Hardest job you've had?

sligojoek

Cleaning bird sh1t out of cuckoo clocks.

Seriously, I did barwork for years and enjoyed it despite the late nights and dealing with drunken a$$holes.
The worst job was in an Italian chip shop in the early 80s. All the waste was stored in the cellar and had to be taken out every Sunday evening for collection Monday morning. 40 or 50 black bags of rotten food to be carried up 2 flights of stairs. Every second bag would bust an spill back down he steps.
Plus 1 on picking spuds and stones

donegaLroad

Preparing bases for mobile phone masts all over the country. Tough graft on top of a mountain in the middle of winter, but the money was good.

Shenshen

I've never done really physically demanding jobs, but I did have a few nasty ones. Cleaning in the local hospital would be right up there - basically all the stuff you get to clean up in hospitals, plus then some.
Though for me personally, the worst jobs were factory work. I used to work during vacation to finance my studies, and the factories were paying really well, they'd usually use students to cover holidays during the summer. But it just so mind-numbingly, undescribably, traumatisingly boring. The same motions, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day... eventually, I'd resort to reading a long poem before shift started, and then kept my brain busy remembering it for the next 8 hours, bit by bit.
I still know "The Lady of Shallot" and "The Raven" by heart, plus a good many others.

pocketse

Worst job I ever had was retrieveing lobsters from Jane Mansfields bum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a_UKKvUcoE

LirW

Worked in a Cafe/bakery chain a few years back. I really needed a job, any job and ended up working for the same company my sister worked for.
The shop I was placed at was in a very fancy area and was just down the road of the company owner. The contract was bad, the hours were pretty bad but the worst things were the customers. I swear to god I were driving me insane.
The lady, that ran that particular shop was known for spoiling her customers rotten up to the point where they would only accept this very thing they'd always get from her. So there was this guy who wanted his eggs in this very particular way or he'd send it back. Or another guy who would only accept a certain consistency of the foam topping his cappuccino. I had to take abuse from upper class elderly people because I didn't put enough cream for the cake on their plate.

The company wasn't providing enough fresh fruit and veg and if we'd run out, we'd have to run to the shop and buy it from our own money (key ingredients, mind you!) or we have to use what's there and cut the moldy part off.
And to top all of that off, we'd have the bosses calling around a few times a day because we were just down the road and taking abuse from them because the cakes weren't aligned the way they wanted it on that particular day.

cantdecide

Cabin boy on a sailing lugger.

The work was hard and the hours were long and the treatment, sure it took some bearing. And I used to sleep standing on me feet and I'd dream about the shoals of herring.

rainbow kirby

Checkouts in Dunnes over Christmas. Absolute torture.

McGrath5

Working in retail over the Christmas period was generally soul destroying.

From working in Tesco and watching women fight over reduced bags of lettuce, to working in a phone shop watching grown men throw a tantrum because they will not be getting the latest iPhone for themselves.

Stonedpilot

Call centre work.
Worked fo one crazy place that was taking calls from mainly American
Elderly people who were being swindled with magazine expensive subscriptions. The magazines were bullshyte and so were the ebooks.
Nearly all calls were angry yanks and management hadnt a clue as they never saw the magazines and products. It was a total racket. Very draining soul crushing work as often in call centres managers cant relate as they dont take calls and to them its stats stats stats!. More calls for less money.

Banks are notorious for This as they are closing branches of left right and centre.
Call centres run all the major banks day to days working.

Tzardine

I worked in Iraq as a contractor from 2006-2008. In many ways it was the best job I ever had, but by god the hours were long.

I worked 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 9 weeks straight. Then you got three weeks off. It was mentally exhausting.

Its funny, now I am back home, I work 7 days on, 7 days off, just 11 hours a day. Some of the guys I work with complain that the 7 day stint is too long. :rolleyes:

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This post has been deleted.

corner of hells

First year apprentice in Baldonnell air base.
Even the mice were suicidal.

chrissb8

Barback in a crazy busy bar that had a very busy nightclub (most times) attached to it. Worked from evening til 4 or 5 in the morning. Asked to do stupid s**t like stock take at that time (we never did). Attended to 3-4 bars. Included running up and down stairs through drunk people. No appreciation from anyone. I lasted 5 months and have had friends who have been in there for a similar time. Not one good word from them either.

donegaLroad

Tzardine wrote: »

I worked in Iraq as a contractor from 2006-2008. In many ways it was the best job I ever had, but by god the hours were long.

I worked 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 9 weeks straight. Then you got three weeks off. It was mentally exhausting.

