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The worst job I ever had was the one I left recently in retail management at a large department store. Which is a shame, because it used to be the most rewarding job I ever had.
As with other jobs on the lower end of the "economic spectrum", the downturn has brought out the greed and true colors of the filthy-rich CEO's and boards-of-directors who run these major chains.
I used to love my job; putting out new merchandise each season and striving to make it look nice, waiting on customers and helping them to select merchandise, enjoying working with and supporting my fellow sales associates, etc. We always had enough staff to do our jobs and provide good service to our customers. Not a lot of pay true, but not a lot of stress either. We felt valued and good about working there. It seemed a fair trade-off.
Flash forward to the past few years - working with skeleton crews of part-time only workers that quit left and right, or don't show up at all due to low hours, pay and lack of benefits, everything being about the bottom line and meeting "numbers" by pushing extra and often unwanted "add-ons" at every turn at customers, Store Managers stressed to the max about meeting those numbers, customers pissed off due to drop in level of sales staff and customer service, more and more lame-brained "initiatives" coming down the pipe-line and added "tasks", meanwhile no more raises, benefits cut back to nothing, and increased "threatening" work environment, with everyones morale in the toilet. Where's the incentive in all of that? Just be "happy" you have a job? I think not.
SO glad to be gone, never going back.
You're right on about how a rewarding job can go down the tubes in a heartbeat.
Almost 20 years ago, I worked in the office of an upscale department store chain - the oldest chain in the country. It was a great job, until mismanagement at the top caused it to gradually go under, and they lied to us the whole time about what was happening. First, they started restructuring and letting managers go (doubling up the areas of responsibility of those who remained), then sales staff, then the entire customer service department. They installed a phone area where customers could call the "mother ship" (headquarters) for customer service issues. The gift wrap people were let go, and they assigned us other associates (including me) to do the wrapping. (I really stank at that task, I was all thumbs). Then they cut housekeeping and security. Shoplifting and shrinkage increased, and the store looked dirty. They closed the restaurant, which had been a very popular place for folks to eat a nice sit-down meal, instead of mall food like pizza and hamburgers.
Then they filed for bankruptcy without telling us, until it was printed in the financial section of the paper. Management never told us a thing, other than to deny the gossip and warn us about talking about it amongst ourselves. As if that would ever happen. We got all the dirt (and the truth) from the vendors and buyers. The store I worked for eventually closed, and the whole chain eventually. Sad ending to a once well respected business.
Well one is the job I have now-medical collections. Nothing like having to call someone the day before Christmas saying-you owe us money-pay it or your going to court. Merry Christmas. I HATE being the bad guy. I majored in hospitality and tourism for a REASON-I like people! This job makes me suck on Tums.
I interviewed for a job at West Point. Originally to work in the laundry office-or so I thought. Instead-it was tagging 4800+ soldiers dirty socks, underwear, t-shirts and other clothing. Eww-in a hot sweat shop standing all day. I was to skeeved to take that job! Bad enough what I have to do at home after hubby finishes a hot day from working-ewww!
I'm with ya on the collections. One of my duties at the law firm was to call the delinquent clients - my boss said, "If they don't pay me, I can't pay YOU." Some of the excuses were obvious BS, but as the economy worsened, I couldn't help but believe some of them. Worse still, my boss was a "slum lord" (had rental properties) and I had to call his tenants about delinquent rents or type letters threatening eviction.
Just thought about another awful job I had, for all of about two weeks.
Took a very-low paying job (minimum wage) at a bakery, the ad said "bakery clerk". Well, I thought, I would be bagging cookies and donuts for customers and kiddies and wishing them a nice day, right?. Not too bad for a little while, I thought. Well, after just a couple of days, I was left to do the following for 8 hours solid BY MYSELF:
- Take out donuts, pastries, and cakes and glaze and frost them, put out in bakery case
- Constantly check out front to re-fill bread and roll dispensers and other bakery goods
- Get out pans with bread dough and roll large racks into extremely hot, greasy ovens, set timers
- Continually race to get bread racks out of the ovens as soon as timers go off, cool and wrap all bread, roll next racks into huge, hot, greasy ovens, set timers again
- Wash a huge pile of mess left by the morning bakers: bread and cake pans, rollers, sticky roll pans, utensils, etc.
- Answer constantly ringing phone and take down in-depth and detailed cake and other bakery orders
- Slice loaf after loaf of unsliced bread on dangerous cutting machine for the deli department
- Mop all floors, clean all rubber floor mats, wipe down and sanitize all baking surfaces and ovens
- Wait on constant line of customers dinging the bell and wanting service at the bakery counter
On and one it went, and ALL of this for minimum wage. There should have been at least three people doing all of this. One day I got off work, took off my apron and silly hat, called up a manager and quit. I've never quit any other job in my life without notice. But that was ridiculous, not to mention unsafe.
From that time on, and for the next few years while I lived there, there would appear a "Help Wanted" ad every few months on the door of the store for the "baker clerk" position.
That job description sounds familiar! DH and I had a bakery years ago. After figuring in the 7 day work week, 14 hour days, and deducting all the overhead, we probably ended up making a lot less than minimum wage. We had people working for us, and they weren't expected to do all the stuff you did, but some days it felt like we did everything ourselves. Your boss (the bakery owner) must have been barely making it, or was awfully cheap, to heap so many duties on you for such a low wage. Did he do much hands-on himself, or was he an "absentee" owner?
By the way, we had a bread slicer that matches your description - it was awfully noisy, and you pushed the bread through with a wooden stick-like instrument. Miracle, but I still have all my fingers!
This was the job listing on my resume that helped get me my present position in the school cafeteria, by the way.
