When I was 18, I applied for a job at a local photographic studio as a "make the child/baby smile if you can, or simply just look in the direction of the large camera, and press the shutter as many times as you can!" person. I like babies and small children, loved photography, and wanted to be a portrait photographer "when I grew up"... Anyway, I got the job. Except, my boss decided that rather than allow me to do what I was hired to do, because "of [my] posh voice" (I don't have an accent unless I'm really angry, at which point I channel my Welsh grandparent rather well!), he was going to "let" me work in the cold-calling "office"...
The office was a tiny little back room, right beside the fire escape door, and a busy road. It had six wooden partitions in it, six 'phones and very long lists of names/numbers. We were expected to read a script, to stick to the script, to enthuse about complete strangers naming choices when it came to their children ("oh, your daughter's called X? Well, isn't that funny? I love the name X...!" sort of a thing) and essentially lie through our back teeth in order to get them to make a booking in the one of the chain of studios around the country.
I hate talking on the 'phone even to people I actually have close relationships with, never mind total strangers, and I cannot/won't/don't lie, so my job... with my "posh voice" (which I'm still ?! about almost 30 years later)... lasted just over a month. Oh, and my shifts? The cold-call "office" rota? Didn't start until the studio shut for the night, so from 6pm until 11pm, 6 nights a week. For less than minimum wage. I was the youngest one there, expected to make everyone endless cups of tea and coffee, and to tolerate the (understandable) rage of strangers whose dinner I'd interrupted/sleep broken into. My boss dressed in shiny grey suits with bright pink ties and thought he was God's Gift to Life, and I spent a lot of time listening to him schmooze and smarm the strangers he was cold-calling... and it turned my dislike of the telephone into an actual phobia for a good long while. I walked out mid-shift, didn't say a word, just got up and walked... and I still don't regret doing so. When 'Olan Mills' went bust a few years later, I wasn't remotely surprised, and Piers, if you ever see this... I hope your bullshit catches up to you in a horrendous way. You treated us as though we were nothing - the six desperate to be employed cold-calling "team". And we all hated you, and the job.
My second boss spent most of my shifts on the roof of our building with a broom beating out flames where our burger grill had set fire to it. We could hear his expletive laden rage up by the tills as we tried to upsell a large fries or a "have it your way" burger... That was also hell, but those who shared my shifts, late into the evening, were fun; mostly students studying at the local university, all the same, or a similar sort of age to me, and we had fun. We'd go out after work if we finished early enough to the local clubs and pubs, and our five bosses...? Came with us. Apart from the roof swearing, flame beater one. He was old enough to be our grandfather, in fairness, but we all loved his grumpy ways.
My third boss once told me that I'd never make it as an archaeologist/go to university to study the subject at degree level, because I had a toddling child in tow. I proved him wrong. Which I was later informed was the point of his disapproving judgemental sneers. I just wish I'd been told this before I was standing next to former colleagues at his funeral. They'd endured similar disapproval from him, and reckoned it was his way of finding out if we had a vocation or simply wanted to dig as a hobby. 