Its funny, now I am back home, I work 7 days on, 7 days off, just 11 hours a day. Some of the guys I work with complain that the 7 day stint is too long. :rolleyes:

wouldn't that be very risky too?

Dr Crayfish

Has anyone posted the hardest job in the world bloke from the fast show yet?

mikemac2

Stonedpilot wrote: »

Banks are notorious for This as they are closing branches of left right and centre.
Call centres run all the major banks day to days working.

Yep rang my AIB branch in Tipp one day, dialed the 06 number

Was surprised to find out despite dialing a Tipp number I was put through to a call centre in Dublin.

Tzardine

donegaLroad wrote: »

wouldn't that be very risky too?

Yes very much so, but its scary how quickly everything just becomes the norm and how you become nonchalant about things.

For example, you would be in bed and there would be rockets and mortars coming into the compound. Sometimes you just wouldn't get up and go to the bunkers because it was cold outside.

Another time the helicopters were grounded due to a sand storm. I was due to fly home for Christmas. I ended up taking a 7 hour road journey in the back of a Burger King trailer.

The Royal Scam

Still work for the same company now but in a different role. In my old role I worked on Industrial weighing scales. Straightforward enough most days but my god I had some brutal days. Servicing and Calibrating a 30 Tonne weighbridge on my first day was a little stressful. But the worst days were the one with the meat plant scales. Having to clean rotten and frozen guts from under a pit while the polish lads are flinging off cuts of meat at you on the sly were pretty miserable.

D3V!L

I'm in my 20th year working in IT, specifically "client support" or "desktop services". Basically its like being a kindergarten teacher. I dont know how I haven't lost my tongue I've bitten it that many times :mad:

Gatling

Child care ,

Single hardest job I've done and strangely the most rewarding.

Minding a neice or nephew just can't be compared to taking 15 kids many with extra needs on a daily basis ,

flatty

Hospital laundry the worst, and I've done some bad enough jobs.
Funnily the best ever was porter in the same hospital.
I'd be considered successful and relatively wealthy I suppose these days, but the hospital porter job was my favourite by a mile. I loved it.

eeguy

I worked 12 hour shifts in a large Irish bar and restaurant right on the short of Long Island on my J1.
The place would easily get north of 500 people on a weekend all in for their dinner, then drink and clubbing.

My job on the busy times would be running large platters of food from the kitchen to the restaurant. Now, there was a large function room in between, that would get turned into a nightclub dancefloor around 9pm. However, the restaurant didn't stop serving till 11.

So every weekend, in 40 degree, humid NY heat, I'd get loaded up like a donkey with a platter of food, and bring it through a nightclub full of drunk, sweaty Americans, to the restaurant beyond, then drop the platter on a trolley and make my way back to the kitchen.
Rinse and repeat until the restaurant closed.

Absolutely awful work, whoever designed that place deserves to be shot.

inforfun wrote: »

Not so much a job as i didnt have a choice, since i have a penis, but my 14 months in the Dutch army were kind of hard.
Did like the shooting range though

I got talking to a German guy who did his year's service. He said people would shoot themselves in the foot to get out of it.

Dakota Dan

https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=7s&v=GT2OVUY2gZY

blue note

I'm from Tramore and we all had summer jobs growing up there.

Worked in a shop at 13. That was grand.

Spent two summers as a cleaner in a caravan park. That was actually fine, we kept the park very clean so rarely had bad jobs. Occasionally someone would sh1t in the shower or something, but by and large that job was fine.

Spent a summer working in a chipper. 8 hours in front of a hot grill, queues out the door so under constant pressure to keep pumping out burgers. But it was fine. You'd be covered in grease and sweat at the end of the day, stinking and exhausted, but the days flew by. I know some people weren't able for it, but I found it grand.

Spent three years doing bar work - two in a pub that did food and one in a hotel. The quiet days were a bit painful, just standing for 8 hours until you could close up. The busier the better really, days like stephens day you'd be flat out for the few hours and then you'd be done before you'd know it and sleep like a baby. The day times in the pub were tough as you could be up and down stairs all day collecting food, but again the physical stuff is fine by me.

Working as an accountant now and it's by far the hardest of the lot. Constant deadlines, requests coming at you from everywhere, a demand for everything to be done perfectly and in no time. And the busier the day the less you sleep that night. God I'd absolutely love a job where I could work hard for the day again and then leave it behind me when I go out the door.

