Worst job ever?
Tuesday, April 9, 2019 at 08:52AM Not sure why, but I was invited to attend a "senior men's breakfast" sponsored by our community education department last week. I guess it was in case they needed someone who could cut up some old geezer's pancakes if he couldn't do it himself.
During the breakfast the conversation turned to "worst jobs we've ever had." These ranged from walking beans to cleaning bathrooms to manual labor of some sort. But I think I won the worst job ever contest...
The summer between graduation from college and starting my first teaching job, I worked as a "rod and chain" guy for a local surveying company. On the whole this was a very nice job. Light work, outdoors, a variety of locations, and very little stress. I basically helped the surveyor measure distances and altitudes of different lots and locations. But one job was, um, special.
Outside the town of Royal, Iowa, there was a very large cattle feeding operation. And the manure generated by all those cattle was contained large holding ponds. Every now and then, the depth of those ponds needed to be determined. This was done by two members of the surveying crew getting into a small boat and rowing to various locations in the very fragrant, very thick pond where the surveyor would stand and push a measuring rod down into the depths, cautiously maintaining balance as the boat rocked from side to side. It was my job to row without splashing and to note the depths of the lagoon.
As I remember, my coworker's comment was "If I fall in - just let me drown." Yeah. Oh, and we were teased mercilessly for days by the rest of the staff in the office.
For most of my career, I was blessed with rewarding jobs that I looked forward to each day - interesting problems to solve, good people with whom to work, a sense of making a contribution to the world. The only exposure I had to excrement was dealing with a lot of bullshit. But before I could get these (professional) jobs, I had my share of low-skilled, manual labor stints.
- I gathered eggs from aggressive hens which scared my 5?-year-old self senseless.
- I scooped and scarped and spread a lot of manure on my dad's farm where we raised hogs and fed cattle.
- I walked beans all summer.
- I spent time in a 120 degree haymow stacking bales.
- I stacked bags of seed corn for a seed-corn plant one summer.
- I worked as a hod carrier for a masonry company, mixing "mud", stacking brick and block, and setting scaffolding. (Losing 15 pounds in the first two weeks on the job.)
- I delivered furniture and cleaned the furniture store showroom.
- I delivered and washed nursing home laundry - including diapers.
- I cleaned the swimming pool and hallways as an assistant manager of an apartment complex.
- I cleaned surgical instruments at a hospital from 3-11 during my grad school days.
- I worked second jobs when teaching as a night motel clerk and a gas station attendant to supplement my meager teacher pay.
As old men are want to do, we at the breakfast bemoaned the fact that today's youth may not have the experience of performing these distasteful jobs that we felt, of course, built character and an appreciation for the less physical careers in which we landed.
I am not so sure.
Both my grandsons, ages 13 and 18, will have summer jobs in 2019. The younger will be a day-camp counselor and the older an intern for a medical software developer. While not having the glamour of rowing across poop-filled lagoons, I suspect both jobs will present their own challenges to these young men and they will learn some life-long skills as a result. And perhaps at a breakfast 50 or 60 years from now, they be saying, "By god when I was a kid, I had this job..."
What was your worst job ever? Did it shape you?
Reader Comments (2)
I worked in a Harbor Freight warehouse loading boxes. I believe I had about a dozen items I was responsible for. Watching hundreds of boxes roll down the conveyor belt, looking at each invoice and trying to determine if that specific box had one of my twelve items. The worst part was getting a weekly report from my supervisor about my errors. However, they never told me whether I had (1) missed an item, or (2) put the wrong item in, or (3) put too many items in.
I also had to wear gloves as I found out early that cardboard boxes can give really nasty paper cuts...
Hi Kenn,
Made me think of the old I Love Lucy episode where they are decorating cakes on the conveyor belt! Thanks for sharing this.
Doug