I explained one of mine here:

http://www.milescity.com/...tid=4376#7

Luckily, I could only muster to do it for 1/2 of a day. Anyone else got one better?

I spent 4 hours as a tele-marketer attempting to schedule clients for appointments so this company could sell them solar panels.

I got a job as a roughneck in Sidney in 1980, when I was 18 years of age. It lasted one day.

I had reported to work at 8:00 a.m. that morning. The foreman looked at me, and told me I was working the night shift, so come back at 8:00 p.m. No one told me anything about that in advance....as a freshman in college who was hired by an exploration company, all the regulars treated me like poop. So, I spent the day in Sidney, trying to find somewhere to stay. It was the height of the oil boom, and there was no place to live available at all. I spent the day searching for a place, but no go. Even the KOA campground was full.

After a night of getting slammed by that whipping pipe chain used to attach drill stems, getting soaked with brine water, and being mocked as college boy from the regular crew for not knowing what to do, my shift finally ended at 4:00 a.m. the next morning. Wet and covered with oil, I retired to my pup tent set up next to the rig (no place to take a shower), and shivered in my sleeping bag for a couple of hours until dawn.

When dawn arrived, I drove back to Miles City to my parents house, took a long soaking hot bath, scrubbing for an hour, then got out of the tub and phoned the rig that I quit.

One other rememberable part of that day was that it was the same day that Mount St. Helens erupted.

I can look back fondly on that one miserable day at work, knowing that I at least ended up getting through college and getting a degree and a professional job, whereas the losers I had to work with probably ended up as drug addicts, alcoholics, or died in work-related accidents. Those guys really were first rate a-holes.

I actually miss working in the oil field. The first couple of months were kinda rough, similar experiences to Gunnar's, but after that I got the knack of it and actually enjoyed most of it. I never did not care for swamping out the "cellar" (the hole around where the casing head was placed above ground) or the mud tanks. Spoiled drilling mud stinks to high heaven. Pulling compound chain wasn't a whole lot of fun for guy my size, but the other parts of the job fascinated me. Probably always will.

To tell the truth, one of the lousiest and most rewarding jobs was working the Windows Build lab between beta1 and beta 2 of Windows 2000. Long, LONG days and weeks, very crabby people on all sides since the build was constantly broke and we couldn't get anyone to fix it, seemingly never to end. Just endless depression... Finally got thru beta 2 and the product started to come together. Very satisfying at that time.

Once, many years ago, took a job as a roller skating waitress in a drive-in. Only problem was that I couldnt skate that well, but needed a job. Needless to say, a customer ended up with his order all over his car and his front seat and I quit with high embarrassment.

I wonder if Larry would consider receiving e-mails such as this:

http://www.milescity.com/...tid=4341#2

to be a horrible job

Or at least a horrible part of his job here as WM?

The only terrible job I ever had was a great job itself... but the bosses were crooks. That tainted everything. The unethical business practices they wanted pretty much disqualified me from ever being salesman-of-the-year at that place. I refused to follow their lead by cheating customers. Consequently I never made the big commissions. So, it was terrible in that stressful way.

I've had terrible days, though, like most people.

Discounting the tragedies I saw as a fire fighter (loss of life or property) the worst, terrible day on the job was when I was working my way up the ranks at a large, 17 screen movie complex... first run/opening night movies.

Star Wars episode 1 was opening. I was working the projection booth that day with about three other people. All the standard-issue Star Wars nerds where lined up for a block around the theater dressed up as their favorite characters from the previous films. They had costumes, accessories, makeup, you name it. The news was there interviewing people who's claims to fame were how many days they spent in line.

The studios were pushing out the prints (the movie reels themselves) very fast and we were getting what were called "wet" prints... the film still had a tiny amount of moisture from the processing lab. Nothing you could really see by looking at it but a trained eye knew we were in for huge amounts of static build-up as the films were run through the projectors.

Well, we did. The film was turning on the platters going out-of-round very quickly. The film was "sticking" to itself right up until the moment it passed through the mechanical feed mechanisms... in short it was creating more and more static electricity until it went POP!

Next thing you know the projector alarms were going off, the entire lump of film was down on the floor at our feet and the projector ground to a halt.

I looked out the port window to the theater house below.


200 angry lightsabers were pointing up at me.


That was a day I wish I didn't work there. I took my break and ate my dinner up in the booth that night for fear of coming across some PO'ed Jedi down in the halls who might put The Force smackdown on me.

ok..I think I can beat that...
Just out of college I worked in social services..I spent two years contracting in an urban city in another state to the county....to get rid of lice {YES..those little nearly invisible bugs that thrive in hair and bedding...and furniture...all kinds of other places...} in low-income homes where the parents had cognitive disabilities and didn't know how to create lice-free homes for their children.

The mere thought of those days makes my head itch!!!

Do I win????

[This message has been edited by Emilie Boyles (edited 1/13/2008).]

