Yet I persist.
It's not really the toughest job I've ever held.
In fact, it would be fun if you all chimed in on this: What was your toughest job?
Here's a few to get you started...
Once, I worked overnight as a custodian at a childcare center on campus. It was generally pud, for I had all night to do 4 hours of work, and I had free reign of the facility...however, cleaning the kiddie urinals daily was unpleasant, and when they played in the sand, it was impossible to vacuum.
I can beat that, myself. I once (for a single day) worked at a feedlot (look it up, ye who know naught of them). I painted corral fencing, waded up to my knees in mud-n-manure. It was June, very hot, very humid, very...fragrant. The paint was oil-based. We were using wash mitts to apply it. The paint dried on my arms and 'had' to be removed with wire brush and gasoline (not too smart, to say the least).
Then there was the day I did preg-checks for an entire day, reaching the length of my arm into the privates of bovines...
Then, a couple of times, I've had to castrate cattle. The man I worked for let his little bullies get far too large (two years old, some of them) and thus, cutting horns and testicles was a gruesome, painful, nightmare for everyone involved.
Oh, almost forgot the manual labor experience that sent me packing to higher education: I was laying out a year before committing to college. I was undecided. Working in a glass shop, I found my motivation one spring day when several 4x8 sheets of plate glass smacked me like a bug when they were blown free of the delivery truck. Though not badly injured, (after all, I was 18 and invincible) I was suddenly aware that standing by a glass truck on a smoke break had nearly proven fatal.
I have been exposed to truly terrible work environments. I've watched the poor, hapless drones behind the fast food counter and within the kitchen. I've heard some horror stories from highway workers. I watched Clerks...
...and, in April of 2000, I had the chance to walk 3 miles in the boots of true coal miners in Mexico. We descended deep into a mine, so deep and oppressive it gave me the heebie jeebies just to be there. It was dark, humid, dusty in places...sometimes outright hot, as if we were drilling to the center of the earth. I expected a spurt of magma at any minute. When we came out later, I was so coated in black coal dust it took (truly!) days and days to get it all out of my pores. Now THAT was a nasty job, coal mining.
4 comments:
Toughest job? I'd have to say working on the farm. I had to help some cattle give birth while the boss was away. Not fun stuff.
I've given this some thought; like you, I have a couple of candidates. I have to say though that the nastiest job (if we're speaking in aesthetic terms) I've had was one I had while I was in college: for a year I was a go-fer for a large-animal veterinarian. My job ranged from feeding animals and cleaning out their stalls to assisting at some surgeries (I once had my arm inside a cow's abdominal cavity up to almost my shoulder as I held some internal organ out of the vet's way as he worked on her stomach). But each day quite literally was different from the previous one; one thing I can say of it that I can't always say of my current job is that that yaer at the vet clinic never became routine.
Isn't it rich, how we've all had livestock horror stories...well, beat this: I had to 'pull' a calf one time with "come-alongs" (fence stretchers) and ultimately we had to remove the calf in pieces...Ugh. It was a very, very cold evening, too, working by headlight in a pasture.
It’s a close one, but 2nd place has to go to waitressing at Pizza Hut. I was teenager, and I was only interested in the job for cigarette and beer money (how horrible, I know). It was my first job, and it didn’t last long. Highlights include:
The Sunday crowd, mainly women over 70, told me how incompetent I was because I gave them Dr. Pepper instead of Pepsi. Then, they proceeded to gripe and whine about me as I cleared their table, giving me death looks and eye rolls. Go back to church, hypocrites!
One individual left me a 5 cent tip, while many didn’t tip at all.
On a Saturday night, an entire basketball team came in to eat. I had only worked there a couple of days. I dropped about a 10 plates in nervousness, cried in public, and screwed up about five orders. Not a good experience!
Though Pizza Hut was pretty bad, Braums was worse.
Getting ice cream is supposed to be a special event. For adults it's nostalgic of their childhood, for children it’s a joyful feeling of reward, and for couples it's romantic. It’s the Braums employee’s responsibility to make that event as flawless as possible. After all, they’re going to remember it. At least this is what they tell us in training. Most of the customers didn’t seem to be having such a happy time. The children would incessantly gripe and whine for more. "I want a double dip mom, not a single." "I want a banana split, not a sundae." I want, I want, I want. The parents would sigh in disgust and dispute their children's request. Once, a chubby boy begged his mom for a double dip. His mother persisted in denying his appeal. "You don't need it. You're too fat," she whispered. How heartwarming.
In addition, a lot of couples on the verge of ending their relationship come into Braums regularly. It’s as if they’re trying to recapture the magic that once was. I once watched one woman storm out after a deep, heated argument with her husband. Another time, a young man and woman bickered with each other from the time they ordered until they left. Stuff like that happened often.
And unfortunately, when you work in the fast food industry during the winter season, you run the risk of attaining all of the various illnesses that are circulating through the community. Before working at Braums, I hadn’t been sick in years. However, on the second day I worked for Braum's I contracted an inexorable viral bug that took up residence in my blood stream for over two solid weeks. (And believe me, I tried to get rid of it. Short off oding on Nyquil, I drank lavish amounts of cough/cold medicine to the point of passing out.)
The vicious bug included a cough with loud enough volume to carry miles, along with an incessant nasal drip, which forced me to blow my nose on cheap bathroom toilet paper while at work. The cheap, moisture-less paper left me branded with red spots under my nose, while there were also two silver dollar size bruises just south of my eye balls. Yes, it was hot hot hot!
But sick or not, I could always count on the costumer to be a whiney asshole.
Once, I was the only one stationed on ice cream when at least 20-25 people simultaneously decided they wanted milkshakes. This happened all time, but this time we had just replaced our most requested squares, (that’s the technical term for a carton in the ice cream business) so the ice cream was frozen solid. Milkshakes generally take about 3 minutes to make properly. That is, if the ice cream is soft enough to manageably scoop, but the ice cream was impenetrable. I vigorously battled with the flavored ice blocks until my wrist was numb. It took me a minute or two per scoop. Considering every milkshake requires about 4 scoops each, it was a lengthy battle. To my utter humiliation, the customers, college students, laughed and pointed at my struggle. “Let’s all get vanilla milkshakes”, vanilla being the hardest to scoop, a young guy suggested to his friends. His friends greeted his suggestion with approval.
Oh, and my wrist ALWAYS hurt when I worked there.
Then there was the perverted manager that gave me the job. The guy, Michael, had a thing for young blondes. Out of 22 employees, 18 of them were girls; 16 with blonde hair. I actually shouldn’t have even been hired. I had put my application in various businesses in Ark City with no luck. I had a pretty good resume but had never received a call back. So, I decided to experiment. Some people might find this unethical, if so stop reading NOW! On my Braums app I made up businesses and elaborate job duties that I had performed for years. All of the businesses were fictional, and none of the contact numbers worked. However, after my interview with Michael, he told me that he had called my former bosses and they just raved about what a good employee I was. Needing the job, I just ignored the peculiarity. Later, he was fired for sexual harassment.
Of course, Braums wasn’t all bad. It had its perks. For instance, I could eat all the ice cream and French fries I wanted. Unfortunately, I did just that. I became a self-indulgent fatty when I was at work, and gained 35 pounds, which I’ve never been able to get off.
All in all, I guess I learned a few things at Braums. Like how to square dip. But that’s of course, another rant all together.
Post a Comment