You know, those jobs when there was no choice at the time,but you made sure you never had to go back and do them again.


For me, I was driving tractor 8 hr/day during the summer from 5 yrs of age. By six I had one cow to milk each morning and night. By thirteen it was eight or nine cows, by hand, each morning before school and after. As well as pitchforking 5 ton of silage into and out of a pickup each night and a ton and a half of hay bales. In the summer, there was 150 acres to keep irrigated and hay bales to put into the stack, by hand.

Yes, I have made absolutely sure to never step onto a dairy again after our cows were sold.

Upon adulthood, I spent several weeks, a couple of times, picking apples. The extra cash helped keep shoes on my siblings' feet at the time. But I will not ever go back into an orchard.

And there were three seasons in the corn cannery. Hot, miserable, low pay, but the cash helped out the folks and my little brothers and sisters. It was good motivation to move up in the world.

I've been where I am now since '78.

Delivering furniture to the projects of Oakland and San Francisco.

Sewer line repair for the city. Those guys don’t get paid enough

Well well well. Let me count the ways.

Not all of them, but.

Mowed lawns in the 'hood. Delivered papers, boxboy in a grocery, construction laborer (jackhammering granite was fun,).

Job with the least future was working for a temp agency on "day labor" status. Some of them over the years (used the agency between "real" jobs) were road flagger, mover, and maybe the best one, taking full 50 lb bags of dog food off the production line and stacking them on pallets.

Picked apples one day in York PA. Alone. Old school trees, not these new little shorties. Big heavy wooden orchard ladder, up and down that fugger all day with a "bucket" of apples. Worked out to minimum wage when he paid me at the end of the day. I'm no dummy, not working that hard for min wage, rather go to work in a C store and read girlie magazines all night for that kind of money.

Worked with a repo agency for a couple of nights. Too much like stealin' scheidt to me, had to get away from that. Got a little exciting at times.

Probably a few more I'm forgetting. I'm kinda like an adaptation of that old Johnny Cash song.................I've done everything man, I've done everything.

That must have been fun!

Farmer...still do it. Worked for farmers doing various shixtty jobs. Lumberyard. Roofer. Worked as a jailer at what was basically a prison for kids. Railroad.

If you remember the pink palace or Geneva towers, that's it.

During my first college years, back breaking row crop work that's only done by migrants today. I'd go back in a second if we could assemble the same crew. Hard honest work, but good times with the best of people.

Farmer...still do it. Worked for farmers doing various shixtty jobs. Lumberyard. Roofer. Worked as a jailer at what was basically a prison for kids. Railroad. When I was working for the railroad, we were rebuilding track in South Dallas, which is the ghetto. We were basically in this semi-wild industrial area. Once in awhile there would be a community of old rundown houses. A bunch of us were parked in such a community and had to wind our way down through this wooded, weeded area to get to the worksite. As a guy with less seniority than many others, I usually had to stay late after the day was done and clean switches. You were just done-in and nobody wanted to do it, but, no choice. The switches absolutely HAD to be clean so they were operable in case a train needed to pass another or the like.

So one night one of the truck drivers comes down and says the locals are messing with our vehicles. Most railroaders kept a pretty nice vehicle. The locals had been lurking around all day, trading insults with us as we worked on the tracks. The foreman just dropped everything and said something to the effect of "let's get the f u ck out of here" and we just dropped our tools and left the switch inoperable. It was unheard of but it WAS a near-riotous situation. Oh well. The only danger of the tools being stolen was to pawn them. It's not like they were gonna use them or nothin'.

Only by name.

Kinda like Cabrini greens

We had our own neighborhoods in the San Diego area. The place I bagged groceries was on the edge of one of them. Couple of the bakeries I worked at, good jobs those, were in bad neighborhoods. Had to chain down the hoods of our cars to keep batteries in them. Someone got the fender skirts off my '54 chevy coupe.