We all won when we quit or walked away from the job.

Emilie: That's pretty bad, but I still think I've got you beat.

Have you ever been to Wyoming and seen those big silos, built for the purpose of dumping coal into trains, which have covered "45-type degree" tunnel inclines leading up to the top to feed them?

Well, I got a job at an engineering firm out of Gillette for testing the coal, making something like $8 an hour (which seemed like a huge amount of money to me back in the 1980's) and the duties, in part, consisted of this...

You know those big metal garbage cans that we all used to have for trash? Okay, in 100 degree type weather, take one of those, drag it up the 45 (or whatever it was) enclosed mesh catwalk style incline, (which is much harder than you might think), and when the belt temporarily stops, fill the entire garbage can full of coal. Mind you, inside of this structure, there is no air conditioning, and it is horribly hot. Then slide it down to the bottom. After you get there, now actually carry it down a couple sets of stairs, and eventually lift it onto the bed of a truck a few feet high. The can is very heavy at this point. You can test this yourself by taking your own garbage can (probably now made by Rubbermaid), and filling it mostly full of dirt. Then try carrying it around. By yourself. The experience was similar to that.

The best part of the job starts now. And it was this, sitting on the truck as you ride it back to the lab a short distance away. A 100 degrees never felt so good.

After arriving at the lab, lift, sift and grind through the coal, in an excruciating process, until the entire massive garbage can is reduced to some extremely small amount of material. I don't even remember how small now, but basically figure the size of a sandwich. (I just watched The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy again last night, so it seems strangely appropriate).

Then repeat. Then repeat again. And again. All day. Day after day. During the hottest time of the year. People around me were dropping like flies. My doppelganger from a previous job showed up once, and quit by 10AM on his first day, refusing to do any more work after his first trip. I actually managed to ride it out.

Now that was a bad job, however it is still far from my worst...

Umm... Webmaster, you are corrupting potential labor pool for me. If you have not been in Gillette since the 80's you should come for a visit. Thanks to people like you who worked very hard , Gillette has become a great place to live and work.

Clipping plots of Cheatgrass in the middle of July is not much "fun". Good thing there is always a "breeze" in northeast Wyoming.

[This message has been edited by Richard Bonine, Jr (edited 1/14/2008).]

My most horrible job was as a waiter at the 519. during the slow time I had to clean up the fridge unit - one of those big old sliding glass door things.
I don't much care for shrimp anymore.

While attending college, and student teaching , I accepted a job as a bouncer in a strip club/bar located in the industrial area of Dallas, Texas. After fifteen minutes into my first night on the job a fellow walked past me, headed for the bar, pulled a pistol and shot a guy in the head. His next move was to exit the bar past me, the bouncer. As he approached me the owner and the bar tender yelled at me to "grab him." My reply is unprintable on this post but neither of the gentlemen that made the request were physically capable of accomplishing the task I suggested.

As the obviously agitated and inebriated gentleman walked towards the exit, I sized up the situation and determined through pure logic that A; he had a gun and B; I had a flashlight, a wife and two kids and C; I needed a hasty re-evaluation of just how bad I needed extra cash.

I had survived Lyndon Johnson's attempt to have the north Vietnamese kill me. I sure didn't want to die in a Dallas strip club.

My employment, as a bouncer was fleeting at best. This was not a good job.

Yeah, well, fuzzy green shrimp and grey cocktail sauce doesn't much compare to almost gettin shot in a titty bar... But it was still pretty horrible

One summer a freind and I got a job at Oschner's collecting eggs in a giant barn that housed what seemed to be about three million chickens (probably closer to two thousand). At the time they were refurbishing their feed and watering systems so the chickens we were collecting from were running free in the barn. It seemed to be about 150 degrees in there and when the chickens spooked, which was constantly, dried chicken poop flew everywhere in sort of a dark green cloud. Meanwhile, on the ground, about eight or ten inches of chicken poop had accumulated. How we managed to escape that job without some major lung disease is beyond me. Not to mention the fact that some of the chickens took issue with us stealing their eggs. If those chickens could have organized we might have disappeared without a trace. I'd had enough of the chicken ranching biz but I know of some people who had the inenviable job of stuffing chickens into crates to be sent off to the soup company. Someone said they could get a thousand cans of soup out of one chicken. I'll bet there are other chicken ranch veterans out there in milescity.com land.

[This message has been edited by Bob Netherton (edited 1/14/2008).]

I worked my way through college painting buildings and spaces. I've dangled off the top of the Brick Breeden Field House from a tether, spent a summer in a leather suit sandblasting the stadium at MSU, used every hazardous chemical known to the industry on my tools and my skin (to get the paint off), and put in plenty of time atop a wobbly ladder fifty feet in the air. That wasn't all that bad. What encouraged me to complete college (my wife would be a good answer, but she's not entirely to blame)..... None of my co-workers seemed to make it much beyond 60, all of them smoked like a locomotive, and some of them just had very little common sense around explosive and toxic solvents. They were all very good at drywall, taping, prep and painting (remember, anyone can pound a nail, but it takes a painter to make it look good); but longevity and good health faded rapidly around the age of fifty.

