What's the worst job in the world?

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I once read a survey about this (well, it was about the worst job in Britain). They questioned a man who cleans out the sewers in Manchester, and he said the job was enjoyable, with a lot of variety in what floated round the corner. They interviewed a woman at a paint company whose job was observing the way that paint dries. She insisted that it was a fascinating job. In the end I think the winner was the job of armpit-sniffer in a deodorant factory.

― fougasse (Jake Proudlock), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 09:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought the global established answer to this question was jizz-mopper?

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 09:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought it was data entry. :-(

― kate (kate), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 09:21 (twenty-two years ago)

i have a friend who does olfactory studies on pig shit.

― anthony easton (anthony), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 09:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Towelboy at a whorehouse.

― jimmie joe jeffrey, Tuesday, 15 July 2003 09:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I know a guy who managed one day as a Maggot Farmer, though he did puke several times.

― Alex K (Alex K), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 09:31 (twenty-two years ago)

My worst: I was for a while a typist at the Child Protection Division of a London Borough Council. My day: sitting in a hot little room waiting for the Social Workers (who were mostly really decent sorts) to bring more tales of misery and horror for me to type up.

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 09:49 (twenty-two years ago)

being a lawyer

― Tad (llamasfur), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 09:56 (twenty-two years ago)

except that it's fun to sue people. and if yer an asshole, then being a prosecutor (a/k/a a "persecutor") or working for a hated agency like the IRS probably gives you endless ways of revelling in yer assholishness.

― Tad (llamasfur), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 09:58 (twenty-two years ago)

My parents have asked me to spend next week inventorying ancient, irrlevant files in a dank, sweaty office in Soho. I am almost crying with the unfairness of it all, then I remember that it's only because I've been too unmotivated to get a proper job that I'm in this position.

― Mark C (Mark C), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 10:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought it was confirmed as "assistant crack whore."

― NA. (Nick A.), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 11:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Mine is pretty soul-destroying. I claimed in aim yesterday that it was still better than digging ditches, but this morning I am not so sure.

― Lars (Nicole), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 11:50 (twenty-two years ago)

The one where I had to hand-write names, addresses, amounts etc on hundreds upon thousands of pledge cards and envelopes, all day, every day, for a fundraising agency, was pretty bad. But hardly the nadir of human suffering.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 11:55 (twenty-two years ago)

linkin park

― piscesboy, Tuesday, 15 July 2003 12:23 (twenty-two years ago)

towel boy at linkin park's whorehouse

― black plastic (black plastic), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 13:29 (twenty-two years ago)

doing the translation and voice-overs for freaky german porno films.

― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 13:52 (twenty-two years ago)

You are joking! That'd be hilarious!

― Mark C (Mark C), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 14:09 (twenty-two years ago)

The person who does artificial insemination for zoo animals still freaks me out. I mean, ELEPHANTS, think about it.

― Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 14:12 (twenty-two years ago)

being a lawyer

But what if you're a lawyer for, like, the ACLU? Wouldn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy at the end of the day?

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 14:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Probably some sort of social work job where you had to deal everyday with abused children. I have no idea how those people face each new day.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 14:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Nevermind what I wrote earlier, self-pity sucks.

― Lars (Nicole), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 14:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I once was a call-centre operative for a place that dealt with callers whose cars had been impounded. I lasted two days.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 14:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I think being a collection agent would suck.
I've been collected, and when I've gone down to settle up I could hear people screaming and yelling over the phones at the people working there.
You know, confronting people with some of their worst fears 20 times a day. Shit.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 14:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I worked for a credit reference agency for a while - we were the poor sods on the end of the phone you shout at when you get refused credit for some obscure reason and publicly humiliated in Curry's/Dixons/Another High Street Store - I lasted 3 months, quite proud of that - doubt it's even up there in the top 20 though...

― smee (smee), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 14:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Somehow I thought the words "convenience store clerk" would be in here somewhere. I mean, imagine this -- you're getting paid minimum wage to put up with not only the general public's overall stupidity but also have to weather the occasional hold-up, where your very life is being threatened for a grand total of maybe $45 at most, and there are still those robbers who will shoot you even if you cooperate fully. That has got to be the worst job ever.

