What's The Worst Job You Ever Had?

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I'd like to know, just to be idle.

The current one. Actually it feels more and more like the perfect torture for me, there's everything I hate, the things that make me feel bad and nothing good, zero satisfaction, only frustartion and pain. I waste my afternoons waiting for people to come and buy cigarettes and other stuff, the first hour is quite ok as I'm still taken by my interest over the internet, then there's nothing more to search and I start gettin annoyed/tired, then come people and I have zero will/abilty to answer them, let alone be nice, then some people make refernces to my father who works there in the morning and I hate him, then it's 3 weeks there are workers in the shop next to us making awful noise, it seems the best I can do is try my best to stay calm to prevent meltdown so that I can enjoy when I come back home. This job has really worsened me, or, if you want to look it another way, has allowed me to meet my (very) dark side.

Without doubt temporary work at a Tar Macadam plant the pay was so low I would have been better of on the Dole and the job was unpleasant, dirty and dangerous. I could not take any more after 4 days.

Sonic, it was minimum wage, hot and greasy in the kitchen, and all the other employees took it out on the cooks when they didn't get tipped.

Any job working closely with other people is a nightmare to me. I'd rather work alone and workplace politics confuse me.

University lab that I worked at part time while going to school..

made only about $1000 a month..

nobody in the group ever told me what to do even when i asked them many times..

then the boss yells at me for not doing what i'm supposed to even though i had not even the slightest clue i was expected to do what he said..

oh well, at least i got $1000/mo for doing nothing

My worst job was at call center inside a health insurance company.

I had two anxiety induced seizures at work even before I got on the phone. Then once I got on the phone, I was hospitalized in a psych unit twice from the emotional stress.

I still can't answer phones without that panic reaction first, and I certainly cannot answer phones where I know I'll have to go get someone else.

Working at the JRO. I had signed a contract for 6 months, but I had to quit at the end of the 5th, otherwise I wouldn't have made it. I had lost like 5Kg (and I'm thin, so that was a very bad thing as you can imagine) and was feeling a lot of anxiety and depression. First, the boss reassigned me on the first day to a different post than the one I had been hired for, and it turned out to be something a chimp (OK, maybe not a chimp, but any elementary school kid) trained to use a calculator could do. And he would look at me badly whenever I helped the guys working on DSP'ing the data samples taken by the antenna or exchange comments with the webmaster. And the place was in the middle of nowhere, there weren't any birds chirping or anything, the silence was depressing. To make matters worse, my assigned office lied away from the main complex/building and nobody else used to go by, and even though I don't like much to talk to other people, I like to listen to them or at least watch them passing by. Then the Human Resources manager (who had originally interviewed me and hired me and with whom I used to have conversations during lunch time) was forced to resign when one of the bosse's "godchildren" arrived and he needed to place him in some position, even though the guy was totally inadequate for it. One day I broke a tooth during lunch and the first aid kit had nothing in it but spiderwebs... and the nearest sign of civilization was a dump a few Km away (we depended on the lab's van to get in or out, and if it wasn't scheduled to go out, or you missed it at the time it went out, you had no choice but to stay there - the worst that could happen was to miss it on thursday afternoon, as it wouldn't come back until monday morning). One day I was so depressed I even ended up crying in my office "God, what did I do to deserve this? How could I have made such a bad choice?"...

