View Full Version : Hardest Job You Ever Did
What is the hardest job you ever did? Like where you had to sweat or had mental anguish or something?
How much did you get paid? It seems the hardest jobs pay the least?
I think the hardest things I have done were actually done for free.
Picking up rocks out of a field as a kid felt like the hardest.
I remember during summer break, the college dorms were hiring students to work 3 days for $300 total. We had to clean an entire dorm building each day (and there were only like 8 of us!). It was hell. But by the 500th room, I mean, we could flip that room in like minutes! haha.
Providing family day care for three preschoolers plus my own two preschoolers. The kids would get dropped off at 6 am and the parents wouldn't come home to pick them up until 6 pm. The difficulty was having to be alert and present with them every minute. It was exhausting. I remember hating my husband every time he'd pick up his sneakers and chirpily say, "See you later, honey! I'm off to the gym!" Grrr.... On the plus side, though, I got to stay home with my own kids.
Tussiemussies
8-17-12, 8:08am
I was looking over this thread and Catherine's post jogged my memory to when I was watching only one child in my home but the point is that you must be attentive to them all the time. No talking to anyone on the phone or doing anything else where you would leave them alone for any length of time. I was always trying to come up with things to do at my home since the parents don't usually want you to take them out for safety reasons. So most of my own personal things had to be done after they left, so there was little down time for me. After three months of this I fell into a depression and realized this just wasn't for me. I had jobs watching other children and it was always the same thing. I thought many times that the children will grow up not knowing how to entertain themselves since you were always doing something with them.
Needless to say I stop working with children...
1) raising children......the job never ends, no matter how old they are!
2) working ICU. Before I started there, I thought it would be easy.......they're mostly unconscious, right? Little did I know what a physically demanding job it is.....turning the patients often, putting them into special beds that turn constantly (and you'd have to get underneath it to clean up the liquid poop coming out of the special opening in the bed), cleaning up their poop all day, lifting them into special chairs (even though they're unconscious), dealing with outrageous doctors, changing linens under unconscious patients, wearing gown/mask/gloves all day when patient is in isolation, assisting with procedures, drawing blood, suctioning breathing tubes, changing dressings on unbelievable injuries, etc., etc., etc. And that wasn't even the emotional part! ........dealing with family members, with tragic situations, death, dismemberment, blood, unreasonable doctors, intense sadness, stupid coworkers, LOTS of tension, etc., etc. (Not all the coworkers were stupid.......many were pretty incredible people!) Back in the mid 80's, when I was still working, I earned about 12-14/hr. Now it would probably be around $40-50/hr.
If I went back to that today, I'd probably drop dead on the first day!
I was in college and had made probably 2 car payments on my new 86 Toyota Corolla GT-S and had to get a job to afford to keep making payments.
I got hired at the Holiday Inn right off I-95. And at a Holiday Inn right off I-95 with an all-you-can-eat buffet that only means 1 thing. Buses.
As hostess, I was hired to seat the blue-haired travelers. The day before I was to start my job, I went out to Thom McAn and bought the uniform shoes. Brown pleather, off-brand TopSiders. Even the laces were made of pleather. They were cheap and my mother bought them because I didn't have enough cash to pay for them myself. For my efforts I was going to be paid minimum wage.
My 1st shift began @ 6A and the first bus arrived @ about 6:00:03A and they just kept coming. It was non-stop! Within an hour the blisters were forming on the my pleather-encased toes. By 10A the line began to relent. There was even a minute where there was NO LINE. I stopped walking (now limping) and leaned against the wall. Within 20 seconds my manager was there barking @ me. "Don't just stand there. Get the carpet sweeper and start working on these rugs."
My break came @ around 10:45. By then, my feet were throbbing and I knew this wasn't happening. One of the "perks" of the job was that we got to eat off the buffet for FREE (before they cleaned off and tossed all the breakfast stuff away and switched over to lunch.) I got my food, went back to the kitchen and silently ate @ at the break table with the rest of the exploited schmucks. After I finished, I clocked out and walked out the back door without a backward glance.
Within an hour of arriving home, my mother called. She lived in Maryland at the time and when I didn't arrive back at work, they called my emergency number to find out what had happened to me.
More than 25 years later, without a doubt, this is the worst working experience I ever had. I can't imagine working an entire lifetime in those kinds of jobs.
Yes, heydude. The hardest jobs absolutely pay the least.
