9 votes

What was the worst job you had, and what made it terrible? What makes a job a good job?

What was your worst job? What were the things that made it terrible?

11 comments

  1. jprich
    Link
    Worked tech support for a cable company that serviced the smaller rural communities the big companies didnt want to touch. Holee shit. It was the epitome of bad call centers. They secretly...

    Worked tech support for a cable company that serviced the smaller rural communities the big companies didnt want to touch.

    Holee shit.
    It was the epitome of bad call centers.

    • They secretly monitored not only your calls but your monitors. So no browsing while waiting for a user to do something away from the phone.
    • Bathroom times were monitored.
    • They serviced the most rural bumfuck places and provided crap service which caused...
    • The queues were INSANE. The only time you werent on the phone was when you were walking into or out of the building, in the bathroom, or on a break. NO downtime.
    • The company was based in Arizona so the pay was abysmal.
    • Supervisors were SUPER hit or miss. They were either awesome or terrible. I started with awesome but then they did a "team shake up" and I ended up with a robot who's operating system ran on the employee handbook.

    So I was busting my ass constantly for pennies. When we decided to just rack up debt and move back east I couldnt have been happier.

    What makes a good job good?

    • Being valued and good management
      This above anything else.
      If you feel like you are just a cog in the machine or just a spreadsheet of numbers reported on at the end of the week/month/cycle/etc then why even be there.
      When you have leadership that wants you to succeed and grow they are making you more valuable as well as making the company more valuable.
    6 votes
  2. [4]
    Z3R0
    Link
    My first ever job was my worst, it only lasted a month because of it. I was the cart collector for a Walmart in a northern Canadian town, in the dead of winter. You can tell me it builds character...

    My first ever job was my worst, it only lasted a month because of it. I was the cart collector for a Walmart in a northern Canadian town, in the dead of winter. You can tell me it builds character all you want but 16 year old me was saying fuck this, no amount of money is worth that.

    5 votes
    1. SaucedButLeaking
      Link Parent
      Learning to say "fuck this, no amount of money is worth that" is building character.

      Learning to say "fuck this, no amount of money is worth that" is building character.

      2 votes
    2. [2]
      Duchess
      Link Parent
      Having only seen the nothern candian winters twice I can’t imagine having to be out in that, let alone collecting carts.

      Having only seen the nothern candian winters twice I can’t imagine having to be out in that, let alone collecting carts.

      1 vote
      1. Z3R0
        Link Parent
        Being out in it is some of the best fun I have year round, going to the mountains in the winter is spectacular, and pond hockey on a frozen lake, oh I can't wait for winter.

        Being out in it is some of the best fun I have year round, going to the mountains in the winter is spectacular, and pond hockey on a frozen lake, oh I can't wait for winter.

        1 vote
  3. Diet_Coke
    Link
    I sold tile and tile accessories for 100% commission. It was a system called commission versus draw which meant that a slow month would cause you to dig yourself a hole that made it hard to earn...

    I sold tile and tile accessories for 100% commission. It was a system called commission versus draw which meant that a slow month would cause you to dig yourself a hole that made it hard to earn decent money. If you had about 6 bad weeks in a row, you'd be in such a deep hole that you'd be fired. When you had a good month, you'd make a lot of money, which kept me coming back.

    It was crazy stressful because your job was constantly in jeopardy. With a core of 5 - 7 employees, in my 18 month tenure I saw at least 15 people cycle through. We only got paid for selling, but had to do a lot of grunt work too. Lots of moving and organizing tile, which is heavy. And since we only got paid for selling, when the store was slow we were there for free. They changed the way we got paid like five times to try and incentivize different types of products. I quit when they announced they were going to start randomly drug testing, and it was the best decision I've made.

    Now I am a marketing rep in insurance and make twice as much with 10% of the stress. My current job checks all the boxes for me. Autonomy, I feel appreciated, good compensation, great benefits, and it's interesting work.

    3 votes
  4. Duchess
    Link
    I worked in a factory that assembled sections of news papers so that people could assemble them later and deliver them. The job took place between midnight and 8am and we worked over time a lot...

    I worked in a factory that assembled sections of news papers so that people could assemble them later and deliver them. The job took place between midnight and 8am and we worked over time a lot since they were always behind. Life kept getting more and more banal as the days went on, a lack of sun will do that I’m sure.

    2 votes
  5. Cmdrd
    Link
    Worked for a small IT MSP (managed service provider, essentially outsourced It for small businesses). I worked there for about 6 months. It was one other guy and myself handling everything and the...

