Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What crappy no future jobs have you done, to keep food on the table?

roofing - if you don't own the business.

rent a cop at boat shows. took that job in order to survive right after i got out of the air force. felt pretty schitty putting on a rumpled, ill fitting, polyester POS uniform when i had just got done wearing a real uniform for 6 years. and they made us wear a real chintzy polyester ball cap and a douchy badge. no gun of course. if i had a gun, i'd a probably shot myself in the fuggen head.

Oilfield.
And I begged folks not to tell my Mom. She thought that I was a piano player in a whorehouse .

I got no complaints.

Work the door at Larry's hideaway met some real sweethearts. occasionally I would drive them to their dates and the times that became very interesting. One in particular when this gang leader didn't want to pay I had to get the money that was less fun pretty [bleep] work all in all g
Those strippers hate men their minds are all screwed up, pitty it it uthe poor bloke that ends up with one of them

gigalo , it never ends well.

Because I hate factory work , working nights and working with douchebags I am back pouring concrete and repairing foundations. I mostly work for farmers on their farmhouses and barns, but I do residential work. It's the type of repairs nobody wants to do, and I ain't making much money, but it is kicking my 61 year old ass in a good way. I figured I'd be in the front office by now.....bohica!

I got married right out of school and needed cash, big time. I got hired as a termite tech by a local pest control company, working 65 to 70+ hours a week. Work was hard and the pay was good. Just what I needed at the time. At 5’10” and 220, I as much too big to crawl around under houses all day every day. I was and still am grateful for the opportunity. We rented for 8 months before moving into our first house, and paid for our wedding to boot. I wouldn’t want to do that job again, though!

Started chopping cotton, hoeing corn and picking both...way before mechanical pickers. 2.5 cents per pound of cotton. Takes a lot of cotton to make a pound. BUT, if you wanted clothes to wear to school, this is all there was. From the time I was 10 until I graduated high school and hit the road.

Gas station jockey, quick rob store clerk, furniture delivery guy, library gopher, cabinet shop dumbie, shear wall crawler and flying forms ant on high rise construction, tile setter's union flunky.

Worked in a factory painting toaster end panels sucking paint fumes for 3 years, trucked guts and blood from a cattle slaughter house to a rendering plant for 4 years.
Hauled gasoline, propane and anhydrous ammonia all over the midwest for 7 years till I got caught in the PTO shaft, that was a bad ride........

Chopped a little cotton.
Worked on a cotton trailer assembly line outside in the winter.
Cleaned dog kennels.
Mechanic at a K-Mart.
Pumped a lot of gas.
McDonalds counter work.

I'm sure I'll think of some more. None of them seemed that bad at the time (except that assembly line)!

Orkin exterminating in the heart of Detroit, where BLM, and junkies matter. Bodily threats were a daily joy. Throwing morning news papers in gang areas was fun too, oh I just loved the F Troop homeboys.

Lawn are/landscaping wasn’t too bad, it was a good daily workout, low pay though. The job I really disliked, mainly because my personality doesn’t match up well with the job: Insurance Agent. To me no meant no, not let’s give the sucker another sales pitch until he or she buys the policy. Also I learned that a great many people lie or “forget” significant events that would cause large premium increases or cancellations.

The only WHITE laborer on a construction job.

I got out of the Navy, was waiting to start training at a Police Academy,
training did not start for 3 mos. Had to support my wife and 2 kids at the time.

Started as a laborer for a company where all the bricklayers were white, the
mason tenders were all BLACK [the guys who mixed the mortar and wheelbarrow-ed it up a
construction elevator to the masons.] Worked my ass off from daylight to dark as
the BLACK laborers come and went, they typically worked until noon time, quit
and filed for unemployment. Damnedest thing I had ever witnessed. After 3 weeks
of busting my ass, the foreman come to me and asked if I would go to their shop
and rebuild about 18 gas engines on misc. equipment. More money, fu ck this
job site bullshit. I was an Engineman on a Fast Attack Sub. small gas engines
were not much of a challenge. Never mixed any more mortar for anyone
except myself .

Started a daily paper route of around 300 papers at 11 and did that till 16, Stated mowing lawns and shoveling snow at 12 did that all through high school, had about 25 lawns a week most of the time. Money from that bought a kubota tractor loder backhoe that got me started running equipment. My brother and I ran a trash truck for my dads buddy for a summer, him 22 and driving it me 16 being the monkey on the back.....that job SUCKED! Worked as a dishwasher at a fine dining place 4 hours a night 5 nights a week all through high school. From 14 to 18 other then the summer doing trash I worked for a friends dads excavation company. After discharge from the Corps I worked at a steel pipe mill that made large diameter pipeline pipe. My job was in the powder coating area and I probably inhaled a few pounds of the powder in my 8 months there before plant closed. Worked 6 or 7 days a week,12 hour shifts there and it was union so good money and no time to blow it, so that really helped get my business off the ground.