Tussiemussies
8-17-12, 9:11am
1) raising children......the job never ends, no matter how old they are!
2) working ICU. Before I started there, I thought it would be easy.......they're mostly unconscious, right? Little did I know what a physically demanding job it is.....turning the patients often, putting them into special beds that turn constantly (and you'd have to get underneath it to clean up the liquid poop coming out of the special opening in the bed), cleaning up their poop all day, lifting them into special chairs (even though they're unconscious), dealing with outrageous doctors, changing linens under unconscious patients, wearing gown/mask/gloves all day when patient is in isolation, assisting with procedures, drawing blood, suctioning breathing tubes, changing dressings on unbelievable injuries, etc., etc., etc. And that wasn't even the emotional part! ........dealing with family members, with tragic situations, death, dismemberment, blood, unreasonable doctors, intense sadness, stupid coworkers, LOTS of tension, etc., etc. (Not all the coworkers were stupid.......many were pretty incredible people!) Back in the mid 80's, when I was still working, I earned about 12-14/hr. Now it would probably be around $40-50/hr.
If I went back to that today, I'd probably drop dead on the first day!
Cathy A the hospital work just sounds so hard and demanding. I don't think I could handle the bathroom aspect and the suctioning. You've got to be really strong to move those PTs around. You must have been exhausted after your shifts. Even though it was back in the '80s it sound like you were really underpaid...I give you a lot of credit for what you did. It's admirable that you stuck with it.
I had a job where I worked for an abusive tyrant of a man who would scream and curse at me in front of co-workers and students. I was working in France and he knew that I couldn't change jobs without needing to get a brand new French work permit, which was nearly impossible to get in the first place, so he took advantage of my "labor captivity" and treated me horribly. Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore, and I quit. I had to leave the country because I didn't have a job, but it was still worth my sanity and self-respect.
A year later, it turned out that this individual had been scamming the company for the equivalent of more than half a million dollars, some of which went for his adoption fees for his little girl from Mexico, more to remodel his French farmhouse in the Burgundy countryside, and some to support his mistress (one of my co-workers, of course) down in Lyon! Guess that explains why I made so little money on that job myself!
and some to support his mistress (one of my co-workers, of course) down in Lyon!
Why is it the scummiest people in the world are always so predictable and cliched? That's almost as tiresome as the "my husband left me for his secretary" lament. If that happened to me I'd be embarrassed to admit it. Not because I'd been dumped for the secretary (good luck with that, girl) but because I'd married such an unimaginative dolt to begin with. Pathetic.
At least your story has a continental flair.
Life_is_Simple
8-17-12, 11:23am
The job that took the most toll on me had insane, mean, diabolical people, but the work itself was of medium difficulty at most. Almost nothing really got accomplished due to the dysfunction.
The most health-affirming job is the one I have now: self-employed where the client is very nice and brilliant. The work itself is more technically difficult than any other job, but the context is so awesome and a lot gets done.:+1:
Life_is_Simple
8-17-12, 11:26am
2) working ICU. Before I started there, I thought it would be easy.......they're mostly unconscious, right?
:laff: I think more jobs would be tolerable if the number of unconscious people in the workplace increased ;)
10 years in the coast guard - most of it at sea for months at a time. Exhausting, physically demanding, dangerous, a mix of monotonous mind-numbing boredom and sheer terror (sometimes at the same time :-)!) but I'd do it again in a second - suited me to a Tee.
Personally I think doing Cathy A's ER nurse job would be one of the hardest jobs anyone could have - both physically and emotionally. I have a lot of respect for those in the medical profession.
:laff: I think more jobs would be tolerable if the number of unconscious people in the workplace increased ;):laff::laff::devil:
Used to work in a textile factory. The hardest physically was unloading the trucks. Each roll of material was several hundred pounds. We all used to kiss the last roll before taking it off the truck.
The worst mentally was being a beamer. A beamer was the guy who stood at a machine that took the material from the rolls and wound them on a wooden beam so that it could be mounted on one of the printing machines. Eight to ten hours a day watching plain white material roll from a cardboard tube onto a wooden beam. It was a required part of the job to watch the material continuously in order to catch any bunching or tearing. The excruciating tedium was relieved only when we had the "pleasure" of lifting the 200 to 300 lb rolls of material onto the machine.
Amazed that I didn't lose my sanity.
