What is your worst job?

What's your worst job? Ahh, the endless choices – how can I narrow it down to one? Remember that feeling, that rush of adrenalin as you pull your smock or greasy apron over your sweaty brow? That feeling that at that moment anything and everything is possible in life? You could someday work or sleep your way up the corporate ladder and make it to Lead Fry Cook?

I can honestly say I had some (three come to mind) of the shittiest jobs in history. Not the worst, mind you, for never did I scrape road kill of the highway or insert enemas in people’s asses…er, wait, come to think of it I did have a job like that. It was when I performed barium enemas - medical procedures, thank you - so it sounds worse than it really was. Well, that’s what I tell myself anyway.

Here’s a rundown of the Top Three shitty jobs that I’ve had:

Shitty Job #3: Safety Plus – Sales Representative

Sounds good, right? Wrong. It lasted a couple weeks. I worked on commission only; I sold Halon fire extinguishers door-to-door; and to top it off, I had to “invest” $150 in a kit that would help me become a better salesman. What a douche bag I was. The kit mentioned that I should make a list of people I knew and write their names and addresses down. This would be my “sales territory”. Picture this: tight button-down shirt, cheesy, thin 80’s tie, and pants I should have given away to the Salvation Army years earlier. The only thing going for me was my killer hair. It was humiliating. I would lumber up and down familiar streets talking to familiar people about a product that I could give ten shits about. I think the “client base” felt it; I only sold one fire extinguisher, and it was to my grandfather. I never asked but I’m pretty sure he bought it out of guilt.

Shitty job #2: Recruiter, USA Training Academy

This job was an S.O.B. – a dirty S.O.B. at that. In this position, I was in charge of…guess what? Ding, ding, ding! You got it, pardner! Going door-to-door again, only this time I had the dubious honor of attempting to get people enrolled in truck-driving school. As per instructions, I had to go to seedy, lower income neighborhoods and trailer parks to find potential pupils. As horrible as I was as a fire extinguisher salesman I was even worse at this one. Late one afternoon, As I cruised the impoverished streets of central Kentucky I found a house, but not just any house. It belonged to a rumored devil worshiper. Eeks! Should I run or face my mortal fears and knock on the door? Well, I knocked and talked to his dad, who proceeded to inform me the fella was still asleep. Satan worship must take a lot out of a guy, I guess.

I did manage to help one woman’s future, though. Keep on truckin’, Big Mama.

All in all, the job lasted 40 miserable hours; by that first Friday afternoon I’d had it. So, I stopped off at the nearest Shell station I could find, mustered up my saddest voice, and proceeded to call the boss and tell him I had to quit for “personal reasons”. I know, I know, I am an asshead for being so lame, but I still have an amusing story to tell, so all’s well that end’s well.

Shitty job #1: Fry cook/garbage boy/parking lot sweeper/bitch @ HARDEE’S Restaurant

This is my all-time low. After the two previous jobs, I had to find something, anything to make a little cash. I had taken a year off college after doing poorly my freshman year and I was getting desperate. Not so desperate to work at Hardee’s, though, or so I thought. When I applied, I told them I would not work past 5pm and NO WEEKENDS. I was intentionally trying to sabotage my chances of employment, but they must have been more desperate than me because they hired me on the spot. One minor setback: I had to get a haircut. Damnit! The long, cascading brown locks of love were to be snipped off and swept up like yesterday’s trash. Oh well, it was either that or forfeit my $3.35/hour!

Plus, Motley Crue tickets don’t pay for themselves.

Day One was pure, unadulterated hell on Earth. My uni consisted of brown polyester pants, orange-and-plaid polyester shirt, and brown old-man’s cap. The whole outfit was musty and smelled of grease.

Anyway, I was in the back of the store, watching videos on proper ways to fry burgers and French fries when a hugely obese woman shuffles into the training area and begins to vomit in the adjacent garbage can. This can was about 1 foot from my freshly cut hair. It was not pretty. After she stopped, this is what I heard:

“I’m sorry, baby, Big Angie* eats too much. Big Angie always eats too much. I’m so sorry, baby.”

She labels herself Big Angie and talks in the third person to boot. Classic stuff.

Close to the end of my career at Hardee’s, I had a couple more interesting nuggets to share. First, I was in the fry area and I fell on the horrifically unsafe grease-covered tile floor. I hurt my back. For precautions, I was transported to the local ER via ambulance. No big deal, right? Well, it was raining that day, so the EMT placed a sheet over my face to shield me from the rain. Little did I know that as I was getting my x-rays taken at the hospital everybody in a three county radius suspected I was dead, because they saw a covered body on a gurney coming out of the back of Hardee’s. I am not making this up.

Finally, I was sweeping up cigarette butts off of the parking lot when some dick drove by and flicked a lit cigarette at me, then tells me “Hey buddy, you missed one!” He and his red Camaro then peel out onto the street in a cloud of dust and burnt rubber. If I could have caught up with him I’d have pulled him out of his shithole car by his curly-permed hair and taken him behind the woodshed for a good old-fashioned ass beating - Kentucky style. I swear a buddy and me are going to collect all of our humiliating moments (which are a boatload) and create a movie script. He have talked this crap for years and one day we will stop being so lazy.

It was here where I had an epiphany: I was going back to school. I had had damn near enough.

Moral to these stories: STAY IN SCHOOL, KIDS.

Now, tell me in your own words, what is your worst job? This isn't a tag or anything, but I still demand all of you to do it.

P.S. More Guatemala pics soon.

* Big Angie is a pseudonym. Although she did self-appoint herself “Big”; Angie is the pseudonym.

I changed it to protect her identity. Plus, there is no way in Hell I am going back to Hardee's to request permission.