Best and Worst Jobs Stories

[Benji91]

It's nothing compared to a lot of people's experiences, but it's still pretty fresh and I'll always be pissed off at how this all went down...

So, a bit of background, I'm a trained animal handler - primarily canines (dingoes, in my homeland), small marsupials and non-venomous snakes. I've mainly worked with rescues and have done a little training with dingoes and domestic dogs.

Before I moved out to Canada I applied for a job as a handler at a wildlife conservation centre and was accepted for the job (which came with a place to live and decent pay). I did plenty of research about the centre before I moved, all seemed okay. I was going to be working directly with animals, wolves, that'd I'd had a minor obsession with since I was a kid.

I arrive in Vancouver to email advising me to buy a 4X4 with a bit of clearance so I did, the reason why was because I needed to go offroading to get to the shitty old trailer I was living in...which is fine, but they'd had three months to let me know before I landed. Having to dig a car out of clay/mud every morning is a massive pain in the arse.

Anyways, what really pissed me off was the lies. It was NOTHING like they told me. The closest I got to the animals was topping up their water and I was told that's how it was going to be. I was mainly doing administrative and grounds-keeping work which, again, would have been fine but that's not what I signed up for. As well as this, I was getting paid well under minimum wage. Busting my arse shoveling snow, cutting roots out of driveways and using a bunch of unfamiliar, potentially dangerous equipment with no training for $fuck all an hour is less than ideal.

On top of that the boss was a piece of shit.
Upon first meeting her she starting complaining and talking smack about the other workers, then went on some tangent discrediting trained biologists/ecologists (hey kids, guess what I'm looking at going back to school to become). Just acted like a passive-aggressive bully.

There's also a lot of differing opinions about treatment of wildlife, and I believe how they treated a lot of the animals was not great for them physiologically...and that weighed on me. Not saying I'm right and they're wrong, something just felt very off.

I'm ranting, because I needed to a good rant. I know this doesn't sound like much, but I'm just bitterly disappointed with how it all turned out. It was the first time in my life I thought I had an in to be able to do what I want to do with my life AND get paid properly for it (making a living that makes me feel a live, it's a nice thought).

Fuck it, hunger for profit, lack of knowledge and conservation don't mix.

I left there a couple months ago and am stuck working graveyard shift with a shitty hotel job for the summer...but I'll be back on the road in six weeks or so. See y'all at Jambo.

tl;dr - people suck, bosses suck, trust no-one and always have a contingency plan.

...if anyone in North America has connections for work/volunteer positions with animals hit a dude up.

Can't be arsed proofreading that so sorry if it's too long/makes no sense.

<3

 

[roughdraft]

It's nothing compared to a lot of people's experiences.......

Fuck it, hunger for profit, lack of knowledge and conservation don't mix.

being coerced into buying an expensive vehicle, lied to not only about pay but the actual tasks of the job? and coming from Australia to Canada for that? weird boss with mismanaged ego is a downer but with all considered - I'd say that's exceptionally notable for the fucked up job hall of shame.....

 

[Billy Cougar White]

I showed up on Hornby island with $10 to my name on a hitching trip. I went to the local campground because I had heard they might need some help. They told me I could stay there in exchange for an hr of help every day, so I said hell yeah! when they saw my tent had no fly or tarp they put me put me up in a nice RV they had on the property, so there i was with a nice home base, for only an hr per day. twice when I wanted food and beer, I went to the local pub, and offered my dishwashing services in exchange for food. I covered for the other dishwasher(washed dishes for a half hr/45 min) and was given a veggie burger(i'm a vegetarian), fries, and beers. It was a great week.

 

[Sleipnir]

hey bud i starte to tell my story but i got carried away. i made a new thread. on this same forum if you would like to read, go ahead, i enjoyed your story @Benji91

 

[jeep1985]

hi benji91,my name is mauri,i am from italy living in mexico,we never wrote each other,actually i just register 10 minutes ago,i did because i read the forum about fruit picking in canada,i really would like to know if there is any way to help me to find a good farm that can hire me.......or if you think that i can get for sure a job just showing up to okanagan valley hoping to find some farms that hires people…..any suggestion please??

 

[jeep1985]

It's nothing compared to a lot of people's experiences, but it's still pretty fresh and I'll always be pissed off at how this all went down...

So, a bit of background, I'm a trained animal handler - primarily canines (dingoes, in my homeland), small marsupials and non-venomous snakes. I've mainly worked with rescues and have done a little training with dingoes and domestic dogs.

