I spent one miserable summer working in a cotton candy trailer at many Ohio county fairs.
Detasseling corn when I was a teenager. It is big in the Midwest. Hot, sweaty, dirty. Pay was good for teenagers, the season mercifully short.
I worked in an Exon refinery. They produced gas, gasoline, diesel, and other stuff. The multi story tanks have to be cleaned periodically. That means using a jack hammer, and scaffolding. Very dangerous and toxic. They didn't have proper ventilation, or good air masks. Could be one of the reasons I have COPD, because I never was a smoker.
Worst and best job ever for me...teaching at an inner city school.
An Industrial Relations gig, negotiating on behalf of the company with the various unions.
The company had recently taken over many smaller organisations and had expanded geographically. I was to be the whipping boy, push the company's unpopular agenda.
I took it on as I had experience in the industry, was known to many of the staff and had been trained by the Unions themselves. The company sucked, once I began the work they started getting unreasonable and ruthless wanting me to negotiate reductions in conditions for workers and pretty much fudge the details so it looked above board. I refused so things got heated, we came to an understanding, I handed over all my work to date and they paid me up to date. I was out of there in 5 minutes. The woman in charge was one of the biggest bitches I have met in my life.
Group health insurance, informing customer about the status of their claims. A lot of crying over the phone in their side. Pretty Shitty coverage by big companies, they were not in good hands. Reloadable credit/debit cards. You will be surprised how many americans do not have banking at all or not trust a bank. Only way to pay some bills was with those "phony cards". Scams artist that target the elderly passing for nephew or grandson about to go to jail unless they purchase 500.00 debit cards x6 and provide them the numbers. Within seconds of providing those numbers the cards are used in different states. Because is a victim assisted crime there is very little law enforcement can do. You become part of other humans misery world... Not to my liking. And that is why I am happy to be retired. I am sheltered from misery around me on a daily basis. Call me Selfish.
Working the lunch shift at a pasta restaurant in a mall. Customers were always in a hurry and I ran my butt off. The lunch menu was cheaper than the dinner menu, so the tips were horrible. And if I recall, I was only making around $3 an hour. Busted my ass for hardly any money.
I worked at, what was at the time, the world's largest beef packing plant. I trimmed short ribs,one of the easier jobs there. It took 27 seconds to trim a short rib and you did that for 8 hours a day. You wore a chain mail vest and had chain mail on the arm opposite your knife hand. Early on I missed my count, reached for it with my hook, misses and hooked the conveyer belt and a coworker had to pry my fingers off my meet hook, I couldn't let go. I lasted about three months before found a different job. Every job I've had since has seemed easy.
Stoutco Steel in Indiana. I was a college student and the part-time industrial job represented good money. It was horrible repetitive work that would be done by a robot these days. The year was '77 or '78,
The woman on the machine next to me, who was working 3 part-time jobs to make ends meet, accidentally cut off half of her right hand. We were all pretty shaken by the accident. Fortunately, it ended and I went back to college but damn! That was a hard life.
Being the gigolo for so many movie actresses for so long a time. They were so selfish and could never be satisfied. Just kept saying "I'm paying you for pleasure, now lets do this again".
All of them. I hate being a capitalist slave.