Regarding the hardest job is the lowest paid theory. It wasn't true in my case. I was very well paid. It was a highly unionized industry and the pay was outstanding. Some people (particularly the warehouse staff) earned it, and others (color mixers and printing assistants) seem to be extremely over paid for the amount of effort and skill involved in their jobs. That is probably the main reason that the business eventually closed down and all of it's competitors moved first to non-unionized states, and from there to the far east.
Life_is_simple............lol! how true about life being better with more unconscious people in some of our workplaces! :laff: :laff:
Blackdog Lin
8-17-12, 8:43pm
Carrying mail. 15+ miles of walking up and down the street, and up and down the steps, in a foot of snow (the streets are okay, the steps are the killer). Oh, yeah, how about ice? Or in 110 degrees heat with the sweat just absolutely dripping off me, and no air-conditioning in sight to get a bit of relief. I used to long and look for kiddie pools in the front yards, that I could walk through and get a little coolness on my legs. (couldn't do it now - someone would post your photo on youtube).
I was well paid, as a career employee. But as a clerk, NOT a carrier, I never got a chance to adapt my body to the conditions. Year-round, for years and years, it was 3 weeks carrying, then 2 months inside. Then 1 week carrying, and 6 months inside. Then 2 days carrying, and 2 months inside. And 8 weeks carrying, and the rest of the year inside. Mail carriers are able to adapt to the walking and conditions; I did it for 25 years at a moment's notice and no adaptation.
I attribute my severe arthritis of today to all those years of on-again, off-again heavy physical labor.
Then again, maybe I'm just whining..... I am lucky enough to have stuck it out and be retiring with a small pension.....(but it WAS hell, I remember it.....)
I grew up on a farm, so did a lot of farm labor as a family member. I don't consider that a job because I was never paid for it. I did get paid to pick rock, weed bean fields, and ride a bean bar for the various neighbors. All of those jobs were hard, but the worst was definitely riding the bean bar because you would inevitably come home covered in Round-up. That just can't be good for a person.
The hardest job, psychologically, was definitely my three years in corporate America working for what turned out to be a group of corporate raiders. I was well paid, but it took a long time for me to recover both physically and mentally from the toll that job took on me. Never again.
Physically hardest: part of one summer spent roofing, in San Diego, in the hot hot sun. Paid $12/hour for tear-off labor. Convinced me the first day of the benefits of office work. Plus I'm terrified of heights to begin with. Second hardest: wearing one of those giant animal suits at an amusement park in Southern California, in the summer. Pay: low. Heat: very high Smell of suit: beyond your wildest imagination.
Emotionally hardest: working with people experiencing domestic violence. Nightmare stuff.
Wildflower
8-17-12, 10:44pm
Many years ago when I was a young Mom with toddlers I took on a part-time job for some extra money for Christmas presents. I worked weekends and nights only, when my DH was home to watch the kids.
I was a cashier at Walmart during the holiday season. 'Nuff said....
I was a traffic flagger one summer. For the first stint, it was standing, for 8 hrs, on a dirt road with a "slow" sign. There were about 4 cars that went out in the morning and returned in the evening and that was it. Man that job was boring and my feet hurt constantly. After that I got a position with the same company but walking alongside an oil truck, but at least it was walking. I must have walked nearly every chip-sealed road in the county but that was way better than standing in the same place for hours.
I worked in a Nursing Home kitchen during the summer to help pay for college. Got there very early to help make breakfast and serve for dining room and for patients on the floors. Did the dishes and set up for lunch and did it all again. Moving dishes out of a boiling hot hobart to trays burned my fingers. Always rushing. Not paid well. It was heart breaking to serve elderly people meals they didn't want or to fight with a diabetic man who lost both legs and eyesight to diabetes because he wanted more bread. I smelled of bleach because we needed to presoak cutlery in it prior to washing. I usually fell asleep at 7 or 7:30 pm while watching tv with my husband.
SteveinMN
8-18-12, 12:12pm
Oooh. Toughie. At first, I thought about my very first job, which was mucking out stalls and grooming horses at a local stable. Hot, humid, stinky conditions and a couple of good kicks from horses until I got the hang of it.
But I think I will nominate my last job, which got to the point of unadulterated dread each morning as burnout set in. Months of work in our queue, the cr@ppiest tools imaginable to use, doing the jobs of two people, amid rumors of regular layoffs, and projects which alternated between "if-we-don't-get-this-right-we're-out-of-business" and "nevermind-it-wasn't-all-that-important". I am so glad to be out of it.