Before I moved out to Canada I applied for a job as a handler at a wildlife conservation centre and was accepted for the job (which came with a place to live and decent pay). I did plenty of research about the centre before I moved, all seemed okay. I was going to be working directly with animals, wolves, that'd I'd had a minor obsession with since I was a kid.

I arrive in Vancouver to email advising me to buy a 4X4 with a bit of clearance so I did, the reason why was because I needed to go offroading to get to the shitty old trailer I was living in...which is fine, but they'd had three months to let me know before I landed. Having to dig a car out of clay/mud every morning is a massive pain in the arse.

Anyways, what really pissed me off was the lies. It was NOTHING like they told me. The closest I got to the animals was topping up their water and I was told that's how it was going to be. I was mainly doing administrative and grounds-keeping work which, again, would have been fine but that's not what I signed up for. As well as this, I was getting paid well under minimum wage. Busting my arse shoveling snow, cutting roots out of driveways and using a bunch of unfamiliar, potentially dangerous equipment with no training for $fuck all an hour is less than ideal.

On top of that the boss was a piece of shit.
Upon first meeting her she starting complaining and talking smack about the other workers, then went on some tangent discrediting trained biologists/ecologists (hey kids, guess what I'm looking at going back to school to become). Just acted like a passive-aggressive bully.

There's also a lot of differing opinions about treatment of wildlife, and I believe how they treated a lot of the animals was not great for them physiologically...and that weighed on me. Not saying I'm right and they're wrong, something just felt very off.

I'm ranting, because I needed to a good rant. I know this doesn't sound like much, but I'm just bitterly disappointed with how it all turned out. It was the first time in my life I thought I had an in to be able to do what I want to do with my life AND get paid properly for it (making a living that makes me feel a live, it's a nice thought).

Fuck it, hunger for profit, lack of knowledge and conservation don't mix.

I left there a couple months ago and am stuck working graveyard shift with a shitty hotel job for the summer...but I'll be back on the road in six weeks or so. See y'all at Jambo.

tl;dr - people suck, bosses suck, trust no-one and always have a contingency plan.

...if anyone in North America has connections for work/volunteer positions with animals hit a dude up.

Can't be arsed proofreading that so sorry if it's too long/makes no sense.

<3

hi benji91,my name is mauri,i am from italy living in mexico,we never wrote each other,actually i just register 10 minutes ago,i did because i read the forum about fruit picking in canada,i really would like to know if there is any way to help me to find a good farm that can hire me.......or if you think that i can get for sure a job just showing up to okanagan valley hoping to find some farms that hires people…..any suggestion please??

 

[Benji91]

hi benji91,my name is mauri,i am from italy living in mexico,we never wrote each other,actually i just register 10 minutes ago,i did because i read the forum about fruit picking in canada,i really would like to know if there is any way to help me to find a good farm that can hire me.......or if you think that i can get for sure a job just showing up to okanagan valley hoping to find some farms that hires people…..any suggestion please??

Google and Indeed are your friends.
Okanogan is defs the place to look, I didn't work there or do any fruit picking..

 

[jeep1985]

thank you very much

Google and Indeed are your friends.
Okanogan is defs the place to look, I didn't work there or do any fruit picking..

 

[BridgeyMcBridgeface]

Mt. Rainier by far!!!!

I was working at the sunrise day lodge with 13 other people the hotel lodge on the other side of the mountain is better cuz there are like over 100 people working there. So anyway I got hired, rode the freight train from Spokane over to Seattle to get picked up. Arrived up there meet my boss Teri who was a retired school teacher and a few of the other people who first arrived, everything seemed cool at first.

Our staff was the manager Teri, a few girls and gals around my age and young kids from Taiwan here to learn English I got hired as a dishwasher even tho I had the only real kitchen experience on the mountain and paid the least. Teri worked as a server for 2 years 20 years prior to this and had no idea how to run a kitchen and my job turned into organizing the whole kitchen and showing them how to use the flat top grill. Needless to say the first few weeks after we opened was a complete horror show, language barriers, credit card machines not working cuz our phone lines kept going out, losing complete power but have to stay open cuz the grill worked on propane ect ect.

Sunrise day lodge is at over 6500 feet and a 3 1/2 hr drive to town so getting supplies like cigs and beer was a nightmare. I guess coming from the city and being use to just walking to the corner store kind of wore on me. Our first pay check I managed to finally get someone to take me to town and stocked up on like a Jim layhey amount of booze, mainly boxes of wine and half gals of vodka and a carton of cigs a couple cases of beer. Mind you I was thinking this should last me a month and a half, more like 2 weeks because I was sharing and it gets sooooo boorrrning up their. We had fooze ball, ping pong and a fairly decent movie collection, I taught the Taiwanese kids to play chess so that was fun. But any who hiking and board games only get so fun after a while.

