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JerryBobCo
Senior MemberPosts: 8,227 Senior Member
Worst job ever.
JerryBobCo
Senior MemberPosts: 8,227 Senior Member
I've had my share of crappy jobs, including one in which I worked 3 consecutive 90 hour weeks. But, I think the absolute worst was when I was in my late teens or early 20s.
I was working in the oil fields of west Texas, and our job was to clean a mud tank. For those of you who not familiar with mud tanks, allow me to explain. When a drilling rig drills for oil, it brings up a lot of "mud", which is usually a mix of crude oil and mud. Sometimes it's pumped into large metal tanks. The tanks may be 20-30 ft high, and 30-50 ft. in diameter. In other words, they're pretty big.
There is one way in and one way out. It's a small door that's bolted on, and covers an entry hole just big enough for a grown man to get through if he stoops. This particular tank had mud that was about 2-3 deep, and hard enough that it had to be taken out shovel full at a time.
Now imagine doing this when the ambient temps are in the high 90s, low 3 digits, the floor of the tank is slippery, and working inside the tank carrying mud out with a shovel. It took about a week to get this done. I was very, very glad to be finished.
And, to make the job even more fun, on the last day I slipped while carrying a load of mud. I instinctively dropped my shovel and put my hands out to catch my fall. Unfortunately, there was pipe running across the floor, which the shovel handle hit, causing it to bounce back up as I was falling down. It caught me in the throat, and I was unable to talk for about 30 minutes due to a badly bruised larynx.
I'm glad I got out of the oil field business for obvious reasons.
I was working in the oil fields of west Texas, and our job was to clean a mud tank. For those of you who not familiar with mud tanks, allow me to explain. When a drilling rig drills for oil, it brings up a lot of "mud", which is usually a mix of crude oil and mud. Sometimes it's pumped into large metal tanks. The tanks may be 20-30 ft high, and 30-50 ft. in diameter. In other words, they're pretty big.
There is one way in and one way out. It's a small door that's bolted on, and covers an entry hole just big enough for a grown man to get through if he stoops. This particular tank had mud that was about 2-3 deep, and hard enough that it had to be taken out shovel full at a time.
Now imagine doing this when the ambient temps are in the high 90s, low 3 digits, the floor of the tank is slippery, and working inside the tank carrying mud out with a shovel. It took about a week to get this done. I was very, very glad to be finished.
And, to make the job even more fun, on the last day I slipped while carrying a load of mud. I instinctively dropped my shovel and put my hands out to catch my fall. Unfortunately, there was pipe running across the floor, which the shovel handle hit, causing it to bounce back up as I was falling down. It caught me in the throat, and I was unable to talk for about 30 minutes due to a badly bruised larynx.
I'm glad I got out of the oil field business for obvious reasons.
Jerry
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
Replies
I remember bumper stickers that read "Don't tell my mother I work in the oil patch. She thinks I'm a piano player in a cat house."
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
The boiler we worked on was allowed to cool for a day before we did any work but all 3 boilers were in an explosion proof room with the other 2 running so it was plenty hot.
JAY
Some of the worst work I've ever had to do was because I enjoyed it. When I was younger doing cowboy work and working on farms. Specific tasks of those jobs I hated. But I loved the work overall and was in crazy good shape at the time.
One of the worst work memories I had was when I was a teenager and working at a big horse farm. I was given the job of clearing an irrigation canal of weeds. The canal was about 1/4 mile long and both sides were lined with weeds 4-5 feet tall and thick, the entire length. And all I had to clear them was a hoe and chopping tool for chopping the weeds with thick bases. I had to chop the weeds and pile them inside the ditch to be burned. By myself.I would clear about 20 feet on one side of the ditch, switch to the other side and do the same 20 feet plus another 20 feet, repeat the process for 1/4 mile of ditch. Took me 3 days to get it all cleared. By the end of the first day, I had formed blisters on my hands that popped and started bleeding. Worked the next 2 days with my hands that way. I hated it. But it built character..
The second most disliked job I've done throughout my life, I have to do tomorrow morning; picking up bales of hay out of the field, haul them and stack them. Big round or square bales are easy. A tractor with forks does all the work. The small 2-wire bales (60-70 pound bales) for horse hay are manual labor, when you don't have the fancy elevators that lift the bales up on the trailer. One person driving the truck between 2 rows of bales, 2 people picking the bales up on the ground and throwing them on the trailer (my job), and 1 or 2 people stacking on the trailer. When it's 105 and 65% humidity, it can start to suck pretty quick. And as you go along and get more tired, the trailer is getting taller, so you've gotta throw the bales higher and higher... And you have a choice. Either the person driving hauls butt, getting the job done fast but requiring the people on the ground throwing bales to work their butt off. Or they drive slow and you're out there all day... It's a good workout. No gym membership required... Gives me an idea.. Maybe I need to start a new crossfit business... Instead of pushing big tires around, come throw bales of hay around. I won't charge much...
