One of my very first and very short lived jobs was attempting to sell cutlery door to door.
"Hello. I was hoping you might have a few moments to allow me to show you my very sharp knives. May I come in?"
My only sale was to an older gentleman who answered the door smelling of beer and swaying slightly side to side. I would show him a specific knife and tell him it's purpose and then he'd slam his hand down on the table and say "I'll take it!" He ended up buying a complete set with extras.
Midnight to 7am shift on the sorting line at a tomato canning factory. I was viewed with pity and scorn since I was the oldest unmarried woman. I was 19. I got my sorry ass back to college the next semester.
I am not making this up (I wish I could make up something this funny.) I wanted to work when I was fifteen, but legally couldn't in Texas. So, I got an off-the-books job as a ranch-hand (read:yard-slave.) The pay was $15 per day (this was 1994!) Highlights:
1. I couldn't drive, so I was stuck there until my father arrived. one day my boss took me to his front lawn and told me to remove one of the 2 types of grass that made up the yard while he got ready to go to a party. It was 1:30 and there seemed to be more grass to remove than to keep.
2. Picking rocks out of a field. If you don't know the Texas Hill Country well, the ground has more rocks than dirt.
3. Standing on my boss' roof with a rope tied at one end around a tree branch, and at the other end around my waist. The job: I was supposed to keep the tree from hitting a nearby window on the house. The catch: I was fifteen and the portion of the branch to be cut clearly outweighed me. The result: I fell, was dragged to the edge of the roof, and the window broke. At least I didn't fall off the roof.
My first job was at McDonald's, during the summer after my junior year in high school. I really don't know what I was thinking when I took the job. I just wanted to make a little cash and keep myself from getting bored over the summer. As a 17 year-old vegetarian, McDonald's was not a pleasant environment. I would stand all day in polyester pants, taking orders from hungry, frustrated customers with loud, cranky children, serve hundreds pale grey burgers and limp french fries, then come home at the end of a 6-hour shift smelling like grease--all for $4.25/hour minus taxes. I lasted 8 weeks. I have never had another food service job and hopefully, I never will. I always try to be extra nice and make friendly conversation with restaurant workers, because I know how they probably feel.
I was a telemarketer for a security system company for one week. The only people who would listen were elderly folks, and then I felt like I was taking advantage because they were so lonely. I had one guy tell me he couldn't talk because he was, um, "in an intimate moment" (my words, definitely not his) with his girlfriend. "You must be having a really good time if you're answering the phone," was my response!
That was the worst week of my life, and I'm much nicer to telemarketers now because of it!
Cocktail waitress for an all nude strip club off of Harry Hines in Dallas. If you know Dallas, you know that Harry Hines is a.k.a. Prostitute Row. Lots of unsavory characters. I needed quick money (was in a car accident that was my fault). At least I kept MOST of my pride and didn't strip!
i bought a lawn mower at sears it was marked 99.99 at register it rang up at 199.99 next day i talked to manager she it was a human error and would not sell it for 99.99 as marked is she wrong
Last summer I kept the A/C off as long as I could stand it and several pieces of furniture developed mold (as well as shoes, purses...). Gack! So I'm not going to those extremes this summer.
Ceiling fans are great -- but turn them off if you aren't in the room. Moving the air with a fan doesn't lower the temperature, it just makes YOU feel cooler. If you aren't in the room to enjoy it, it only wastes energy.
Right out of college I got a job answering calls into a tech center which quickly turned into constant pulling of voicemail all day long. That wasn't so bad, it was listening to the male chauvinistic supervisor. He would sit there all day and berate the females working there as ignorant and not worth more than to cook and clean and do his dirty work. Luckily I only worked there 2.5 months before I took my current job.
I started working for Morgan Stanley in their financial advisor program at 22yrs old in 2003. Cold Calling people to try to get them to invest with me, a kid with no experience, during a recession.
My worst job was working as a clerk in a country western store... in northern MINNESOTA... forced to listen to country music all day, usually hit on by sleezy old guys who though they were cowboys, and hardly ever selling anything.
The owner of the store decided to break her lease at the mall so she could move to a new (cheaper) location, and forced her employees to help her sneak all of her merchandise out of the mall store in the middle night.
Toward the end of my tenure there, the owner was having trouble making payroll, so she started paying us in merchandise. But who needs chaps? or bolo ties? Let's just say I had a lot of jeans in my closet for a long time.