Bump!
By far... child-rearing! Never ends..... You just go from small kids to bigger ones! LOL!
Second in line... helping DH do heavy projects around the house.
Loaded ordnanced onto F18 Hornets on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Pay- $350 every 2 weeks. Most physically demanding job I ever had. Sheer muscle.
Most mind numbing and energy draining- current job. It litereally drains me everyday and I cannot walk some mornings. I know it's a phychosis thing but it's amazing how the body reacts.
Loaded ordnanced onto F18 Hornets on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Pay- $350 every 2 weeks. Most physically demanding job I ever had. Sheer muscle.
Most mind numbing and energy draining- current job. It litereally drains me everyday and I cannot walk some mornings. I know it's a phychosis thing but it's amazing how the body reacts.Woo-hoo!! A woman after my own heart :-)! Yep, while I found a military life at sea difficult and hard, it was so much less stressful then any kind of corporate 9 to 5 job I can imagine.
Gosh, I have done such a variety of things for a living. I'm intrigued by trying new things and don;t think that my college degree means I am too good for doing what might be considered a menial job. I respect hard work.
I taught kindergarten/1st grade for 5 years in the inner city and it was exhausting but so much fun!!
I spent months reroofing houses after hurricane Gustav. Great pay, horrible heat but friends and family needed new roofs and I wasn't afraid to shimmy up a ladder with BayouBoy and his brother.
I packed salmon roe (eggs) in Alaska. We braided the eggsacs neatly in wooden boxes and they were shipped to Japan where it is some sort of yummy snack to them, similar to caviar, i guess. It was 12 hour days, 7 days a week, from 8 at night to 8 in the morning (or longer). Exhausting but financially rewarding. I'd practically fall asleep taking a bath after work each day, almost too tired to eat.
I was a fairy princess in college. I dressed as a fairy princess and resided over little girls princess parties. Not hard at all but certainly an interesting entry on any resume.
Nowadays, I go gator hunting with BayouBoy, harvest pecans (over 20,000 lbs this year) and enjoy being "retired".
Physically hardest: commercial sheep farming. Trashed my back & knees doing it, but I loved it. Emotionally most difficult: social worker in a shelter for homeless women & kids, the majority were domestic violence survivors fleeing for their lives. Some fetal alcohol impacted adults who never had any treatment. I worked night intake & ran DV groups. Second to this is being a stepmom. I've never felt challenged intellectually, though learning to farm was a whole new way of thinking.
Physically hardest: part of one summer spent roofing, in San Diego, in the hot hot sun.
I have reconsidered this answer after the last several months of going through the fire academy at ~50 years of age . Firefighting-at-50 is much harder than roofing-as-a-teenager :-)
And combines fear of heights, fear of confined spaces, extreme exertion, lots of noise and confusion, and reduced mobility due to gear. It's better than a video game really!
It's a toss up. In a lot of ways, being a homeschooling, SAHM of five is the hardest job I've ever had, but it's infitinely interesting and I can set my own schedule and, while I don't earn one thin dime at at, it's quite rewarding. Being a cubicle slave was torture.
I had several manual labor jobs in my early years. By far the hardest was bucking hay bales onto a flatbed in the middle of the summer. There is muscle tired and long day tired, but this was muscle, long day, and sick to the stomach tired. Fortunately the hay season was short. Sometimes I see shows with farm labor working out in the sun all day and definitely can identify.
I had several manual labor jobs in my early years. By far the hardest was bucking hay bales onto a flatbed in the middle of the summer. There is muscle tired and long day tired, but this was muscle, long day, and sick to the stomach tired. Fortunately the hay season was short. Sometimes I see shows with farm labor working out in the sun all day and definitely can identify.
Exactly why my lower back is pretty effed up...
My parents were always suggesting I earn money by taking care of kids. I suppose a lot of girls get dunked into childcare as a kind of no-brainer first job - it seems intuitive. Many people assume that all women have the care-taking gene. My folks figured this would be a least-line-of-resistance path to getting me off my scared butt and into the "real" world of work.
I liked kids a lot, but I couldn't control them. My mother died laughing when she came to the center to pick me up, and saw me chasing my unruly horde of first-graders all over the building.
It just got worse as I got older. I was conscripted into becoming a counselor at a summer camp - the pay was $300 for the summer. The adults who'd cajoled me into doing what they assured me would be an easy job, changed their tune right away. I was a a disaster - one of my fellow counselors, Lance (I'll never forget his name) came to my cabin door and just screamed at me for fifteen minutes about what a giant piece of crap I was.