Of course, the repo job took me to a poor neighborhood or two also.

Projects suck. I'd not wish that life on anyone, and not wish folks had to deliver to them either.

Never minded working for farmers except for a large corporate dairy. Took that job to keep food on the table and a roof over my head. Brutal. Milked 500 head three times a day. Milkers worked two eight hour shifts. four days on, two off. First four days 0400-2000, second four days 1200-0400, third four days 2000 -1200. Rinse and repeat. After a couple months I didn't know what month it was let alone what day it was. Luckily I found a better job after a few months.

Hot here...

Saw the Trane man leave the neighbors...

Crappy job in the summer and winter... but I know for certain he is making a fortune... and the neighbor has a sad face on... with the bill that got left

Personally I can't actually think of any crappy job that I have never not done... at least once.

Let’s see. Roofing, appliance sales, store clerk, yard work, gas station.......times get tough, the kids still have to eat

Never done anything but plumbing work. It can get crappy on occasion

Delivering furniture

Handyman's helper for six months back in '82..... SO glad I don't have to do that any longer.

I spent the summer working on a dairy farm in nw Idaho near the Washington line. Loading hay bales.
They made alfalfa bales and they weighed 95 pounds. One guy drove the truck, the other guy stood in the flatbed and stacked the bales as the pop up loader put them onto the truck. About 120 bales in a truck load.

The two of us went back and stacked 'em in the barn.
Then we switched jobs, the stacker drove and the driver stacked, and we went back for another load.
We put 1,000 bales a day in the barn. 95 pounds, and 3,000 reps, each bale had to be lifted 3 times. Good God.

We got 9 cents a bale. To split. Twelve brutal hours in the sun for $45.

I have done my share of dead end jobs, but most of them pale in comparison to the work farmers do every day.

Back in the summer of 1969 I was driving west to California with a college buddy. We stopped for gas in the middle of the night somewhere in Indiana or Illinois, farm country. We saw a big DX gas station sign and pulled in to fill up. The pump jockey was an older man, obviously a farmer. He wore bib overalls and his skin was leather-like from decades in the sun and weather. What struck me was his hands, missing at least three fingers.

Oh hell, the list would fill pages!


But, for your amusement, I was officially known as the HOSER for a couple of months back in 1990? I used a fire hose to spray mud off vehicle tires leaving a construction site in West Linn Oregon. Good times. Not the worst by far.

I was a garbage man from ‘81-‘83. Not one that just sits behind the wheel and pulls levers. The one who ran behind the truck , tossing the stuff.

Do that for 12hrs a day, year round and get back with me.

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.

Other than High School jobs, like busboy or grocery cashier, I've been pretty fortunate. I did a very short stint installing fences in El Paso. After that it was 40 years of union electrical construction in NYC, straight to retirement..

Never home, so I quit the oilfield and I had a wife and 2 kids at home. Took a job in maintenance at a chicken plant. No one went hungry and it kept the bills paid but that's about all. Took a year and a half to find a decent job, but I got out of there as quick as I could.

Gee and people wonder why those of us who have busted our azzes to get where we are today and to get what we have tend to be conservatives and despise the welfare gimme-dat crowd! Just look at this thread and the horrible jobs many of us have done just to remain self sufficient!

Bro, that's a good deadend job on a hot day in SoCal. Mud off tires, gravel off the sides of dumptrucks. A little overspray every vehicle. Bam! and a paycheck for keeping cool all day.

I worked in a metal foundry,had a big hammer machine that knocked the ceramic off the freshly poured metal parts,machine was loud,had rubber mats wired all around it.was like working in a cave.had to stop every hour to shovel up the ceramic pieces into giant carts and push them up a ramp to be re used.
Was hot,loud and dirty,but,i was alone all day,as long as i was working ,nobody bothered me,but it was minimum wage,i left as soon as i could.

I have to say, not that bad. I've worked hard, but the jobs we not all that bad.

