What's the most difficult job you've ever done?

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Mine is care work for sure. I did it for almost 3 years until recently, I work in an office now and I'm not saying that all office jobs are the same, but mine feels like a piece of cake in comparison to being a carer.
Being a carer was:
Endless pressure to do overtime- my office job has overtime available if people want it, but zero obligation/pressure. Care work was feeling pressured into it every week. I said no once and got sighed at.
Poor pay- 50p an hour above minimum wage.
0 hours contracts both in a home and in domiciliary (I know some homes do offer contracted hours now)
Brutal hours: certainly no 11 hour rest breaks between shifts.
All bank holidays worked, no holidays allowed whatsoever across December and January.
Back-breaking work- there are hoists but you still have to push the hoists, and despite all the moving and handling training it just seems inevitable to strain your body in some way.
Poor pension, only SMP/no maternity pay.
Some companies have things like Wagestream to allow you to access wages early.
I've worked in really nice homes with adequate staff ratios and nice facilities but many homes have about 2-3 staff for 35 residents..
My company had a lot of staff on sponsorship from abroad and the sad thing was they felt like royalty in this job compared to how it was in their home countries..
Obviously it isn't all bad, the key thing was looking after the lovely residents/clients, emotionally it was very tough though to see people deteriorating physically and mentally/losing residents. They were fantastic and deserved a lot better than a lot of them were getting.
It can be very tough as you're open to a lot of abuse, I was physically, sexually and verbally assaulted. The residents often lack capacity due to their dementia/other cognitive impairment and of course it isn't their fault, they aren't doing these things deliberately (we did have one or two though who had full capacity but were just sexist and inappropriate!)
I doubt it will change anytime soon though as it's seen as low skill women's work.. at least the living wage is going up in April.
Interested to hear any other jobs people have had that they've considered their hardest for whichever reason.

Definitely child protection.

Carer for a relative. No training and no support, no special equipment provided. No holidays or days off, no sickness or maternity pay.
Physically and emotionally demanding, being attacked by relative on a daily basis.

Knowing that it's only going to stop when relative is dead and then feeling crushing guilt for thinking that it will actually be a relief.

McDonald's in the late 1990s. There were toxic relationships between staff. There were "unsavoury" food handling practices. There was sexual harassment and women were forced to continue working even if their period had come and the (male) supervisors would refuse to let them go to the toilet.

The constant mess of the dining area. Parents not even trying to keep the mess to a minimum. The parties were the worst, kids high on additives in the food causing mayhem and noise. They got their own area but their behaviour still made an impact on the sraff and other customers.

I would get a free McDonald's value meal for lunch which was easy & convenient but it soon turned your skin very bad indeed. I also gained weight. I tried to bring in a packed lunch every day but those toxic colleagues would look at you as if you were an alien because you're eating a tuna salad or a veggie pasta.

At the end of the day I would stink of cooking fat, have spots breaking out (I was 18/19 at this point, not over puberty) and feel utterly drained. I did this for nine months between finishing my BTEC and joining a nursing course the following March...I will never forget the experience and so if I visit McD's now I'm extra nice to the staff. They always look put upon and remind me of me, once upon a time

Big retail at Christmas. Hideous two months of being on my feet 12 hours a day . The abuse from the general public then the insult to the injury , the sale and the return of thousands of gifts that had just been given . You seriously need danger money not minimum wage.

Hats off to everyone, I could certainly not do these roles! It's awful what many people are expected to put up with to earn a living.

Because...if they were higher-paid, they wouldn't feel so shitty and wouldn't get mentioned.

I mean...if I was being paid my current rate to work in a wool factory, I'd jump at the chance - I'd much rather do physical work than the pressure and stress of my current career (which has ruined one of my favourite hobbies).

The most difficult: Major Trauma Unit.

Just finished a year as a TA in a reputable good secondary school. It was heartbreaking, I couldn't take anymore and have gone back to primary. I'm worried for my children, one in year 10 and one in year 6. Secondary education seems particularly broken 😢

Stay at home mum. Managed 4 years (due to covid). Never again.

I did care work when I was a student and it’s absolutely the hardest job I’ve ever done, certainly on an emotional level anyway.

I’ve worked in child protection and I’m currently a social work manager, but the hardest job for me was a TA in a school for SEN children which was under-resourced and under-trained, we were doing everything including personal and medical care, and every day I was spit on, bitten, pinched, hit, covered in piss and shit and sworn at. Sometimes we were told to use restraint.

I actually loved the job and the children, but their needs were at such a high level that we just weren’t prepared for. At times I’m sure it wasn’t a safe environment for any of us.

i was paid £7.14 per hour.

I’m a uni lecturer now, have been for the past 3 years since I finished my PhD. It’s the easiest job I’ve ever had because I enjoy it and that genuinely makes all the difference.

Hardest job I ever had was Greggs. Hated it so much. People talk to you like crap because they think they’re superior. I was embarrassed to work there and wanted to make sure everyone knew I was only working there to make money whilst studying. I found it genuinely demeaning and soul destroying to shovel sausage rolls into bags all day.