Contessa Raven

I worked in a bookies for four years. 13 hour days, minimum wage, two half-hour breaks (if you were lucky! A lot of times you'd have to eat at the counter!) and an endless stream of people emptying their pockets and draining their souls.
I'd say 80% of the punters were fine in that they just wanted their bet on and their winnings paid out but the rest were argumentative, abusive and downright nasty people to be around.

I've worked in retail a long time and it's tough but at least when the customer leaves, you probably won't encounter them again for a while. Bookies are generally built in very close proximity to pubs. So it's the same faces day in and day out and a significant proportion of them are progressively drunker each time they are standing in front of you. Add that with races going off every 20 seconds or so, two cashiers to serve 60 people who all insist on coming to the counter at the same time and the select few with serious issues who have bet and lost all the Xmas present money their wives sent them to town with.....

The amount of abuse on a daily basis was staggering. In my four years there I was never once in a robbery (thank fcuk!) but I had to hit the panic button six times to get the guards to diffuse violent and escalating situations.

Yeah.... Hell on earth. Wouldn't do it again for a million €.

Dakota Dan

Milking cows twice a day 7 days a week 11 months a year. When they are calving in spring lots of nights working with only a few hours sleep.

dinorebel

Trawlerman working anything up to 27 hours straight on deck one trip gill netting we did a 24 hour shift a 27 hours and finally 19 hours over 4 days. Swapped to working on a crabber 18 hour days with an extra 2 hour shift at the wheel 7 days on 1 off for 3 weeks then a trip off 1000 crab pots in and out a day each weighing 4.5 stone maybe 7 stone wet with a decent load of crab winch got the pot up to the side of the boat but then had to be lifted over. Now work in IT driving a desk changed days.

Corvo

blue note wrote: »

I'm from Tramore and we all had summer jobs growing up there.

Worked in a shop at 13. That was grand.

Spent two summers as a cleaner in a caravan park. That was actually fine, we kept the park very clean so rarely had bad jobs. Occasionally someone would sh1t in the shower or something, but by and large that job was fine.

Spent a summer working in a chipper. 8 hours in front of a hot grill, queues out the door so under constant pressure to keep pumping out burgers. But it was fine. You'd be covered in grease and sweat at the end of the day, stinking and exhausted, but the days flew by. I know some people weren't able for it, but I found it grand.

Spent three years doing bar work - two in a pub that did food and one in a hotel. The quiet days were a bit painful, just standing for 8 hours until you could close up. The busier the better really, days like stephens day you'd be flat out for the few hours and then you'd be done before you'd know it and sleep like a baby. The day times in the pub were tough as you could be up and down stairs all day collecting food, but again the physical stuff is fine by me.

Working as an accountant now and it's by far the hardest of the lot. Constant deadlines, requests coming at you from everywhere, a demand for everything to be done perfectly and in no time. And the busier the day the less you sleep that night. God I'd absolutely love a job where I could work hard for the day again and then leave it behind me when I go out the door.

Agree with the above. Worked in a factory for a few years but did a lot of heavy lifting as I was in the steel section, and you walked out the door at 5 or 6pm and the day was done until the following day.

Now in an office role for the past number of years and you'd fall asleep at 11pm only to wake at 1am with numbers flying around your head and the constant anxiety that everything is in order for a certain client. And I thought it was just me, until I noticed a colleagues under serious strain and absent with stress.

razorblunt

I've worked retail for years and years during school and college and I definitely think its something everyone should do once. Thankfully I never took much notice of sihthouse customers, we'd all laugh about them afterwards.

Worst job I've had was a General Operative on a Production line, 12 hour shifts 3 days a week (or 6 days when the schedule flipped). Nothing untoward in the job but the monotonous work was head melting for me. Collecting pieces of metal cut off of film projector type reel, putting columns in trays. Rinse repeat all day. Mind numbing stuff.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

Worked in a Dole office during the recession in a town that was getting it particularly rough. It was mentally draining.

The hardest people to deal with were those who actually wanted jobs. They didn't want to be there, they didn't want to be speaking to me, and many of them dealt with the whole process quite badly. I couldn't blame them, but it made for a stressful working day. Also, an awful lot of people had a massive chip on their shoulder (on both sides of the counter), it was a tinderbox at times.

Staff morale was on the floor too and there was a toxic atmosphere in the office which just exacerbated everything. Add that to the fact that I was managing a section of staff that were all 20 odd years older than me and didn't really want to listen to me.

