Hardest job you've had?

Corkgirl18

Working in a very tough school.
Being cursed out of it multiple times a day, constant disrespect, threats and crazy behavioural issues from students.
Trying to get in contact with parents who literally don't give a s**** about their kids. Reporting issues of abuse/neglect to Tusla etc and being told they aren't going to do anything.
Definitely not the most physically demanding job I've had but it was very tough mentally.

ozzy78

ArchXStanton wrote: »

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

Worked in Audi factory in Germany as a summer job. 8 hours on the production line doing the exact same laborious, but also monotonous task. Pay and social life definitely made up for it though

Mister Vain

Ever see those people that have to stand next to the escalators in shopping centres all day? Christ that must be boring.

TerrorFirmer

I did almost a decade in retail and actually found it OK. You couldn't make up the stuff that customers come up with, but I generally enjoy working with people. Did a while in the public service as well in a public facing role and enjoyed that as well even though people really took the piss.

Worked in the local Supermac's when I was 15, and again, perfectly fine job and didn't mind it, but will never forget one Sunday, it was just me and the manager, and it was so deathly quiet she decided to head off for half an hour.

About five minutes later a bus of about 30 tourists came into the place. Picture in your minds eye a single awkward, spotty 15 year old trying to physically and emotionally take , prepare and serve the fast food orders of 30 Americans. I was almost in tears.

Foxhound38

Recruitment Consultant

Elemonator

I'm still a law student but I have done legal internships to secure a training contract. The **** you see is unreal.

I'll never forget being in the local court and a man was up for minor vehicle offences. The judge called him up and before the judge even got started the man asked if the DPP were here to prosecute the case. The judge informed him that the DPP did not need to be present as the Guards were there to prosecute the case. The man then asked the judge to stop talking legalese and that he did not recognise the judgment of the Court because the DPP were not here. He then asked the judge if he was qualified to judge on such a case! The case moved on and moved onto whether the driver was manipulating the car. The driver then says he wasn't manipulating the car. Judge asked what was he manipulating and the man answered a motor vehicle and therefore could not be charged. I was trying my best to keep a straight face.

I also work retail to put myself through college and I swear its actually not that bad. You do get the difficult customers sometimes. The demands the retailer place on you though are far worse, between 24 hour operations prior to Stephen's Day Sales and being told we have to come in to help prepare the shop for unscheduled sales while in college, extra hours when short staffed and extremely high demands when I could earn the same in another retailer for a less demanding job.

oholly121

Foxhound38 wrote: »

Recruitment Consultant

Quite possibly the worlds worst job

redcup342

Call Center Worker doing tech support.

You get all sorts of crazies calling you.

Plus they timed how long it took you to take a sh*t and said "We aren't enforcing toilet times but you do take a long time in there"

Tzardine

Mister Vain wrote: »

Ever see those people that have to stand next to the escalators in shopping centres all day? Christ that must be boring.

What is the story with this? It must be an insurance / risk assessment thing. I have never seen them actually do anything (other than look miserable)

Working in retail when I was younger, just hell on earth. Doing tech support for one of the big companies was pretty awful aswell and both jobs made me wish for the days when I used to dig graves by hand.

Liam28

Tzardine wrote: »

What is the story with this? It must be an insurance / risk assessment thing. I have never seen them actually do anything (other than look miserable)

A few years ago a kid died after falling off the escalator in Blanchardstown Centre, so ever since they have someone minding the gap at the top of the escalators, in that shopping centre anyway.

Everyone goes on about retail hell in this thread, but no examples of why it is such a bad job? How hard can it be to deal with customers? That is what the job is about. Can't be on the same level as some pf the physically / mentally / emotionally excruciating jobs on here.

LirW

Everyone goes on about retail hell in this thread, but no examples of why it is such a bad job? How hard can it be to deal with customers? That is what the job is about. Can't be on the same level as some pf the physically / mentally / emotionally excruciating jobs on here.

Not many people choose retail as career but because they need the money and it's relatively easy to get into without a long CV and skill. These people need to eat and pay their bills and for many, any job will do. Doesn't say though that they enjoy being there.

Mister Vain

Liam28 wrote: »

A few years ago a kid died after falling off the escalator in Blanchardstown Centre, so ever since they have someone minding the gap at the top of the escalators, in that shopping centre anyway.

