Hey friends! This took me a while, so I hope you enjoy it! It’s a little trip down memory lane…a look in at some of the crummy jobs I have had along the way – I could have made it A LOT longer, but we would be here for hours!
So yeah, hope you get a kick out of it – and let me know of any stinkers you’ve had, would love to hear your tales!
If you have a video request you can leave a comment, or send me an email – if it’s a cool/interesting idea then I will get to it as soon as I can!
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John Lee Taggart 
One word: Subway. I only worked there for five months three years ago, but I haven’t eaten there since. The smell of it makes me gag.
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Oh man! And I kinda like Subway too…haha!
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Haha well, never work there if you want to continue enjoying it.
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Noted, for sure! haha!
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You’re so right: the worst jobs can become the best because of the people you work with. Serving pizza for £1.80 an hour for incomprehensible Glaswegian bosses with a thing about clean skirting boards was pretty pants…but because of the others there it was my life and I have so many memories (good and bad).
I lied about my age for my first job too, selling chocolates and tobacco one Christmas. The boss there ripped me off with my wages.
And as for paper delivery, I did it for one day for a friend. It was raining, i was on her brother’s bike that was too big for me and i fell off in the middle of the road. And I didn’t even get paid!
The bonus of it all, in hindsight, is that all the crap places I’ve worked over the years have shut down. I feel like an anti-Midus employee – everywhere I touch turns to shit (always AFTER I’ve left, mind) – which makes me feel like I’ve ultimately won.
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hahaha now there’s a positive spin, kinda! You were the best thing to happen to them 😉 they fell to ruin once you left clearly!
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hahahaha! I am literally cracking up at the turns to shit comment…oh my God…
But yeah, there are a wealth of shitty jobs out there – I am glad, in a way, I wasn’t the only one – to have a fair few stinkers!
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Oh yeah!!! Stinkers galore!! As a matter of fact, I think I could make a great poem out of this. Mind if I borrow? Credit will be given.
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Of course!!! I’d love to read it! 🙂
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Thanks! Providing I can write something on the topic that isn’t complete crap, I’ll put a pingback in the blog.
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This is a great vid. The editing is very well done! I was selling these calendar books when I was about 8 or 10. I remember doing really well, and all the other kids were really pissed at me. I tend to be an overachiever at most of my jobs, thus making management like me, co-workers hate me. I hated working for Wal-Mart, both times. I really hated retail and I was in management for about 15 years. Loved being a paralegal though, even though it is really stressful and very time management oriented.
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Some stress is good, it keeps you motivated – and keeps you going! I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be an over-achiever either!
Glad you liked the video, I know it was long – but I cut it down from even more! I will get better with the editing too…it’s a learning process! 🙂
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Summer jobs. The ones that make you appreciate your career later. I assembled hand grenade fuses and loaded gunpowder into mortar shells during the Vietnam war era. At a Pepperidge Farm Bakery, I was a raisin washer, picking out twigs and bugs before they went into a bath. (I’t’s still my favorite raisin bread…I know they are clean !)
You’re so right…enjoyable co-workers make it all tolerable. ☺
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hahaha! Wow! Now they are interesting features on any CV I reckon! 😉 but yes, if you’ve got a few good people around – you can always be sure of a laugh at the very least!
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This is hilarious! I’ve held many jobs in my lifetime… and each one has a great story behind it! Thanks for sharing!
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That’s the great thing! When you are actually in the moment it can be the most painful, horrible experience ever! But afterwards you can look back, and laugh! 🙂
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Exactly!!
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It was Starbucks for me. I didn’t mind the early hours, I love the smell of coffee, but it was the entitled snots rolling in at 6:15 demanding their super-specific, pain-in-the-ass drinks that did me in. What the hell is a dry cappuccino, anyway? You seriously want to spend six bucks for a dusting of coffee grounds covered in milk bubbles?
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hahaha! I’m simple in my order so hope I’m not one of the nightmare customers 😉 but yeah if you don’t like coffee then stay away…rather than ordering some ridiculous concoction!
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Amen! I order the straight-up drip coffee. Nothing that is going out of its way to not taste like coffee.
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You’ve got it right!