I've worked in quite a few places and jobs, but this was the only job where I genuinely hated going in to work.

diomed

blue note wrote: »

Working as an accountant now and it's by far the hardest of the lot. Constant deadlines, requests coming at you from everywhere, a demand for everything to be done perfectly and in no time. And the busier the day the less you sleep that night. God I'd absolutely love a job where I could work hard for the day again and then leave it behind me when I go out the door.

Retired from that now.
The grief usually starts with someone saying "I have a lovely little job for you. You'll like this. It will suit you."
And you end up with something that was ignored for five years and has to be done in a week.

frozenfrozen

I've never had a hard job.

The other day at work there were a bunch of young people standing around waiting for an event to start where they'd be collecting glasses and bringing drinks to private rooms etc. I walked past them a few times on the course of doing my job and overheard one of them say "I'd love that job, just walking around all day" I thought that was brilliant. The thought process involved assuming my job was to walk up and down and seemingly do nothing at both locations

Dr Crayfish

The hardest for me has been boring desk jobs where I've struggled to find something to do. I was going to say Kitchen Porter but I was good at it, the chefs loved me, and I felt a sense of pride in keeping the kitchen going. I've never got anything near that feeling from the pointless cog in the machine administrative jobs I've done since.

uch

I used to fit tyres to Diggers, small front ones were grand but the large back tyres were a pig, used to sleep well at night back then

tayto lover

Picking the mice sh*t out of the pepper in Goodall's factory.

raze_them_all_

Doorman on New year's Eve Stephens night Paddy's Day and Halloween. Humanity at its lowest

bodhrandude

Working in the coal lorry deliveries in Sligo in the late eighties, early nineties, some of this most bitter winter conditions I came across. Working twelve hour days sometimes, imagine emptying a hundred weight of slack off your shoulder that is practically frozen, into a bunker nearly as tall as you in freezing blizzard conditions and a bale of briquettes in the other hand. Fcuk me that was tough work and the state of the water afterwards when you took a shower or a bath. :eek:

Ipso

Corvo wrote: »

Agree with the above. Worked in a factory for a few years but did a lot of heavy lifting as I was in the steel section, and you walked out the door at 5 or 6pm and the day was done until the following day.

Now in an office role for the past number of years and you'd fall asleep at 11pm only to wake at 1am with numbers flying around your head and the constant anxiety that everything is in order for a certain client. And I thought it was just me, until I noticed a colleagues under serious strain and absent with stress.

I worked in a fish processing factory for a while; summer, college holidays, weekend etc
I used to hate it but the work wasn't hard, now doing accounting.
I read a quote from someone recently who described the desk as being more like a coffin. I'm starting to see what he meant.

Jawgap

My first year as a commis chef.......all the crappy jobs and a roster that was 9 splits (7 to 2 and 6:30 to close) a fortnight. Second year was a bit better - at least I had someone I could shout at......third year I decided "feck this" and went to college :D

Still amazed that I lasted 2 years - fair play to any chef who went through the full classical training regime!!

mojesius

Call centre in London for a car club (onstreet cars all over the city). Customer service taking 100+ inbound calls a day on average, 60 on a slow day. Most of the calls were grand just people trying to book the nearest car but every 5 or so calls you'd have to take abuse from an old toff pissed off because he'd been charged for a dent or a scummy drug dealer because they'd been fined for holding onto the car past their booking time.

It was mind numbing and the pay was ****e, height of the recession so there wasn't much out there. When they promoted me to supervisor, meaning I had to take 'escalated calls" all day, every day. Left shortly after that as I found myself unable to enjoy social conversations outside of work. It was all mental overload.

The only pro of that job is that I know London areas/postcodes to a tee but as I moved back to Ireland, this knowledge is useless.

Nearly 10 yrs on and I still get annoyed by the sound of ringing phones, pointless phone calls or people ringing me asking me to do things.

TheToughest

blue note wrote: »

Working as an accountant now and it's by far the hardest of the lot. Constant deadlines, requests coming at you from everywhere, a demand for everything to be done perfectly and in no time. And the busier the day the less you sleep that night. God I'd absolutely love a job where I could work hard for the day again and then leave it behind me when I go out the door.

Corvo wrote: »

Agree with the above. Worked in a factory for a few years but did a lot of heavy lifting as I was in the steel section, and you walked out the door at 5 or 6pm and the day was done until the following day.

Now in an office role for the past number of years and you'd fall asleep at 11pm only to wake at 1am with numbers flying around your head and the constant anxiety that everything is in order for a certain client. And I thought it was just me, until I noticed a colleagues under serious strain and absent with stress.

diomed wrote: »

Retired from that now.
The grief usually starts with someone saying "I have a lovely little job for you. You'll like this. It will suit you."
And you end up with something that was ignored for five years and has to be done in a week.

