Worst Crap Jobs You've Done?

[Jenikaye]

In high school I, briefly, worked at a fish cannery. My job was standing in the conveyor line behind the guy who slices the bellies open. I got to pull all the insides out, making sure each fish was nice a clean! Good times....Good times...

[eje]

In high school  I, briefly, worked at a fish cannery. My job was standing in the conveyor line behind the guy who slices the bellies open. I got to pull all the insides out, making sure each fish was nice a clean! Good times....Good times...

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Hard to beat that one.

My dad worked at Oscar Meyer in the 50s. I'm pretty sure the thing that set him right on a divulgent career path was a similar job involving pig intestines.

ooof.

Nothing like 8 hours of intestine packing...

[ChefCrash]

Just curious - what are some of the crappiest, nastiest, most demeaning jobs/tasks/situations you've experienced working in restaurants?

I really wouldn't know. I was always the BOSS.

[Toliver]

....Plus, since I was "so effecient and such a great worker," I finished all my assigned tasks too early and was assigned to also work the registers and in the drive in....

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And thus emilyr spoke of the story of the U.S. Post Office and why mail carriers take their sweet time delivering the mail. Finished delivering your mail route early? Grab that big box of letters and packages and we're going to send you back out to go help So & So finish their route sine they're not moving quickly enough.

From all the posts it sounds like I had it easy when I was a dishwasher at my college cafeteria. I used to curse the cooks for their burnt and scorched pans I had to clean. Hadn't professional kitchens ever heard of Pam non-stick spray?

One time the manager who ran the cafeteria banned steel wool pads in the dishwashing room. It had something to do with the possibility of steel wool shreds being left on pans or some such health regulations nonsense (what? like we don't rinse the pans off??). We dishwashers resorted to bringing our own stash of steel wool in and hiding them from view if ever the boss came into our room (which was rare, of course ).

[Alchemist]

I worked at a fast food place in the early eighties. taking the trash out at two am, took two people. It wasn't that the trash was heavy, it took one to carry the trash, and one person had to fend off the rats when the door swung open. We would be rushed by a wave of vermin. We allways tucked our pants into our socks so the rats wouldn't run up over our shoes to bite our ankles. I know this sounds so room 101? in 1984, but therse bastards had no fear. I guess a big steaming bag of taco meat and cheese just drove them crazy.

Then years later in a nice resturant as a sous chef, I got the job of taking the mice caught in the glue traps and putting them out of thier misery with a croquette mallet. It would me hours before I could get any food down. The sound of little skulls being crushed...eeew, still makes me gag.

[Marc Olson]

I grew up in rural Western Washington and my best friend's dad had a chicken farm on the side. An old two story barn with four big rooms. Three or four times a year the chickens had to be loaded for delivery to the processing plant...by hand.

The process involved waiting until it was dark, putting blue lights on in all of the rooms and then walking into the somewhat hysterical flocks of birds and grabbing seven chickens (three in one hand, four in another--a 'hand' of birds) and then carrying them (upside down) to a central door where they were passed to a worker on the truck and put into a crate, two 'hands' per crate.

It was hot, dusty and since they didn't turn the water off, wet in many places on the floor. Hence wet, smelly chicken legs.

Your hands would smell for a week (it was hard enough to hold seven flapping birds by one leg without gloves getting in the way) and nobody wore respirators, so you'd cough up black phlegm to boot. Plus all the scratches and peck marks from the unhappy poultry.

[Reefpimp]

Having to come in and work Sunday brunch really sucked the big wahooni because I was almost always hungov3r pretty badly. Nothing like slapping a quivering slab of prime rib on a plate and... I don't want to talk about it. Had to go into a Dumpster once after some customer's ring, almost quit on the spot over that but I really needed the job. Not to mention the multiple instances I was made to clean up some drunk patron's vomit. I finally told my manager that unless he was going to provide HAZMAT-protective materials, I was going to report him to the Department of Health for improper disposal of infectious waste.

This didn't happen in a restaurant, but I was butchering a deer a few years ago and when I went to separate the left shoulder, a copious quantity of unspeakable fluid came pouring out of the cut--some person who thought they knew how to hunt had shot it days previous in the season; and the wound was infected. Yeeeegh.

[Toliver]

This didn't happen in a restaurant, but I was butchering a deer a few years ago and when I went to separate the left shoulder, a copious quantity of unspeakable fluid came pouring out of the cut--some person who thought they knew how to hunt had shot it days previous in the season; and the wound was infected.  Yeeeegh.

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Sounds like chapter from a Stephen King novel...

[Eatmywords]

I worked at a fast food place in the early eighties.  taking the trash out at two am, took two people.  It wasn't that the trash was heavy, it took one to carry the trash, and one person had to fend off the rats when the door swung open.  We would be rushed by a wave of vermin.  We allways tucked our pants into our socks so the rats wouldn't run up over our shoes to bite our ankles.  I know this sounds so room 101? in 1984, but therse bastards had no fear. I guess a big steaming bag of taco meat and cheese just drove them crazy.

Then years later in a nice resturant as a sous chef, I got the job of taking the mice caught in the glue traps and putting them out of thier misery with a croquette mallet.  It would me hours before I could get any food down.  The sound of little skulls being crushed...eeew, still makes me gag.

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Ahh Alchy, this brings back memories!