> 1st job was working for STC/Alcatel making underwater fiber optic cable as a engineer in various positions. Learned alot had a chance to go out on a couple installs. Living aboard ship was different, but they ate real well and if you were the drinking type, they did that too.
> 2nd job working at a Automation company. Did some small jobs designing somme pick n place systems, laser pet tag machine, ....
> last job working at a semiconductor place. It was the people that was great, my recent manager sucked, but it was different and interesting.
i had some summer jobs too...
> working for a naval architect. He was 1 of the principal engineers at Boeing on the Hydrofoil. that was cool to talk to him about that time.
> working for a 59-64 T bird car parts place. learned alot about t-birds. They were cool and sort of ahead of their time in some ways.
> worked for DOA Corps of Engineers for several summers. That was a learning experience seeing how it worked and all of the paperwork. We had a full Col in our office, but the Division office a few blocks away had some Generals. Also had some British officers working on exchange program. All of the uniformed people were cool with all of the civilians like me.
> also worked at a lumber company where they designed lumber mills/systems.
Sometimes i thought they sucked, but for the most part, they were all different and interesting...
- Don Burt
The worst.....Before I went into the service, I was an ironworker. After we'd finished erecting the structural steel. we'd often lay the metal decking for the floors and roof.
Maybe stacking hay is worse, but laying steel deck in South Louisiana in July/August ranks right up there. Marine boot was a walk in the park after that.
Mike
N454casull
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
After Silence of the Lambs came out we saw the trick with the jar of Vick's Vapo Rub. Many of us had our own jar after that. Some guys just used aftershave. The only problem was our uniforms retained the odors and had to be changed and bagged as soon as we got back to the station.
BUT... I have a few nasty ones.
1- Worked at a pump/ water well company in Jr High and High school. Most of it was installing and repairing water well pumps in the Texas Hill Country. Pulling anywhere from 300- 800 feet of anywhere from 2”-6” pipe from a 12” hole in the ground while either baking in the heat or freezing in the cold. All the while, there was a threat of an equipment failure or rusted pipe letting go- and thousands of pounds of pump/ pipe/ water dropping into the hole, and you getting tangled in the wire and getting sucked down the hole with it. HOWEVER.. that was not the part that sucked the worst. The worst part was that we worked on all types of pumps... including septic pumps. I got to work on a malfunctioning septic system that somehow pumped raw sewage into irrigation lines. I got to disassemble all thr sprinkler heads, and clean the... stuff... out of the heads (tomato seeds are still recognizable and fit right into the screen holes of the filters) and get the sprinklers functioning again. I also remember standing on two crossmembers that held the “Grinder Pump” over a full septic tank with my head 2 feet below ground level while my co-worker held the collar of my shirt to keep me from falling in. I was trying to bust the corroded mounting bolts loose to replace said Grinder Pump (and yes- It’s called that because it grinds up the ‘Stuff’ to pump it into a second tank) to replace it. This was on the grounds of an all-girls summer camp, and what I remember the most were the pink plastic applicators for “feminine products” floating on the surface of the “liquid” about 6” below the crossmembers I was standing on.
On the plus side, I was making $14/ hour for a part time job when the minimum wage was somewhere around $5.25/ hour. And I got time and a half on weekends and holidays... I flat out volunteered to go on call outs on Christmas and New Years to clean fireants out of pressure switches and make several hundred bucks to do it.
2- In college, the Texas Department of Transportation (Highway Department) had a summer program where they hired college kids to get flat out absolutely abused for good money (along with full medical and dental!) All of my other friends that were on the crews got assigned to easy jobs (assisting the engineering dept, sign crews, etc....), while I spent 3 years doing the worst jobs on the road. Cleaning culverts and drainage tunnels, flagman (you want to die? Be a flagman on a road crew.people will try to hit you and then be mad you survive), pumping 400-degree oil in a paper suit in TX summer heat... but the worst was the roadkill.
There is a job that needs to be done called “running the roads” where every Monday and Friday, someone has to drive every state highway for the county and make sure nothing has gone wrong on the road. Signs are upright, no one ate a guardrail and left the scene, bridges are intact, etc... but it also involves removing roadkill that is in the lanes of traffic. And after any long weekend, somehow the college kids got the duty that involved removing 150lb dead deer from the road that had been out in the 100+ degree heat. Sometimes you had to remove them with a rake and a broom.
The other thing we learned was NEVER open an abandoned fridge or freezer. Just take it to the dump.
-Mikhail Kalashnikov
"You believe there is one God, that is good, even the demons believe and shudder in fear" James 2:19