What is the Worst Job You've Ever Had?

What is the worst job you’ve ever had?
 
The first thing that comes to mind is various retail, fast food, call centers, and other customer service jobs where people have to deal with abuse from customers, and often managers, for low wages.
 
MY worst job was working at a tire warehouse as a temp employee. I made a whole post about it here. What made it bad was the long days of manual labor putting studs in tires with pneumatic guns that didn’t work well, then a month of wandering the warehouse, pretending to busy, and often lifting very heavy tires into stacks, for low pay as a temp. job. It sucked.
 
Let’s look at some other answers via reddit polls:

• CNA. I was 19 years old surrounded by death. It took a toll on my mental health.
  

(Ouch. Yeah that can be depressing, especially if you’ve built connection to clients or patience, whatever they’re called in the industry, I don’t know. That’s gotta be pretty hard.)

• Dishwasher. I’ll go to my grave saying that it is the worst possible job you can have. Dishpan hands is a real thing and sucks. You’re the last to leave the restaurant and the least paid, least respected person in the building. A thankless job, but super important.
  

​(This is probably the case for many low wage jobs. They’re thankless jobs that are super important. So important, that during the covid closures in 2020-2022, they were considered “essential workers.” It’s pretty unfortunate that these “essential jobs” are so often grossly underpaid and mistreated.)

• Starbucks, working in a drive thru. You are presented with person after person after person who you are obligated to be as kind and cordial with as possible, while they literally treat you like you don't exist. I would estimate only around 40% of people responded to the question "Hi, how are you today?", which of course you ask to dozens and dozens of people consecutively. It gets really draining having someone spit back "Venti iced coffee." People would drive up to the window and you greet them warmly, and they stick their hand out with money while looking the other way.
  

(I’m kind of guilty of this sometimes when I’m not really in the mood for small talk. I’m just there to pick up whatever I’m buying and be on my way. I’m never rude or shut it down like this example though. I would just give short responses like, “Fine. I’m great, thanks.” That’s it.)

• Amazon and other warehouses got a few mentions. The monotonous work and abusive management and/or coworkers are difficult to deal with. Of course, call centers had several mentions as well. I don’t know why people ever choose to work in a call center anyway. Sounds so horrible to me, but maybe they saw some kind of opportunity working there. Maybe someone can enlighten me on this. People complained about bad management and bad calls with abuse from customers and also because they just didn’t believe in the product or mission of the company itself.
  
• A top comment was someone working as a “store Santa during my college years. Sometimes I enjoyed being ‘Santa,’ but many times children were sad and asked for things that likely would never happen - like, as I once commented, ‘A new boyfriend for Mommy because she was so lonely ever since Daddy died.’”
  

(This was a top comment probably because of its uniqueness and relatable to human problems; and, of course, there were lots of jokes about this “santa” becoming a new boyfriend to the mommy, making the wish come true. Jobs that interact with people in sad situations, especially children, probably weigh a lot on your mental well-being.)

• Collecting chicken eggs in a shed. The shed was huge, with rows and rows of chickens stuffed in cages. It was poorly lit and ventilated and everything was coated in a layer of filth, feathers, and dust. l still remember the smell. There were hundreds of chickens and the noise was unbearable. Did this for 3 hours every Sunday morning when l was 15, pushing a trolley up and down the rows collecting eggs. I was glad to get out of the shed. The poor chickens, of course, were stuck there. Had to have three showers to wash off the stench and the filth.

Gross. So the worst jobs can typically be categorized as the ones with the worst customers, worst managers, bad for mental health, tough working conditions, or just gross.
 
On another note, why are there so many managers with personalities that are so cruel? I had a manager that believed people learn better when beaten through fear or abuse, because it sticks with you. All this made me do was want to cover my tracks better, never approach him for anything and go to, like, everyone else first when I needed something. I hated that job and glad I’m not there anymore. Once things got tense that one time, they were never the same. A manager or coworker can’t be super rude and then expect us to just forget that ever happened and go back to normal. Maybe if there was some kind of apology and change, but that practically never happens, does it?
 
In another story shared online, someone requested to time off to leave early a long time ago, which was approved, but when the time came for them to leave, as requested, managers made a big deal out of it:
 
          “The manager says, ‘Well hang on, let's go find (other manager's name) and talk to him.’ I remember thinking to myself how stupid and unnecessary this was. He took me across the warehouse to find some dude I've never met. So, I tell this guy that I will be leaving early today for my daughter's birthday at whatever time. Didn't have to include the reason, but just did because why the heck not. He gives an exaggerated sigh, then stares at his watch for some random reason and acts like this is the biggest inconvenience of his life! It was all for show, and I don't know why.”
 
Continuing on with the theme of management being unreasonable for no good reason, the following story was shared:
 
          “One day, our machine that taped the boxes malfunctioned and we didn't notice at first. A box made its way down the line and the item fell out of the box. A guy came down to me and said, ‘If this happens again, we're gonna have a problem.’ He looked like a redneck Andy Bernard from The Office. Like, really cool dude. That's something to get that upset over, a two-pound item falling from a box. We all took our lunch break at the same time, 30 minutes. Coming out the rest room during one break, a manager started rushing me to get back on the floor. ‘COME ON MAN, NEED YOU BACK OUT THERE.’ I had 5 minutes. Everyone had 5 minutes. He knew what time it was. It was so unnecessary and stupid.”
 
When I first had the idea to look into this topic, I guess I was expecting…more. More unusual, more crazy stories, more outlandish behaviors or difficult tasks or something, but reading through a lot of these felt like job experiences many of us have had and can relate to. It’s sad that many hardships don’t have to exit, but people gotta be people doing things people do for some reason.