I'm with ya on the collections. One of my duties at the law firm was to call the delinquent clients - my boss said, "If they don't pay me, I can't pay YOU." Some of the excuses were obvious BS, but as the economy worsened, I couldn't help but believe some of them. Worse still, my boss was a "slum lord" (had rental properties) and I had to call his tenants about delinquent rents or type letters threatening eviction.
Yeah this guy I work for is a prize too. I mean really-you have a roof fire at your place of business-sleep lab to do apnea studies-and while no damage to the interior, you've got no heat. So instead of rescheduling patients-just buy portable heaters for each room for patients to sleep in and your front office staff. The guy that called us checking in for his shift said it was brutally cold in their. Cheap, and a number of thing go through my mind about why he wouldn't close til repairs were made-oh I know-he'd have lost close to 75K for the one night-but it would have been made up through rescheduling.
I am on 6 months probation-I've got 3 1/2 months left. I've never been on more than 90days ever. And I've got it hanging over my head that if I do bring in enough delinquent claims-he's firing me. Course the girl-she's 26-who's my department manager-doesn't complete her work by posting the bills(weeks go by before she does it) or makes HUGE mistakes filing claims-it's putting me behind in my work. So I fully expect to be out of a job again because of this girl-through no fault of mine. She's planning on quitting shortly and doesn't give a flip about what gets done or not. Sigh.
Yeah this guy I work for is a prize too. I mean really-you have a roof fire at your place of business-sleep lab to do apnea studies-and while no damage to the interior, you've got no heat. So instead of rescheduling patients-just buy portable heaters for each room for patients to sleep in and your front office staff. The guy that called us checking in for his shift said it was brutally cold in their. Cheap, and a number of thing go through my mind about why he wouldn't close til repairs were made-oh I know-he'd have lost close to 75K for the one night-but it would have been made up through rescheduling.
I am on 6 months probation-I've got 3 1/2 months left. I've never been on more than 90days ever. And I've got it hanging over my head that if I do bring in enough delinquent claims-he's firing me. Course the girl-she's 26-who's my department manager-doesn't complete her work by posting the bills(weeks go by before she does it) or makes HUGE mistakes filing claims-it's putting me behind in my work. So I fully expect to be out of a job again because of this girl-through no fault of mine. She's planning on quitting shortly and doesn't give a flip about what gets done or not. Sigh.
Wait, so this is supposed to be a scientific lab? How are the results considered to be "valid" if the sleep apnea test subjects are uncomfortable? I can understand if the test is about the effects of cold on sleep apnea. If it's not, then you have a variable which could potentially throw off the study.
Wait, so this is supposed to be a scientific lab? How are the results considered to be "valid" if the sleep apnea test subjects are uncomfortable? I can understand if the test is about the effects of cold on sleep apnea. If it's not, then you have a variable which could potentially throw off the study.
If the patients were smart-they'd call themselves and have canceled the appointment. It's all about money with this guy. Variables don't matter to him.
Pharmacy Tech at Rite Aid Pharmacy. I worked for twenty years at Shaws Pharmacy and Osco Pharmacy and loved it then took a job at Rite and and it SUCKED! I quit after two weeks. There computer system is outdated and awful, one of the pharmacists threw things at the techs when he was angry and I recieved zero training on the computer system. One female pharmacist insisted that I stop waiting on a line of customers that was about ten deep and ring up her Halloween candy..... I'm shocked that more people don't run far away from Rite Aid and get the wrong medicine on a daily basis
Customer service. Pay is mediocre and people assume that it's OK to treat you like crap just because they can't see you. I've worked in several call centers and it's unbelievable how many people think it's OK to be rude or say inappropriate things over the phone to someone they don't know. I was good at it, but I hated it. And there were the death threats and threats to do other things when people didn't get their way.
911 Dispatcher is also incredibly difficult, but I made decent money when I did that. The dispatch I worked for was under staffed so often times you had to monitor the radio and calls at the same time, which made the job incredibly difficult. Lots of stress, dealing with some seriously crazy people, and the rotating shift wasn't great either.
I also think your definition of bad job position also depends on your perspective. My husband makes pretty decent money doing a blue collar job, I know a LOT of people who would call the work he does "worst job position". Long hours, working outside in extreme weather (ranging from -40 to over 100 degrees outside), working around a lot of heavy machinery, lots of dangerous equipment, working around HAZMAT, explosives, etc. But he worked an office job for years and he'd probably say that's his worst job position he's ever had, while his current job is his favorite (he's been doing it for 3 years now).
<Customer service. Pay is mediocre and people assume that it's OK to treat you like crap just because they can't see you. I've worked in several call centers and it's unbelievable how many people think it's OK to be rude or say inappropriate things over the phone to someone they don't know. I was good at it, but I hated it. And there were the death threats and threats to do other things when people didn't get their way.>
Yeah but that's kind of a general statement, isn't it? I think you are referring to phone rep jobs... There's plenty of 'customer service' jobs out there that actually pay well and you don't have to deal with a lot of crap.
<Customer service. Pay is mediocre and people assume that it's OK to treat you like crap just because they can't see you. I've worked in several call centers and it's unbelievable how many people think it's OK to be rude or say inappropriate things over the phone to someone they don't know. I was good at it, but I hated it. And there were the death threats and threats to do other things when people didn't get their way.>
Yeah but that's kind of a general statement, isn't it? I think you are referring to phone rep jobs... There's plenty of 'customer service' jobs out there that actually pay well and you don't have to deal with a lot of crap.
Yes, that's exactly what I was talking about. You know... the reference to "call centers" and how people would say things over the phone. The job position is "customer service representative".
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I'm shocked that more people don't run far away from Rite Aid and get the wrong medicine on a daily basis
