Comments on: Worst First Jobs

By: Jena

Jena — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:42:56 +0000

Okay, here are mine:

For a work-study my freshman year in college, I did research for an economics professor (I was an English major). He was doing a study on philosophy and economics for a book he was writing, and I had to index it. I often fell asleep in the library while I was supposed to be working (not on purpose!). The next semester, I was saved by the English department asking me to tutor.

Another job, which I don’t recommend to anyone, was working at Gap Kids. I was at a newspaper at the time, college educated, in my early thirties, bringing in decent money. But I was also a single mom looking for a little extra Christmas cash, so I took the job for evening-and-weekend work. For minimum wage, I had to stand for four hours at a time folding and refolding clothes. I wasn’t even allowed to work the cash register, because I would have to “work up to it” in a few months (as told to me by my boss, who was only just out of high school). I quit after two days. My paycheck was something like $34.

By: chris

chris — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:55:47 +0000

damn, i have to narrow it down to one??

OK: parking garage attendant, i.e.-the guy in the booth everyone hates. you are the most unpopular person with every shopper in the mall. i only did for one summer after my bachelor’s degree, but there was a guy there who had been working full-time there for 15 years. the only good thing about the job was i got a lot of reading done.

By: Helniev

Helniev — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 18:55:37 +0000

I was about 16 or 17, fresh out of theatre school, of course, could not find work in plays or else so I had to do singing telegrams… was kinda fun until I got to a house with a cute lil toddler, and her dad hired me for her birthday. So I’m wearing a monkey suit and the lil girl want me to eat a banana. I laugh and put it aside and continue on, but the lil girls eyes started to fill with tears and her steroid-huge dad grabbed a pool cue, and looked at me with crazy eyes while a vein started to pop on his temple. So I mushed the banana through my mask for the kid… bad bad bad experience, but at least I got a good tip

By: cody

cody — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 06:09:30 +0000

I have to say, after working last summer at a temp agency, I kinda feel sorry for anyone who has to work on an assembly line of sorts. One job that I worked was stacking crates all day. Another time, all I did for 12 hours was stand next to a grinding machine and throw pieces of excess plastic cut off of buckets into it. Man did my feet hurt after that.

By: Kara

Kara — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 01:59:27 +0000

Many, many years ago I temped as a receptionist at a small office that sold trade show displays. Voice mail was in its infancy, and the boss thought answering machines were too impersonal. So she put a 50 ft cord on the multi-line phone, and I had to carry it with me whenever I left my desk, and that included going to the ladies’ room. It was bad enough being “tethered” like a parolee, but the rest room had an industrial-strength fan hooked up to the light switch, so there was always a thunderous “vroooom” in the background when I answered the phone in there. I just hope the customers bought my “our office is near the airport” story.

By: Chief-Ten-Bears

Chief-Ten-Bears — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:35:35 +0000

I lasted 4 days as a photographer at the Sears Portait Studio. On my last day, a teenage mother was diapering her baby directly under a sign imploring people to use the restrooms ten footsteps around the corner instead of our waiting area. Her equally teenaged spouse showed up and threatened to pound the sh*t out of me and everyone else in the children’s clothing/toy/furniture department (where the studio was) who had a problem with his ‘woman’ cleaning their stinking crotchfruit in front of two sets of formally dressed families waiting (standing because she took up most of the seats) for their portrait appointment.

I swore off photography for 12 years till I married, of all things, a photographer.

By: Tdave

Tdave — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 08:10:37 +0000

My first job lasted only a few weeks. It was maintenance at a convent for a Sisters of Charity organization. A crowd of mostly older nuns who dressed the old fashioned way(black uniform with the habit). I swear some of them where lustfully eyeing the new young guy(me). I was mopping the huge kitchen one day, watching all these old nuns dottering around, looking like penquins, thinking “I gotta get out of this.” When I was sweeping in the garage area, a long time employee who was frustrated about his life, freaked out (at me) about something, grabbed me around the neck, choking me and threw me across the hood of a car. I used that as an excuse to quit.

By: David

David — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:26:37 +0000

wow, some of these top mine, for sure! SuperSpeedway Cleaner? Now there’s something for the resume…

By: RG

RG — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:29:40 +0000

I just finished my degree in sound design for film. one of my internships was fixing the sound on a softcore porn film. the kind they play on a certain movie channel in the wee hours.

I had to get rid of the pops and clicks that came from a bad original recording, and then put in music for the silently-recorded “action” scenes.

because it was for internship credit, I had to show a segment of the “work” I’d been doing in class. I have no problem with porn, but given that I went to a catholic school I chose to show a fully clothed segment with some really cheesy pickup lines.

I was also the only girl in the class…

I heard a lot of those pickup lines again in the next few months.

By: Telemath

Telemath — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:33:51 +0000

In high school I worked as a janitor at a truck stop. No further details needed.