To ask what your worst ever jobs have been?

[Waspshaveavendetta]

One of mine was working in a care home which I feel awful saying as it's not the residents' fault. It was the staff and management, the role itself was minimum wage or maybe 4 pence an hour more.
Zero benefits except for the Wagestream thing where you could access earnings before payday. On my contract I was told I would be entitled to a free meal on shift except this never happened once. I was able to take some of the residents' leftovers if there were enough left.

Because of the high-pressure environment, it brought out the worst in people and I had to tell some staff members not to raise their voice at me. Could be a very two-faced environment with backstabbing. Long days, I know it's 24 hour care but 12 hour days are too much. Seniors/team leaders on a power trip who spoke to staff like naughty children, very physically demanding work which caused me back pain, zero time to sit and speak to residents, literally did not stop all day.
Something to do every minute of the day, having to do all sorts of domestic and laundry tasks which were not in the job description.

Second one is my current call centre role. It thankfully pays a bit over min wage but it's still a relatively poor salary. Every single minute of the day is monitored, if you were in the wrong queue for 1 minute you are pulled up on it, very target-heavy, if you go to the toilet outside of allocated breaks your percentage goes down.

Sent cringey motivational messages by our team leader every morning. I have ear pain from wearing the headset every day, zero flexibility in hours, the good thing is it's hybrid remote and the lunch break is generous (unpaid though). No guarantee of finishing or taking breaks on time if you get stuck in a call. Constantly pressured to make a certain number of calls per day and expected to write after call notes in lighting speed, luckily I can do then quickly but many in my team especially older are struggling and being pulled up on it. Luckily I've got an interview for the Civil Service and really hope I get it!

Legal Aid in the 1990s. I'd left a job which I'd really enjoyed but was temp/agency, to work for LA.
Two things that stood out were one of the department managers saying "we had issues with staff, but it's all sorted out now" (when it obviously hadn't because nobody seemed happy). The second was being told off for talking while I worked.
I left about 3 days in ...and before my contract had arrived from Legal Aid head office!
The same day I rang my supervisor at my old job and said "Gissa job!" . He had a chat with the manager and he said "how soon can you start? This afternoon?"
I actually started the following Monday and ended up going permanent and stayed 7 years.

Years ago I worked at a yard where I would do 12 hours a day 6 days a week and was spoken to like absolute shit by the yard owner. I was on my own and was expected to look after the horses, also all her dogs, her sheep and go to her house at lunchtime and do her gardening, bring in coal and peel potatoes. It was like working in Victorian times! I realised just how evil she was when I was trying to leave a bit earlier (all jobs done) to go and see my mum who was very poorly and at that time lived 100 miles away. She saw everything was done and insisted I went round the whole yard removing cobwebs and taking bales of hay out the barn, sweeping the floor and putting them back in. Didn't leave till nearly 9pm. She wouldn't pay until I'd done all the extras. I never went back after that night. Left her completely in the lurch which is what she deserved.

When I was a teenager, I worked at McDonald's. It was hot, greasy and diirty work but I could cope with that. The store manager was awfull. He decided to give me a performance review which consisted of a long questionnaire which he marked me on. It was full of subjective questions like "attitude to the store's success". He decided to give me 1 point less than I needed for a 5p per hour pay rise. That wasn't a lot even then. What a dickhead. He could easily have found another point. I handed my notice in on the next shift.

Having experienced a lot of that, I have thought long and hard:

• low self esteem - they make themselves feel better by trying to push others down
• need to be in control - they want to maintain status or improve their chances of promotion and they feel the way to make themselves stand out is by pushing everyone else down
• bad upbringing - their parents treated them badly and they never leant any other way to behave
• toxic culture - they've seen others behave badly and get rewarded for it rather then get into trouble
• stress - very stressed people can behave very badly

Topshop in the 90s- so boring, exhausting and bitchy
I also worked in The Works and the tolls were like giant calculators and a recipe for disaster- the tills were always all over the place at cash up and the work was unbelievably mind numbing, plus running up and down three flights of stairs from the stock room. The manager was a self important bitch too, she was vile. One day during their busiest back to school time I just didn’t turn up for a shift and didn’t go back.

I had an absolutely toxic boss in a PR agency. She was an utter narcissist and made my life hell. I considered suicide to try and escape.

She was insanely jealous that I a mere minion, had a baby and she was going through infertility treatment.

She has now reinvented herself as some sort of guru, new age coach. She is an utter monster.

Working making handbags for Mulberry. Shit job, shit management, shit wages. Never known a place as bad for bullying and nepotism.

Junior house doctor decades ago. 24 hour shifts, 48 hour shifts, 56 hour shifts. Very little time to take a break, dealing with very unwell patients without much senior support. No sleep, little nutrition. Really scared of making a mistake. Hourly pay was less than the cleaner got at times! ( Cleaner was very important so no begrudging them their pay).

Worst year of my life.

I have heard this from many people about the Somerset location!

Mine was probably PC World (Currys was separate then). 6am start on Boxing Day to sell 20 £199 laptops, targets for no commission, awful purple shirt uniform and working til 8pm. Was quite useful having late shifts as a student though.

