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.

Working in an Argos warehouse
It was back breaking!
You were treated horrendously.
Spoken too like shit
Not allowed to use the bathroom and if you got so desperate you really had to go, then they timed you.

Prison Officer and working in a high school are up there!

Care work is super difficult. I don’t know how people do it. 12 hours on your feet. Always smiling. Always ready to say yes I can do that. They are amazing people.

My hardest job was checkpoint and traffic controller at Glastonbury. Super busy junction. Trying to coordinate thousands of people to not get crushed by a turning poo truck whilst on a muddy slope with people trying to ask you for directions and being drunk at same time as constant radio head chatter and communications at the same time as directing a team of 6 people whilst trying to stop celebs driving after the poo truck because they are looking at a map and trying to get to main stage whilst not fully understanding they would be arriving in front of it in a crowd of 100000 people . Whilst being 5ft tall and having a hang over 🤣 hellish but also quite fun.

I’ve had lots of difficult jobs, I’ve mostly had very senior roles, travelling all over the world, missing my family, in high pressure stressful situations making companies a lot of money and having to think about work 24/7. The strain it has put on my health and sanity has been awful at times. But the flip side is that I have been very very well paid so it’s a choice.

It is nothing compared to most people posting on here. The most difficult work is when your work takes everything from you and you are not fairly remunerated for that sacrifice.

I was a Consular Officer for the FCO. That was hard. Death, rape, sad welfare cases, child abduction, child abuse. The list is endless. Very upsetting at times.

Trust me,nothings changed

I work at one-the bosses are foul if your face doesn't fit,(mine doesnt)they chop and change shifts on a whim,with no notice,they demand their pound of flesh-and then tell you that your useless and they want more,your on your feet all day (they know I have arthritis in my knee and they still won't let me sit down if needed,even if it goes from under me),theyve banned us having drinks on shift,we have to beg to to go the loo and anything that happens-your in the wrong no matter what you do

I've been threatened-one told he'd come back to rape me after my shift(nothing was done-he just wanders in acting innocent) sexually assaulted 7 times,spat at,punched,slapped,sworn at,my hair ripped out,dealt with drug addicts-the list goes on

Oddly I've never had any major problems with teenagers-odd bad language but we repect each other

I'm looking for another job-and it won't be public facing

Thank you gor being nice to us-we do remember the nice customers

Really sorry to hear these stories :(
I did a shift in a nightclub collecting glasses as a one-off. Then we had to clean the toilets at the very end of the night, they were absolutely vile.. women's were worse than men's.

Mine was in a day nursery . I loved working with the children but the owner / admin manager was a bitch. High staff turnover and a horrible atmosphere when she was around.
Have worked in lots of other child care settings and this was by far the hardest . Long hours and expected to deal with special needs such as Down syndrome without adequate support. Would never want to work in a private day nursery again.

Secondary school teaching. Though tbf, only in certain schools. In other schools it's been an absolute pleasure.

Child Death Review Officer, was glad to hand that over.

Five years in a very deprived ex mining community with an opioid epidemic.
It was a baptism of fire but every job since has seemed easier even the hard ones.

Funeral business during Covid was pretty bad.

Counselling bereaved parents, heartbreaking. Still do bereavement counselling but I specialise in those who have lost partners or parents who are older (usually 70+)

As a student I did a few weeks of door to door sales. Only did it as I was completely skint and this job paid cash in hand at the end of the day. We were basically selling any old shit that fell off the back of a lorry. I don't think I have taken quite as much verbal abuse as I did in that job.

I was watching that Met Police programme the other day. It followed the team that investigates people viewing indecent images of children. There were men and women who as part of the investigations had to view thousands and thousand of images and videos of child sex abuse online in order to categorise them to prosecute the accused. That has to be the worst job in the world. They are truly amazing people for putting themselves through that.

Worked in a councils old peoples home as a care assistant at 18 , I run a floor of 13 residences .. I'd never do it again .. half were double incontinent , management was rubbish and I could only do so much

My worst job was working in a supermarket as a teen stacking shelves.

I used to get stuck on the biscuit section all day and end up dreaming of biscuits. However the thing that made it awful was the manager, who was a jumped up little twerp who'd worked his way up from the meat counter and was a total control freak.

Just a sales assistant for me, but basically for same reasons as pp's have said - lots of MH troubled customers would come and spend ages 'trauma dumping' on me and I'd go home feeling drained, worried and stressed about other people's unhappiness

Worst - current job in the CS. Pay good. Hours fine. But I do most of a weeks work by 10:00 on a Monday and it is soul destroying having the ability and desire to do more work but none being available. I’ve repeatedly asked for more work and none is forthcoming and my management chain seem baffled when I ask for more. Feel completely under valued and under utilised. I know some people think I’m living the life of Riley but not having that mental stretch or even anything to stretch me in general is just depressing!

Best job - my university job at spoons! Great for my mental health (always busy so never had time to dwell which for me was crucial), decent money as I was management, hours were flexible, colleagues were nice, customers were nice. Just all around a nice job! Plus I could call people wankers and no one complained (can’t do that now…)

Midwife, it was horrendous, the consequences of getting it wrong were horrendous but not enough staff so you were basically fire fighting and just trying to make sure people survived rather than giving any actual decent care.
Now work for an LA and it is a much better job for similar pay, no shifts and no one is going to die due to under staffing.

Animal shelter. The work wasn't difficult, but emotionally it was. Spent so much time crying over animals who had been abused, died, put to sleep etc, I'm way too soft to deal with all that 😢

A Saturday job in a baker's shop when I was 15. It was super busy in the morning because everyone bought all their baked goods for the weekend at a bakery - no supermarkets and nothing open on a Sunday. Pre-decimal currency was still being used and you had to total everything in your head because tills didn't add up for you. If people bought cakes you had to make a cake box from a flat sheet of cardboard on the spot.

Afternoons were quieter and the full-time staff kept all of the dirty jobs for me. The cakes and breads were displayed in the window on angled shelves. Once the shelves were emptied I had to climb into the window area and scrub off the week's accumulation of icing and flour.

Once I had finished that, I had to clean the pie oven which was covered in a week's grease.

For this I got 18 shillings and 6 pence - 93p in decimal money. When I was sixteen I got a job that paid double in a department store, selling men's clothes. Still hard work but bliss by comparison.

To work in a Child Protection dept having to deal with abused kids every day. I used to go home and just cry some days.🙁

Working in a civil service department on placement from college. Very repetitive work dealing with abusive customers at a counter, and colleagues imitating/laughing at my stammer. I was 20 and it was my first time away from home, living in a houseshare. I think the anxiety of all the change caused my stammer to get very bad. I always had a stammer but it didn't bother me hugely if I was relaxed and people around me were decent.

A house officer doctor in the 1989. 56 hour shift, one day off and then a 24h shift. No support. More jobs to do than humanly possible. Patients dying due to inexperienced doctors treating them. Chronic UTIs due to no time to drink water. I still have flashbacks and feel sick when I remember that time.