Worked as a janitors helper at a elementary school one semester while in college (nasty job). Then worked stocking groceries at night in a major supermarket. Married and one kid at the time....Graduated with a EE degree and things got better.

Weeded, and picked produce, shoveled s h i t, emptied garbage, cleaned houses, moved furniture, remodeled basements and homes, hauled and stacked firewood, cleaned chimneys, mowed lawns and shoveled a LOT of snow. Thank God I moved out at 19, everything was easy after that.

Farmed and ranched.

Had to work steadily while in college in order to remain a student, and all summers - and when first married and with children as a teacher needed to work summers as well. Ditch digging, carpenter helper, cleaning petroleum lines/tanks/cracking units, automobile assembly line, various oil refinery tasks, driving school bus, tutoring in math and sciences, college plumbing crew, machine shop assistant, news stand in evenings, paper box factory night worker., checking crops and selling pesticides/fertilizer/farm equipment, running a crew picking melons in AZ, repairing music instruments, mobile service vehicle tune-ups, janitorial services, night watchman, Readers Digest Book Return crew, IBM bodily electric testing, baby sitting, running a TP rolling machine at Scott Paper, lawn and tree work, night shift at mental hospital, any extra music jobs that came along including teaching myself to play tuba to get hired to play in the orchestra for a production of The Pirates of Penzance at Sleepy Hollow School. There were others - a little more selective these days.

Rough carpentry and landscaping. Junior guy on both crews. Honest work, At least it kept me going to college.

Old70

Cottage cheese factory and hubcap factory were probably the worst.
Even when I worked in the utility business the pay was great but some of the jobs sucked. Everybody should be a meter reader for a year. It will make you appreciate your next job.
I also had no-future jobs that were great. Planted trees with my Uncle for several years. Lots of times hungover. Back-breaking work in all kinds of weather but we had a great time.

What was bad about being a meter reader ? From the outside it looks like a cake job.

Paul..... what exactly does a Readers Digest Book Return crew, do?

Inquiring minds want to know.

I worked 11p-7a on a big drilling rig in the Anadarko Oil Basin in Oklahoma about 40 years ago. 7 days a week. No days off. It was crazy. Well over 600 rigs goin’ in Oklahoma at that time. OSHA who...?
I got tired of that schit, I went to college and got my BSN.

Asbestos abatement, insulation installer, house painter, raspberry picker.

I’ve enjoyed working these 50 years, very proud I’ve never taken a dime of Government money, except SS, but I earned that.

Was slave labor as a child. Hoed a lot of rows of cotton, hauled and stacked countless bales of hay, and stretched miles and miles of barbed wire fence. And never got payed a dime! 🤠

Payed my way through College delivering newspapers in the AM, delivering pizzas at night, and mowing lawns in the afternoon. All at the same time.

A&M...?

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........

I rebuild fiberglass boats in my spare time, got one in the barn now and it's been a 100+ degrees for over a week now. Sometimes I think cleaning bathrooms in a restaurant and bar beats sweating and itching. Working in a layer house wasn't all that much fun either, and opening the lid to the pit to dump the dead birds is a smell that you never get use to.

Apprenticed under the Johns Mannsville stock refinishing program.
Was moving up the food chain nicely, ahead of peers.
Best thing ever happened to me careerwise was unassing that place as soon as I got wind of the Dan Halen in the works acquisition of the Company.

Yeah....I’ll have the fudge dipped roach blizzard

I worked in the woods ie timber in my youth. Most guys would say ah man dream job. Bull chit! running a saw all day, [bleep] sweat running down the crack of your ass. Then stumble into hornets nest get stung a few times. Take a quick break from getting bit by hornets work up the nerve to go get your saw to work again. So rule of thumb stumble into hornets nest chuck your chain saw far as you could then start running.