Ipso wrote: »

I worked in a fish processing factory for a while; summer, college holidays, weekend etc
I used to hate it but the work wasn't hard, now doing accounting.
I read a quote from someone recently who described the desk as being more like a coffin. I'm starting to see what he meant.

Started a part-time evening degree in accounting in September to get me out of the utterly soul destroying job I'm currently in. I got to say, ye aren't selling it well.

Currently working in the green energy sector as a general operative (dogsbody). Mind numbing work in a large open shed, I'm constantly wet so you can imagine how fun that is in this weather. I spend most days trying not to get frost bitten. All for a little over minimum wage. Management are pricks of the highest order. Asked for a jacket two weeks ago and still haven't got one.

A nice warm office sounds like heaven to me.

PowerToWait

Picking stones is a thing. A miserable, back breaking thing.

James 007

When I was a young lad the old man had me and my brothers out 'fencing sheep' all summer. Fields were divided by a mix of trees and furs bushes and patches of fencing. Cutting furs bushes and plugging holes in the gaps was the norm instead of putting down some proper net fencing with some poles.

Next job was collecting the sheep without a proper dog and treating the sheep for maggots. This normal began by cutting the infested area using a scissors and cutting off the maggot heads, then treating the sheep with something similar to domestos. The stink sometimes was reaching.

Roll on the summer college years in London, one summer in Heathrow Airport working as a staff boy, next summer working at Westminster tube station labouring, underground using germ jiggers, now that was tough work, but a great work out.

Final summer of college working on Long Island, The Hamptons, now thats the place to make money. Landscaping was my gig here, as well as working in a Cafe in Amagansett and on occasion flipping burgers and making ice teas with all the hot chicks queing up, easy money here.

Odelay

James 007 wrote: »

When I was a young lad the old man had me and my brothers out 'fencing sheep' all summer. Fields were divided by a mix of trees and furs bushes and patches of fencing. Cutting furs bushes and plugging holes in the gaps was the norm instead of putting down some proper net fencing with some poles.

Next job was collecting the sheep without a proper dog and treating the sheep for maggots. This normal began by cutting the infested area using a scissors and cutting off the maggot heads, then treating the sheep with something similar to domestos. The stink sometimes was reaching.

Roll on the summer college years in London, one summer in Heathrow Airport working as a staff boy, next summer working at Westminster tube station labouring, underground using germ jiggers, now that was tough work, but a great work out.

Final summer of college working on Long Island, The Hamptons, now thats the place to make money. Landscaping was my gig here, as well as working in a Cafe in Amagansett and on occasion flipping burgers and making ice teas with all the hot chicks queing up, easy money here.

What are germ jiggers????

James 007

Odelay wrote: »

What are germ jiggers????

Apologies, i made an error in that text, german jiggers is what i meant to say, its a concrete breaker thats light enough for you to hold it like a rifle with your shoulder weight against the butt of the jigger.

James 007

https://www.google.ie/search?tbm=isch&q=german+jigger&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZ2oWL44LYAhUGJ1AKHdLTC4IQvwUIOygA&biw=1366&bih=623&dpr=1

Purple Mountain

freshpopcorn wrote: »

Being a moderator at 2am when people keep on re-registering!

Happy Christmas!

NollagShona

mikemac2 wrote: »

Kitchen porter. Your back will be broken standing over a sink for hours, cleaning floors, washing bins, having chefs roar at you and the waiting staff moaning about low tips while you are dripping sweat :rolleyes: I got no tips

Waste food was put in a bin and the pig farmerr would arrive to collect. 17 year old scrawny 9 stone me would struggle to lift a bin full of food & liquid that weighed more than I did while the ignorant farmer wouldn’t help and told me I was slow :mad:

If you ever wondered why there are so few Irish people in Irish hotels it’s because pay is low, management are bullies and anything like stocking shelves in Tesco is a far more attractive job

Amen

Mister Vain

I used to work in a factory that packaged washing powder and bottles of Comfort. Big heavy bastards flying down a ridiculously fast conveyor belt that had to be packed in boxes and put on a pallet. The floor manager would stand there with a stop watch and time everybody to see how many you were doing a minute. You would get a roasting if you weren't as fast at the person next to you. A fecking slave camp of a place.

ArchXStanton

Labouring for farmers in nth.county Dublin...im convinced that's were the name muck savage came from,pure slop and sh!te