Hardest job you've done?

[ShadowSoldier]

Well what is it? I'm bored and today we have to do Hay on the farm and stack it and everything, it's about a 15 hour job to get part of it done. It goes up into the top of the barn where it's hard as hell to breathe in there. The temperature today will be about 30c, and in the barn, it gets up to 40c.

 

[DS1]

Yeah, picking tomatoes in a greenhouse for 8 hours straight every day for the season. The smell is not as bad as a barn, but it's still hard to breathe and hot as hell. I was so damn exhausted after every day that I didn't even have energy to play games, hahaha.

edit - and to this day I find it hilarious that I've gotten paid twice as much to do half the work at every other job I've done. People have no idea how easy they have it

 

[AlanJohn]

A long time ago, when I was a kid, my dad gave me a job.
We went to my grandmas farm. Some parts of the land were infested by beetles, I had to find as most beetles as possible and collect them in a bucket. For each beetle caught, I got 10 cents. So, I gathered up around $35 of beetles in one day.

Oh, and the reason my dad left the beetles alive was quite simple: he liked drowning them in cheap gasoline and then burn their corpses. It was fun.

 

[Gus122000]

A long time ago, when I was a kid, my dad gave me a job.
We went to my grandmas farm. Some parts of the land were infested by beetles, I had to find as most beetles as possible and collect them in a bucket. For each beetle caught, I got 10 cents. So, I gathered up around $35 of beetles in one day.

Oh, and the reason my dad left the beetles alive was quite simple: he liked drowning them in cheap gasoline and then burn their corpses. It was fun.

"he liked drowning them in cheap gasoline and then burn their corpses."
, if you ever hear any strange voices at your house at night check the walls for any entrances to any secret rooms.

 

[MelodieOctavia]

Hoeing weeds and small bushes in the middle of the Arizona desert.

 

[Vulpes Abnocto]

105 degrees Fahrenheit, 100% humidity, no rain in sight.
We're tasked with adding a 20' tall, 60' long, 40' wide addition to a building that used to be a golf course's clubhouse but is now used for website and graphic design. (this room would be their new photography suite)
The concrete we were building on top of was pitted and scarred from many years of exposure to the elements and being heavily salted whenever freezing temperatures occurred.
Any wood-frame wall over ten feet tall must be built from 2x6 material.
I can't tell you how many times I nearly passed out and fell from the scaffolds during that build. At every break I would lay beneath a water spigot for at least ten minutes in an attempt to cool my blood and body off enough to survive the next two hour stretch.
The job took about two scorching months.

 

[Luigi2012SM64DS]

Reading this post.

 

[Alaude]

trying to solve the riddle of my PC's strange BSOD's

 

[Hanafuda]

Just about all the jobs I had before graduating college consisted of hard labor. 1st, beginning the day after graduating high school, I worked as the driver's helper on a beer truck for a summer. From 6am to 4pm every day, lugging a hand truck loaded with cases of beer into all the beer joints, convenience stores, and grocery stores while the driver (my boss) stood around chatting up the girls who worked at each spot. The next summer, I got a job on a construction site building a Holiday Inn, and my job was 'tying steel', which means laying down steel rebar poles and tying them with wire to little metal tripods that suspended the poles a few inches above the ground. The resulting steel latticework provided an internal structural skeleton for the concrete floors of the hotel. This was seriously hard on the low back, as the whole day was spent bent over and working at ground level with your hands. And finally, the last two summers I was in college, I got lucky and landed a job in a factory that makes the tops of beverage cans. You've probably noticed that the inside of a beverage can is tan in color - that's a preservative coating that gets baked onto the aluminum. Back in the 80's when I worked in that factory, that coating was being baked on right there (they now buy it pre-coated) in giant ovens, and on a summer night it was typically over 120 degrees F inside that factory. Walking outside into high 80's - low 90's for a break felt like the air conditioner had been turned on.

All those jobs sucked, but unlike the work I do now, the mental stress level was rock bottom. I do miss that.

 

[Sicklyboy]

A long time ago, when I was a kid, my dad gave me a job.
We went to my grandmas farm. Some parts of the land were infested by beetles, I had to find as most beetles as possible and collect them in a bucket. For each beetle caught, I got 10 cents. So, I gathered up around $35 of beetles in one day.

Oh, and the reason my dad left the beetles alive was quite simple: he liked drowning them in cheap gasoline and then burn their corpses. It was fun.

"he liked drowning them in cheap gasoline and then burn their corpses."
, if you ever hear any strange voices at your house at night check the walls for any entrances to any secret rooms.

The most alarming part of AlanJohn's post is the cheap gasoline part. I almost forget that at one point in time those two words made sense when put together.



As for me, I haven't had too many hard jobs. Hardest job I have I suppose is what I am doing now, retail at Target. A year ago I got transferred to the electronics department, what I always wanted there; I love being able to work with what I get to work with there, but good god, the hardest part is just dealing with the morons who come in. I'm surprised half of them can even figure out that the automatic doors open when you walk up to them.

