Yes I have cleaned toilets

[ahnuld]

[ QUOTE ]
I am pretty sure this will be 100% yes, but

[/ QUOTE ]

um, look up.

[JaBlue]

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After that it was 9.5 years in the grocery business - bagboy, cashier, night stocker, produce clerk, produce manager. I wish I had some decent stories to tell about those days but it kinda sucked. The edgiest thing a friend and I did was we'd take the shrink produce out back along with a 5-iron we kept in the backroom and we'd whack it all as hard as we could - bagged salads, fruit, potatoes, just about everything. We would duct tape the limes and knock them into the park beyond the store - we could probably hit those a good 60-70 yards.

[/ QUOTE ]

You seem like a reasonably smart guy, why did you stay in the grocery industry for nine and a half years? Or, what circumstances would you say compelled you to stay?

[octopi]

I was going to start a similar thread, except asking people what they learned from their [censored] jobs.

For instance, I bagged groceries for an entire summer. It was my first job, and the first week I had recurring dreams of watermelons rolling down the belt towards me at speeds I could not keep up with.

I worked in a few bookstores and a Home Depot. Oh, and a seedy hotel. That was [censored] incredible. Too bad I worked with a bitter, rotten to the core alcoholic bitch. I would have kept that one.

Anyhow, my point is, I now do the following, mostly to help out the poor peons that still hold these jobs.

:: if I have perishable items I don't want, I give them to cashier instead of shoving them in the magazine racks. Cheese warmed up and left for a few days to rot on "InStyle" isn't fun to clean up

:: I push my cart back to a cart zone, or if I'm close enough, into the store. Pushing carts through snow is [censored], and I can understand why people don't want to push one, but try pushing ten

:: I can really work and manipulate returns clerks after being one for a long time, and sometimes can swing better hotel rooms by using key words

[ahnuld]

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and sometimes can swing better hotel rooms by using key words

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can you explain which words you use and how it works?

[natedogg]

When I was 12 and 13 I had this job at the golf course. My job was to pick up all the balls down at the end of the driving range MANUALLY. I didn't get to drive around with a modified lawnmower that sucks up all the balls like you are probably imagining. I had this little picker-upper that would grab one ball at a time. Sometimes certain golfers with an overinflated sense of entitlement would keep hitting balls while I was down there picking up balls. I had to dodge and weave to stay alive.

I was paid by the amount I gathered, not by the hour, and it almost certainly came in under minimum wage.

I got to drive the golf carts around though I got pretty good at catching some air. Eventually I roped a friend of mine into the job with me and we had races with the golf carts until I rolled one over.

I've also worked as fast food worker, construction labor, paperboy, dishwasher, asswiper for the disabled, paralegal, bungeejumping intructor, CEO of a housing co-op, office mover, a tax preparer for JacksonHewitt (where I got fired for being white), telemarketer, importer, and I also was a paid congressional intern.

I've had two jobs that I quit on the first day (see telemarketer above).

I've also done unbelievable amounts of yardwork and woodstacking and snow shoveling for elderly neighbors who paid very little. Yes, I've been tipped 50 cents and been told to go treat myself with it like it was a big deal.

natedogg

[tuq]

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You seem like a reasonably smart guy, why did you stay in the grocery industry for nine and a half years? Or, what circumstances would you say compelled you to stay?

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"Reasonably smart" - that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

You'd be surprised - the grocery business is loaded with managers making decent money. Case in point, when I left the business in 1998 at 25 I was making >$40K plus bennies and rarely worked more than 40 hours/week. Not that I was making thick bank but it's not as bad as most people think. And that was just a department manager - the guys who run the store will clear $60-150K depending on the chain and the store's volume.

But it's a horrible grind (working a lot of weekends, holidays, the customer service aspect, etc.) and a terrible trap - virtually nobody in management chose that career, and the profit margins are sliver-thin so they're always looking at labor costs as expendable. My experience with most of the career guys is that they worked at a store through college and were making decent money, and then before they could utilize their degree they were married with kids, had no resume to speak of, and thus couldn't really switch careers without taking a hit in pay.

[tuq]

[ QUOTE ]
For instance, I bagged groceries for an entire summer. It was my first job, and the first week I had recurring dreams of watermelons rolling down the belt towards me at speeds I could not keep up with.

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Nearly ten years later, I still have dreams/nightmares of being back in the business. It's not that they're particularly pressure-packed situations like you describe, but the industry was such a mismatch for me that it's basically fear of failing and having to go back to stacking apples - something I know I can do!


[ QUOTE ]
:: if I have perishable items I don't want, I give them to cashier instead of shoving them in the magazine racks. Cheese warmed up and left for a few days to rot on "InStyle" isn't fun to clean up

:: I push my cart back to a cart zone, or if I'm close enough, into the store. Pushing carts through snow is [censored], and I can understand why people don't want to push one, but try pushing ten

[/ QUOTE ]
Heh, me too on the carts. As for the "go backs", I still shake my head when I see an abandoned item on a store shelf. WTF people, if it's perishable take it back where it belongs instead of being a lazy suckass.

[RubberDucky]

every job i've had has sucked

1. A & W foods
2. ServiceMaster: disaster restoration(clean up moldy insulation and drywall)
3. 2 different Grocery Stores
4. 6 different Car Washes/Detail shops
5. Sunglass Hut
6. a couple different construction jobs

I think I'm missing a few at the moment. Basically I'm a 22 year old college dropout who has no decent work experience.

[DeathDonkey]

My first job was at Carl's Jr. when I was 16. I learned a ton having a job like that as my first job, mostly related to working with people from all walks of life and making me see people much older than myself living on those type of salaries and working damn hard but with basically no hope to escape that situation.

A few interesting stories:

-I only remember one case of someone doing something disgusting with food, and it was my manager, who dropped a hamburger patty on the floor during a busy time and picked it back up and served it.

-During the year I worked there my manager got pregnant and had the baby but was never really sure whether the father was the guy who just got sent to prison for a couple years, or the other boyfriend who she still saw who the first boyfriend would kill upon release from prison if he ever found out about.

-I worked night shift usually and my night shift manager was a total screw up who would get high with most of the employees and make out with her boyfriend in the back office all night. I was the only regular night shift employee not smoking weed every night I think...anyway they bought the drugs in the back and one of my jobs was to hand the dealer a soda and a $20 from the register when he came through the drive through. They figured out I was smart enough to know how to steal so I would then spend the rest of the night making up the $20 in the drawer by doing things like applying various coupon codes to people's orders but charging them the full price, or not ringing in simple orders since I had all the prices memorized. I had no problem doing this stuff since it basically gave me privilege to do what I wanted and if my night shift manager objected I would just tell her I was going to tell someone higher up what my job responsibilities were and so I would get free food, leave early when I needed to, or whatever.

-One night everyone is high except me and a new girl. We decide to make a giant chicken caesar salad using serving bowls etc. and go up on the roof of the building and eat the salad and they all smoked more and we left the new girl alone in the entire downstairs, to take orders, make the food etc. We were probably up there an hour and she was crying when we came down. She quit a couple days later. Oops.

-DeathDonkey

[edfurlong]

I worked at Round Table in high school, but there was beer on tap, so it worked out pretty well for me.

I also worked in Prudhoe Bay driving a truck picking up bags of trash in the summers. Twelve hours a day seven days a week, two weeks on, one week off. It really really sucked, but I'm pretty sure I got my knob gobbled more in a couple summers than I have the rest of my life.