Jobs I was very bad at

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1) Retail
I would arrange all the racks and fold all the clothes on the shelves. I would stalk people who messed up my nicely folded clothes. As soon as they touched something, I would be right behind them, fixing it. I was not good at being a manager (I was young though, 19 years old) and pissed off subordinates telling them what to do. Maybe it was a union thing, or maybe it was my delivery. I still don't know.

2) Cocktail waitressing
I have mild prosopagnosia, so cocktail waitressing in a club was the worst where people kept moving around. First, I couldn't tell the drinks apart since I didn't drink them myself. Second, if a person moved from the spot they were in, I could never remember who was supposed to get what. Even if they were sitting down, I couldn't remember who ordered what.
In a lounge, it was the same problem, and I could never gauge the situation properly. If they smoked, I would be right on top of them emptying their ashtray. After every single cigarette. I guess I was annoying. I got fired from all those jobs.

3) Sales/telemarketing
I couldn't sell anything to save my life. I just couldn't convince people to buy something, and I would get pushy about it in an annoying way. If I were telemarketing, I would read the script in a way that the listener knew I was reading no matter how hard I tried to sound convincing and natural. Never sold anything, except a few bottles of lotion to my relatives.

4) Early office days
When I was 17 I worked in an office and for the life of me I couldn't understand what people did with their time. I did all the work I was supposed to do in under an hour (out of eight) and the rest of the time had nothing to do. I would go around all the offices asking for work, every half hour, over and over, because I was so bored. So, I started sporadically not coming in to work, figuring I'd let the work pile up, but that didn't fly with them. I didn't understand why they'd pay me to just sit around and do nothing. So one day I took off work again, saying I couldn't get in due to car troubles, but that time they told me not to come back. All I said was, OK!


So what jobs have you been bad at? What happened?

1) Telemarketing. Tried it twice, longest I lasted was 2 and a half days. I"m just not pushy enough, and when people told me they weren't interested (usually with a 'genuine sounding' excuse like sorry i just lost my job, or sorry my husband just died) I would just accept it and hang up. Well I got in trouble for that! WTF I am not about to argue with someone that tells me that they just got made redundant or a widow but whatever. I actually got really horribly upset about how terrible I was at it, went to the bathroom and cried and cried. Then it was break and I couldn't get out of the bathroom because of course everyone was using it and I didn't want anyone to see my crying. Finally the break ended and I quickly went to the supervisors office (still in tears) told them I couldn't take it, and left. The second time around I got sucked in because they pretty much lied on the advertisment and said it wasn't cold calling - so I didn't think it was so bad. It techincally was 'cold calling' though, the only reason they didn't class it as such is because the people's contact details were obtained by entering a competition and not ticking the box and refusing the right to be contacted by the company (running the competition-same company i worked at) at a later stage. It was down in the tiny fine print at the bottom, as if anyone ever reads that! Anyway for some reason I was mortified that I had to quit there too, since I"d never really quit a job before (other than the previous telemarketing one lol) so I made up this massive lie where I called in sick the next day and said I had to go interstate to deal with a family crisis. And then I wrote a resignation letter, posted it to my actual family (in the other state) and had them post it back to the telemarketing company I was meant to be working for - just so as it would be post marked as the state I was meant to be in! Thinking about it now it's so ridiculous how I went to such great lengths, telemarketing has one of the highest turnovers of all industries it's not like it's normal for them to have people start and then immediately quit.

Anyhow...

2) Waitressing/working in a food court. This wasn't nearly as bad as telemarketing, I was quite good at the routine part..making coffees, ''cooking''/serving food, taking money, cleaning etc but I was terrible when I got customers that wanted to chat. And usually when that happened I got so flustered I forgot their order too which made it doubly embarrassing.

3) Doing administration work in real estate. Nothing wrong with the admin work. That was fine and I was quite good at it. What I hated was the other staff, omg the real estate agents I worked with were some of the most shallow, superficial, narrow[\=minded people you could ever come across. Was awful having to work on reception on occasion though, I always felt panicked how I couldn't predict my work and you'd never know who would be on the phone next/walk in the door, and there's heaps of things to be doing at the one time. Receptionists are actually really underrated for how much work they do. You have to keep a lot of balls in the air at the same time ,and for someone like me, who's a one task at a time kind of person, it was really difficult.

Well, I've only had 3 jobs so far, but they all weren't the best jobs.

