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

Did irrigation installations, the residential jobs weren't bad but some of the commercial ones were BRUTAL. Like go home and die brutal. Then there was custom-cutting in the Triangle. 16 hour days for a month straight, we were fed well, but not paid well. The experience was good.
By far the worst was day labor through the state employment office, all sorts of filthy bonehead jobs, but the killer was being on a Christmas-tree crew during an early fall, I'd taken a semester off because the class I needed to graduate wasn't being offered. So rather than just go to school from my summer job on the RR, I had to tide myself over three months. I was working with the 1980s equivalent of meth heads, if they weren't dopers, they were just dumb. Started out with five days of pleasant weather.
So one night it snows and freezes to the cut trees, which are now frozen to the ground and the loose needles are frozen to the trees. There were "shakers" that would grab the butt of the tree, right. And again, the tree is wet ice, and as it shakes, there's a harmonic spot where you could hold the tree. Most of the time, however, you missed that spot and shook like he// with the tree for the triple-time it took to get the facking dead needles loose.
Well, it kept snowing and freezing.
The last two days, I just staggered out of the car, straight into the shower, then had to dry and clean all my gear before O dark the next snowy morning. Well, I couldn't tie my boots. My hands were so wrecked I think it was at least four months before I had full grip strength again and a year before the pain fully went away. Trust me, I aced all my classes that winter.

Yep. Gig em Aggies! 👍🏻

I went to OU ‘and’ UT. Graduated from UT, but I’m an OU fan. One extreme to the other.

17 months, working for Dan Halen Sheetrock, made us work without shirts.

Creepy old bastard, only hired guys with ‘outie’ belly buttons

When I was 18 I built cars on the assembly line at the General Motors assembly plant in Oklahoma City. We built the Chevy Citation and the Pontiac Phoenix. ‘X-cars’...they were supposed to revolutionize the automobile industry. Biggest pieces of schit there ever was.

Shoveling silage fed cow chit on a dairy farm on weekends, and scrubbing garage floors in a truck shop at night during the week. On top of my day jobs... Not glamorous. But, had food on the table, roof over our head, and the car would start, stop, drive when we turned the ignition...

I remember when we went through the changeover when Dan Halen bought out Johns Mannsville. Cost cutting cheapskates just bought a great American company to gut it. Next thing you knew us asbestos shovelers were in the bread line. I don’t think my buddy Earlie ever found another job.

Worst job I ever had was Taco Bell, started the day I was 16 y/o. Quit for True Value exactly 1 year later. It was pizza joints, hardware stores, and internships until 23, when I went "pro".

Yup, if you stand far enough back and just about anything can look good.
I read meters back around 1988. Still a lot of meters inside then. We also had to do collections and disconnects for non-payment. You could find yourself in some hairy situations with P.O.'d customers, dogs etc. Don't get me wrong, there were some good times too but I was glad to move on to the next stage of my career.

Halen went international after that, got into pharmaceuticals, and energy drinks. Manville had significant debts but the brow fields and superfunds grants were diverted to research and development of GLUG. Although I think the idea was stolen.

Professional Fishing Guide and Tournament Captain 🤨

Hauling and stacking every summer from age 10. Changing handlines morning and night. I am thankful for what I learned and have no regrets.

Hardest was a summer of concrete work.
Best pay but scariest was making propellant for Mighty Mouse & Zuni rockets.
That crap could blow you up even if you were careful, and the nitro in it made you sick.
I think it was a Zuni rocket that launched on the carrier deck in the Viet Nam war that almost sunk the ship.
Most interesting was final arrangement sales at a cemetery. You will absolutely meet all strata of the population.

I’m a classically trained dancer, but I’ve never caught a break with a major dance company. To make ends meet, I weld on a construction site during the day, and dance at a local strip club at night, while being ogled by men! I like to call it Flashdancing.

Upon further reflection, that MIGHT have not be me, but rather Jennifer Beals character in that 80s movie. So sorry for the confusion. Carry on :-)

I was born with an excessively long cock.

I worked on Mississippi River boats sounding "Mark Twain" at every bend in the river.

I hate catfish.

Randy, this was a boring but decent paying summer job near the college - six or eight of us worked 10 hours a day in a small annex room of the Pleasantville, NY post office hauling in from a truck never ending stacks of return-mailed Readers Digest condensed books - dump them on a table, slice open each individual book box, remove the unread book, stack it on a cart, and haul it to a waiting truck for return to the Reader's Digest headquarters up the parkway. My first experience with a "box cutter" knife - got to be ambidextrous - still gave me blisters.

In the OP I also forgot to mention golf caddy (started at age 12) and paper route delivery kid which also started at 12. Today I rebuilt the drive-line parking brake unit on our Trek Motorhome - on my back in the dirt under a low coach with the drum about two inches above my nose - didn't make a penny. But, Maddy did make us each a great hamburger sandwich with fresh fruit.

Hauling Sheetrock to job sites and stocking it in rooms where it went. Humping 12 ft Sheetrock in the summertime in Alabama is real fun. Not sure where they found all the lazy bastids for helpers. Work 15 min and sit on their azz for an hour. Great motivation to get back to college.

I work part time for the CIA, I monitor the 24hourcampfire.

1st job .
Worked at a Halen Bakery in Old Town Maine on French Island.
Had a Old Philippino Boss

Total Halen slave driver.
You drop a tray of 18 dozen donuts on the floor.
Box em !!!

Change out the glaze coating liquid .
"We get nother 2 weeks out it".
"Health inspectors come then"
"We clean and change day before"...


Halen ...............

Wow! Just reminded me of another, not so bad though. Dairy Queen. Manager would leave 1 gallon open cans of hot fudge out uncovered. Yep uncovered. Found a few roaches who lost their lives in in fudge pit. Scoop them out it’s fine........