Unloading 94lb bags of cement from a box car in the middle of a Southern Oregon summer heat wave. I worked three years on swing shift pulling 27s from a round table at a plywood plant. The round table was at the end of a long 200+ degree dryer. During summers it was often over 130 degrees at the round table. Worked and went to college at the same time. Don't remember a lot from those years - I was perpetually tired. It wasn't really a crappy job, just a hard one and a good challenge. It did reinforce the idea of getting a college degree.

port of albany , temp longshoreman . I hated bananas , pineapples and all tropical fruits for a long time. but paid my tuition and a lot more.

I spent two summers working my way through college as a brick mason's helper. Two helpers for 8 masons. Good God! Not much shade for the masons building the apartments in Atlanta on a 98 degree August day.

I did everything besides whoring myself.

32 months at Wal-Mart.
kwg

That stuff can become brutal - best if it is done by young bucks who need the work and have strength and stamina to spare. One of my summer laborer jobs in the oil refinery was in a unit where they used clay for some refining process, and it arrived in 95 pound bags - a boxcar full - every day. Scoot up the ramp, grab a bag, hustle down the ramp and 10 yards to the conveyor, smash the edge of the bag on the requisite spike and dump the clay into the spinning worm. Toss the empty bag into a dumpster. Repeat for 8 hours. All four of us looked like the dough boy after each shift.. Helps develop perspective.

Working on family farm for free, parks and rec grounds maintenance, waiting tables, mover, landscaper, fly-fishing guide. Pretty much whatever it took to keep food on the table without a government assistance.

Two full time jobs. Both were split shifts so I was at each work place twice a day. Three years straight.

Only working one job a day was akin to having a day off. Not working either, which was very rare, was like a three day weekend. Was able to finally quit one of those jobs to work 6am to 6pm every day. Did what I had to do at the time.

Grew up emotionally and financially during that time and cut ties with people I realized weren't friends. Also made lasting bonds with those who encouraged me at my lowest.

Worked in a hog barn while in college. Minimum wage but an apartment was provided. Allowed me to get through college with no debt. 6 am in the nursery and soaked through with sweat. Days when we had a plug in the line draining the pit, was standing in liquid manure almost to my chest reaching over with one hand trying to feel and find what was blocking the outflow pipe opening while my ear was just touching the liquid.

Cleaning out underneath raised nursery floors. Lay on the concrete floor to reach under the decks and remove boards that contained the manure under the pens and not leach/run out into the aisle and you pull your arm out with pig manure all over it and maggots crawling all over your arm.

Fed some pigs in a research trial a feed made from yeast. The manure was the consistency of really thick peanut butter. Scraping those pens daily was a bear. At the end of the trial trying to clean off the little layers that built up over the months was brutal. Dealing with hogs that had been dead days in the summer sun. I could go on. But, I had a great boss. Nothing we did, he hadn't or wouldn't do himself. Loved the job because of my boss and coworkers.

Another job I took when I needed a job was power washing nursery and farrowing rooms in a commercial hog outfit. I would show up around 9pm and go to power washing maybe a dozen crates in a room or 6 nursery pens in a room. Expanded-metal type floors and every speck of manure had to be cleaned off all those metal rods that made up the floors etc. Mind numbing. Would finish up around 2 or 3 in the am. Drive back to where I was paying a guy $100 to sleep on his couch because I didn't have a place to live and couldn't afford an apartment.

Worked for my step-dad on a roofing crew. Reroofing flat roofs in the summer. Chipping, power-brooming, brooming and shoveling all that gravel and material into a wheel barrow and hauling it to the roof's edge and dumping it. Sucked a $s. First day I was on a power broom as a 16 year old, I made the 24 yo fit athletic guy working with me run to the edge of the roof to puke. I just kept on pushing that fricken broom. I do not have fond memories of that job. Most of the employees were bonafide alcoholics. Tougher than hell. I could never figure out how they drank the way they did and still show up the next day and work their butts off in the heat and humidity. Learned right there I was not tough enough to be an alcoholic.