Dishwasher/Server-I actually liked this job, but some people drove me away. Most of the time, I was in a dish room, and thus was only around 3 or 4 other people, and we were too busy to do much. I worked at the salad bar, but I was again, so busy that I didn't really have to interact with people, even though they were all around me. The downfall was me being late, and not being able to call and just tell them because of extreme anxiety on the phone. Also, these two managers would scream at me because their day was going bad, and I was always expected to fill in for everyone so they could go to parties. That resulted in me having a breakdown and quitting.

Janitor in a nursing home-This job I hated. The reason was the nurses all acted like I was supposed to understand their stupid jokes, and would laugh at me a lot. They constantly tried to get the janitors in trouble/fired, and everyone gossiped too much. I had to get my job done in 6 hours, which was damn near impossible. I actually loved a lot of the residents, though. A lot of them are sad, and they thought I treated them nice.

Caregiver-I hate this job so bad. I've been out of work for 6 months, but my MIL is going to force me back into it. I hate it because the agencies I joined are horrible, and they are not giving me minimum wage (it's a somewhat complicated legal matter), and I cannot turn them in because A. My MIL works there and REFUSES to go to another agency because she doesn't like showing up on time for work or actually doing much work, and this agency doesn't force her to do that and B. I'm too scared. I tried to call a lawyer, but they said the case wasn't big enough for them. The other reason I hate this place is the clients. I've had some clients that I loved more than anyone else I've ever met, and they didn't look at me like I was weird. I've had other ones that were very abusive, both physically and emotionally. I've been slapped, kicked, spit on, punched, swore at, someone threatened to say I was abusing them even though I would never do that, others saying the most dehumanizing insults to me. Some of them couldn't help it, and that helped me. But others were just abusive, and I could not find a mental problem with them, and it hurt really bad. I do not mind changing their briefs (diapers), bathing, cleaning, or anything else. It's just the emotional aspect that killed me. I also had to do something called "live in", where you live with the client. I had one severely abusive client that I had to stay 7 days with. She only let me get 3 hours of sleep each night, screamed in my face every 2 minutes, and her DIL made me take her down a steep ramp by myself and I think I fractured my arms in place because she was obese. I thought I was going to run away...




I'm hoping when I finish an Electrical Engineering degree that the environments will be better. All of the jobs you both have mentioned sound bad, except oddly for food. I don't think being a waitress would be good for me, but I could deal with behind the scene work.

My first job was in a factory where I made plastic toilet seats and lids. I like this job but with jobs that came after that I had too many issues with the management though I worked at one place for 19 1/2 years and another place for 12 years. The most interesting job was constructing cabinets, walls and bed bases for recreation vehicles. But I also helped building the recreation vehicles which include the sides and the bulkheads. But again I had real issues with management and I'm surprised that I lasted 12 years because certain ones were bent on getting rid of me because I wouldn't take their s**t. I was always getting picked on. But, I got the last laugh because they went out of business about 10 years ago, but the Human Resources woman got fired about 2 months after I got fired because I complained to corporate about her. In fact she got a lot of complaints by other employees. She would fire people and than brag about it so she got hers too. I had several dreams about this place closing.

Great topic! LMAO picturing you stalking customers who didn't refold properly.

Here are some selections from jobs I've sucked at. I'm omitting my present job, in case my boss reads this.

Assistant accounts payable clerk: On my second day, I diligently sent out all the checks for all the bills that were in the folder, "Bills To Pay." My supervisor threw a fit. Turns out I was supposed to delay paying the bills as long as possible so that the money could stay in the company's account and earn interest, while telling the creditors the check was in the mail when they called. I couldn't stand feeling like a hired deadbeat, so I quit.

Hotel desk clerk: I worked by myself on the 3pm-11pm shift. This hotel was always short of rooms because we had so many rooms that were slightly out of order - if a room had a broken microwave or TV, we weren't allowed to rent it. When people arrived who had reservations, I was supposed to tell them that we were oversold and hand them a list of other local hotels with vacancies. This was completely awful because these people were exhausted and just wanted to get checked in and crawl into bed! I couldn't stand to see the look on people's faces when they had to get back in their car and go out searching for someplace to sleep, so I took my master key and went to every out of order room and fixed whatever was making them out of order. It was ridiculously easy, all I had to do was redistribute the working microwaves and TVs in an efficient manner, and in some cases just plug a microwave or TV into an electrical outlet. I proudly placed five rooms back into service. That night I checked people into all five rooms, and the next day I was fired. The manager was furious because the rooms weren't "inspected" before they were rented. I assured him that I had inspected each and every room myself. He got even more furious and screamed that I was an idiot and a liability.