My worst job was working for an answering service. I wasn't told until the 2nd day on the job that after 6:00 p.m., we were taking orders for a pornographic video company. Around 6:05 we would get flooded by calls for this. Most patrons would just give us the product numbers, their personal information and be done with it. However, every so often I would get someone who wanted to discuss the material.
At the same time, we would get calls for a rape crisis hotline. Being a man, the callers would (understandably) usually hang up on me when I answered. I made an agreement with my co-workers (all female) that they could transfer the videotape sales calls to me, and I would send them the hotline calls.
I learned this lesson the hard way. I bought a lot of storage containers for all of my stuff before I finally realized that what I needed wasn't more storage "solutions" but to deal with my clutter problem.
After I downsized, I celebrated by giving away some of my now-empty storage containers on my blog (some of them went to a woman who was moving and said she'd pass them on after she was settled). I do have some storage containers, but just enough for what I now have. I haven't forgotten what I learned. And I haven't bought anything at the Container Store!
When I was 16, a neighbor gave me a job transferring a huge pile of firewood from one end of his lot to another location. The first day, I had to cut vines away to get to the pile. Guess what? Poison Ivy. Next, I had to carry a few pieces at a time thru his garden to get to the next location. No, I could not use a wheelbarrow or wagon. At one end of the firewood stack, I got into a nest of ants...mean,biting ants. With ant bites and poison ivy blisters, I trudged on for almost a week until I completed the project. Being a kid, I wasn't smart enough to negotiate up front the price I would be paid, so I ended up getting a whopping $40 for a week's work. That barely paid for the calamine lotion and the first aid spray for the bites and blisters.
... 3 letters... KFC! at 14 years old I was a cashier at KFC. The smell of the fried chicken would stick to my clothes, my hair, and wouldnt go away even after washing!
My worst job was my first job...I delivered telephone books during the summer. It was the most boring job ever. I'd have to drive the car and stop every few feet to reach a few houses and then walk back to car and drive a few feet ahead and do it all over again.
I knew the afternoon of my first day at XXX law firm that I was doomed.
To start, it wasn't 'til after I signed on that I learned in the 12 years my boss worked at the firm, she had had 20 assistants -- only one lasted more than 6 months.
Also, the "occasional overtime" mentioned during the interview process? Was actually a minimum of two nights a week ('til 8 or 9pm), every week.
And in the winter, our building would turn off the heat at 6pm, regardless of whether anyone was still in the office.
Yep -- it was fun.
It took me 7 1/2 excruciatingly long months to find a new position. On my last day, the CFO and the CTO took me out for drinks to celebrate my new job and confessed that when they heard that my boss had hired (yet another) new assistant, they actually made a bet as to how long the new person would/could last.
I had my debit information taken and, I believe, a bogus card created. I found out on Sunday morning when I tried to use my check card and it was denied. Somebody had used up my checking account the prior evening at the Mall of America. They also paid for gas (at the pump!) but I had my check card so they must have created the card.
I went directly to the bank and filed the Reg E and filled out the written information and signed. They told me it would take 7-10 days to fix and get my money back. Since then, I've had $525 in overdraft fees and the bank has waived, on their own, all but $175. They said that after the investigation, the $175 will be put back in my account. I'll have another $105 tonight so I'll need to wait for that too.
After calling the bank again, I found out that a provisional credit will be issued within 5 days while they investigate. I submitted the paperwork on Sunday so my day count starts Monday and I should have this money by Friday. They said to call back on Thursday so they can verify that it is showing to post to my account. After the investigation is considered closed (up to 90 days), I will receive all the overdraft charges back.
Is the 5 days accurate or is it always 10 days? Does this all sound legit?
Being rather enterprising from a young age - I was always looking for ways to make money - I was willing to put in hard work as long as I saw the reward (or at least I thought I was).
Imagine my perceived good fortune when I saw an ad in the paper for "Light Setup Workers Needed for one day job". This was it, this was how I was going to earn that extra money and buy the latest object of my affection. I called the number on the ad, and the guy on the other end said to show up at 8am on Saturday. Easy enough.
Perhaps it bears mentioning that I was 14 at the time, legally unable to work in most states and provinces. Also being under 16 meant I had to take the bus to my one day "contract" job.