Nothing beats when people start telling me that some item is cheaper at a different store chain.

"Wow, I can't believe how expensive this camera is here. It's twenty dollars cheaper at Costco."
"...Okay?"

The other day I had some crazy lady tell me that "tv is Satan's window." I walked the fuck away from her.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Update:

This weekend we did the hay, 1500 bails, 120 pounds each. Got it done in 12 hours, I got absolutely no sleep on the weekend, I was up for 48 hours. Got a wicked burn and scratches from the hay, started a new job at a mill on monday after getting no sleep again, and kicked ass at it. Us Canadians are a tough breed.

 

[Hanafuda]

Update:

This weekend we did the hay, 1500 bails, 120 pounds each. Got it done in 12 hours, I got absolutely no sleep on the weekend, I was up for 48 hours. Got a wicked burn and scratches from the hay, started a new job at a mill on monday after getting no sleep again, and kicked ass at it. Us Canadians are a tough breed.

I've bailed hay before. Got paid jack shit for it too now that I think about it, but I was pretty young and at the time it seemed like good money. Nice part was the farmer's sister had an in-ground pool next door to his place, so we all went swimming to get the ticks off. I salute you ... it's hard work indeed.

 

[Sora de Eclaune]

The hardest job I've done is work at an ice cream place where idiotic people come to.

Them: "And get me some bacon cheeseburger ice cream."
Me: "I'm sorry? Bacon cheeseburger?"
Them: "Yeah. I need something warm to go with my ice cream."
Me: "We don't sell bacon cheeseburger ice cream, nor is anything you're going to buy here warm."
Them: "Then make it. I'll wait."
Me: "I'm not in charge of making the ice cream, sir, nor do we have the ingredients for that kind of ice cream."
Them: "I said make it. I'll wait."
-Two hours later-
Manager: "You refused to serve a customer, I hear."
Me: "We don't have bacon cheeseburger ice cream, nor do we have warm ice cream."
Manager: "Go in the back and get the man some. He's waited long enough."

And that's why I quit my job at an ice cream parlor.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Update:

This weekend we did the hay, 1500 bails, 120 pounds each. Got it done in 12 hours, I got absolutely no sleep on the weekend, I was up for 48 hours. Got a wicked burn and scratches from the hay, started a new job at a mill on monday after getting no sleep again, and kicked ass at it. Us Canadians are a tough breed.

I've bailed hay before. Got paid jack shit for it too now that I think about it, but I was pretty young and at the time it seemed like good money. Nice part was the farmer's sister had an in-ground pool next door to his place, so we all went swimming to get the ticks off. I salute you ... it's hard work indeed.

15 bucks an hour, no pool lol.

 

[Arnold Schwarzen]

Hardest job was working grocery. I tried to do a damn good job the first days and thought the managers were impressed. Funny that you get praise for busting your ass but one small thing annoys them they fuckin hate ya. The store was obviously short staffed especially in our dept and when a bunch of new shit came in and they did resets it's impossible for 1-2 people to do during their scheduled hours. I always got dropped off and picked up and had a SCHEDULE! That means it ends at 4 I leave. The kept pestering me to stay which I refused. It got to the point that I immediately left without telling any managers when my time was up, I clocked out and was outta there.

My cunt of a manager got pissed and wrote me up and said I'd get fired if I kept doing that. I mean why would I ask if there's anything else for me to do if my shift's over right? But that's not the point there's more to it than one might think. I obviously didn't care if that's disrespectful cause all the bosses were too. The first times they bugged me to stay late I was threatened by that fuck in an angry voice that I couldn't leave on a particular day until everything in the back was put up. Fuck that shit and I quit after 4 months. First 2 months which I thought was okay and then the last 2 was just retarded as all hell.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

Physical work, I would have to say doing engineering on houses in the summer. Engineering being a fancy word for putting scab braces and hurricane straps in the attic of the houses that where being built. It was so hot sometimes I would look down below where I was working there would be a puddle on the floor of my own sweat. At least the positive placement gun made the job kind of fun

As for mental hard work I would have to say doing tech support for one of the largest PC makers on the planet, some days I would go home with a headache.... I swear to God some people are so stupid they should not own a computer.

Spiritually hard I would have to say doing tech support for a penny auction site, and having to lie to customers on a daily basis. I was almost happy when the company had its merchant account pulled. Sure I was out of a job but thankfully I don't have to tell anyone "No no mam its not a scam..." when I knew damn well it was.

 

[kaputnik]

Sand blasting the inside of a starting air tank on container ship where I used to work. If it wasn't for the humidity in the tank after a few hours of work, I'd say I got a pretty good idea about how dieing in the Sahara desert would feel from that. Insane heat, sand everywhere, and really bad air. The shower afterwards must have been one of my best times ever

 

[andy26129]

Taking a long ass shizzle in the toilet, smelling and hearing my own crap go down one by one on a small ass restroom. 55 farts celcius.