Ahh that would explain it. It was actually there where I saw it. I never heard about that death, very tragic.

RDM_83 again

One thing all the people talking about missing physical jobs aren't taking into consideration is that riding that desk can be soul destroying but in the longer term e.g not a year or two it's going to wear you down people in there 40's and 50's with knees and back gone, wrists fcuked generally in roles that don't provide decent medical insurance.

Edit:also lungs damage from dust inhalation over decades for some construction types

raze_them_all_

Liam28 wrote: »

A few years ago a kid died after falling off the escalator in Blanchardstown Centre, so ever since they have someone minding the gap at the top of the escalators, in that shopping centre anyway.

Everyone goes on about retail hell in this thread, but no examples of why it is such a bad job? How hard can it be to deal with customers? That is what the job is about. Can't be on the same level as some pf the physically / mentally / emotionally excruciating jobs on here.

I've done labourer, bouncer, outdoor instructor, plumber, and a few other jobs, for the last 5 months I've done night shift in a shop while waiting on another job to start in january.


The amount of drunk, high, random weirdos, coupled with the hours of tedium, knowing the job is going nowhere and bad pay (unskilled job so no shock) means iot can be very tough

valoren

I worked in a call center for a chain of hotels just out of college. I looked at it as a means to an end until something else relevant to college came up. The working day was between 3.30pm and midnight and was primarily for US and Canada market fielding calls from a toll free number. It was non-stop. Call after call after call.

To keep sane I started to keep note of my average daily calls and it came out as 120. It was mind numbing. You were effectively a human Trivago working with a shoddy application a 4th year IT student could have created using Visual Basic. You were at times silently monitored by supervisors on random calls who would mark you on 1. Greeting the customer 2. Establishing a rapport 3. Pretending to give a sh1t.....

The worst part and the straw that broke the camels back was while I was constantly on calls, one evening I took to watching one of the french lads who was fielding the language calls as he was sitting opposite me. His English was rudimentary so he wasn't on the US/Canada slog. At one point he even put his feet up on another chair while reading his book. He must have taken between 10 and 15 calls that day. About 2 calls per hour. And he was getting paid more because it was for a language. While it was one thing to be constantly on the phone, that it was soul destroying, and was a temporary thing but to see that the same job was such a cushy number for someone else was the hard part.

Foxhound38

oholly121 wrote: »

Quite possibly the worlds worst job

All the high-flying perks of a call-center job combined with all the worst parts of being in HR, sales and at times psychotherapy!

Never again

5rtytry56

Doing over the phone Tech Support in a Conference Call ( One tech - me, talking to generally 4 other customers) in that computer company.

But then I went back into Third Level for one more full time year - I actually regret this MORE

Liam28

LirW wrote: »

Not many people choose retail as career but because they need the money and it's relatively easy to get into without a long CV and skill. These people need to eat and pay their bills and for many, any job will do. Doesn't say though that they enjoy being there.

Fair enough, I can accept people don't enjoy retail, but my question was specifically why? What do customers do that make it hell? I have not seen a single example in this thread.
I understand the low pay, sh1t managers, no prospects element, but just take the money and go home at the end of the shift.
The night shift in a shop I can imagine, but how bad can your average Tesco customer get?

wakka12

I-like-eggs,mmm wrote: »

I’m surprised nobody has mentioned nursing. A highly stressful and demanding job. Thankless too. There’s too much to mention that I wouldn’t know where to start.

13+ hour shifts. Being treated like a slave. Abusive and aggressive patients including their families too. Having to wipe sh*tty arses all the time. Patients ripping off their colostomy bags and throwing them at you. Usually no time to take breaks. Worked to the bone. If we don’t document at least twice what we did, it’s considered not done which can get you in big trouble. There’s just so much...

I’d take being a kitchen porter over being a nurse.

Kitchen porter isn't a bad job at all! Stick on an interesting podcast..shift flies by
The worst thing is you don't really talk to anyone for the day..which is a bit lonely.

WHIP IT!

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

The first thing I thought of when I saw this thread was the one horrific night I spent as a kitchen porter when I was about 18/19. I actually did it as a favour for a mate who was a chef. I had no idea what a porter was to be honest!