So there I was, 8am at the "jobsite" staring at all the others who had answered the ad, all rough looking gentleman clearly all older than I.
Turns out we had been recruited to setup grandstands and a stage for the Circus that was coming to town. Perhaps it was because I was a puny teenager or perhaps it was just because I wasn’t cut out for manual labour, but I left at 5pm with some nominal sum of money in my hand and was absolutely exhausted.
My hands were calloused, I was dripping sweat, and my clothes were dirty. I looked liked I was homeless - as I hopped on the bus to go home I vowed never to work for the circus again.
I was forced to wear a short, tight uniform and sell door-to-door for hours on end in dodgy neighborhoods that had chain link fences, beware-of-dog signs, and hairy men answering the door in wife-beaters.
So maybe I was nine, and I was selling cookies. I sold over three hundred boxes. This is back in the early eighties when there was no such thing as you mom and dad bringing the sign-up sheet to work with them.
I had to then deliver all three-hundred boxes... on foot. I was Brownie of the year that year. All I got for it was a stuffed animal.
A temporary job proofing checks in a bank where we were not supposed to talk or get up from our desk except for the orchestrated, timed breaks. Mind-numbing and totalitarian, like a rat in a cage. I only lasted 1 week...
my worst job was working at Project Vote Smart, which is a great organization on paper but is run by an insane egomaniac. When I finally got up the gumption to quit he threw a book at me!
Second worst was telephone surveyor. Not quite as bad as telemarketing but almost. You get yelled at and hung up on hundreds of times a day. Once a guy told me I woke up his baby and then let the baby scream into the phone. Fun times.
This article is great! I was planning on buying a Dyson in the next two months- after reading this, I will continue buying the cheapo vacuum and plan on buying a new one every two years as I have always done!
One of my very first and very short lived jobs was attempting to sell cutlery door to door.
"Hello. I was hoping you might have a few moments to allow me to show you my very sharp knives. May I come in?"
My only sale was to an older gentleman who answered the door smelling of beer and swaying slightly side to side. I would show him a specific knife and tell him it's purpose and then he'd slam his hand down on the table and say "I'll take it!" He ended up buying a complete set with extras.
Midnight to 7am shift on the sorting line at a tomato canning factory. I was viewed with pity and scorn since I was the oldest unmarried woman. I was 19. I got my sorry ass back to college the next semester.
I am not making this up (I wish I could make up something this funny.) I wanted to work when I was fifteen, but legally couldn't in Texas. So, I got an off-the-books job as a ranch-hand (read:yard-slave.) The pay was $15 per day (this was 1994!) Highlights:
1. I couldn't drive, so I was stuck there until my father arrived. one day my boss took me to his front lawn and told me to remove one of the 2 types of grass that made up the yard while he got ready to go to a party. It was 1:30 and there seemed to be more grass to remove than to keep.
2. Picking rocks out of a field. If you don't know the Texas Hill Country well, the ground has more rocks than dirt.
3. Standing on my boss' roof with a rope tied at one end around a tree branch, and at the other end around my waist. The job: I was supposed to keep the tree from hitting a nearby window on the house. The catch: I was fifteen and the portion of the branch to be cut clearly outweighed me. The result: I fell, was dragged to the edge of the roof, and the window broke. At least I didn't fall off the roof.
I spent a summer cleaning hotel rooms for minimum wage. It was a hotel that allowed animals. You would be surprised at what people did to those rooms!
Dog poop, mystery food ground into the carpet, stray hairs in the toilet that I had to wipe off...it was gross.
PS Hotels don't wash the comforters on a regular basis.
My first job was at McDonald's, during the summer after my junior year in high school. I really don't know what I was thinking when I took the job. I just wanted to make a little cash and keep myself from getting bored over the summer. As a 17 year-old vegetarian, McDonald's was not a pleasant environment. I would stand all day in polyester pants, taking orders from hungry, frustrated customers with loud, cranky children, serve hundreds pale grey burgers and limp french fries, then come home at the end of a 6-hour shift smelling like grease--all for $4.25/hour minus taxes. I lasted 8 weeks. I have never had another food service job and hopefully, I never will. I always try to be extra nice and make friendly conversation with restaurant workers, because I know how they probably feel.
I was a telemarketer for a security system company for one week. The only people who would listen were elderly folks, and then I felt like I was taking advantage because they were so lonely. I had one guy tell me he couldn't talk because he was, um, "in an intimate moment" (my words, definitely not his) with his girlfriend. "You must be having a really good time if you're answering the phone," was my response!
