Dillard's. Doesn't sound so bad, does it? It is, believe me. Probably the worst clothing store to work in (and it's far below the next step up). It can't be described in words, really . . . it's just a feeling. Like, going there you are filled with dread, and the second you clock in, you wish you were clocking out (it's a desperate kind of wishing, too). I applied there for a job again (I learn slowly) because they pay relatively well, but just sitting in the waiting room, waiting for my interview, made me depressed, so I decided not to work there again.

[Rusty Red Robot]

Forgot to mention that now I just do comic strips for my college's newspaper. Pays $50 a week (for five strips). It's nice, cause I can work at my own pace, as long as I submit the strips on time.