It occurred to me years later that I should have kept my five new "in service" rooms as my own private mini-hotel, renting them out nightly, pocketing the money, and cleaning them when I arrived at work the next day. That place was such a soup sandwich it would have been months before anyone caught on.

Surveillance investigator: People seem to feel it when I stare at them - they turn around and stare back. That's called "getting burned." Plus. I have a short attention span, I'm nearsighted, and I can't pee accurately into an empty milk jug.

Legal assistant: Attorneys are really great. They know everything. They always handle things perfectly, and can research and write appellate motions in under an hour while smoking cigars and drinking Glenlivit.

Attorneys are really great. They know everything. They always handle things perfectly. I will repeat this until I:
a) believe it, b) am able to proofread the aforementioned motions without audibly guffawing, and/or c) "get my own damn bar card since I think I know everything."

Mistress: I called his wife to ask her a question. Their divorce was almost final and since they had lived separate lives for so long I assumed it was okay to ask her if she got his nonscratchy black socks at Nordstrom or at Nordstrom Rack. Well, he said she knew! I really thought that meant I should ask her before I bought him socks.

ROFLMAO OMG That takes the cake ! !! !

One other job I remember quite well:

Working in a bagel store around 16. I would be asked to make bagel sandwiches for the customers. I loved being extra generous with the cream cheese, butter and salad spreads, as I always remembered my mother complaining when they got "stingy" servers.

I would frequently get customers who would tell me to "go light on the _________" but I ignored them and piled it on anyway (and then some!), figuring they were just trying to be polite by asking for less instead of more, and so I would reward them with extra for it! I truly believed I was doing them a good deed!

Oh, this one is a great topic!

I have been "bad" at every job I've worked, because of skewed interpersonal skills/social expectations. From most recent to least:

Custodian: I was transferred to this job because of a death threat from a colleague at the previous golf-course job. I work under a woman who has heavy psychopathic traits. I have been accused of "misrepresenting [myself] when [I] took the job, because [I] can't use Comet [powder]," amongst a myriad of other stupid issues resulting purely from her need for constant tyrannical control of everyone around her. She has let useful people quit, wasting dozens of labor-hours in multiple departments in the rehire process, because she was too proud to submit herself to an hour or two of mediation over a trivial issue of working holiday hours. Since I question nearly everything I find to be illogical, this is naturally a disastrous fit. Though, it led to my suspecting and then seeking a diagnosis of AS.

Golf-course Gardener: My educated field is horticulture. The course I worked at was with a boss who had worked at the course for 20 years since age 15, with no college education, and a bunch of retired military guys. As the young-buck, I was given the worst jobs, or ridiculed by my colleagues for being a know-it-all, when I cited my experience and education against their culturally UNsound practices. What I perceived to be responsibility for a multi-million dollar piece of Federally-owned foreign land, my colleagues perceived as an unexperienced know-it-all telling them what to do. It was pretty much a disaster.

Prep-associate: At Panera Bread Co., I was mostly accepted, but my writing times in 24-hour time (eg, WORLD format), was deemed ultimately "too complicated," despite my complete dependence upon it, working THREE jobs, round the clock. A couple years earlier, I had another prep job at PotBelly Sandwich Works, my second job, my inability to find the happy medium between exactly weighted slicing and timeliness was a source of criticism.

Call Center/Tech-Support: My supervisors loved my ability to solve difficult tech issues at my low-tier level. However, my Call Resolution Times were always WAY too high. I tended to hate high call volumes, so I'd draw out conversations with interesting people. I got marked down for advising customers to pull over to the side of the road for troubleshooting. This was in 2006, before the PSAs citing studies about how deadly it is to text and drive. Surprisingly, I had a lower rate of escalated calls than others in my region, probably because I always fixed customer issues, and I diverted from the cookie-cutter script.

Counter Associate/Server: At a café/bakery/bistro, I was chided only for not having a menu memorized to recite to customers without reading to them what was already in front of their faces.

And then there was the joy of my interim job with McDonalds, which helped in small part to finance my trip to Germany, where I now live and thrive, in spite of opposing forces. Customers spitting out orders at light speed, like a skinny f**k like me would really eat at such a dump daily like themselves; customers throwing tantrums (and $1 32-oz. sodas) at me; supervisors threatening to fire me over giving away such $1 XL sodas to satisfy irrationally angry customers. It was brutal. Though, everyone was awesome with each other because of this. I have rarely worked in a place with such easy colleague relationships.