Lifeguard aged 18- job was fine, one manager was a horrible/ aggressive workaholic that lived off black coffee and cigarettes. Once a customer lost a piece of jewellery and she encouraged them to accuse me of stealing it! Threatened to call police. (This was before CCTV cameras were common everywhere). I was then ‘let go’ for having no ‘customer care skills’ because I stood my ground and explained I didn’t steal anything! Dodged a bullet!
And the crazy bitch was given early retirement a year or two later, dropped dead from a heart attack 2 weeks in 😂.
Another place where I’d been given a management job by a family business. They had a very old fashioned system- everything on paper for bookings and a till from the 90’s (this was in 2018, btw). When I started they just expected me to be a cleaner/ receptionist in the business and work six days a week. And no breaks. I emailed my resignation after a week.
I’d walk out now rather then be treated like that, not worth it.
This thread has felt quite therapeutic to write things down.

My parents made me feel so bad for leaving a job at 17 , but reading this thread has made me realize it wasn’t me , but some places are just awful and it’s not worth being treated like dirt or having a break down just to save face. It’s clearly more common than I was lead to believe back then!

Some firms are still at this
DD applied for a "Sales and marketing job" during her gap year and I told her it was dodgy as the details were a bit obscure. She had 1 interview where they told here categorically she would not be doing any cold calling or similar and then told her she has been successful in getting through to the next round. The man who interviewed her next explained that they would be taken to an area, dropped off and would go and knock on doors. She very politely suggested that that probably WAS cold calling and that she really wasn't interested in that and the man majorly kicked off at her and started shouting at her. I could hear from next door and when I went in to see if she was ok I could hear him shouting "ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR?????? ARE YOU"
I took the phone off her and hung up as she was sitting there shellshocked. he then called back so I answered and gave him an absolute blasting

@Hoppinggreen That was the job title I did apply for. As mentioned in a PP, it was selling crap to people in the offices in Leeds city centre. Didn’t bother meeting up with the guy who took myself and 2 others round. I should have stood way back, hiding to see his face when myself and the other two decided not to return at the meeting point

i still don’t understand how companies can still do this.

It was also Leeds funnily enough

Graduate management trainee for a multinational hotel company.

The job was effectively being a general dogsbody, doing all the worst jobs in the hotel in the name of ‘training’. I had responsibility without authority & was below the kitchen porters in the pecking order. The hours were absolutely insane. 70 hours+ every week, only 1 day off, 18 hour ‘AFD’ (all fucking day) shifts were not uncommon. You got blamed for everything which went wrong, but zero credit for shifts which passed uneventfully. The job could be unbelievably stressful when doing weddings & big functions.

Somehow I stuck it out for a few years & rose to Deputy Manager but the job cost me my friends, my entire social life and a good relationship with a lovely person. It also cost me my early 20s, a time at which you’re supposed to be enjoying life. Eventually I got to the point at which I had to leave for my sanity so I walked out without another job to go and promised myself I would never work in hospitality again.

I did this June 2003

Worked many cleaning jobs while at uni. Worked in a nightclub cleaning we went in early hours of the morning and a low point was cleaning cold sick out of a sink with blue roll while my colleague was cleaning shit oug of a urinal and fishing shoes out of a toilet.

Henry the hoover saved our sanity many times sucking up dried vomit behind the VIP booths.

No shift went by without someone getting cut as they still used proper glasses.

New year s day and the day after Halloween was apocalypse central. One day the bbq had been left on and the garden was on fire.

Another time we were met by police at the start of the shift saying we couldn't clean as it was a crime scene. Some poor girl had been drugged and raped.

There were often people collapsed outside from either drink or drugs and my friend tried to help one only to be threatened.

The plus side was very good wages for 3 or 4 shifts a week and free cigarettes back when we all smoked plus free champagne to take home.

It was often a brutal hard physical job but we were a tight knit team and I still talk to those people today.

Another job was actually much worse. Typing orders for the plastic covers that ho on porn mags back in the 90s. Mind numbing. Plus the manager was overweight and on the WW plan and everyone dreaded Thursday morning because Wednesday was weigh in evening. If she'd gained weight the atmosphere was hell and you were scared to speak. If she'd lost weight it was all smiles and sending me and another junior girl to the bakery for cakes all round.

Also a husband and wife worked there and would have bitter arguments in the open plan office and expect us to all take sides.

I have worked in a school for 17 years now and I love it. So nice to have good colleagues and a decent work place.

applying for different roles at the moment, why do some companies want to offer a job thats a mix of basic, advanced and then upper management type duties and yet still only pay nat min wage ? and then think all can be achieved in eg 35 hours. eg admin assistant / office but when you break down whats what its about 3 different roles in one

@Swirlythingy2025 it baffles the mind.
companies then moan they can’t find anyone to fill the roles.
pay them more and you will!

well it was still going on 20 years later

Oh my goodness me I think you may have been at my old school 😬

Bloody hell!

Window company about 20 years ago, lasted 2 days!!

On the phones, cold calling for Anglian Windows in Ipswich in 1996... Whenever I am having a bad day at work I think back to that time and feel better!

Oh my!

I did try, but I had no power to change anything.