What a way to make a living
on Feb 18 in General by DanI’m not particularly keen on work. I don’t think I’m designed for it. I am a naturally dishevelled bumbling creature and, until they design a career based solely around loosing your shoes and forgetting which day of the week it is, I think I should be given a special dispensation to retire at 32. After all I’ve been in full time employment for a total of seven years now. I think you’ll agree that I’ve done my fair share.
Like most people I’ve had a few different job titles over the years: Barman, Shop Assistant, Cleaner, Care Assistant, and now Nurse. But by far the worst job I have ever had was working in the quality control department of a clothing manufacturer.
Well I say it was a manufacturer but it wasn’t really. It was more of a clothing importer and re-packager. Boxes of jeans, t-shirts, and the like were shipped in from Eastern Europe and our task was to make them look like they were made in England. A major part of my job was ironing the creases out of the merchandise. Anyone who is familiar with my crinkled appearance will realise that by asking me to iron clothes they were tampering with the delicate balance of the universe. My relationship with ironing is similar to that which matter has with anti-matter.
I was not really a proper employee, I was just a student there only for the duration of the summer break. As such I was designated by my co-workers as the lowest of the low. My only companion in this underclass was a chap called Saggis, a Greek immigrant with bad breath and a nearly impenetrable accent.
By this time I had already established an unhealthy prejudice against the Greeks. There were a large contingent of them living in my university halls of residence. Not only did they have a tendency to play Bryan Adams loudly at 3am, but they consistently attempted to push in the dinner queue. If there is one thing guaranteed to incur the wrath of any Englishman or woman it is someone trying to jump the queue. It is a little known fact that we only went to war with Nazi Germany because Hitler pushed in front of Churchill at the bus stop.
Unfortunately Saggis did little to challenge my negative views of the Greeks. His ancestors may well have been the fathers of modern thought, but the only thing Saggis was the father of were drunken bar brawls. Whereas Pythagoras founded the principles of mathmatics and Plato lay the philosophical foundations of Western culture, Saggis just worked out new ways of bullying me to give him a lift home. He was, quite frankly, a twat.
Despite my dislike of him I often found myself working alongside Saggis purely because we were both equally disliked by our collegues . The collegues that are no doubt still working in that godforsaken hellhole. Whereas me? Well I took that University degree they were so scornful of and I… well I didn’t do anything to be honest because a Media Studies degree is bloody useless. But I went back to University amd did yet another degree and now after a total of eight years of further education I am now bringing home a wage that is only 15% below that of the national average. Ha! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!
But despite all that, my co-workers were not the reason that job was the worst one I’d ever had. To find out the real reason you’ll have to come back here tomorrow.
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In July of this year I shall be walking 78 miles in 6 days in aid of the Joseph Salmon Trust, a charity founded by my close friends in memorial to their son Joseph who died aged 3 in April of 2005. Please look here for further details and consider sponsoring me. Thank you.
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« « “It’s all Greek to Me” Sunday| It’s all taking and no giving » »
I once worked in a paper factory in Brighouse, packing printed notepads.
At one point, having spent around 11 hours at the end of a conveyor belt, I saw three or four of Woolworth’s “WOW! Biggest Pad Ever!” pads zoom past with the words “Worst paid ever” emblazened across the front.
It was only after I’d stopped the conveyor belt (and thus the whole factory), attracted the attention of all my colleagues on the factory floor, (who incidentally had a similar attitude to me as yours did to you, for similar reasons) that I realised my mistake, apologised, and accepted that lifting 36 tonnes of paper in 12 hours is good for neither the back, nor the soul.
I left after completing three night shifts and liberating approximately £50 of pads, jotters, reporters notebooks and a few spiral-bound diaries, which ended up soaked in beer in the Old Court Brewhouse.
worst job I ever had was cleaning trucks. My hands were completely destroyed (skin got torn bad!). And sitting down on my knees to pull out weeds between normal crop wasn’t really a favorite job of mine either.
But at the moment I’m an office cleaner with low pressure, so I’ll take that for now.
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I think I should be allowed to retire at 32 also.
And as I’m 36 next month, I want 4 years back pay.
What do you reckon to my chances?
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There is a little Greek deli down the street from me run by a jolly old Greek fellow who, last time I was there, offered me a shot of Uzo. The family was waiting in the car though, so I turned it down.
I like the retire at 32 idea, especially since I’m 32. Where do I sign up?
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Nice use of the word “twat”, it’s been years since I’ve heard anyone say that.
Dan, I put up my taste test review of the Marmite you so generously sent me. Ya, um… thanks.
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The worst job I ever had was working at a garden centre. Partly because the uniform was bright green and partly because the manager was an unctious little dickweed who deserved only my foot up his arse at high velocity.
I heard he had a nervous breakdown and I’m ashamed to say I giggled.
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