The work force is f*****g ROUGH....

While I had rough periods due to sociopathic bosses, they usually didn't stay long and I still did good work. The only time I failed miserably was working in a Tool World of a Hardware Retailer. I didn't have much knowledge of tools (and we were supposed to be experts apparently), I didn't like being penned into one area (at least as a cashier there were others nearby) and my co-workers did not like me one bit. Furthermore I was oblivious to how dishonest some people were and numerous large thefts happened under my watchful eye that I was completely clueless to. I made honest opinions about how many questions I was asked and how hard it is to remember all the product and later found out as a result I was tagged as a "whiner".

My supervisor insisted he was 'blindsided' when I was transferred out a few months later (and put back in a entry-level position) but I now know he was a complete and utter liar. Even more ironic is that his supervisor (head of the department as a whole) got fired years later for stealing, which he had been doing for many years! I tried and tried but could not "get" that job at all and while they were right to get rid of me, they could have done it in a much nicer way.

I did also struggle when I worked full time as a cashier one summer (despite having the single best supervisor one could ask for) and I now realize that it was because of my extreme introversion. I would likely have been canned if not for that oh so supportive lady!

I had a good laugh reading this. I have had this battle with insurance companies where they audit the %$$# out of me because I am honest and trying to present facts and documentation as detailed as possible to ensure I am following the rules but when I am extremely vague and provide minimal documentation they just pay up no questions asked. It's funny how if I point out REAL fraud they don't have the ability and/or desire to investigate it

I do good work in offices, but the people who I have to work with are EXTREMELY social creatures - very finicky, catty, bitter, resentful, jealous, petty and gossip-y. I almost invariably manage to tick off one by not smiling the right way or just not playing their little game. One tells the others and the hate spreads like a cancer.

Then, when it comes time to let some people go, my name is usually on it for some fake reason (since they can't say "we just don't like him".)

I'm actually extremely easygoing and easy to get along with, but some people really can't handle anything "different" and my competency with office work probably scares some into "eliminating a threat to their job security".

I was a waitress for about two weeks, and I hated it and was not good at it at all. I was going to try to stick it out as long as I could anyway becuse I was tired of quitting jobs. When they finally fired me, I said, "Thank you!"

I was a motel front desk clerk, and guests were always griping about being charged for phone calls and stuff like that. I even had to clean up a dead cat once because no one else would do it.

I survived 11 months as a grocery store cashier, despite being terrified of angry customers who thought I was trying to rip them off with the scanners (they were still relatively new), and management who called me lazy.

When I studied in the USA, I worked at a pizza place. It was horrible. Rude people, annoying customers who can't make decisions and then complain about how their order isn't right when they changed it 10^16 times. I made over 350 pizzas on Halloween night alone and never got paid by the owner. Never again.

every job save my last job [hospital coding] where i was pretty good. in the army was my worst-performing job. by far.

Dishwasher---was just too slow for the job, plus they really wanted someone who could take on other tasks as well as wash dishes. My first job, I think I lasted maybe a month. I did have better luck later on washing dishes at the dining hall in college because there was less time pressure, but I just did not care for the job.

Telemarketer--it was a crappy magazine that no one really needed, hence it was very hard to sell. I noticed that my co-workers had a somewhat easier time dealing with resistant people, but they were all women and I think they were able to be more persuasive than me. When I would try their tactics I usually got hung up on or people would get angry with me.

Tax accountant--could not figure out how to work the software, every tax return was an ordeal in terror. Took too long to do things, didn't learn quickly enough. Had trouble managing multiple projects at the same time, I usually had to just do one thing at a time and could not work things out when there was a conflict between competing projects [which rarely happened anyway since I usually had to struggle just to find someone willing to let me make copies or put binders together. ] Couldn't network and market myself in order to be attached to projects, so I often had weeks and weeks where I wasn't able to find anything to do. Started looking for a new job almost immediately, but could not find one. I guess I should be thankful they waited till I had completed a year before they let me go, I was unassigned my last three months there and was just waiting for the axe to fall.

I hated retail. Everything that you did at your retail job is the same thing I did--practically stalking customers and tidying up shelves right after a customer looked through it. It was one of the worst job experiences I've ever had, so I definitely can relate with you on that one.