What is the worst job you have ever had?

Delivering Yellow Pages and working in a toy factory in the run up to Christmas when my children were small.

I agree with MOnica these jobs are important as they give us life experience. The wealthy often start their children at the bottom of the company and make them work their way up so they have an understanding of the people they will one day manage and the jobs they do. There is even a book entitled 'Everything I know at the top I learned at the bottom'.

Daffodil picking, Cornwall. Spring 1974. Cold, back-breaking and the sap was really irritating to the skin. I do still love daffs though so it didn't put me off them and when I get a bunch of daffs for brightening up the kitchen I think of the pickers.

Yes, I am with you chestnut I think it is when doing the less glamourous jobs and more boring that one learns more about other people. It certainly brought me in contact with all sorts of people I would not otherwise have met and gave me insights into the difficulties people less privilaged than me faced in life.

Anyway, the job I did that was so boring, now gives me a good tale to tell.

I think the most awful jobs are much more interesting! Two spring to mind, both during school holidays in the 1960s.

Door knocking around Heathrow to tell people they were eligible for a double glazing grant. A lot of rudeness and slammed doors because I think we weren't the first to call.

Then ironing and folding shirts by machine at a laundry for several weeks during the summer. Slaving away surrounded by steaming hot presses during a heatwave was very tiring for a schoolgirl! All the women were very sympathetic, bless them. Unless they were being funny.

I loved my paper round.

It came to a biting halt when I saw a sick animal in the road and went to rescue it before it was run over.

It was a rat and it bit me.

I couldn't get it off my hand, so held its nose so it couldn't breathe. Then it put me down

My mother panicked when I got home (I had never heard of Warfarin of course) and Dad rushed me to hospital for tetanus injections and reassurance.
For days afterward they were examining my face for whiskers

I still have the scar. Poor old rat.

I've had so very many jobs over the years but can't think of one I hated or even actively disliked.

Cleaning public toilets wasn't too great but it was a case of needs must when your husband is sick and you have children to feed. I was just grateful for the money.

I am seriously beginning to wonder about you Nathy - why all the very negative questions?

You could have asked about the best or most rewarding jobs. Much more interesting and upbeat.

Would a talk with your GP help you?

I only lasted one day of delivering leaflets door to door,.
My fingers got nipped, both by letter boxes and by dogs,
and I got chased twice by large dogs. I hated it.

I worked on a farm potato picking for a few weeks. It seemed to rain constantly, was cold, 6.00am start, whilst up to the top of my wellies in mud, digging spuds out of the ground with my hands. It's how I spent my 21st birthday.

Receptionist in a city morgue - large blokes wandering in and out in blood stained overalls. Yuck. Double yuck actually!

I lasted 20 minutes in a bingo hall. It was before the smoking ban and I literally couldn’t breathe? walked out saying I am sorry this isn’t for me.

I worked one hot summer as a teen gathering eggs in a chicken barn. It was horrible!

I had to push a cart along the rows of stacked hens in wire cages, gathering eggs along the trough. The noise and smell were overpowering, and most of the eggs had feces from the hens.

The farm was almost 5 miles from home, and I rode my bike to work. I'm sure I left a cloud of stink behind me as I rode home. All this for $1.80 per hour (approx. 1 pound). Needless to say I was happy to find another job, and purchase free range eggs now.

I worked for an Insurance Broker which was fine. The problem was that I was the only non-smoker in an office of 6. Mondays were particularly dreadful because the smell was so stale.

Sitting in the sub-basement in Selfridges writing the price in pencil on the back of Christmas cards and paper clipping them to the right envelope. Some times we had a machine that rpiced and clipped.

We were too far underground for radio reception and bit by bit we slid in later took longer breaks and went a bit early. It was mind numbingly boring. Then in mid-August the Christmas cards and wrapping department opend and I was on the shop floor selling.

Thankfully it was only a summer job so I only did it for 8 weeks.

Saturday job in Woolworths at age 15. I was put on the counter selling Contact (that paper-backed plasticky stuff your Dad used to improve the kitchen). It came in widths of 18" or 36". The 18" was alright but there was nowhere to lay down the wider stuff to measure it, you had to do it with the roll upended on the floor. I was hopeless at that. My friend was luckier than me as she got to work on the record counter. She chose which music to play and attracted a crowd of boys all day. Mind you, she was very pretty.
I think we were paid 13/9d a day.

Clearly at a bit of a loose end tonight Nathy ?( 20.26, 20.29, 20.30)
Not related to Reecedouglas by any chance?

Exactly Maw. And not the first person recently to start multiple threads asking us a variety of questions

More questions, questions, questions?

I had a job in the school kitchens of the infant/junior school. Mainly washing up, which I thought I could do. Huh. No.
The pots and pans were huge and I could hardly lift them.
So I only lasted two days.

Oh heavens, the jobs I took after redundancy could fill a book!

Not so much the actual jobs, more the attitude of the employers.

Example, the boss who had the building signed off as a storage unit, then used it as an office, with the only washing up facility being the disabled toilet, which lead straight into the main area, next to the microwave where staff could hear food, plus he insisted on turning off the fridge each night to save money!

One morning when I came in, the milk was off. I volunteered to go to the nearest shop, but was told "we're not allowed to go out unless it's during our break time!"

The year I left school I worked in a small Clairol hair dye factory. My first & last experience of clocking in! The permanent staff were unwelcoming to p/t student workers and the pong of ammonia was overpowering. My job was to put the caps on the bottles. I lasted 3 weeks!

In a zip factory in Birmingham. My job was to shut down the dye machines when the huge rolls of zip tape ran out and load on new spools. As soon as one of the machines stopped thousands of blind, translucent cockroaches, who lived off the cotton oil that dripped off the tape, ran out to the nearest working machine. They would run over your feet if you were in the way.

My friend and I both decided to get a Saturday job in Woolworths . We were 15 years old and this was in 1962. My friend was lucky enough to land a job on the biscuit counter whilst I , unfortunately, got the job on the bacon and cheese counter. When I think back to it I can’t believe I used an old fashioned bacon slicer to slice the bacon. I remember cutting the cheese with a wire cutter but never managing to cut the correct weight so customers would get their cheese in bits and pieces. There was definitely no health and safety then . I think we lasted about 3 weeks for the princely sum of ten shillings (50pence) a day. We are still best friends and laugh about it even now.

I feel sorry for the woman who answered the busy phone line and was told to always give the company name on answering.
The company was called "Country Craftwork".

I got a job once in a posh dress shop doing alterations. They took me on because I said I could sew. Taking up hems etc. Lots of handsewing.
But I wasn't good enough. Hope they didn't lose too many customers. .

cleaning at the local Coop when I was in 6th Form- as I had to clean the butcher's counter and back