Stacks
I’ll keep this short and sweet.
My worst job was working on the till for a supermarket chain.
It was horrible working there. The type of customer we had was the sort that would refuse to leave the store when the fire alarm was going off (it was also my job to evacuate them). They’d stand there, still queuing despite the security shutters closing… not only that but when they heard the truth that it wasn’t actualy a fire alarm, but a bomb threat they were even less motivated to leave.
I have to admit, I didn’t really put the effort into working there. Not that I ever made any till-based mistakes, but I would occasionally harass people for not saying ‘thank you’ or ‘please’… remember people on tills and checkouts are people nonetheless, and treat them as such.
When I left they said that I’d never work in retail again… I made them promise – it was the best day of my working life.
Somehow, no matter how much paperwork I have, the knowledge that I’m not having to do that job keeps me going.
So what are your worst working memories and your best ones?
I know some of you might still be at school, or college, or university… in which case replace the word ‘work’ with the words ‘group projects’ or ‘essays’.
Ah, the memories. Worst job I ever had, was in one of those factories where they make TV-dinners. It was just such a depressing place. A sterile cooler where I got splattered by all kinds of unidentified foodstuffs. I prefer to think of food in positive terms, so I haven’t bought a frozen meal since that one horrible week.
Second one was stacking and unpacking books in a warehouse. I nearly died of boredom while my co-worker kept yapping about how hard life was and how underpaid she was. Longest month of my life. I now try to keep my own whining to a bare minimum.
Thank Zod I’m in design nowadays.
As much as I like books, they’re pretty heavy and awkward en-mass…
Co-workers, I’ve noticed that’s a theme on this subject… they can make all the difference, turning a good job bad or even the other way round.
Still, TV dinners, eh? I bet that had an effect on your appetite, right?
Gotta be retail. Complete waste of my time considering the nature of the two stores in question- it’s not like I was able to use my interests or knowledge to perform well at the job, after all. Hell, thanks to barcodes and new-fangled modern tills I couldn’t even pass time by adding up the cost of the shopping in my head.
Basically, turn up, eight hours with brain very much in the “off” position with a very low chance of being able to switch it back on when I got home- and don’t even get me started on the unmoderated string of arsehats that came in calling themselves “customers”, none of whom seemed to have any consideration for anybody other then themselves.
Thank God it was only on weekends, and, like Rembrand, Thank Zod I’m in design nowadays.
/b
Ha, ‘arsehats’… that should replace the word ‘customer’ in most retail dictionaries.
That’s a problem I also had, that I couldn’t use the 8 or so hours to even think about my own stuff. It seems that those sort of jobs are designed to prevent your average human from thinking… it’s a form of subserviant mind control.
It does seem that design is sort of like rehab for retail.
While working in retail was bad, and I don’t regret for a second leaving it, the worst job was telemarketing. I had to cold-call people to try and get them to refinance their mortgages with our company. It was soul-crushing. It’s also the only job I’ve ever been fired from, mainly because I couldn’t bring myself to actually make any sales.
To this day I have a borderline phobia about calling people on the phone. If I’m returning a call, or doing something businesslike, fine – but if I just want to call someone out of the blue, I will try any other method of communication I can before I pick up that phone….
Telemarketing is the devil’s dayjob… You should be able to get counselling for it. Still, many salvation points for getting fired.
My old housemate was a genius at telemarketing and cold-calling… he had no soul and very little conscience (he was a nice chap though), but he made it work for him. he told me the worst call he had was interupting someone’s wake.
You’re a teacher now, right? TEFL? that’s got to be a little more rewarding.
Much more rewarding, yes. It’s something I’m good at and I enjoy, which is more than I expected when I started the job.
That’s what I like to hear… happy work-related endings.
A few of my friends moved over to Japan to teach, that was some years ago and they’re still there… they really like the job, but also the country seems to suit them better too… they like their experimental rock music.
i really love that Japanese rock, Buck-Tick is the best
Haha, ah yes. The phone phobia.
I suffer from that myself, but it works both ways for me.
Can’t answer it or call anyone, really – unless I’m having a brave daym of course.
My phone glitch is very specific – I can’t cold call people. Y’know, just call people up when they’re not expecting it. I have no problem answering a call, or if I know someone’s expecting it (birthdays, holidays, callbacks etc). Thank gods for email….
say, what are these things by the nicknames? they seem to be consistent with each person
i really don’t like group projects, except when it’s in a small class that’s been together for over a year, then there’s this neat feeling of camaraderie with the whole class.
These things are your icons… the are generated for each of you using various information such as your username, email address and some other stuff that I’ve tinkered with. They should be unique and consistent.
Do you like yours?
I suppose group projects aren’t so bad when you get to work with people you like, but I have a real problem when you are arbitarily seconded into groups.