― Innocent Dreamer (Dee the Lurker), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 16:01 (twenty-two years ago)

after temping?

i have worked just about everything.easily the worst for me was the job as a file clerk at the hospital. i worked the cancer ward. my tiny little office was located right next door to the "counseling" room. terribly depressing.

data entry was the most booring
collecting/repo man was a mixed bag.

― kephm, Tuesday, 15 July 2003 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I once read a "Help Wanted" sign in the window of an adult bookstore in Cologne looking for a video booth cleaner for Sundays and holidays. I think we have a winnner.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Everybody knows Sunday splooge is the worst.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 16:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Contrary to popular opinion, being a fry cook ain't no picnic in the park with My Little Ponies. I mean, sure, you don't have to smell people's armpits or nothing, you don't have to scrub toilets, but how many other jobs leave your FLESH SCARRED FROM HAVING BURNING HOT OIL SPLASHED ONTO IT!?! Not very many.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe a shit tester? A friend of mine with a bio degree from Australia was put to work as a shit tester when he applied for unemployment. Job consists of testing shit samples, obviously, but maybe not so obvious, done on location in a sewage treatment plant. Stinky.

― Scaredy Cat, Tuesday, 15 July 2003 17:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Horace, my ex-wife was on the child protection panel in a poor London borough - she had to examine the cases when things went badly wrong, particularly when children known to be at risk or having been reported as being abused or some such ended up dead. I can't imagine anything worse than that.

I've been a fry cook and I've cleaned toilets in a motorway service station. My worst job was being an accountant.

Also, Derek & Clive to thread!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Worst job I've ever had: receptionist at an apartment rental company. There was an inverse relationship between the rent our tenants paid and how much they bitched at us on the phone, and this company specialized in working-class housing.

Worst job I've ever heard about: sperm collector at a turkey farm (commercial turkey strains have been bred to be so meaty in the breasts that they can no longer reproduce naturally). This guy had to go from turkey rooster to rooster and root around in each bird's ass to harvest the sperm, because most male birds don't have penises.

― j.lu (j.lu), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 17:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Wow, that's pretty bad. Actually that's TOTALLY DISGUSTING.

I have this one friend who worked as a nurse in a retirement community, stuff like: sponge-bathing old men who then get massive old-man boners (cuz she's really quite hawtt to be honest) and tried to touch her, cleaning up human excrement where these folks had dropped their bed-pans on the floor, or the worst...coming into a room to give someone their meds and finding them dead. I couldn't handle stuff like that.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I would say rooting around in a turkey's asshole would be slightly preferable to jacking off any other animal.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 17:45 (twenty-two years ago)

They don't have penises so they keep their sperm in their asses?

― Chris P (Chris P), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 18:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I haven't inquired into the specific details of bird asses, and now I'm sorry that I mentioned as much as I did.

― j.lu (j.lu), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 18:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Good point Horace. Hell, I've had my hand up in dead turkeys' body cavities many-a-time, it can't be too much worse than that!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 18:20 (twenty-two years ago)

working for wetherspoons. those poor fuckers get paid jack shit to give up their friday and saturday nights serving food and drink to abuse-hurling pikeys and rat-tailed little "freshfacers". If you're unlucky enough to become a shift manager and money goes missing from your till, you pay for it out of your wages (only about £11,000 a year). And now that they've imposed that "no-swearing" rule, staff are expected to ask drunk people to "tone it down". If that's not asking for physical violence, i don't know what is.

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 18:55 (twenty-two years ago)

typist at the Child Protection Division
after temping?
I thought it was data entry. :-(
being a lawyer

How f#cked am I? I am currently TEMPING at the CENTRAL REGISTRY OF CHILD PROTECTION doing much DATA ENTRY. I start LAW SCHOOL in 3 weeks.

This is absolutely true. I think I need a hug.

― Hunter (Hunter), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 21:11 (twenty-two years ago)

US Army 3rd Infantry Division

― Millar (Millar), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 21:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Being Vice President of the U.S. (I mean, who is that, again?)

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 21:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Millar OTM.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 21:26 (twenty-two years ago)

eight months pass...

working in an office with a bunch of idiots that have their heads shoved so far up their arses they can't see out.

― charlotte, Wednesday, 24 March 2004 20:44 (twenty-two years ago)

seventeen years pass...

charlotte otm, but also

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