Thursday, June 16, 2005

My Worst Job

I bet that everybody has had a job, at some time in their life, that they HATED. A job to be considered THE WORST JOB IN THE WORLD!

I've delivered newspapers, worked in restaurants as a dishwasher, worked on a survey crew, been a baseball umpire and a mail clerk. I've managed a cookie shoppe in a mall, I was an office manager and a public school teacher. Then I found a career in the oil business.

Just before that wonderful career began, I needed some cash flow desperately. In 1980 (age 26), I answered an advert for a commission sales position for The American Automobile Association (AAA).

Now, I must tell you in NO uncertain terms --- I AM NOT A SALESMAN. period.
The AAA has a very nice and centrally located headquarters here in Houston. I was given a brief training session by one of the top salesmen and then left alone to do my thing. I was even required to wear a coat and tie when working! ARGHHHH!! The modus operandi was to sit in front of a telephone (at the office) and make cold calls -- out of the telephone book! Randomly pick a home phone number and call it. Give 'em my best sales pitch. If they didn't hang up or if they didn't start yelling at me, I continued. The goal was to try to make an appointment to visit them and sign them up for a yearly membership. It actually worked a few times. I did this job for 2 or 3 months before I began going hungry and not being able to afford the gas (petrol for you UK guys) to get around town.

I loathed that job. I hated that job. So I quit. Life continued.

What was your worst job? Comment here if you like or make it the next post on your blog if you feel it's worth writing about.

9 comments:

Recovery Road London said...

"The dignity of labour"? LMAO. These are the best years of our lives they're trying to steal.

I'd like us all to revert back to an agrarian economy; no Gods, no masters.

**Kenny snaps back into the real world**

Hannen said...

Worst Job? Probably my 4 days at Joseph A. Banks.

GodlessMom said...

The three months I spent as a waitress in a bowling alley. I made $2.56/hr plus tips. Unfortunately people don't realize that you are supposed to tip the bowling alley waitress.

The boss was also a lecherous POS.

Anonymous said...

Stand back everyone; Queen Noor is about to share! My worst job----hmmm! I think it must have been the only job also from which I was fired. It was the summer of 1958. I needed a summer job; school was out. I had just finished my first year of college at the Danville Junior College (DJC)but had not yet begun matriculating through the University of Illinois (U of I). My folks had moved from Danville (40,000) to Tuscola (2-3000). Not only was I the new, unknown kid on the block, I was not on anyone's list for employment. My father, bless his heart, found me a job at the local Gulag chicken. My exact job was to stand next to the German (at least he had a German accent) whose role it was was to slice the chicken's neck with a very sharp knife. My particular role was to reach in the chicken cages that were coming at me on an assmebly belt. I would reach in , find two legs that belonged to the same chicken and retrieve it. I had to wear thick gloves and a solid heavy apron(almost like those they cover you with when you are about to get radiation from the dentist's office). My apron would be covered with chicken shit and my arms with scratches. Immediately below me was this rather large vat of chicken blood dripping from those chickens whose throats had been slit open.It was an extremely inhumane treatment of those chickens. I lasted less than two weeks. Queen Noor

Watson Woodworth said...

I was a waiter at the Olive Garden for three hours. I had an incredible urge to sample my customer's drinks.
Way worse than the factory I worked at that seemed to be run by a cross between Ike Turner and a Marine Corps drill sargent.

buff said...

Working at a candy factory. More like Lucy and Ethel. If only I could have worked shirtless. Then it might have been fun

Scott W said...

Gag, I hope Jim doesn't cook chicken for dinner tonight!

My worst had to be the three days I spend as a delivery driver for a radio supply company, delivering all over So. IL, W. KY, No. TN and part of MO. After the training I went on one delivery run by myself and couldn't find half the addresses! The next day I ran away to New York City and spent the summer of '73 there.

Trudging said...

Door to door fire extinguisher saleman. I'm not kidding you and I sucked at it.

Anonymous said...

The one I just left. For the local housing authority. Right smack in the middle of a project developement where I got to see great things like dead bodies, people od'ing, drunks, drug deals, poor kids that don't even have a chance at life because their parents are so screwed up. It left me so emotionally drained I had to leave. Did my best to try to help these people but the majority just didn't want to help themselves. God, I'm getting sick just typing about it.
Peace,
JJ