Worst duty you've ever been given? [LONG]

[Rahmota]

The worst duty. while no where near as hazardous or dirty (Hey has anyone considered sending their job into Dirty Jobs on Discover channel?) as some of the others the worst I had to do was Balloon duty for the Dealership every Weekend and special event day. Imagine standing there blowing up with a helium tank 3 weather balloons and about 20 -30 regular balloons for a normal weekend or up to 300 for a special event weekend. I mean you can only do the daffy duck, dolly parton, farting impersonations so many times before you get tired of it. I really really really hated the stupid balloon detail. i mean cmon is there anyone stupid enough to go oh hey look they have ablloons on their cars lets go buy from them!

Fortunately the sheriff's department chopper pilot flew by one day when we had 4 weather balloons up. The manager had told up to take each balloon and their 50' long tethers and put them together to make one long super tether. I tried to question it but got told to do it. A few hours later the sheriff's helocopter flew over circled the dealership came back and hovered right next to the balloons and then flew off. apparently there was a phone call made to the dealership because we where immediately ordered to get the balloons down and never to do that again.

[digilight]

Many moons ago when I worked at Burger King (BK) I got a call from the owners wife (they owned 3 here in town plus owned about 5+ in Bakersfield. She wanted to know if I would work the local police block party with her. Of course I said yes, not wanting to piss of the boss and figured it wouldn't be in the heat of the restaraunt.

Well they had a jolly jumper (remember this is at least 12 years ago) shaped like a big ass giant Whopper, nicknamed the whopper hoper. We got it setup, kids had a blast in it, she bought me lunch and I got paid for it. This day was pretty cool. What wasn't cool was that I got nominated the official whopper hoper expert at the store. Every weekend during the summer and even warmer non summer weekends they had this monstrosity at the store I worked at. So first thing in the morning I had to set it up, on a asphalt parking lot. Run the electrical, do the tiedowns, etc. Then spend 6 hours getting kids in and out. Pretty much all the kids and parents were cool though. I don't remember any problems with it. No one puked in it thank god.

Butt what sucked was taking it down. Let the air out of it. Get a couple of the guys from inside to come out and help smash the air out of it. Then fold it up (you have the inflatable and then a separate tarp that it sits on for protection). The inflatable isn't to bad a little dirty. But the tarp that sits on asphalt each and every day gets a little filthy. By the time its folded up and back on the trailer you look like you've been spray painted black. Hands, arms, face, everything. I felt like a freaking coal miner.

[trunks2k]

You had to use razors to clean it off?

A can of oven cleaner probably would have done the job just fine. When I was working in the grocery store bakery, we decided that after 4+ years, it was time to give the ovens a real cleaning. I went and got a can of oven cleaner from the cleaning isle and sprayed it on. Instant clean. Took all the crap right off. Bad part though was a glop of the cleaner mixed with the grease landed on my arm, and ended up giving me a chemical burn.

[Jack7957]

I worked at a small retail computer shop, my duties were shipping/recieving and doing some assembly/tech work. But I was also the unofficial maintance guy also, so anything that needed fixing/building I did. Well one day the drunken salesman dropped a pen in the only toilet we have. So it became my duty to get it out, since it was keep the "stuff" from going down. After unsuccesful attempts at getting it out, it was decided to simply replace the entire toilet, which meant draining all the water from the bowl, leaving the excess, and trying to wrestle the toilet out the store without spilling anything on the floor.

[Dave1982]

Probably the worst duty I ever had was re-waxing a bathroom floor at the supermarket. Not only was this NOT my job, it wasn't the job of ANYONE at the store. Stripping/rewaxing the floors (done once or twice per year) was a job contracted out to professionals. Professionals with proper protective gear, I might add.

Well apparently, they had missed the bathroom, and rather than just saying "screw it" and waiting for the next rewaxing, management decided that it had to be done by us (read, me and my supervisor). Never mind the fact that the floor would get messed up immediately in any case, being a BATHROOM and all.

Luckily for me, my supervisor (who was also a good friend) had already stripped the old wax off the previous day, so I didn't have to deal with that. *All* I had to do was thoroughly sweep and mop the floor to minimize the amount of dirt trapped in the new wax, then pour the liquid wax down, spread it out with a fresh, clean mop head, the do it again once the first coat dried.

Man.......that job SUCKED. For one thing, the container of wax weighed about 75 pounds and was full, so it was a cast-iron bitch to maneuver and pour. More seriously, the wax was noxious as hell. And they didn't give me a respirator or anything, and this particular bathroom was poorly ventilated.

By the time I finished the second coat, I was stoned off the fumes. But it wasn't even a "fun" stoned because I spent the next hour or so feeling all loopy and dizzy and had trouble concentrating. I had to ask for an unscheduled break so I could go outside for some fresh air, which didn't help.

