Worst/hardest job(s) you're ever had?
- Thread starter billyhillui
- Start date
Um, I’m just fine thank you. I’ve been to hell and back in other ways.
Yep, I bailed hay once. I did work at an orchard from age 8-16. Did planting, hoeing, pruning, pulled weeds, picked apples, tomatoes, pumpkins, ect., ect. Hard work keeps you honest. When you're young & healthy, nothing better.
By age 10, I realized EVERYBODY HAS IT TOUGH. Some just have it tough in different ways, & at different times than others.
Btw, Providence beat Purdue today. Too many turnovers Boilers! THAT should be fix number one! Hunter wasn't very good either, nor was TKR. Furst played great. Our 3 pt. shooting & 3 pt. defense must improve. Bench was good, & I hope this loss woke up Painter & the team? Fix turnovers & 3 pt. shooting. Rebounding could improve as well.
It's better than the alternative
Kept On Truckin'
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No doubt. My version of hell was actually very satisfying in that I was helping to build great things. The “hell” part of it was facing hard times and I realized I could surmount those. Later on it lead me to start my own business which made my life secure. Everyone finds their own path.
I think we grow the most when we overcome (or learn how to deal with) challenges, hard times, and bad hands. Sometimes, these are our own doing. But even that doesn't mean they are not growth opportunities - not matter how long it takes us to overcome them.
Case in point is a friend of mine from childhood:
Amazon product ASIN 1619613743
Khalil was the annoying kid, several years younger, who was always getting into trouble, pestering us older kids, etc. Little did we know he was being beaten at home, and was then molested by the coach we all thought was the coolest guy ever. Khalil then became a crack and heroin addict, living on skid row.
He's now a multimillionaire business owner.
Meet the juice mogul who went from homeless addict to millionaire
Khalil Rafati, 46, is the founder of the SunLife Organics chain in Los Angeles, where he has opened up six different locations in five short years. But he was once a homeless convicted felon.
I know you are from Washington and so I wonder if you know the roofing contractor whose son was a great athlete and a coach in the area in the 60s..70s. Anyways, the story goes the Father was enjoying life at one of Montgomery’s finest and decided to call it quits a few minutes before daybreak. When he arrived at the homestead.. approaching form the west, looking east , the sun was burning up his house. He called the locals with a house on fire alert.
Working in a foundry as it was unbelievably hot and dirty even in the winter, this was my working through school job to finish my degree. I worked for two years 10PM to 6AM then a short nap and off to classes. It was a tough physical job under a tough schedule. Dealing with molten iron standing a very near to iron near 3,000 degrees. The most dangerous part was standing on the rim of a cauldron using a sledge hammer to keep it open for trams to pour more molten metal in. Your foot was inches away from the molten metal and if you missed with the sledge hammer you likely would fall in the molten metal. We had one guy that had the handle of the sledge hammer rebound and catch him under the chin knocking him out. Fortunately he fell on the walkway and not in the cauldron. We often worked worked six days a week and I pulled double shifts at times to cover someone calling in sick on the day shift.
My best job was teaching and coaching football in the high school. There were things I didn't like but I love the students and the subjects I taught - Economics, U.S. History. I really helped because I loved coaching football at that level.
My best job was teaching and coaching football in the high school. There were things I didn't like but I love the students and the subjects I taught - Economics, U.S. History. I really helped because I loved coaching football at that level.
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VanPastorMan
Hall of Famer
Now you're on here spreading manure..... just kidding... couldn't pass up that opening.
I never did haul hog manure but did plenty of horse and cow manure so I don't know how they compare. Such heavenly aromas.
Did you use it as fertilizer on your garden or corn fields?
Not in the gardens but would then spread it with our New Idea manure spreader which was a real interesting contraption.Now you're on here spreading manure..... just kidding... couldn't pass up that opening.
I never did haul hog manure but did plenty of horse and cow manure so I don't know how they compare. Such heavenly aromas.
Ahhh, to be young again. Busting ass for no other reason than to get money with which to chase girls and acquire beer.
Neither of which was particularly easy to acquire, but well worth the effort. 😍
The most underappreciated people on earth, are teachers & cops!
To be a good/effective teacher/cop, you must wear many hats, & the job doesn't always stop when 5 pm/quitting time comes.
'A teacher's/cop's work is never done'
They used to be greatly admired professions even though neither is paid particularly well.
Yeah we had a manure spreader that was pulled behind a tractorNot in the gardens but would then spread it with our New Idea manure spreader which was a real interesting contraption.