Awful, awful experience. Boiling hot, a never-ending pile of filthy dishes - and there an hour after everyone else was gone home cleaning the kip.

I went home with a cheque for (I think) €22 and said "never, ever again"... my mate actually told me, quite seriously, the next time I saw him I hadn't done a very good job on the kitchen floor! F*ck that, lads...

Purple Mountain

I did my stint in a call centre in my early 20s.
At first it was good craic with people of a similar age and lots of nights out etc.
However when they introduced 'traffic managers' things got really sh^tty.
Their job was to be big brothers, watching call times, after call times and the dreaded personal breaks.
The day I got questioned about a longer than usual toilet break was the day I knew I had to hand in my notice.
I got great satisfaction in explaining in detail that my women's problem meant an extra longer pit stop that day! That shut them up fairly pronto.

ArnoldJRimmer

Worked as kitchen porter for years and loved it. Hard work, but just used to stick on my own music, and had good craic with the staff. Didn't even mind cleaning the jacks, apart from when some scummer puked in two cubicles, three sinks and three urinals.

The job I hated the most was one that was so boring it was soul destroying. Worked in quality control for a large life assurance company. The job was basically checking that forms had been filled out correctly, signed and dated etc. then entering that information on the system. Even on a busy day, I had to try and cram what was 45 minutes work into a 8 hour shift. On a quiet day, could be 10 minutes work. There was no internet (although we did have the company intranet to browse) and we were expected to look busy all the time. I actually took to coloring in excel spreadsheets to pass the time

Harry Palmr

Blimey this is a grim read. Physically my current job is easily the hardest - there's no glamour in horticulture but trench foot conditions in winter and semi-dehydration in summer seems a pretty good deal compared to working in a hotel!

Purple Mountain

ArnoldJRimmer wrote: »

I actually took to coloring in excel spreadsheets to pass the time

Cheasus!

the_pen_turner

ArnoldJRimmer wrote: »

Worked as kitchen porter for years and loved it. Hard work, but just used to stick on my own music, and had good craic with the staff. Didn't even mind cleaning the jacks, apart from when some scummer puked in two cubicles, three sinks and three urinals.

The job I hated the most was one that was so boring it was soul destroying. Worked in quality control for a large life assurance company. The job was basically checking that forms had been filled out correctly, signed and dated etc. then entering that information on the system. Even on a busy day, I had to try and cram what was 45 minutes work into a 8 hour shift. On a quiet day, could be 10 minutes work. There was no internet (although we did have the company intranet to browse) and we were expected to look busy all the time. I actually took to coloring in excel spreadsheets to pass the time

i would have thought being brought back to life as a hologram would have been at the top of your list

.......

This post has been deleted.

al87987

Banana humping (carrying) in Australia for me. Up at 4:30 and bus by 5 to start work at 5:45.

11 hour days, when I started it was the middle of summer and 35 degrees.

Carrying banana bunches all day that weigh between 65-85 kg across your back in that heat is exhausting. I got sick everyday for two weeks until my body acclimatised. Throw in massive spiders, venomous snakes, scary cassowary's and the occasional 5 star hurricane and it really was the job that had everything.

Most people quit within a day or two. They don't even bother learning your name because they assume you won't be around. My friend flew back to Ireland after one days work and numerous other huge lads I saw crying and giving up. I was fairly undersized for the job but once I got the hack of it I properly loved it. Ended up staying 5 and a half months.

Hardest job I've ever done but undoubtedly the best experience of my life.

madmaggie

I worked in a garden centre one summer. Part of the area has a glass roof, I was boiling, dragging cans of water to keep the plants from wilting, then out to drag trolleys of plants. Plus the manager yelling at me on the ear piece. I hated that job.

wakka12

LirW wrote: »

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.

Sounds very fancy altogether :pac:

pconn062

Either working in a call center (lasted 11 months) or working in a shoe/sports shop (lasted 5 months). Dealing with the moronic general public and power tripping managers who only earn 80c an hour more than you. Thankfully my best ever job is my current one.

I feel sorry for anyone working in hospitality/retail, the general public can be incredibly rude. Funny story from the weekend, I play in a wedding band and at a wedding at the weekend it just happened that the uniform we wear (white shirt/waistcoat/tie) was identical to what the staff in the hotel were wearing. So halfway through the wedding while we were on a break, I walked back into the room and this aul biddy wagged her finger at me and called me over. She points at her table and said

"I just want to draw your attention to something, one is the dirty cloth on the table and the other is the table cloth on the floor".