Once worked in an abbotoir for 8 months, on the kill floor. This in itself was pretty awful. Cleaning up pieces of still warm animals, scraping inches-thick congealed blood from the floor…. But the second-worst part of the job was the people. Places like that, in which only people who can’t get work anywhere else are forced to go… It is the scum of humanity, the very lowest levels of worlking class, all concentrated in one room together. With knives. These are the sort of people who throw severed penises at each other all day.
So, tell me again about how bad retail is?
I read a lot about this in ‘Fastfood nation’… the state of some Slaughterhouses is attrocious, partly because of what you describe, the working conditions and the people that have to work there.
I too spent some time in an abbotoir, my uncle worked there and I did some work next-door at the farmers market. It wasn’t that pleasant, but at least it was dignified to the extent that there was no throwing around of carcass…
…actually, the vibe was very similar to the time I spent on a trawler, sort of a bleak respect for the origins of living animal based food.
I suppose the similarity between that job and retail is that you’re still trying to avoid contact with penises (or peni) all day.
penis slapping doesn’t sound so bad, kinda funny almost.
The guys I work with go worse than that.
I have witness one urinating on another from an elevated platform.
The stories I hear from the pub are worse again, but we have minors reading, so, I won’t say.
Hmmm, roof plumbing was good for horror stories.
I once put a high speed wire brush thru a putrifying bird carcass, with the now pureed remains being splattered up my front and face.
But that wasn’t so bad.
Door to door sales was possibly my lowest career moment.
But then, I did meet some cool ppl, get some un-taxable benefits (wink wink) and get fit.
A job is as crap as you make it.
I work with guys who get a base wage of AUD$120,000 plus over $15,000 in bonus per year, only 6 months and they whinge non stop about how bad they have it.
*wonders what cool square pattern he’ll get*
You’re right, it is what you make of it, though sometimes a job will make of you what it wants.
Mmm, putrid bird puree, that really doesn’t sound fun, or tasty. I don’t suppose you know what sort of bird it was? Just morbid curiosity.
And door to door sales, it’s just like telemarketing, but with the added bonus of meeting your victim face-to-face. It’s harder to get punched through a telephone.
How do you like your pattern? It’s all yours…
yes, but ben either complains that he doesnt get paid much, or tells me how well he is paid, depending on what suits the argument we’re having
oh shush you.
It was either a pidgeon or a dove, likely a pidgeon tho.
Do I get the same one all the time?
Yup:)
I think the worst thing about working retail, for me, was that I wasn’t a person to the customers. While they might say thank you as an automatic reflex (that meant very little) they never said please. They don’t look you in the eye, they don’t talk to you like a person. You might as well be the order box in a fast-food drive-thru.
Still, I’d take retail over working in a slaughterhouse any day. I’d be puking my guts out there.
Yeah, I think it taught me a valuable lesson though, I’d hate to be one of those people that act like those customers. These days I try to interact as I would do with any other person rather than treating them like a piece of corporate machinery.
ooh, there’s a bad job, fast food, not sure I could hack that at all. Aside from being generally against my principles, those guys seem to have a really rough time with working conditions, hours, uniforms, all of it.
Man…. I did to door for about a week too. Vacuum-cleaner (off-brand hoovers, for Maddie) sales, actually. *shudder* That was pretty rough, mostly because it was such a scam.
Other than that, probably the worst two jobs I’ve had were both working in ecology labs. I spent a week in front of a Wiley Mill once, milling freeze-dried experimental tobacco, wearing a respirator and goggles and gloves. Despite all that, at the end of the day every day I left buzzed to heck on nicotine, high as a kite, and a little nauseus. I still wonder what that did to my chances of getting cancer. The other one was soil ecology. Processing root samples for six months. Several thousand soil cores, at 700cc each, taken into neat little piles of cleaned roots, sorted by thickness (2mm). Root-picking actually made Popular Science’s list of “Worst Jobs in Science,” it’s so brain-numbing.
Yay! I like the icons. Neat idea. SO if I use a different email, it’ll give a different icon?
“freeze-dried experimental tobacco” – drools, that’d go well with the freeze dried, non-experimental coffee.
A lot of science can be excrutiatingly tedious, especially at the experimental stage… and sligtly harmful… my lab supervisor experimented with LSD as a neurotransmitter substance, and so had to observe the 10 minute rule when experimenting. I’m pretty sure that it had a profound and life-long influence on him.
I’m glad you like the icons… why not give it a whirl with a different email address… I’m not sure what will happen…. think of it as an experiment of the quick variety.
Okay, I’m trying it!
Wow, that was vastly different.
And again!
oh my gosh, my square pattern is officially cool! i like it!
i had to do a group project this year, and i was with friends so it wasnt too bad but its still so inconvenient, and i mean its just plain unfair to give us group work in our final year. oh, and i spend a lot of my time writing about how our political system doesnt work like its supposed to, so im not too fond of essays either
but to actually be on topic, ive only had one job, and it was in fast food. it wasnt crappy like maccas or something, it was better food but a less organised workplace. im fairly sure they underpaid me and didnt give me the breaks they were supposed to. i forgave them because they gave me my weekly means to buy coffee.
you have good timing adam, im starting a new job tomorrow. not sure if its such a good idea what with exams in a couple of weeks.