Easy. Telemarketing. I sat through two weeks of training, and on my first day, I made a sale to some poor old guy who really didn't understand what I was saying or why I was ripping him off. The tricks I learned about how that industry works still eat at my soul.
After my first sale, my boss came out and congratulated me and all my coworkers cheered for me. I felt like I was being congratulated for becoming a Satanist.
I never showed up the next day. My only other time in that building was two weeks later to pick up my only paycheck. It's, as far as I remember, the only job I simply walked away from without even a courtesy phone call. And I didn't have the money to pay rent that month. I was literally willing to pack my shit in the middle of the night and show up on the parents' doorstep the next morning than do that again.
After my first sale, my boss came out and congratulated me and all my coworkers cheered for me. I felt like I was being congratulated for becoming a Satanist.
I never showed up the next day. My only other time in that building was two weeks later to pick up my only paycheck. It's, as far as I remember, the only job I simply walked away from without even a courtesy phone call. And I didn't have the money to pay rent that month. I was literally willing to pack my shit in the middle of the night and show up on the parents' doorstep the next morning than do that again.
I hesitate to name persons but the son was the coach that preceded Joe T at Barr-Reeve/Montgomery/Alfordsville
pre-consolidation. He later coached at WC. The son was an excellent athlete. My father and I attended a Grays game at the Washington diamond located adjacent to the YMCA (that’s a whole another thread) and the son stole home against some petty good competition. I think he played at an OVC school….Austin Peay, or Murray State.
l
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The summer after my freshman year, I went down to Alabama where my parents had moved a few months back. First temp job there was building greenhouses. The process involved digging 2' diameter, 5' deep holes in the red Alabama mud and then moving the greenhouse "spines" (2" metal pipe in a 20' half circle) into the holes, then refilling / packing. This was late June / early July and it was sunny and about 102 degrees. Even with gloves on, those spines would burn your flesh because they had been sitting in the sun all afternoon. I lasted about a week.
Honorable mention: Working in the college dining hall dish room. Although the dishes are cleaned by a big steam dish washing machine, you still had to pre-clean them. That residence hall had a system where you were brought the trays with dirty dishes and they had this sink with fast flowing water jetting across and you dipped the plates down into it to rinse off the majority of uneaten food / crap that was still on them. While the system was fairly affective at getting the crap off the plates, the jetting water was recycled, as in, by the end of the shift the water was this nasty pink color and smelled like the devil's butthole. The worst though was at the end of the day, you had to clean out the machine. You see, that recycled water was run through a filter to pull out all of the chicken bones, half-eaten green beans, and whatever god-awful things had ended up going through it (a surprising amount of retainers and more than a few earrings, for example...). I suspect it is just about the same experience as those in the posts above talking about cleaning the grease trap. Now, in fairness, it did give me a certain fortitude though. As a result of those days, I can literally stick my arm in raw sewage right now without blinking an eye. After having to do that job once a week for a year, there is nothing that can every gross me out every again.
Honorable mention: Working in the college dining hall dish room. Although the dishes are cleaned by a big steam dish washing machine, you still had to pre-clean them. That residence hall had a system where you were brought the trays with dirty dishes and they had this sink with fast flowing water jetting across and you dipped the plates down into it to rinse off the majority of uneaten food / crap that was still on them. While the system was fairly affective at getting the crap off the plates, the jetting water was recycled, as in, by the end of the shift the water was this nasty pink color and smelled like the devil's butthole. The worst though was at the end of the day, you had to clean out the machine. You see, that recycled water was run through a filter to pull out all of the chicken bones, half-eaten green beans, and whatever god-awful things had ended up going through it (a surprising amount of retainers and more than a few earrings, for example...). I suspect it is just about the same experience as those in the posts above talking about cleaning the grease trap. Now, in fairness, it did give me a certain fortitude though. As a result of those days, I can literally stick my arm in raw sewage right now without blinking an eye. After having to do that job once a week for a year, there is nothing that can every gross me out every again.
Summer job at Regal Rugs. Eventually on 3rd shift. Stacking hot rugs coming off a conveyer belt where the rubber backing was baked on. My hands were so sore and burned. Many Lucille Ball moments as they rushed the rugs to break the new guy. Worse than baling hay, stacking it in the barn, corn detassling, chopping out volunteer corn or Johnson grass by hand with machetes, milking cows at 6AM, or any other job I had.
