To ask what crazy stuff your first employer got you to do?

[TransformationChynaDoll]

Here's my list of my first few jobs;
There was always too much rubbish so we had to take it turns to get in the bin and jump up and down on it so the lid would shut. We're talking about a huge industrial bin.
Ring people and ask them their BMI prior to appointments. For no real medical reason at all.
Arrive early and work unpaid for the first half hour so that the croissants would be cooked on time. No one ever questioned it.
Clean a big grease trap in a dishwasher which flooded the whole cafe knowing that the reason we had to mop for days straight was due to the company being too tight to pay someone to fix it.

Wash the walls in the office staircases and water the plants.

Graduate position in the tech sector in the year 2000.

Haha

At 18 I went away to teacher training college, (as they were then), but always managed to get menial summer jobs to earn money.
I worked in the office of a building company one year, and was sent to a nearby builders' merchants to ask for spare bubbles for spirit levels.
Reader, I went......

Oh! And I used to work at a sailing centre abroad, and we didn’t have the right visas. So if the port police came by, we had to take any uniform off and lounge around the place as if we were on holiday!

I did a telesales summer job for Kitchens Direct, cold calling people from a page ripped out of the the phone book... the boss used to make us sing Tina Turners 'Simply the Best' before every shift to 'get us in the mood'!

Say yes to any and all requests and question nothing.

@Conkersinautumn - I worked with someone as late as 2009, who printed her boss' emails, put them in plastic pockets and he would hand write the responses. What a waste of time!

14, worked for a cafe on a lake every Sunday. Doing typical duties. 9 hour days for £20. I very soon quit. Bosses were arseholes

I worked in a bookshop at the time Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses was published/the fatwa was issued. This was in a town with a fairly high Asian population. We had a few bomb threats so used to do ‘bomb checks’ at the end of each day which were mostly just crawling around on the floor looking under the bottom shelves. (I was 18, no idea really what I was looking for!).
After multiple threats and police advice the book was taken off display and put in the stock room. The bosses told us that if anyone came into the shop and asked for it we had two options: if they were white, ask them discreetly if they wanted to buy a copy then take them into the stock room to look and wrap it up there. And if they were not white, just say No! 😮

I recall the time when a florist contacted me on Valentine's Day morning re some flowers my boss arranged for his family (on Company expenses) before his business trip. The florist told me that he had made a mistake on the order so they couldn't deliver that day: 'would tomorrow 15 Feb do instead?'

Called boss who went berserk, berated me for thinking 15 Feb delivery was at all acceptable. 'My wife & daughters are going to get flowers from me on Valentine's Day so you make sure it happens!'

Cue my frantically calling other florists none of whom could deliver the same day. It ended in my getting in a taxi to a local florist, buying 3 bouquets (one for wife and one for each daughter), inventing affectionate messages for cards and travelling on to boss's opulent home at the other end of town to deliver them.

Did I get any thanks from boss? Did I hell...at least he was good to his family which was vaguely reassuring I suppose, as he was foul to everyone working for him.

Work for 6 months free! I posted about it on mumsnet at the time and was told I was BU and I should for the sake of the kids (school job). I was such an idiot. The headteacher I later found out is on £150k+ as she manages a few schools in the trust. What an idiot I was

3 level building...no powerpoints so had to sweep on hands n knees with dustpan and brush, every room and stairs...also had to boil kettle for hot water to clean!!! It was horrible...but money...£2.50 an hour lol.

A discount store about 22 years ago, part of a chain. I was 15 and worked Saturdays only.

There were prices on shelves - no prices on products and no bar codes.

There was a huge laminated book by the checkout with every product AtoZ and every price was manually entered in the till. You had to know the price by heart or search the book.

Every other staff member was full time and had worked there 5 years or more so they knew nearly all the prices. I didn't, obviously. I got flustered and panicked as a huuuggggeee queue built up because I was so slow, until one of the others came and pushed me aside to clear the queue.

I got told off, huffed at, told to learn the prices (hundreds of products). About a month in (so I'd worked there for essentially four days) I got a HUGE dressing down from a manager for my lack of knowing the prices.

So I made them up. Looked at a bar of soap and thought 'mmm probably 49p'. A pack of biscuits - I'd say about 70p. Oohhh a lovely throw - I'll call it a fiver. Some customers walked away looking bloody delighted 😂

I worked there six months doing this. No one checked on me, clearly no one balanced the till or did any stockchecks, no one cared.

They went bust a couple of years after I left, no surprise why with their 'system'!

Sounds like the devil wears prada haha.

Wear skirts no longer than thigh top with stilletos. Dance on the bar. Lie to his wife on the phone that he'd left. Lie to customers wives on the phone that they'd left. Squeeze past him to get to the till. Bend down to pick up wads of cash he'd dropped because he was 'too stiff'. 1987. I was 18.

My first job had the same for the giant bin for cardboard, only the male employees had to do it though 😂

At my first office job we were located in a really nice residential area of an expensive city, and people including the owner would use it as a pied à terre. It was normal to have to ignore lipstick stains on coffee cups in a colour no one wore (small company, mostly male), and tiptoe around people still sleeping in the conference room.

I had to correct a load of misprinted leaflets that had the wrong phone number on them by crossing it out and writing the correct one above it. I also had to input the deaths that week into the computer. Temp job at the council.

Had to pay for my own toilet paper

I had to score drugs for men 15 years my senior, and go on a skiing 'holiday' with someone who kept trying to sexually assault me. The day after I got robbed so I had no bank card or money.
Lol fun times in the film industry in the 90s.

I once messed up with the cash ordering for the ATMs (didn’t remember Easter falls at different times of year). So was sent to the bank down the road to ‘borrow’ £50k and then in a taxi to our next largest branch to get another £50k. Madness looking back. Would never be allowed now.

My first job was a summer job babysitting for a 9 month old. Her mom used to go out daily to go shopping, meeting friends, etc. I was put in charge of bringing the baby to visit her family and her in laws. It was bizzare. They had a housekeeper who cooked all my meals, did all the babies laundry etc. They paid me a crazy amount of money for most of the time playing with a the little girl. Her husband used to drop home at lunch time to drop me in a evening newspaper. The baby is now in their mid 20s. I miss that job

Clean out his car including the shells from his shooting expeditions (pa). Also clean dishes in the flat his niece was staying in. She was clearly a slob as it was a disgrace.
Bag up dead animals and label them for the freezer (Saturday girl vet assistant)
Work 12 hour shifts then back on shift another 6 hours later (hospitality)

Worked as a PA for a female investment banker. I used to go to her house to wait for the piano tuner, organised her (shotgun) wedding, managed her bill payments which involved being a signatory on her cheques and moving money around her accounts. She once had me ring the port at Dover to try and stop a ferry as she was late. She was nuts.

I worked 8-5 on Saturdays in Spar when I was 14 for £1.60 per hour.

I was sent to the paint shop to ask for stripey paint.

Yep. I went and asked for stripey paint.