Worked as a laborer at a waste water treatment plant for a year. One of the weekly duties was draining one of the many holding tanks and fixing damages in the plumbing and cleaning the aerators at the bottom. White suit head to toe, hip boots, long rubber gloves, respirator with face shield knee deep in “sludge” scrubbing the stones to remove clogs, knee deep in tampons, needles, rubbers, bloodworms and corn. I would say that qualifies as a crappy job.

Garbage collector!

I was laid off for a short period of time in the ‘70’s.....I mowed lawns and worked part time at a convenience store! Prior to that, I worked 5 years for a large grocery store chain, knowing the future was limited, while trying to get a stable, higher paying job with a future! I’ve been fortunate most of my life, in getting good well paying jobs with future potential! I’ve done OK for a HS graduate, working “blue collar” jobs.....much better than many with a college pedigree! memtb

I have been blessed in the evolution of my work career.

Right out of high school I worked the sporting good department at a Kmart while going to college. Dealing with the general, uneducated public SUCKS.

Took a year off from college and worked in a small family owned coatings plant. Hard, hot work, but the team of coworkers made for a fun work week. Learned a lot about paint and various solvents, processes and equipment.

Went back to college and started working auto parts stores, Autozone and Oreilly's specifically. Again, catering to the general public. The worst customers were ones who blatantly abused the "lifetime" parts warranty...looking their names up and seeing 30-40 different vehicles logged was the first warning you were in for a doozey. The other most aggravating customers were the ones who expected you to "help" them install parts in the parking lot. Sure, battery and headlight replacements are a provided courtesy...but when their battery cables are corroded to green powder and they expect you to install new wiring...they don't understand when you tell them "no."

All of that was while I was attending college and living with the parents. When I moved out, I bought a house and quickly realized I wasn't going to get anywhere working auto parts houses.

I got into a fabrication apprenticeship at the local shipyard. It was HOT, hard work but satisfying. A few years into that, one of my instructors (who had moved into the office) called me and said he had an opening in his department and wanted me to apply. I knew opportunity when it knocked. Been in the same company for 14 years...been in the office for 11 or 12 years...been managing a third of the department for 4 years now.

I recognize I have had a blessed life and I commend anyone for doing whatever was necessary to help their family. I have much more respect for those men than the people that continue to sit on their azz and wait on a handout.

The worst job I ever head was my "meat with a headset" gig back in 2010-2012. I was coming off 10 years as an IT manager, but this was a Recession, and guys my age weren't getting hired. I took a job in Scumsuck, Ohio for a large utility doing IT Helpdesk work.

80+ calls per 8 hour shift

The pay sucked. I had not made that little since the early 80's.

1 hour 1-way commute on a white-knuckle run on a section of I-75 that was under construction. It was common for semis going the other direction to jump the barrier and land on oncoming traffic. When that happened ahead of me, the 1 hour commute would turn into a 3-hour commute.

Although she wasn't my supervisor, the lady next to me basically kept me in my seat. I had to have her permission to go to the john or eat my lunch.

The guy they hired to help me out was a lazy SOB that eventually got fired for sleeping on the job. The only fun part of the gig was that he had a bum ticker and had a defibrillator that would go off frequently and send him out of his chair and onto the floor.

I used to have lunch with the guy. He was nice and all, but one day he informed me he needed a $2K loan or the loansharks were going kill him. We stopped having lunch together.

Due to security concerns updates to the PC's had been frozen to some time back in 2004.

The IT Director was so hated and despised that the day she was fired, the whole department ran to the conference center and danced to "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!"

There was something wrong with the ventilation. I had 3 bad bouts of bronchitis/pneumonia. The lady before me had also had retire early with lung problems.

While I was working there, the company got bought out by a bunch of Brazillians.

My father died in the middle of all this. I was supposed to be having the dinner with the Brazillians.

I had to have emergency surgery on an ingrown toenail that went septic on me.

My S10 blew a transmission in all this and also had the bearings go bad-- the latter happened the day I had to drive with a bad toe to the doc to get the toe worked on. I had to buy a new truck on an emergency basis.

When an opening appeared 45 minutes away going the other direction, I made the 90 mile run to the interview in less than 1:30 in rush hour. That includes a stop at the rest area to get into the suit and tie.

A buddy of mine told folks that he once worked in a sardine factory and that he was the one that closed their little eyes before they put the lid on the can.