Later, I went back and checked the warning labels on the wax. Not only did the label strongly advise "adequate ventilation" and a respirator, but on an EPA hazard scale of 1-4, with 4 being the MOST dangerous for humans, this stuff was a 3. I complained loudly to my department manager, and told him outright that I would never do that job ever again.

[childofsolitude]

I have a couple..


A coworker and I were told to "clean up a mess" in the dog food aisle. I got pulled away by a guest on the way to the dog food aisle so I didn't get to it. However, I asked my coworker what the mess was and she told me that there were maggots and flys all over one shelf from a box of dog food that had rotted. Technically this wasn't something I had to do but if the guest hadn't pulled me away, I would've told my manager that I wouldn't do it.

The second one doesn't have anything to do with gross things or extreme conditions or anything bad like that but it's completely unfair what they're having me do. I'm a measly, little level 1 where I work. The level 2s and level 3s get paid more than me because they have more responsibilities than I do. One of their responsibilities is making sure the sale signs are correct for their department. What they had to do is go through all of the signs that they received, check them off by sign number on their list, tear them (which is the most tedious part), sort them, put them in sign holders, put "balloons" in them (balloons are pieces of plastic that go into the side of the sign holder), print the signs that were missing, and "sleeve" these as well (signholders and balloons). That doesn't seem to bad but it's very tedious and it easily produces headaches. Not to mention that they had to do it twice a week. WELL, because the sale signs took up a lot of time for the level 3's, they decided to have one person do all of the signs for the ENTIRE store. Guess who they picked.. ME. The first few times weren't so bad. I even got great team cards from managers and I was "recognized" at our huddles for doing a good job. However, this week was different. I didn't get to finish doing the signs and corporate failed to mail at least 100 signs so I had to print them all. The level 3s were mad at me for not finishing and they were mad because they had to finish what I didn't finish. What pisses me off the most is that before I came along, they had to do their own signs. I'm helping them. But they EXPECT me to do it for them. I only get thank yous from one or two level 3s. The funny thing is that I was told a couple weeks ago from one of my managers that the store manager said that the only way I could stop doing signs was if I found someone to replace me. Now what happens if I decide not to do it anymore? Are they going to fire me for refusing to do it? Oh, and did I mention that I didn't get a raise for doing the signs? Not even 1 penny. And the level 3s are getting paid the same amount that they were getting before and they're doing less work. *sigh*

[Arachne]

Dude. I'm a major team player (sometimes to a fault), and even I wouldn't have taken that sign duty without getting SOMETHING out of it. I would have been cool with a raise, or even with having some duty I didn't like taken out of my job description. You know, "I'll do signs, but I -will not- clean up maggoty dog food or wax the bathroom floors." People stop being grateful real fast, so it's best to have something more tangible in hand.

I don't have any really nasty duties. The worst, I think, is helping the customers who I think of as The Helpless Old Ladies. These customers are SCs in that they're very indecisive and, well, helpless, but I can't just write them off a "Oh, well she's a bitch so I don't care if I can't help her." Often, I feel sorry for them, and a little guilty. They've been knitting since before I was born -- in some cases, since before my MOTHER was born -- and they should, by all rights, be the gurus, the experts on knitting. But the new generation has come along and completely taken it over. We have new fibers, new terminology, new techniques... it's almost like it's not the same craft anymore. So these women come in, and they deserve to OWN the store, and they're just completely lost. And they're so grateful for my help, but often they don't know what they want and I can't help them. It kills me. I love some of these women and I've been known to lay awake at night questioning how well I handled their problems.

But that's an emotional kind of exhaustion, rather than the physical sort of 'ugh' that a lot of you are describing. And in a lot of ways, the physical 'ugh' blows the emotional/psychological stuff out of the water.

[tollbaby]

But the new generation has come along and completely taken it over. We have new fibers, new terminology, new techniques... it's almost like it's not the same craft anymore.

When I decided to learn to knit this past summer, I had no idea it had become such a trend again. Ugh. I wanted to learn to knit so that I could give my children hand-made clothes and so that I could make different gifts for friends and family (I've been cross-stitching for about 6 years, and have given away numerous projects, but I was looking for something different). I've always been a big proponent of home-made stuff. For Christmas this year, my kids and my favorite auntie got hand-knitted scarves, and everybody else got a jar of homemade pickled jalapenos I don't tend to buy gifts, because I can't afford it, but I find that people appreciate the hand-made stuff even more. My best friend and his wife are thrilled that I'm cross-stitching something for their new baby (I did one for their wedding, and they loved it).