Said in her most awful faux posh voice. It was great to be able to inform her that I wasn't actually a staff member but was actually in the wedding band. She nearly tripped over herself apologising and I made her feel as awful as possible! But to think that she was actually OK with talking like this to some young staff member who was probably on minimum wage.

ArnoldJRimmer

pconn062 wrote: »

Either working in a call center (lasted 11 months) or working in a shoe/sports shop (lasted 5 months). Dealing with the moronic general public and power tripping managers who only earn 80c an hour more than you. Thankfully my best ever job is my current one.

I feel sorry for anyone working in hospitality/retail, the general public can be incredibly rude. Funny story from the weekend, I play in a wedding band and at a wedding at the weekend it just happened that the uniform we wear (white shirt/waistcoat/tie) was identical to what the staff in the hotel were wearing. So halfway through the wedding while we were on a break, I walked back into the room and this aul biddy wagged her finger at me and called me over. She points at her table and said

"I just want to draw your attention to something, one is the dirty cloth on the table and the other is the table cloth on the floor".

Said in her most awful faux posh voice. It was great to be able to inform her that I wasn't actually a staff member but was actually in the wedding band. She nearly tripped over herself apologising and I made her feel as awful as possible! But to think that she was actually OK with talking like this to some young staff member who was probably on minimum wage.

I had a similar experience in a pub where they thought I was the manager. I let them rant on for ages about how terrible the service and the food were before responding, 'I'm really sorry to hear that, you should probably let a member of staff know,' before walking away

Ipso

Foxhound38 wrote: »

Recruitment Consultant

And you still have hell to look forward to.

Galwayguy35

PowerToWait wrote: »

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

+1

Grew up on a farm and it was the bog and picking stones in the summer. digging out the potatoes was another one, the clay would be feezing in October when we used to be at it.

Mister Vain

Liam28 wrote: »

Fair enough, I can accept people don't enjoy retail, but my question was specifically why? What do customers do that make it hell? I have not seen a single example in this thread.
I understand the low pay, sh1t managers, no prospects element, but just take the money and go home at the end of the shift.
The night shift in a shop I can imagine, but how bad can your average Tesco customer get?

Still waiting for an answer to this myself. I would have imagined the vast majority of people just go in, pay for their goods and leave. I can understand having to deal with gobshytes in call centre's, but is it really such a regular occurrence in retail?

Galwayguy35

Liam28 wrote: »

Fair enough, I can accept people don't enjoy retail, but my question was specifically why? What do customers do that make it hell? I have not seen a single example in this thread.
I understand the low pay, sh1t managers, no prospects element, but just take the money and go home at the end of the shift.
The night shift in a shop I can imagine, but how bad can your average Tesco customer get?

I never worked in retail but from just the one example of seeing a customer tearing strips off the cashier for something that wasn't her fault I can well believe how bad it gets.

PandaPoo

Liam28 wrote: »

Fair enough, I can accept people don't enjoy retail, but my question was specifically why? What do customers do that make it hell? I have not seen a single example in this thread.
I understand the low pay, sh1t managers, no prospects element, but just take the money and go home at the end of the shift.
The night shift in a shop I can imagine, but how bad can your average Tesco customer get?

I've been working a week in a pharmacy, between people coming in for their methadone and trashing the place, threatening us, other customers screaming at us, calling us names until they get their own way, people stealing 100's of euros worth of perfume and giving you the finger on their way out...its pretty crap. I enjoy it though, apart from the 9 hours on my feet.

Galwayguy35

Probably the hardest job I had was working for a silage contractor one summer, long days and just a few hours sleep and back at it again the next day.

mullinr2

My hardest job as a teacher, was working in a secondary school in Tallaght. My subject didn't help the matter either - religion. Kept at it for the year, then left. The Leaving Cert Applied students are on another level. Mental f**ks. Teaching for all its perks like holidays, can be mentally draining, most people do not realise that

G_R

Liam28 wrote: »

Fair enough, I can accept people don't enjoy retail, but my question was specifically why? What do customers do that make it hell? I have not seen a single example in this thread.
I understand the low pay, sh1t managers, no prospects element, but just take the money and go home at the end of the shift.
The night shift in a shop I can imagine, but how bad can your average Tesco customer get?