After 2 and a half moths of this my boss was really getting on my nerves and I just stopped caring, ready to get back on the road to San Diego finally, plus I had caught walking pneumonia. Which I didn't know about tell after I got off the Mountain. Basically I woke up one morning coughing my lungs out, dizzy, hung over and Teri was like you should just goto detox you piece of crap blah blah just resign. We had a delivery truck out front I could catch a lift into town with so I was like okay fine I am leaving right now whatever Teri. So thats what I did, made my way to Oly got some meds and stayed at my cousins house for a week then hit Portland.

Guess it wasn't all that bad, made enough money to have fun all the way down to San Diego had some good laughs. I would not recommend spending your whole summer doing this tho.

 

[MidnightRider]

Best to worse

Successful Thief
Reverse Engineer(binary analysis(IDA and Ghidra and SoftIce and GDB and WinDBG etc..))
Software Engineer in the sports betting industry
Stuff using FAA private class license
Truck Driver(I've drove everything from three on the tree to a 18-speed spicer or Eaton and still have a Class A CDL with clean CSA&DAC)
Industrial Security Systems Installer(I did the server controlled CCTV and sensors for GM robot plants)
Yellow Cab Driver
Teamster Dock Worker

All while being a socially awkward misanthrope.. Also, you'd never believe any of this if you seen me.. This is also just in the US..

Long story short: I was one of those prodigies but didn't have a politically correct personality to fit in to society. I ride trains full time and don't have to fly a sign or get an employer, and have no bank accounts..

Got on my first train on the freight track that use to be behind the Marta station in Dekalb Atlanta decades ago and still find the economic-breeding culture disgusting..

 

[RobHASboots]

So I was in west virginny a few years back and got offered to work a bluegrass festival with my two friends. They weren't gonna pay us cash but let us camp, see the show, feed us and provide us with booze. In exchange we would help set up, break down and run security. My buddy Cory was the one who set the gig up, I'm not sure how he met these folks.

Anywho, we get to the property three or four days before the music started and I spent the day weed-whacking the perimeter of the property while Meri and Cory cut wood. The farm was fairly large but you could tell that these people weren't making it on cattle alone. Before we got to work one of the guys running the show made a joke about us not hurting ourselves and how they didn't have insurance but did have a wood chipper. Red flag number one.

After a long days work we begin to settle in and they cook up some steaks and break out the liquor. We were all tired from sweatin in the sun all day and were happy to eat a good meal and relax. The wife and son of one of the men joined us by the fire as we passed around a guitar and a jar of shine and as the weather cooled down, things were starting to look up. But yet; there was a palpable sense of tension in the air, as these were good ol' boy types and we were, for lack of a better term, homeless as fuck.

The two guys running the place started in on how we should be so grateful for the opportunity, seeing as we didn't even have a place to live or regular jobs. I didn't care enough to get into it with them but I guess Cory had enough of their indignant shit and told them something to the effect of "I'd rather go sleep under a fucking bridge than be spoken too in such a manner".

When one of the guys turns to his wife and says "bring the boy inside", there was no doubt in my mind that shit had in fact gone south.

Corey is now engaged in a full on yelling match with this guy and before I noticed he had left, his buddy comes back with a shotgun and a pistol and hands the pistol to the other guy. They proceed to yell at us for a few minutes and while this was not the first time I had a pistol in my face, this was the first time I was actually worried they were gonna pull the trigger. We were then escorted off the property with guns at our backs and I, being the most sober, had to drive Cory's van down the mountain.

I haven't seen Cory since then. If you're reading this, no hard feelings dude.

Gross.
Ancient gnostics would say that there is no sin, only ignorance.
Stoics would say that it isn't THE EVENT, but how we JUDGE the event.
I say Fuck Em.
Maybe one day they go to pull their guns, and some alert traveler already has his trained on them.
Life is so random. Death as well.

 

[Deleted member 24782]

I got jerked off by a drag queen in Chicago for $85 while watching really bad hard core porn. Yes, I WAS THE ONE THAT GOT PAID. Took forever to cum because I wasn't into it AT ALL.

 

[Deleted member 24782]

In terms of "real jobs" - the worst would be my first gig as a diesel mechanic in S. San Francisco. I was the total shop bitch and was the one who had to shovel out the sewer drain every time it got backed up with human shit from the tour bus bathrooms. It was nasty and it would always splash all over me, one time I got shit in my mouth.

-the best would be $32/hr at the Roseville diesel shop for Union Pacific. I have never been paid so much to do so little....

 

[WyldLyfe]

..........................................