 

[Sicklyboy]

The hardest job I've done is work at an ice cream place where idiotic people come to.

Them: "And get me some bacon cheeseburger ice cream."
Me: "I'm sorry? Bacon cheeseburger?"
Them: "Yeah. I need something warm to go with my ice cream."
Me: "We don't sell bacon cheeseburger ice cream, nor is anything you're going to buy here warm."
Them: "Then make it. I'll wait."
Me: "I'm not in charge of making the ice cream, sir, nor do we have the ingredients for that kind of ice cream."
Them: "I said make it. I'll wait."
-Two hours later-
Manager: "You refused to serve a customer, I hear."
Me: "We don't have bacon cheeseburger ice cream, nor do we have warm ice cream."
Manager: "Go in the back and get the man some. He's waited long enough."

And that's why I quit my job at an ice cream parlor.

I don't even know what to say to that.

 

[FAST6191]

Judging by other posts I have mostly been a layabout

Right now I seem to be on a mix of IT and engineering (design if I am unlucky and reverse engineering if things are nice) but as I avoid contact with the general public for it tend to only do stuff for people I already know it is not as bad as my associates that deal with new customers and/or the general public, granted plenty of "while you are here"/"could you just" but most of that is interesting at least and I am believed when I say that is impossible/not viable or that will take me a week.

Building work. Given H&S means there is no such thing as a hod any more, insulation now only itches if you take the time to really rub it on you and the hottest a UK summer gets to amounts to 30 Celsius (86F for those that prefer antiquated measurements) for about 2 hours around midday for maybe a week on end it is not that bad*. I wander home knackered at the end of the day but nothing that puts me out of sorts and most problems are usually self inflicted (wearing kneeless jeans when filling in a patio/grouting and not washing my hands right away when mixing up some of the more fun mixtures of cement). I mostly seem to be called in for wrecking out, all hands on deck or because there is a chance electricals will be needed and paying an electrician to stand around all day/tools down to wait for one to turn up is unnecessary if you have a labourer that can do much of it or is otherwise versed enough in aspects of construction/physics to not be a complete menace (also handle IT related nonsense that seems even to apply to building now).

*Given the option I all but cease to function around 27 C but I am learning to push through it.

The old man now plays mobile mechanic stateside and I got in the way when I was there for a few months. Can't say fault finding in a wiring loom is terribly interesting* from an electrical engineering standpoint (it was not like I needed to reverse engineer anything other than laugh at/figure out what the bodge it and scarper job was to wire in something last time someone else touched it and I am not a good enough mechanic to figure out what the ECU/scantool is actually giving an indication of the problem for) and whatever fabrication/failure analysis was done was not a lot better as far as sating my intellectual curiosity goes. Hefting truck wheels, axles and whatever else around when it is considered a good day if you have a roughly level concrete slab to work on is not something I will miss though and neither is staring at the same wall as replacing a clutch for the third time (granted not always on the same vehicle) in as many months as the prevailing attitude for some of drivers was boss'll pay for it/manual transmission... what is that?(only the thing you have been "driving" for the last three years)/brakes just work if you stamp on them no? It got cold enough that I actually noted it at points but I like cold and to my utter amazement the last few times have been some of the driest summers or winters on record so I rarely had to worry about getting wet either. Of course the same thing seems to sum up IT most of the time and I wound up doing that even if that was more by necessity than desire. This being said I can not really think of a better way to earn a crust and get to truly see an area... pity I had seen most of it previous trips out there.

*US auto electrics finally seem to be catching up to the rest of the world which may or may not be a bad thing but as proper auto electrics is his game guess who got called in.

I used to help deliver fruit and vegetables (probably the closest thing I have ever had to a proper job) back in my youth but that amounted to waking up about 3am (never been a problem), loading up a van with the orders, grabbing some more to nibble along the way (and given this stuff had pretty much been picked 48 hours prior you bet I was game for that) before delivering to a bunch of hotels and shops in all the little villages the former of which usually tried to ply you with food as well (usually a proper sandwich or whatever was left from the previous night but these were some really nice hotels). On top of this it was pretty much all said and done and back in town around 10am or 11am at worst which meant barring early morning sessions and having the option of passing out drunk on a friend's couch which is hard to do when you only have spotty oik money otherwise earmarked for better things and few.... alternative sources of booze nothing was really lost.

Advice.... if you are doing manual labour or lifting of things definitely learn how to lift properly (although "lift with your knees" is the short version there is a tiny bit more to it than that), try to keep warmed up, definitely keep fluids in you and do nothing risky to your back whatsoever- if something risks your back you are doing it wrong. The second would be do nothing risky to your hands but that is general life advice in the modern world... the amount of people I see riding motorbikes without proper gloves or indeed any at all.