One of my most memorable projects was the cadaver vault at one of our fine universities. The science department emptied the space of all its parts and bodies, but we had to remove the racks and trays and then pressure wash the congealed pools of tissues and fluids from the walls and the floor under and behind the racks before we could prime and paint. The space was in a basement with no ventilation; it was long and narrow with very poor lighting. We spray primed with an alcohol based primer that dried fairly rapidly and would cover most stains and waxes or oils. We then spray applied two coats of solvent based epoxy paint, thinned with Xylene. Xylene is very hot (meaning it vaporizes extremely fast and is highly volatile (IT EXPLODES EASILY). I wore an air supply system, a full Tyvek suit and hood, and rubber gloves. The "old guy", he was about 50, working with me wore his painter whites and had a cigarette hanging out of his lips the whole time. We're lucky we didn't blow the place up. I was relieved when that job was done; I'd rather be on a wobbly ladder.

[This message has been edited by Chad (edited 1/14/2008).]

Those are all pretty good stories. I don't feel so bad about some of the jobs I've had now.

Richard Bonine, Jr said:

Umm... Webmaster, you are corrupting potential labor pool for me. If you have not been in Gillette since the 80's you should come for a visit. Thanks to people like you who worked very hard , Gillette has become a great place to live and work.

Ugh. Gillette is my least favorite city and Wyoming my least favorite state. It was horrible enough to propel "Old Man Potter" into congress. Call me crazy, but there is something wrong with a state that has no water to speak of. When last there, Gillette was surrounded by coal mines, oil wells, sage brush, and antelope... with an amazing lack of farms, ranches, or even residences for that matter.

Who is "Ole man Potter"? Inquiring minds want to know.

Old Man Potter = Richard "Dick" Cheney

Old Man Potter:

http://www.gonemovies.com...otter4.jpg

Richard "Dick" Cheney

http://thephoenix.com/Out...cheney.jpg

[This message has been edited by Bob L. (edited 1/14/2008).]

OHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Funny!

I'm sure many of you have probably worked as a grunt on a construction crew... It's just not fair if you only weigh 120lbs to have to operate a 60lb jack hammer all summer.

But darn if I didn't develope some horrendously over proportioned upper arms and chest.

What??????? Who said that??? I don't know what it is... but everywhere I go I hear this funny ringing noise. I wonder what caused that???

Cleaning the grease trap at Hardee's on New Years Day after a big night of celebrating New Year's Eve.

All my best to Butch and Gloria but washing dishes at the 600 sucked. It was 120 degrees in the kitchen. Those metal plates from The Hole In The Wall burned the fingerprints right off my hands. I lasted 3 weeks.

Mine might not compare to some others here, but I still do it everyday. As a process server in Gallatin County, (Bozeman), I have been face down in the grass with a shotgun at the back of my head, get bitten by a dog about once every 2 months, have to serve divorce papers on women that have no idea it's coming, and get to drive around this part of Montana everyday regardless of the weather or road conditions. A few months ago, I was attacked by a guy much larger than myself, and I am no lightweight. The worst of it is the crying women. It really sucks when they fall on the floor and start crying. I can't just walk away. I have to pick em up, give em a hug, and tell them that it is not the end of the world, or some such crap that they don't want to hear. If it wasn't my own business, and I wasn't getting paid stupid amounts of money to do it, I would walk away today. But I do actually enjoy it most days. When those other days happen, and they do, I can always go fishing, go to the game farm to shoot pheasants, get on my bike and go to Butte for lunch, or do anything I damn well please. That is the real benefit of it being my own gig.
A little advice for you out there that may get served someday. We are just really well paid mailmen. We have no stake in your problems. I always treat people with respect, until they sic the dog on me, or throw a punch at my head, or spit at me. Then we will have a problem. You or your dog will get roughed up. And I don't want to pepper spray your dog. It's probably not the dogs fault that you are being served. And that punch thrown in anger will land your butt in jail. I have been served myself, many years ago, and it is not pleasant. But my fee's get added to your debt, and I will have no sympathy if I am treated as if it is my fault you are being served. Whatever I put on my bill will be paid, and your debt gets that much bigger. Most process servers will even give you advice on how to deal with the problem, if you ask. Here's the biggie. If you are going to be late on a payment, call them! Virtually everybody you may owe money to understands that stuff happens. They just don't like to be ignored. And by having you served, they are just protecting their rights, and trying to get your attention.
I know that the vast majority of you, being reasonable people, don't need this advice. But if I can save one of my comrades some grief then this is worth it. We all try to look out for each other as best we can.
Dont kill the messenger people!