Years ago when the DC were young, I took a cleaning job at Morrisons. I still have nightmares about it now…

I spent most of my time in the men’s toilets cleaning up crap, literally. Dealing with blockages and all manner of horrible things. Add the back breaking sweeping and mopping of the whole floor every shift, constant washing of shelves and terrible attitude certain customers had towards me, what with being the lowly cleaner and I would go home dirty, demoralised and exhausted.

I make a point of always trying to speak and smile to the cleaners if I see them in the supermarkets now as I know what a hard job it is both physically and mentally.

Hardest: secondary school teacher of a core subject that many hate or find difficult.

It's a toss-up between call centre sales, working in security at festivals (as a 20 year old girl with no training whatsoever) and working in Greggs.

Tbh the more difficult a role is the more i enjoy it. Worst work i ever did was on the till at costa. Same 7 buttons and phrases allll day. I preferred making the coffee. Toxic colleagues have spoiled a few jobs for me, thats the hardest thing to deal with. Any kind of work, i'll just do it.

Two of my jobs as a junior doctor stand out. It's always busy and stressful, and we do see very sad things, but sometimes circumstances combine to make a particular placement hard.

First was as an F1 in general medicine. Almost fresh out of med school (I'd done a fairly gentle paediatrics post first), incredibly busy, up to 60 patients to be seen each day, but because of the way the hospital organised medical admissions, they could be in up to 10 different wards. Constantly switching between feeling like a secretary and being completely out of my depth. And the on calls - being the only doctor covering all those wards, non-stop bleeps going so often you rarely got to complete a task uninterrupted. Nurses always thinking you're lazy because you're not on their ward doing their tasks, completely not appreciating how much you were trying to do. The only thing that made it bearable was having a decent team of other juniors and a social club on site where we could rant about it. Oh, and my 25 year old boyfriend (now DH) was diagnosed with cancer during that placement, and starting chemotherapy.

The other one was as a new registrar, covering neuro ICU. I'd done a reasonable bit of general ICU before, but neuro was new to me. Big unit, only one doctor overnight which was way under the recommended ratio. Consultant support highly variable - some were brilliant and hands on, others were very much of the "feel free to cope" school. And it was just all so, so sad. Not just the deaths (though calling a family in Spain to tell them to come to the UK because their daughter had been critically injured in a hit and run - and ultimately ended up dying and donating her organs - was pretty hard) but that the ones who survived were so horribly affected by the trauma/tumours/bleeds they had had. Some relatives were horrible to us - almost certainly because of their own distress about their relatives, but it was still hard to take. I can still remember certain patients in particular beds, and even when I went back to do the odd shift years later as a senior reg, got flashbacks of those former patients.

I'm a consultant now, and still deal with very difficult situations, but I've never felt as bad as I did in those jobs.

Working for the NHS as a student midwife and then newly qualified midwife. Students.midwives are meant to be supernumerary but you are always counted in the numbers and given your own women and babies to care for. They once asked me to look at 12 women on a postnatal ward plus babies (normally six women) and I said no way. You're meant to be supervised, but that rarely happens (does on labour ward generally). You learn very quickly but it's very stressful. You don't stop, especially on the postnatal ward, and management are lazy buggers who sit in their offices. No tea break, or lunch break and you're lucky if you get a bathroom break. I would never work for the NHS again. Whilst doing my training I always said I would not be a midwife in five years time. I lasted three years.

English teacher in a secondary school that had 5% A-C

Waitressing - I lasted 3 hours
One of those promotional people who stands by a car in a shopping centre - tedious and pointless
Lone junior doctor on nights in A+E was a walk in the park compared to those two (although my house officer medical job was terrifying!)
It is awful how such hard jobs are so badly paid. And such important jobs, the system would completely stop without carers, cleaners, factory workers etc

I've also been a waitress, TA, support worker and briefly worked at one of those pay weekly furniture/white goods places (anyone remember Brighthouse?)
I find it sad when it's insinuated people in these professions shouldn't have a child because they aren't earning enough. Someone has to do the roles for society to function, why don't they deserve to have a child?

Looking after a colicky newborn.

I've worked as a student nursing assistant, mostly cleaning incontinent patients ok 12 hour shifts, but even that wasn't as hard as looking after my newborn It pretty much broke me mentally and physically.

Am I the only one?

As a teen i worked as a cleaner for an office block full of science boffins. Very intelligent people. Sadly, despite this, the men couldn't seem to get their piss in the urinals or the loos 🙄 After 2 evenings of paddling in piss in the men's loos i quit.

A few years ago i applied for a 1:1 SEN job and got it. I was told a tiny bit about the child's needs and given a VERY brief introduction to them after my successful interview. I found this odd, but put it down to confidentiality. We'd discussed my own strengths and limitations and the HT assured me she was very pleased to pair us up. I was really pleased also and looked forward to starting.

On day 1 the poor child's case was outlined to me properly just before i went into class and it was an awful shock. I knew pretty much from that moment i wouldn't cope. And i didn't. I felt like shit about it and still well up thinking about it now.

I heard along the grape vine that the job was then advertised as a three person share because of the challenging nature of it!

I mean - to this day i can't work out what the HT was thinking, being so economical with the truth with me and ignoring my freely admitted limitations in my own skill set (to do with violence and sexual abuse).

@Flyingalone no you're not the only one

Been there and got the t shirt too and it was very very hard.

No I felt the same!