Best and Worst Jobs Stories | Squat the Planet

Best and Worst Jobs Stories

Zigali

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What are the best and worst jobs y'all have ever had on the road or what interesting stories do you have about some of ur jobs. Just curious I'm sittin here at work and got to thinking bout OTR jobs and that led to this lol
 
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Tude

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Interesting topic - this should be cool :) I mean I have mine - but I'm housed so - let's see on the road. Bring it on!!
 
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Bike taxi for two hours in the crappy city of Harrisburg PA. Made some quick money but quit after two hours. Then full time ish janitor at a busy ass call center for directtv where there was expected constant conversation. I love the town of Altoona but quit that job after about a week or 5 days. Cleaning toilets right after a very obese processed food eating soda like water drinking slob left the toilet was foul.
 
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Also two winters ago I was working two part time jobs at two different grocery stores riding my bike in a cold winter from my buddies house where I rented a room to these jobs. Grocery outlet was so bland, 4 hours felt like days of construction. I do mostly home remodeling work now when I do work and days zoom by and I don't hate it.
 
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smkstcklghtng

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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.
 

paiche

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I had a job that was the best and the worst! I had to mix shit with a pole wearing full biohazard gear in the sweltering July heat! Real human shit, a big pile of it! From all different sorts of people! That was the worst part as you might have figured. The best part was I got to live in the Bigelows (on the AT in ME) for a 10 day on 4 day off work shift. The most awesome job (and the shittiest) I ever had.
 
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ironman

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I have unload boats of fish for cash . have work in Minot ND during winter outside construction . But was paid well free room and food. Back during boom. I have pick strawberry orange work tobbaco. Majority of my life 300 feet off the ground walking Iron . Building everything
 

landpirate

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Castrating lambs and butchering/dealing with dead sheep is probably the most miserable I've ever been whilst working. You cannot get the stench of dead sheep off you however many times you wash your hands. I would insert a photo here of me with a severed sheep head but it might make some people cry. Safe to say my short stint as a meat eater is now over.
 

paiche

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What was the shit being used for? Human compost?
Yeah it was a fancy human composter up in the mountains. The pee filtered and we mixed the poo with wood chips to get as much surface area and air in there so the bacteria could flourish. Then we placed it in a large stainless steel vat. The temps got up to 180 in there and it broke down into useable compost which we spread all over especially in used areas we were trying to regenerate forest. This was only a once a year job fortunately.
 

Coywolf

Make America Freight Again
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I have to say that I have been extremely lucky in falling into my current seasonal "career".

I work as a Backcountry Park Ranger for the Park Service, my job is constantly changing and there is never a dull moment.

One moment I could be patrolling a high mountain trail, or low redrock canyon, the next I could be dangling from a rope, 500 feet above the ground, rescuing an injured climber.

Some interesting things I have had the pleasure of experiencing in my career:

-Digging fireline in Colorado, and getting a direct hit of fire retardant from a low flying airplane (That actually kinda sucked)

-Flying in, and landing helicopters

-Providing life saving medical attention to an array of injured people

-Standing on top of a few 14,000 foot peaks

-Rafting the Colorado and Green rivers

-Canyoneering the slot canyons of Zion National Park

-Wandering into a herd of horny Bison to rescue a family of Asain tourists

-Keeping some distance between a mother Grizzly bear and her cubs, and 1000 camera wielding tourists

-Leading a Llama pack train over the Continental divide

-Looking down into the Yosemite valley while on a climbing rope

-Riding a KTM motorcycle on patrol down backroads in Utah's canyonlands

-Driving an emergency vehicle at top speed with lights & sirens

The list goes one and on......


The shittiest job i have ever had? Working front desk at a Super 8 motel....I basically rage quit after they accused me of stealing a $50 cash deposit..

I waited for my manager to leave at 10 PM, and then ate all of the cookies in the lobby and walked out.

no one noticed until like 5 in the morning, lol
 

CelticWanderer

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I have to say that I have been extremely lucky in falling into my current seasonal "career".

I work as a Backcountry Park Ranger for the Park Service, my job is constantly changing and there is never a dull moment.

One moment I could be patrolling a high mountain trail, or low redrock canyon, the next I could be dangling from a rope, 500 feet above the ground, rescuing an injured climber.

Some interesting things I have had the pleasure of experiencing in my career:

-Digging fireline in Colorado, and getting a direct hit of fire retardant from a low flying airplane (That actually kinda sucked)

-Flying in, and landing helicopters

-Providing life saving medical attention to an array of injured people

-Standing on top of a few 14,000 foot peaks

-Rafting the Colorado and Green rivers

-Canyoneering the slot canyons of Zion National Park

-Wandering into a herd of horny Bison to rescue a family of Asain tourists

-Keeping some distance between a mother Grizzly bear and her cubs, and 1000 camera wielding tourists

-Leading a Llama pack train over the Continental divide

-Looking down into the Yosemite valley while on a climbing rope

-Riding a KTM motorcycle on patrol down backroads in Utah's canyonlands

-Driving an emergency vehicle at top speed with lights & sirens

The list goes one and on......


The shittiest job i have ever had? Working front desk at a Super 8 motel....I basically rage quit after they accused me of stealing a $50 cash deposit..

I waited for my manager to leave at 10 PM, and then ate all of the cookies in the lobby and walked out.

no one noticed until like 5 in the morning, lol
If you don't mind me asking how did you wind up as a park ranger? I'm looking to get into that line of work.
 

Zigali

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Location
Bloomington Indiana
I have to say that I have been extremely lucky in falling into my current seasonal "career".

I work as a Backcountry Park Ranger for the Park Service, my job is constantly changing and there is never a dull moment.

One moment I could be patrolling a high mountain trail, or low redrock canyon, the next I could be dangling from a rope, 500 feet above the ground, rescuing an injured climber.

Some interesting things I have had the pleasure of experiencing in my career:

-Digging fireline in Colorado, and getting a direct hit of fire retardant from a low flying airplane (That actually kinda sucked)

-Flying in, and landing helicopters

-Providing life saving medical attention to an array of injured people

-Standing on top of a few 14,000 foot peaks

-Rafting the Colorado and Green rivers

-Canyoneering the slot canyons of Zion National Park

-Wandering into a herd of horny Bison to rescue a family of Asain tourists

-Keeping some distance between a mother Grizzly bear and her cubs, and 1000 camera wielding tourists

-Leading a Llama pack train over the Continental divide

-Looking down into the Yosemite valley while on a climbing rope

-Riding a KTM motorcycle on patrol down backroads in Utah's canyonlands

-Driving an emergency vehicle at top speed with lights & sirens

The list goes one and on......


The shittiest job i have ever had? Working front desk at a Super 8 motel....I basically rage quit after they accused me of stealing a $50 cash deposit..

I waited for my manager to leave at 10 PM, and then ate all of the cookies in the lobby and walked out.

no one noticed until like 5 in the morning, lol


That’s really badass I was looking into being a park ranger at one point in my life as well
 

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