 

[Deleted member 25220]

So I was in west virginny a few years back and got offered to work a bluegrass festival with my two friends. They weren't gonna pay us cash but let us camp, see the show, feed us and provide us with booze. In exchange we would help set up, break down and run security. My buddy Cory was the one who set the gig up, I'm not sure how he met these folks.

Anywho, we get to the property three or four days before the music started and I spent the day weed-whacking the perimeter of the property while Meri and Cory cut wood. The farm was fairly large but you could tell that these people weren't making it on cattle alone. Before we got to work one of the guys running the show made a joke about us not hurting ourselves and how they didn't have insurance but did have a wood chipper. Red flag number one.

After a long days work we begin to settle in and they cook up some steaks and break out the liquor. We were all tired from sweatin in the sun all day and were happy to eat a good meal and relax. The wife and son of one of the men joined us by the fire as we passed around a guitar and a jar of shine and as the weather cooled down, things were starting to look up. But yet; there was a palpable sense of tension in the air, as these were good ol' boy types and we were, for lack of a better term, homeless as fuck.

The two guys running the place started in on how we should be so grateful for the opportunity, seeing as we didn't even have a place to live or regular jobs. I didn't care enough to get into it with them but I guess Cory had enough of their indignant shit and told them something to the effect of "I'd rather go sleep under a fucking bridge than be spoken too in such a manner".

When one of the guys turns to his wife and says "bring the boy inside", there was no doubt in my mind that shit had in fact gone south.

Corey is now engaged in a full on yelling match with this guy and before I noticed he had left, his buddy comes back with a shotgun and a pistol and hands the pistol to the other guy. They proceed to yell at us for a few minutes and while this was not the first time I had a pistol in my face, this was the first time I was actually worried they were gonna pull the trigger. We were then escorted off the property with guns at our backs and I, being the most sober, had to drive Cory's van down the mountain.

I haven't seen Cory since then. If you're reading this, no hard feelings dude.

Welcome to West Virginia

 

[BradKajukenbo]

Best Job : My first real Job. Greco's Silk-Screening in Redding Ca. Small family owned. Great boss who is still a great friend. An hour before clock out, he would let one of us run to the store and get a six pack. As the dryers were cooling down we drank a couple cold ones and BS'd.

Worst Job: Antler's Shell and Subway
Locaton: Lakehead, CA
Wage: $9.75h
Position: Clerk

This job is the reason why I will NEVER work at a Gas Station or in Customer Service. Because just when you think you've seen it all.... THERE IT IS! I worked the 3pm-Closing. The last hour of your shift, all you want to do is get your shift duties done and close up. Its mostly this last hour is when someone will come in and come within inches of ruining your night.

WHY I QUIT
10:50pm. Friday night, its slow and all my duties are done. 10 minutes and I was going to lock the door and close it down. When a NICE black Cadillac Escalade pulls up to the front parking space. In walks a nice looking lady with her son who didn't look older then 12. I do believe it She looked like the Soccer Mom type. Both well dressed.
"Do you have a restroom my son can use?" she asked politely.
"Yes ma'am." I replied in my best customer service tone. I pointed down the hall behind me to the left.

As he was in the rest room, she looked around a few isles. Choosing two blueberry muffins. Not much conversation as I started ringing her up. As I hit the "SUBTOTAL" key I noticed something out of the corner of my left eye. I looked over to see the kid who had his pants around his feet grinning at me and was in the process of "Rubbing One Off".

"What the hell is he doing?" I asked as I turned to look at her in disbelief. "He can't be doing that in here"
"What's wrong with it?" she replied as he peeked down the hall.
"Are you kidding me?" I said in more disbelief at her answer. "Oh you have to get him out of here with that."
"Well he isn't hurting anyone." she said sounding as if she was suggesting that I let him finish.
"Lady," I said picking up the phone. "if you are his mother and you are ok with him beating off in my store, then there is something other then mother and son bonding going on and I'm calling the sheriff."

By now he had pulled his pants up. She walked over to him and too him by the hand. Then she walked towards the door.
"We have been on the road since Portland." she began to explain "he is just releasing stress from being in the car this long."
"He isn't releasing nothing in here." I snapped back "Get that little exhibitionist out of her"
"I feel sorry for you." she said as the door closed.

They just don't pay me enough to deal with the public.

 

[Deleted member 25220]

This is not a testament to a past job as I’ve had 1 very earthy lovely job for 20 years before becoming a nomad.. however, I applied at Walmart(satans warehouse)& failed their “personality “ test!
Not that I wanted to sell my soul for a couple months but it left me feeling pretty small. Headed to town from camp to a car wash job now-
I’m sure this should be interesting!