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Oh, god, that one part is horrible…Ack! lol (the cleaning-up part)…
The worst job(s) was actually not menial-labour jobs–janitor, dishwasher, etc. but substitute teaching and working for this paper in New Mexico.
The school system is more like a prison here in Florida (as it is throughout much of the U.S.) Kids were mentally and physically abused–smacked in the head, called names, yanked out of class for random dress code checks for a good 2-3 hours–one kid was even delayed emergency medical care for over an hour over something trivial that was prioritized by the principal. Heartbreaking. <–advocate for educational reform now.
The ultimate worst job, though, was at this paper in New Mexico, in the classified ad department.The receptionist (if he wasn't in jail for beating up his girlfriend) was either looking at/printing out porn on the computer, screaming and cussing at his girlfriend in front of clients or while I was on the phone with one, or just not showing up at all. In fact, the two other people that worked in the department rarely showed up for work, including the new manager that got promoted instead of me. So, I'd be managing the whole department and was also the receptionist, picking up everyone's slack, and then getting chewed out from my manager for making sure everybody else's pages they had failed to do got into the paper by the publication deadline, when production came looking for them. I can't explain what a threatening, hostile environment it was, but I needed the money desperately. One day, the editor came out for lunch around noon and asked me "Are you the only one here?" and I said "Yep. Happens every day." I finally was able to quit, and took great pleasure in doing so right before the winter holiday, so my co-workers were unable to take time off and use up their vacation time. First time I ever really "screwed over" an employer. 🙂
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Oh my! Well they deserved to be screwed by the sounds of it! Can’t believe you stuck with it for so long, you must be very patient 🙂 there’s nothing worse than horrid working conditions – those places don’t last long, after all you treat the employees badly, and well…yeah, it’ll be your downfall!
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I worked on a sheep farm once. Stupidest animals on the planet. I am an animal lover so this is completely out of character for me…they drove me so nuts with frustration I actually laughed with glee when I had to drive a bunch of them to be ….ahem….separated from their earthly…or should I say Plutonian shells. Dumb ass beasts. Can actually eat themselves to death in one sitting. FYI the bible compares us to sheep. Not a compliment.
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In NZ the sheep are bred stupid any sign of intelligence and they are killed.
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Wow! What an odd fact! Is there a reason for that?
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Intelligent sheep can be difficult to manage especially if they lose their fear of dogs.
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That makes sense. Can’t have one smart sheep figuring out how to open the gate and have the 99 others following her out, all the while, ignoring the dog. But smart sheep still seems like an oxymoron.
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Every day is a school day!! Very interesting 😊
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I thought you meant sheep self-cannibalise until they die! I didn’t know they eat normal food until they die either, is that common? Sounds crazy.
I think we (mankind) are compared to sheep and goats…
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Yeah, if they get into feast mode they eat too fast and they bloat up-some foods are worse than others. If you really are interested in details here is a technical paper on the subject. http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/sheep/articles/pasbloat.html
Biblically, we are compared to sheep.
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thanks for that.
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Have you read “50 Jobs Worse Than Yours” by Justin Racz? Very easy to read. (I never knew what a ‘sherpa’ was until I read it.) 😀
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Chicken gizzard remover, factory hand stretching aluminium sheets for 8-12 hour shifts, brick making which meant loading bricks into a kiln. Been lucky with bosses except one who was a bully minus the backbone.
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Hahaha – retail sucks! (been there). Work for Distributors…even if you’re on the phone, chances are you aren’t face-to-face with the consumers causing everyone grief. Oh yeah, Christmas sucks for everyone, everywhere, no matter your industry. People are crazy. Every year I have to help someone rationalize why this particular piece of mid-end jewellery is not really the end of the world if it doesn’t arrive to their shop in time.
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I think my worst job learning to be a professional cook, eater and not-eater. Reasons:
– obsessive, anal, psudo-religious training material (and effective to open a can of worms).
– self taught, cooking mostly alone, mostly for just myself. (Not easily compatible with working in a soup kitchen.)
– heat of the kitchen (extremely volatile temperature and high average. Difficult to cool when hot.).
– diversity and complexity of criteria difficult to master, difficult to isolate, and especially difficult when managing all at once, thus seemingly impossible to complete training.
– once training begun, apparently impossible to quit or even rest properly without first completing training.
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