You do have a particularly nice one…
I’m always going to be a fan of individual work… that way if you’re good at it you can take all the glory, and if you’re not so good at it at least you’ll know.
As I’ve just mentioned, the food-retail industry is renowned for poor working conditions and pay, even the more independant ones. Fast Food Nation really opened my eyes to some of the dubious practices that the bigger companies use to supress the rights of their workers… not cool.
So, a new job? Anything exciting?
no, nothing exciting, just another non-thinking job to provide me with a basic student income (ie allow me to buy coffee and cds again). im a bit nervous because the employer is a friend, and they have no time time to train me so shes throwing me in just knowing ive had cafe and fast food experience. should be interesting.
Sometimes you can be surprised by just how wrong your pre-conceived notions about a particular industry can be. My partner spent some time as a topless waitress (mostly private parties like buck’s parties), in which you would think you would cop quite a bit of abuse. Apparently most of the men are quite respectful and considerate, as they must realise just how much guts it takes to do it
Of course, take any slice of humanity and there will be a few idiots, especially when alcohol is involved.
I tend to find I have the kind of brain that doesn’t shut down, ever.
If I were to work in a supermarket I’d probably start analysing the people at my tills, or playing games with them in my head.
Also…I love my square! It has a pretty star.
Getting out of bed is my worst memory.
Getting out of bed is my best memory.
[...] at Ordinary Things Ozge is taking her life into her own hands, at The Flowfield Unity Adam talks about his worst jobs ever, and at Ataraxia Theatre Darcy finally gets to use his [...]
ooh!
*just wants to see square*
that’s really ornate
*Loves little square pattern thingy* soo cute, and unique. yay!
Worst memory: a cross between my essay on Wilfred Owen’s work that I did last year, that meant instead of celebrating my sister’s birthday by going to the cinema, I had to sit in a hotel and type like hell….I didn’t finish until gone midnight, it took hours…and my Macbeth essay, which didn’t take so long, but I hate that damn play.
Best memory: Personal writing. I got to write an essay on my own topic, so I chose happiness, and not only did I get to waffle as much as I like, use humour to my advantage and manage to mention Snoopy in an essay, I got an A* for it!
Or possibly the part of my Macbeth essay when I asked my sister for help and thus realised she’s going to be a fantastic English teacher.
Argh! You can’t say that, ‘The Scottish Play’, argh, you said it again!
Oh, wait, we’re not in a theatre… you can say Macbeth all you like.
It’s no King Lear… but I didn’t mind studying it at school. in fact i still have my school copy with all of my notes in it. blah blah animal imagery blah blah prophecy.
I work in retail… Im the checkout clerk. Much of what has been said of my job is oh so true… it sucks more that I have to go to work in an hour.
I wish they let me read while there are no customers, but no, instead they have me do stupid tasks. Whoever invented the concept of work should be shot.
are there any good beginning jobs? I’m starting to dread my impending job-seeking adventures
Oh, don’t let it phase you. I worked as a cashier at a grocery store for a few years too, but I had a wonderful experience. It was an organic foods specialty store: we had all the crazy environmentalists and retired hippies working there, and as customers. It was great fun! It’s all about the people you interact with… look for jobs where the people are cool, and you’ll be fine. I recommend bakeries, coffee-shops, organic food stores, bike shops, et cetera. The places where the cool cats go, yo., you know?
There are indeed…
I did a lot of casual work before getting in to retail. I worked on a farm for a bit, then a trawler, I fixed nets too… they were pretty good jobs for me, plenty of fresh air and little to no contact with the public.
I know people that started off working in libraries too, they seemed to enjoy that.
You just need to think what suits you I suppose… and Roo’s advice is well worth taking.
But you’ll probably be able to whinge about it too, that’s what employment is all about, regardless of how good the job is you still have to moan about it otherwise they’d make us work all the time.
I should mention that every job has its perks. Working in a rather nice supermarket meant that not only did I get a staff discount on a lot of food, but I also got take home anything that went past its display date.
Cakes go past their display date every day.
What I’m saying is, I ate a lot of cake.
That is awesome… I wish I got cake at my job. The company I work for gets some sort of reimbursement from items that didnt sell or that were opened or broken. That means we keep everything in the back room… I cant even have a candy bar.
Working on the till for a supermarket chain can be frustrating sometimes. When we are working on the tills we are expected to give good customer service and at the same time we have to be very alert because we are dealing in cash. It’s also difficult to deal with impatient customers standing in a queue.
I dunno, the time I got back from two weeks’ absence and a half-term spent in Germany to find that I had a Chemistry test the next day was pretty bad, but…
…OH WAIT THAT HAPPENED TODAY.