Similarly, I worked at Wendy's in the mid 80's (my last year of highschool). At the end of the night we disposed of some 20 bags of unspeakable mess into the dumpster. (It's opening was, oh, about five ft high). Of course as lazy kids we would fill the bags way over their capacity making the challenge of heaving them into the dumpster in one piece close to impossible. Needless to say, many of those bags broke in the lot or on their way up into the dumpster and allover us. I'll never forget the smell of old burgers, fries, chicken, various condiments, grease, soda and 20 other perishables either in the lot or on my uniform.......Nasty!

There were no rats but lots of big cucarachas. Dumpster drop was not fun!

[santo_grace]

I've had many jobs in the food industry. I've worked at McD's and yes, it could get very, very hot next to those fryers in the summer. I've waitressed for horrible, horrible owners, but still managed to have a good time because of the other waitstaff. I also waitressed at a Friendly's on Cape Cod - lots of fun waiting on families that are just determined to have fun, especially after their 4-hour round of miniature golf. I worked in the dining hall at college, which is no thrill to be filling the plates of my fellow students, especially the annoying ones.

However, the worst food industry related job was selling meat door to door. Yep, I would pull up in my refrigerated truck, ring the doorbell and try to drag people out to the truck to look at my inventory of hamburgers, chicken tenders and steaks. I'm a horrible sales person so I didn't stay in that job too long. I wouldn't buy the stuff, so how could I convince others. That was a lot point in my life.

[thebaker]

My worst crap job goes way back to when I started work at the marriott food services in JFk airport (the places you buy the $5.00 hot dog before getting on your flight)

I had just started as a mechanics apprentice and my frist job was to clean out grease traps ( that had not been cleaned in years) I mean dozens of traps..

Some so full we needed crow bars to pry up the lids.... Oh my god what a stench and mess...... I could not get the smell out of me..

[Sunny Simmons Steincamp]

Most of my foodservice experience was as a bartender, and solo as a caterer, so I've been spared the worst of things, from reading some of these posts! I did, of course, work in a few "dives" over the course of years, and in some of those places, took turns mucking out the bathrooms. You can use your imagination as to what it was like there some nights. And I once worked in a club where the fire suppression system was engaged, and had to spend the better part of three days helping clean that mess up. Gods, what a stink.

[snowangel]

The fish guts eclipse my experiences at Bird's Eye in Faribault, MN during corn pack and my experience at Processed Potatoes in Mpls. preparing potatoes to be made into frozen french fries. I haven't eaten a single french fry that hasn't been hand cut since. I think it was the digging the bad spots out of the potatoes that were slimy and disgusting just following a chemical bath to remove the skins. I was in college at the time, and believe me, that $10.00/hour (back in the late 70's was enticing until I did it. Hangovers saved me.

[andrewB]

would have to be breaking down 40 pheasants in the Ambassador's garage in the late fall. it was so cold i couldn't feel my fingers. I had feathers from head to toe and was constantly fighting chasing the dog away... those were the days...

[Grovite]

Hell, I can't remember any "bad" times working in restaurants, catering or in the bakery. Yeah, bosses, customers and clients can sometimes be assholes, but that's expected. That also holds true for the retail jobs.

I worked in radio for a bit, and most of those people were a-holes, but again, that's expected.

The worst would have to be my time as a middle school art teacher. My one, and only, year as a teacher was capped off by an angry parent taking a swing at me, ahhhh, good times, good times

[johnsmith45678]

One place I worked backed up to a golf course. We'd keep the back door open to get some air. Every now and then a golf ball would come rocketing into the kitchen (or slam into the metal back door). The prep tables were in back right opposite the back door (and I had to do a prep shift every now and then). During my tenure, nobody got beaned amazingly enough. It was kind of insane.

Edited October 17, 2006 by johnsmith45678 (log)

[Mikeb19]

Let's see... The most demeaning job I ever had to do was when I was still an apprentice, the chef asked me to scrub the stairs going to the basement (prep areas).

Another good time at that restaurant - we were doing a private function at a client's house, and we set up a makeshift kitchen in his backyard. It was about -15 to -20 degrees celcius (yes, that's BELOW freezing), but we had a nice heated tent, and we had power for the induction burners and lights. Then the power went out. No more heat, no more light, no more induction burners. We busted out the flashlights and bunsen burners, but still no heat. Thinking we were going to be in a nice, warm tent, neither me or the sous-chef brought a jacket, so the Chef, Sous-chef and I would alternate who wore the jacket every 10 minutes or so. This went on for a few hours, we were all freezing by the end of it, but despite everything that went wrong the function was a success.

[FabulousFoodBabe]

Add me to the grease-trap cleaners. I can still smell it. Yeah, I was the boss and after I did it a few times just to be sure I knew how, I made the latest arrival or the cook who smelled most like lat night's booze, clean it. I can still see them running up the hill to the kitchen, pushing ahead of one another ...

[Jim Charles]

My first and only kitchen job was at 15 back in Illinois where I grew up. I worked on weekends as a short order cook in a small luncheonette type place where I was by myself with the steam table and grill. I worked the midnight to 8am shift and made big bucks (for the 50’s), $1 an hour under the table. The problem was this was only a front for the high stakes card games and gambling parlor in the basement. There was a small vestibule with a guard as you entered the basement and then hooks all over the wall where you had to hang your pistol before entering the game room.

One morning around 3am I heard a loud bang from a shotgun from downstairs. I was out the door never to return. There was never any report of anything happening but I was sure someone took a swim with an anchor in Lake Michigan that night.