So at the end of the 5th month, which I considered a good moment since it was a round month and I had just completed one of the stages of the nonsense I had been assigned to do and not yet started on the next, I went to deliver my letter of resignation to the new HR manager on the grounds that I was having health issues (both mental and physical), the moron refused to accept it saying that I couldn't do that, so I just walked out of his office and the place. God, I never felt better than that day while I was walking away from that place through the desert until I could reach the highway and take a bus that would get me home! I wasn't singing "Born free" but a song in Spanish with a similar theme as I walked, not following the trails but the shortest, most direct route possible through the desolation. After that, I hired a legal firm to get my resignation letter delivered, no matter how much it cost me (I pity the poor guy who had to go all the way there), together with a certificate by a psychologist indicating how I needed rest (yes, I went to one, explained how I was feeling and couldn't take it any longer). Later I delivered a progress report, then was called to the treasurer's home, I was taken there by my parents as I was still under what you'd call medical leave, talked a bit to her and finally got my payment, and I really don't care if I never get recommendation from them, I got my much needed rest. Some months later I got a casual job with a company that installed telecomm systems for a couple of months, started a business with some friends doing websites (though that failed for reasons I better don't get into) back then when almost noone knew how to do that, and basically, moved on...

EDIT: Oh, crap, and I forgot how they made me PHONE some companies to ask about dielectric materials and then I had to deal with a sales representative who came with some samples and all that in the end was for nothing, as the boss decided we would use whatever we had available on storage...

And the place had a radio-phone which half the time didn't work, and it was also used for the Internet connection which was, what, 64kbps? Or just 16kbps? I think it was the latter... I couldn't even check my e-mail, and browsing the web for information was a nightmare. And when they started to see who they would choose to send to Antarctica, I got chills down my spine at the thought...

^^ I have no idea what a JRO is, but based on your description, I think I might blow up the next one I see. *shudder* That sounds like true and utter hell, yet you managed to survive. Makes my worst job seem like a cakewalk.

Fatburger. I spent 30 hours there my first 'day'. Yea, I love OT, but seriously? That first 'day' was a perfect overlap with my last 'day'. And I never saw a red cent.

Working as a lifeguard.
The pool complex was basically a giant greenhouse, so bright light streaming in all the time. In addtion there was the noise level (horrible!), screaming kids, and changing shift patterns. The guests were continually rude and seemed to regard lifeguards as a free babysitting service ( I once got a guest screaming abuse at me because their child -who they should have been watching - fell over in the area near to where I was on poolside (where I couldn't see them - the other lifeguard should have spotted them but they were chatting about a party the night before) and I didn't immediately stop watching all the other kids to go and comfort their brat.)
I did discover that the best way to be invisible was to be wearing a bright yellow shirt, and try to ask someone not to do something stupid, like shove their kid who couldn't swim into the rapids, for example!
Add to that the favouritism shown by managers, and the repeated migraines and meltdowns caused by the stress of that environment, and I am fairly confident that working for that particular company was probably the worst job I have had so far.

It's about the 10th result if you search for "JRO" on Google:
http://jro.igp.gob.pe/english/index.htm

It might sound as paradise with all the scientific research going on there and the high-tech equipment, but it wasn't... at least not for me.

I worked in a zinc foundry for 2 days. it was dirty hot and dangerous and lowpaying. Also the Steelworkers union, which you HAD to join, took $20 from your pay every week. I found a better job for more pay but in clean airconditioned comfortable safe environment.

Funny... now that you mention it, there was (still is) a zinc foundry or refinery, Cajamarquilla, around the hill from the JRO, and every now and then they'd issue an alarm warning for some toxic fumes escape and make as all get into the main complex and close all doors and windows until the fumes dissipated. The idea of my organs getting poisoned was another thing I didn't like from that place...
I pity the dogs who had to stay outside those times, they didn't take them in, or the two lamas they had as pets (BTW, those gave me the creeps, continually looking at me whenever I went in or out from my office, as if inteding to attack or something).

Cashier at Walmart. It was indescribable.

Working as an artist/decorator at a popular Christmas store. Should have been heaven because I learned so many artistic techniques there and worked with great materials, but the boss was a lecherous old slave-driving cheapskate who browbeat his own sweet brother until he had a heart attack.

We had no windows in the art room, so with all the fumes from the chemicals and paints we used it could be hard to breathe.

Probably a tie between being a dishwasher at a busy breakfast joint and working at Pita Pit. Dishwasher was bad for obvious reasons, the other job was bad mainly because my boss was an angry psychopath.