That was the worst week of my life, and I'm much nicer to telemarketers now because of it!
Cocktail waitress for an all nude strip club off of Harry Hines in Dallas. If you know Dallas, you know that Harry Hines is a.k.a. Prostitute Row. Lots of unsavory characters. I needed quick money (was in a car accident that was my fault). At least I kept MOST of my pride and didn't strip!
i bought a lawn mower at sears it was marked 99.99 at register it rang up at 199.99 next day i talked to manager she it was a human error and would not sell it for 99.99 as marked is she wrong
Last summer I kept the A/C off as long as I could stand it and several pieces of furniture developed mold (as well as shoes, purses...). Gack! So I'm not going to those extremes this summer.
Ceiling fans are great -- but turn them off if you aren't in the room. Moving the air with a fan doesn't lower the temperature, it just makes YOU feel cooler. If you aren't in the room to enjoy it, it only wastes energy.
Right out of college I got a job answering calls into a tech center which quickly turned into constant pulling of voicemail all day long. That wasn't so bad, it was listening to the male chauvinistic supervisor. He would sit there all day and berate the females working there as ignorant and not worth more than to cook and clean and do his dirty work. Luckily I only worked there 2.5 months before I took my current job.
I started working for Morgan Stanley in their financial advisor program at 22yrs old in 2003. Cold Calling people to try to get them to invest with me, a kid with no experience, during a recession.
TERRIBLE!
My worst job was working as a clerk in a country western store... in northern MINNESOTA... forced to listen to country music all day, usually hit on by sleezy old guys who though they were cowboys, and hardly ever selling anything.
The owner of the store decided to break her lease at the mall so she could move to a new (cheaper) location, and forced her employees to help her sneak all of her merchandise out of the mall store in the middle night.
Toward the end of my tenure there, the owner was having trouble making payroll, so she started paying us in merchandise. But who needs chaps? or bolo ties? Let's just say I had a lot of jeans in my closet for a long time.
Horrible job.
My worst job was working for an answering service. I wasn't told until the 2nd day on the job that after 6:00 p.m., we were taking orders for a pornographic video company. Around 6:05 we would get flooded by calls for this. Most patrons would just give us the product numbers, their personal information and be done with it. However, every so often I would get someone who wanted to discuss the material.
At the same time, we would get calls for a rape crisis hotline. Being a man, the callers would (understandably) usually hang up on me when I answered. I made an agreement with my co-workers (all female) that they could transfer the videotape sales calls to me, and I would send them the hotline calls.
One summer during college I found out I was the WWW (Worst Waitress in the World)
On top of that, the restaurant constantly ran out of the basics, like chicken. It was up to me to deliver the bad news to the customers.
One evening, I cut my hand open on a broken glass. I had to get stitches.
Then my employer sent me the bill for the stitches. Apparently they forgot about Worker's Compensation.
And days later they told me I owed them $90 because I didn't balance the cash register that night. I reminded them I was too busy bleeding.
Good Times!
I learned this lesson the hard way. I bought a lot of storage containers for all of my stuff before I finally realized that what I needed wasn't more storage "solutions" but to deal with my clutter problem.
After I downsized, I celebrated by giving away some of my now-empty storage containers on my blog (some of them went to a woman who was moving and said she'd pass them on after she was settled). I do have some storage containers, but just enough for what I now have. I haven't forgotten what I learned. And I haven't bought anything at the Container Store!
Naomi @ Simpler Living
When I was 16, a neighbor gave me a job transferring a huge pile of firewood from one end of his lot to another location. The first day, I had to cut vines away to get to the pile. Guess what? Poison Ivy. Next, I had to carry a few pieces at a time thru his garden to get to the next location. No, I could not use a wheelbarrow or wagon. At one end of the firewood stack, I got into a nest of ants...mean,biting ants. With ant bites and poison ivy blisters, I trudged on for almost a week until I completed the project. Being a kid, I wasn't smart enough to negotiate up front the price I would be paid, so I ended up getting a whopping $40 for a week's work. That barely paid for the calamine lotion and the first aid spray for the bites and blisters.
... 3 letters... KFC! at 14 years old I was a cashier at KFC. The smell of the fried chicken would stick to my clothes, my hair, and wouldnt go away even after washing!