I’ve just given you access to the Ranting and Raving forum. Go read a thread called Cries of Retail and come back to us

Mister Vain

You haven't worked until you've worked on the bog. Footing turf would challenge the fittest of athletes.

Ipso

Mister Vain wrote: »

You haven't worked until you've worked on the bog. Footing turf would challenge the fittest of athletes.

And a nice dose of midges to go with it.

khaldrogo

Labouring on a building site at 16 yrs old........12 hr days sometimes.......lost about 2 stone in 6 weeks

Purple Mountain

PandaPoo wrote: »

I've been working a week in a pharmacy, between people coming in for their methadone and trashing the place, threatening us, other customers screaming at us, calling us names until they get their own way, people stealing 100's of euros worth of perfume and giving you the finger on their way out...its pretty crap. I enjoy it though, apart from the 9 hours on my feet.

There's a comedy sketch in there somewhere!

fatbhoy

al87987 wrote: »

Banana humping (carrying) in Australia for me. Up at 4:30 and bus by 5 to start work at 5:45.

11 hour days, when I started it was the middle of summer and 35 degrees.

Carrying banana bunches all day that weigh between 65-85 kg across your back in that heat is exhausting. I got sick everyday for two weeks until my body acclimatised. Throw in massive spiders, venomous snakes, scary cassowary's and the occasional 5 star hurricane and it really was the job that had everything.

Most people quit within a day or two. They don't even bother learning your name because they assume you won't be around. My friend flew back to Ireland after one days work and numerous other huge lads I saw crying and giving up. I was fairly undersized for the job but once I got the hack of it I properly loved it. Ended up staying 5 and a half months.

Hardest job I've ever done but undoubtedly the best experience of my life.

What was the pay like?

What encounters did you have with spiders, snakes and other things that want to eat you?

What were the storms like?

higster

Year before leaving cert, father stuck me in a meat packing factory for the summer because he knew I was doing feck all at school.

12 hr shifts cutting the left back foot off thousands of lambs. By jazus I studied the following year...

And as a farmers son I totally relate to the turf turning/footing (my poor back), potatoe picking in October (my poor fingers), filling and leveling drains with chip stones, field stone picking/seeding, silage contracting (looooong days), hand cutting silage pits, shoveling out tons of cow sh1te from sheds in the winter, weeding vegetable garden in spring/summer and so on. The father now has machines for all that craic...we were (5 sons) cheaper back in those days he tells us. NOTE not one of us is a farmer.

PandaPoo

Purple Mountain wrote: »

There's a comedy sketch in there somewhere!

A woman wanted a refund because she bought a hair straightener and apparently it's faulty...it makes her hair too straight. Honestly she screamed the shop down, called me useless along with other names. People are crazy.

Surreptitious

I never minded retail. I think it was because they were upper end goods but never had a dodgy customer and had good sales figures. It can be boring though and usually the women can be right bitches. I'd say working in Penney's or something would be a different story.

wally1990

PandaPoo wrote: »

A woman wanted a refund because she bought a hair straightener and apparently it's faulty...it makes her hair too straight. Honestly she screamed the shop down, called me useless along with other names. People are crazy.

This is why I couldn't do retail type jobs or facing the public , some people are nuts

jimbobaloobob

Worked on a fishing trawler for about 6 months. In that time i think i slept 4 hours, we seemed to always work and the lack of sleep just seemed to make it more dangerous. Cold, wet and sore described that 6 months, yet it gave me some of the most amazing experiences and sights to see. Whales and giant sting ray breaking the surface of the water alongside the trawler. Sharks. Some of the fish species that would be caught. Paid pittance too but i think ill chalk it down as experience.

Cleaning grease traps from rotary chicken ovens back in the 90s used to dry wretch as i had to slide my arm up the pipes and pull the grease and fat out of them. Even now it makes me feel like gagging.

But as someone said earlier, worst is self employed. Everyone thinks your making a fortune, your always waiting payments and looking for the next penny to pay a bill. No thanks from anyone including government. Cant wait to find a way out of it.