    Worked for a small IT MSP (managed service provider, essentially outsourced It for small businesses). I worked there for about 6 months. It was one other guy and myself handling everything and the owner of the business made 3 of us. Unfortunately I only ever saw the owner once every 2 weeks or so, he was hardly ever around to even see how things were going. We were always pinned with work. Then one of our clients in the next province and time zone over (1 hour ahead of us) wanted support starting at 07:30 their time. That meant that we had to be on the phones by 06:30 our time. Unfortunately the support window for local customers was until 17:00 our time.

    Our owner did not hire anyone else beyond the two of us and we were told that we had to support that entire window, from 06:30 to 17:00. Thankfully he paid us OT for it so I made fairly decent money, but having just come out of school and this being my first gig in the industry, I burned out of this place fast, hence the only there 6 months. Once I left I kept in touch with the other guy I worked with. He stayed for a few more months but left once the owner wouldn't backfill my position, so it was literally just one guy doing all the work for the company. Once he left, the owner finally hired people, likely because he didn't like the idea of actually having to work at his own company. When the owner asked why I left I told him just what conditions we were working under and his response was "oh, I didn't realize it was that bad". I was speechless.

    2 votes
  6. acr
    (edited )
    Link
    Worst job was the Navy. (It was the worst but taught me a lot about life and helped mold my mindset and make me succesful in life.) I was supposed to go in for advanced electronics, but they...

    Worst job was the Navy. (It was the worst but taught me a lot about life and helped mold my mindset and make me succesful in life.) I was supposed to go in for advanced electronics, but they changed the line score on the ASVAB that you needed so mine was a little low. They wait until the very end of MEPS to actually offer you a rate. So you go through this long day of crap then at the very end they say okay here's what we have for you. Instead of letting you know up front before you go through all of it. The guy says all he has is undesignated seaman. I could tell he was BSing me, but I really didn't have any other options but military. They tell me on week 3, day 2 I will be offered a rate. On week 3, day 2 the guy didn't feel like offering me a rate (How the military works. People have an insane amount of power and don't realize how one little decision could affect someone's entire military term). The crazy thing was, people would fail out of two schools and get offered a third. I couldn't get offered one. Or they would get kicked out of a school and get two more chances at school.

    So I go off to the fleet undesignated and end up in Deck. Deck is where screw ups go. It is what the Navy sees as the lowest of the absolute low. People who failed school, got in major trouble, etc all end up there. Other departments actually sent people to live and work with us for a week as punishment. Think about the mentality our leadership had to have to let that happen. Think about the morale that fosters. I didn't do anything wrong. I just ended up getting placed in Deck.

    They treated us like a wilk pack of dogs. It was so surreal because we had an insane amount of freedom. When an entire command thinks so low of you, you can do whatever you want. Deck was wild. I mean it was like Animal House of the ship but 10x crazier because we had absolutely nothing to lose. Imagine a bunch of screw ups with nothing to lose.. And having to live in that environment as a sensible person.

    I once needed to borrow the duty truck to get gas for some equipment. I didn't want to do it, but I had to.. So I am walking by the officers' quarter deck anyway so I stop in the grab the keys before I go change into a different uniform I can leave in. The OOD was going to treat me the same way no mater what I did. So I just stopped in with my work coveralls on and asked for the key. He berated me in front of everyone as usual. So I go and change and go back to get the key. He looks me dead in the eye and says to me in front of everyone, "Hurry the fuck up. I have people with real errands to run." That is how people spoke to us every single day all day. But no one really messed with us because Deck was so feared. "Don't mess with those guys, they're crazy." And the thing was, we did all of these things that made the ship run, but no one even knew because of the mentality the command fostered toward us. So we had a lot of power.

    I have so many crazy stories I don't even tell because people say I have to be exxagerating. I worked for this Chief who I worked for on nights. He had me working 5 hours past everyone else every morning. It was a wild wild time. It changed me in a lot of ways. Changed my mindset so much from that short stint alone. I learned a lot about people and how to handle certain situations and not have it fall back on you. If someone is taking advantage and you don't like it but they can end you, there are certain ways to handle the situation where they won't do anything because it would fall back on them.

    That was a dark four years. I have some crazy stories. I mean people call me a liar hearing them.

    2 votes
  7. Gaywallet
    Link
    Gamestop. Incompetent management did not understand that subscriptions per hour worked was a better metric than total subscriptions sold per week. Which meant that the people with the most hours,...

    Gamestop. Incompetent management did not understand that subscriptions per hour worked was a better metric than total subscriptions sold per week. Which meant that the people with the most hours, continued to receive the most hours, despite being shit employees.

    We went through 5 or 6 managers while I worked there. Each one got fired for poor performance.

    1 vote
  8. rodya
    Link
    None of my jobs have been particularly bad, but I'll answer A good job is one that is useful to society in some way and one where one enjoys the full product of their labor.

    None of my jobs have been particularly bad, but I'll answer

    What makes a job a good job?

    A good job is one that is useful to society in some way and one where one enjoys the full product of their labor.