[Arachne]

(Slight hijack)

A lot of people are of the opinion that the new knitting "trend" is bad. But to be honest, I think the changes made to the craft are mostly good ones. We have wider choices of more natural fibers than our mothers and grandmothers did, a wider array of techniques to call on in order to get the results that we want, and best of all, gauge. (Knitters and crocheters will understand why this relatively new innovation is A Good Thing.)

I knit all of my christmas presents. It's how I justify buying yarn on my limited budget. I figure that this is money I would spend anyway for this purpose, so I might as well spread out the expenditures over the course of an entire year and get some enjoyment out of them as well. My christmas presents are -coveted- by my family.

(Sorry about that. Hijack over.)

[tollbaby]

Arachne, I give away or wear everything I knit (actually, I haven't gotten around to knitting anything for ME yet), and my family jokingly argues over whose turn it is to get something hand-made LOL

The new fibers and techniques are great, I'll agree. I like the big chunky yarns to make quick scarves (I'll use size 15 needles and finish one in a weekend).

I would *love* to work in a yarn store *sigh* Unfortunately, I'm a single mom, and I doubt they'd be willing to pay me the minimum $35,000/year I need to support my kids (and would you believe, I don't even have a car!). *sigh* Maybe I need to *own* one

Sorry, I shall stop threadjacking now

[MadMike]

One night, I got stuck covering the entire sales floor myself. I don't know if it was a scheduling screwup, a bunch of people calling off, or what the deal was. I was working a 12-hour shift that day, and halfway into it, I was warned that at a certain hour, they'd have no one else covering the store, and I had to cover the entire thing myself.

OK, I barely knew my own department, let alone anyone else's, so this was not going to be fun. I don't know what they intended to do if someone needed something I didn't know how to do, like mix paint or make certain types of keys (the single-sided ones were easy, but I never got the hang of the double-sided ones).

Luckily, I didn't get asked to do anything I didn't know how to do, but I was running all over the store like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off trying to help all the customers that needed something. I'd run across the store to check on something, only to get stopped by another customer who needed something, then try to run back to the first one with whatever they needed, then tend to the second customer. Lather, rinse, repeat...

At one point, I was already five customers deep, when an older lady asked for some help. She wasn't nasty about it or anything, and I did try to be polite, but I guess my frustration showed through when I told her that I was already helping five other customers, and that I'd be with her just as soon as I could.

A couple minutes later, I get a page telling me to call the manager. Sure, it's not like I'm busy or anything. First thing he asks me is, did I just tell a customer that I was already helping five other people? Great, the customer must have complained. I told him yes, I did tell her that because I am trying to help five other customers. I'm the only one on the sales floor, remember? Too bad this didn't happen during my final days there, or I might have suggested he get his fat ass out of the office and help me.

There was a moment of silence before he said, "Oh, OK. Go help them then." GRRR! MIKE SMASH! Great idea, Einstein! That's what I was trying to do before he made me drop everything to call him!

Thankfully, I never had to do that again. Would have sucked going gray at the age of 20.

[HYHYBT]

Was the guy who kept turning the ovens on with people inside just an idiot, or was he trying to kill you?

[Thrifty]

The worst job I ever had to do was one I gave myself...

I was night manager at the time and there were no stock guys on duty. Part of the stock guy job is to clean up messes, even urine and vomit. (They do get compensation for this job, a few of the guys were making more than me and I was management)

Well two different nights, one night someone peed, another someone threw up. Now I could have made one of the floor people clean it up according to my boss but I didn't feel that was right, so I got out the mop, buckets, and old towels. Not fun as I have a really weak stomach.

[Noelegy]

Right out of high school, I worked for a doctor's office. He'd been my family doctor since I was a sprog, and he also owned a farm. He used one of the buildings on the farm for storing old medical records. Myself and another office flunky were sent out there to alphabetize and sort the records by date.

In Texas. In June. No A/C. There was a soda machine that was free, but it only dispensed Diet Sprite (the doc's wife's favorite drink). This place was about 5 miles from any convenience store, too.

The other girl was pleasant company and we had a decent time, but it was sucky work, spending all day in a dusty barn that smelled of horse poop.

[MMATM]

The boss who kept turning the ovens on (with my coworker and myself inside) was either just an idiot, or disgustingly, nauseatingly cheap.
Actually, he's both. And is known to be. His cheapness is practically famous. However, his idiotitude is equally prevalent, just he tends not to express it as much.
His reasoning was that it would be cheaper to keep the ovens at 450 degrees while we cleaned them (even though the doors were open) than to let them cool down and then heat them back up with the doors closed. This demonstrates his complete lack of intelligence, as keeping the ovens warm with the doors open is practically impossible without wasting a tremendous amount of energy and of course frying his employees, and we needed to close the doors at the end and turn the ovens up after they had been sprayed with oven cleaner.
God I'm glad I don't work there anymore.
(Sorry long )