|
Good morning!
Monday, Aug 17, 2026 - Posted by Rich Miller * Way back in the recession of 1982-83, I had a two-hour per day minimum wage job cleaning up after the butcher in a grocery store in Savanna, Illinois. Not a great gig, especially since I was (kinda) trying to be vegetarian, but it was the only job I could find in that town at the time. Savanna had always been a railroad town, and so it saw more than its share of hobos in those days. On rare occasions, one would knock on the butcher shop’s back door and politely ask for some meat. I tried to oblige whenever possible and never got caught. I saw this song pop up on my feed last night and thought of that awful job. Here’s John Lee Hooker… Your worst job?
|
 |
|
|
- Lincoln's License Plates - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 7:45 am:
Summer ca. 1983, DCFS
Sitting in a windowless room, all summer, removing the labels from file folders, flipping them inside out, and putting an “A” on the front of the folder. We got a brief reprieve for a week. Our task was to wash the fronts of seemingly hundreds of file cabinets. Remember, this was in the days when folks could still smoke in offices.
I saved the money and used it to help pay for graduate school.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 8:47 am:
I will not name the restaurant, but I quit a kitchen in Champaign not long after the manager ordered the prep staff to take a case of chicken wings that had started going bad, rinse them in the sink in baking soda water to kill the smell, and started serving them to the public.
- Huh? - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 9:53 am:
Church custodian. Rampant hypocrisy.
- Boone Logan Square - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 9:56 am:
Overnight security guard when cocaine use was widespread.
- Dan - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 11:04 am:
Detasseling corn. OMG. Although rookie year on a legislative staff was no picnic back in the day.
- Ducky LaMoore - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 11:28 am:
I spent two weeks as a telemarketer. One week of training, one selling home phone service… over the phone…. The lighting was nearly nonexistent, and the only really successful people seemed to be the rudest, pushiest ones. And I really hated waking people up to sell them something they already had. Got a job at a disreputable restaurant, no called no showed the telemarketing job (don’t worry, they were used to it), and enjoyed the rest of the summer as a dish washer and food runner.
- Dotnonymous x - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 11:39 am:
As a youngster, I delivered washers and driers and refrigerators and freezers up and down basement stairs in zero to ninety degree weather for three years.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 11:47 am:
Also, I didn’t mention that corporate had decreed my cleaning job should take no more than two hours. So, after clocking out “late” a few times, I was told that I’d be fired if I didn’t get my time down to two hours. It was impossible, so I’d clock out and then finish my work.
- Team Sleep - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 11:50 am:
I worked at a packing plant one summer during college. It wasn’t air conditioned and we were required to do mandatory OT. It’s luckily not there any longer.
- Proud Sucker - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 12:36 pm:
My summer job in ‘80 and ‘81 was as a gopher for a building management company on the NW side of Chicago. Getting stuff from the supply store or coffee was o.k. Window washing and lawnmowing was also o.k. However, the two worst weeks of my work life (thankfully, still) were the two weeks we reroofed three-flats: two on Wrightwood and two on Seminary. It was 45 years ago this week and last (I remember watching the practice for the Air and Water show), it was 95 degrees every day, and the 16 year old was the one sent up and down the ladders all day - when he wasn’t sloping tar with a broom. It very much encouraged me to get my Bachelor’s.
- yinn - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 1:11 pm:
My first non-babysitting, non-housecleaning job (age 17) was to bus tables at a local fine dining restaurant on weekend evenings. The uniform was white blouse, skirt, hosiery, kind of non-cool orthopedic-y shoes.
I loved the pace of the job. I loved my coworkers. But the owners, a couple of unpredictable alcoholics, could be abusive.
One day I was coming out of the walk-in cooler carrying an enormous oval tray of iced-filled glasses. The wife, coming out of the office, immediately stopped me and started letting me have it for not wearing hose. I protested that I was, in fact, wearing pantyhose. But sure enough, she lifted my skirt to check.
No, I did not drop the tray. Yes, I wish I had dropped it as soon as she touched me. I lasted there about three months.
- Dotnonymous x - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 1:31 pm:
Hard jobs create resilience and fortitude…qualities the pampered overclass rarely develop.
- stateandlake - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 5:34 pm:
Without a doubt, a job during college working in a greenhouse. Wheeling *large* wheelbarrows full of topsoil along planking on crossbeams between skiffs. One false move and disaster would ensue. Also, keeping up with the madman owner who was stronger and faster than me or the other help. Not to mention the temp in the greenhouses…
- Odysseus - Monday, Aug 17, 26 @ 11:26 pm:
I haven’t had any truly terrible jobs, though detasseling corn was obnoxious. The summer on the county road crew was no picnic. Lots of hot & sweaty.