My worst job was my first job...I delivered telephone books during the summer. It was the most boring job ever. I'd have to drive the car and stop every few feet to reach a few houses and then walk back to car and drive a few feet ahead and do it all over again.
I knew the afternoon of my first day at XXX law firm that I was doomed.
To start, it wasn't 'til after I signed on that I learned in the 12 years my boss worked at the firm, she had had 20 assistants -- only one lasted more than 6 months.
Also, the "occasional overtime" mentioned during the interview process? Was actually a minimum of two nights a week ('til 8 or 9pm), every week.
And in the winter, our building would turn off the heat at 6pm, regardless of whether anyone was still in the office.
Yep -- it was fun.
It took me 7 1/2 excruciatingly long months to find a new position. On my last day, the CFO and the CTO took me out for drinks to celebrate my new job and confessed that when they heard that my boss had hired (yet another) new assistant, they actually made a bet as to how long the new person would/could last.
Still gives me shivers to think about it. . .
I had my debit information taken and, I believe, a bogus card created. I found out on Sunday morning when I tried to use my check card and it was denied. Somebody had used up my checking account the prior evening at the Mall of America. They also paid for gas (at the pump!) but I had my check card so they must have created the card.
I went directly to the bank and filed the Reg E and filled out the written information and signed. They told me it would take 7-10 days to fix and get my money back. Since then, I've had $525 in overdraft fees and the bank has waived, on their own, all but $175. They said that after the investigation, the $175 will be put back in my account. I'll have another $105 tonight so I'll need to wait for that too.
After calling the bank again, I found out that a provisional credit will be issued within 5 days while they investigate. I submitted the paperwork on Sunday so my day count starts Monday and I should have this money by Friday. They said to call back on Thursday so they can verify that it is showing to post to my account. After the investigation is considered closed (up to 90 days), I will receive all the overdraft charges back.
Is the 5 days accurate or is it always 10 days? Does this all sound legit?
Thanks!
Being rather enterprising from a young age - I was always looking for ways to make money - I was willing to put in hard work as long as I saw the reward (or at least I thought I was).
Imagine my perceived good fortune when I saw an ad in the paper for "Light Setup Workers Needed for one day job". This was it, this was how I was going to earn that extra money and buy the latest object of my affection. I called the number on the ad, and the guy on the other end said to show up at 8am on Saturday. Easy enough.
Perhaps it bears mentioning that I was 14 at the time, legally unable to work in most states and provinces. Also being under 16 meant I had to take the bus to my one day "contract" job.
So there I was, 8am at the "jobsite" staring at all the others who had answered the ad, all rough looking gentleman clearly all older than I.
Turns out we had been recruited to setup grandstands and a stage for the Circus that was coming to town. Perhaps it was because I was a puny teenager or perhaps it was just because I wasn’t cut out for manual labour, but I left at 5pm with some nominal sum of money in my hand and was absolutely exhausted.
My hands were calloused, I was dripping sweat, and my clothes were dirty. I looked liked I was homeless - as I hopped on the bus to go home I vowed never to work for the circus again.
I have been successful thus far.
I was forced to wear a short, tight uniform and sell door-to-door for hours on end in dodgy neighborhoods that had chain link fences, beware-of-dog signs, and hairy men answering the door in wife-beaters.
So maybe I was nine, and I was selling cookies. I sold over three hundred boxes. This is back in the early eighties when there was no such thing as you mom and dad bringing the sign-up sheet to work with them.
I had to then deliver all three-hundred boxes... on foot. I was Brownie of the year that year. All I got for it was a stuffed animal.
I have hated sales positions ever since.
A temporary job proofing checks in a bank where we were not supposed to talk or get up from our desk except for the orchestrated, timed breaks. Mind-numbing and totalitarian, like a rat in a cage. I only lasted 1 week...
Sandy
my worst job was working at Project Vote Smart, which is a great organization on paper but is run by an insane egomaniac. When I finally got up the gumption to quit he threw a book at me!
Second worst was telephone surveyor. Not quite as bad as telemarketing but almost. You get yelled at and hung up on hundreds of times a day. Once a guy told me I woke up his baby and then let the baby scream into the phone. Fun times.
This article is great! I was planning on buying a Dyson in the next two months- after reading this, I will continue buying the cheapo vacuum and plan on buying a new one every two years as I have always done!