I've had 3 different jobs over the years, none of which were a picnic. I used to work as a farmhand, but I stopped doing this within the last year because I was getting hurt much too often. Concussions, broken bones, dislocated joints, etc., I just didn't want to completely wreck my body before I turned 21. Still, most farmers I worked for were really great people and I made decent money. Picked up a lot of skills in the agricultural field if I ever want to become a farmer.
Second job I had was working for a waste management company, collecting and disposing liquid waste. Basically I cleaned out septic tanks and grease tanks. You'd think it was a terrible job, but once you got passed the smell and long hours, I got paid to sit in a truck, my boss was a really great guy (went out of his way to give you a day off if you requested one, within reason of course), and everyone I worked with were characters.
However, by far the worst job I've held so far was working overnight freight at Home Depot. We had 4 guys, only 2 of which are certified to drive the forklifts, hauling upwards of 10-20 tons of freight every night for 8 hours without a break or lunch (it's not like we're not given those, but we'd skip them to finish our work on time), covering for our evening freight team (who don't do half of their work most of the time because they are covering for the day team who can't do their work because they have to deal with the customers), with a boss who bitched like crazy because HER boss is an asshole. We'd break our backs putting up hundred pound lengths of wood or concrete, swapping out mulch and topsoil, stacking pavestone one by one, and then spend 3-4 hours cleaning the store down to every little detail, just for it to be destroyed in less than an hour after the customers start showing up. It took me 6 hours to pressure wash the outside garden section and the front of the store, but the customers would always track mud and grime throughout the spotless floors and have it looking like it did again before I come in the next night. It's nothing but walking, running, hauling and lifting sometimes hundreds of pounds of merchandise for 8 straight hours which leaves you broken and tired by the end of the day, only for your boss to get pissed at you for missing that tiny pile of sawdust behind the display no one looks behind before going home, sleeping for 9 hours, and then waking up and doing it over again 4 more times... all for the glorious wage of 8 bucks an hour without overtime pay. This was all before Home Depot cut my hours to 5 a night, while at the same time increasing my workload because they let go most of the evening freight team. My supervisor then started to get on my ass about working faster because I couldn't keep up by hand what he was doing by machine, namely stacking the beams and planks in lumber he was doing with the forklift.
It was a real thankless job because no one knew we did it, and we got absolutely no benefits. I didn't even have the traditional 5% employee discount on the steel rebar that sliced my finger open through my glove and forced me to get a tetanus shot right after refusing to give me the day off on the day of my grandmother's funeral. Then they went and terminated me, and only me, a month and a half before my scheduled termination date, only telling me 3 days prior, because they were eliminating overnights. I was the one they let go because I was the only one there who "supposedly" didn't have any expenses that needed to be paid, despite the fact I continuously told my supervisor and boss that I needed to job to pay off a $5,000 student loan I was backed up on. I absolutely hated working there.
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