The kids adored me though! I found it hard to manage them, but I enjoyed hanging with them and participating in their games. There's something about having kids trust you that's good for the soul, whatever anyone else might think...
Hardest in terms of worst was working as a chain hand on an oil rig. The job was so dirty and dangerous it doesn't really exist any more. It was really hard to get out of bed some days. Hardest in terms of physical work and really, really long hours was ranching (family ranch growing up). There was really never a day when you didn't feel at least a little beat up at the end of the day, but there was an incredible sense of satisfaction with it. It was good work.
Gardenarian
2-19-13, 6:49pm
During college - cocktail waitress at a really scuzzy bar.
During college - cocktail waitress at a really scuzzy bar.
So YOU'RE the one!!! :devil:
I haven't had any really awful jobs. The hardest was working as a cashier at a five & dime store. Standing in one spot for 8 hours was hard on the feet and back. Fortunately, I was young and bounced back after a nights sleep.
Originally posted by Florence.
The hardest was working as a cashier at a five & dime store. Standing in one spot for 8 hours was hard on the feet and back.I worked the floor of a pharmacy/drug store after graduating, and the ladies who worked the checkouts wore white nurses shoes to help combat. I was lucky and served all departments, so got to walk around/wander lots.
catherine
2-20-13, 11:30am
One of the hardest jobs I ever had was during July and August 1976 when I worked for NBC in the production office of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Wow. Talk about never a moment's peace. DH REALLY took advantage and chose that period of time to ask me to marry him. It was definitely a "take me away" moment.
Originally posted by Kitten.
My parents were always suggesting I earn money by taking care of kids. I suppose a lot of girls get dunked into childcare as a kind of no-brainer first job - it seems intuitive.Sounds like your mom, was my mom! Exception being, my mom used to go out of her way to line-up babysitting jobs for me and my oldest sister! No suggesting whatsoever. LOL!
Working a robotype machine--this was for mass mailings. Endless typing of addresses, then running off the letter at a deafeningly noisy, jolting-around machine.
Cleaning houses for incredibly dirty friends--one should never know that much about one's friends.
I worked the floor of a pharmacy/drug store after graduating, and the ladies who worked the checkouts wore white nurses shoes to help combat. I was lucky and served all departments, so got to walk around/wander lots.
At the time, I was about 20 and wouldn't be caught dead in nurses' shoes! LOL! Ah, the priorities of youth!
At the time, I was about 20 and wouldn't be caught dead in nurses' shoes! LOL! Ah, the priorities of youth!Yes indeed... :)
Tussiemussies
2-21-13, 6:03pm
Hardest job was having to babysit my brother and sisters until my Mom got home from work. There was so much mis-behaving that we all were calling her seriously every 5 minutes. Thankfully her boss was understanding.
My brother would come home with his friends after going to their homes and he let his friend raid the kitchen for food. They would go through the cabinets and eat whatever they pleased. This is when my Mom was raising four children without enough income to be feeding everyone. Actually they would sit sit on the kitchens counters too. I told my brother to stop his friends from this a few times. His answer was no, so there was another call to Mom. Didn't fix anything -- he was the " golden boy."
Originally posted by Tussiemussies.
Hardest job was having to babysit my brother and sisters until my Mom got home from work. There was so much mis-behaving that we all were calling her seriously every 5 minutes.LOL! And your siblings were all able to sit down after your mom got home? Boy... if we had done the same, we would have gotten it (first) by the babysitter... then by mom (again) when she got home!
I cast quitting notices in, at a couple of babysitting jobs where kids were brats. Had few problems in homes where discipline was regularly administered. Don't recall babysitting at any one home where spanking wasn't used... was given permission (regular sitting homes) to spank if/when needed... at my own discretion. Applied a few spankings... but much preferred the power of holding it over the heads of my charges, of relaying to the parents whether or not they had been angels or brats, knowing full well, bottoms would be warmed over anything less than perfect behaviour.
In our home, when I'd have oldest DD babysit, I accepted nothing less than perfect behaviour from all, and dare I arrived home to find that someone had veered off course and from direction, I dealt with them promptly and strictly... to ensure that the next time they were being sat, the reminder of the consequence of not listening/doing would remain fresh in their minds, and bottoms!
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