Mine was collecting glasses in a pub, the job description included cleaning up the puke and the toilets :-X
It didn't last long.
I don't think I've ever had a job I would say I liked.
I used to do night security work in ormo bakery, it was great used to go get the telly on can fall asleep on the airbed.
I done some labouring on the summer and hated it, got fired in the end because i refused to pull tar out of a tipper truck, because i thought it was dangerous.
Ive had some great jobs. Before email, I sorted Dominic Kirwins fan mail. My mother loved it as I was always coming home with new rags for the dusting.
Bartending was a great job. The most miserable was pushing the newspaper trolly around the county hospital and seeing all the sick people.
This job right now sucks, but I can bugger off whenever I want, which is nice. I worked in an ice cream factory once too, that was pretty disgusting.
Worst: Coat hanger recycling factory (don't ask)
Best: Disability training programme coordinator and Youth coordinator
Worst: McDonald's Bradbury Place for 6 wks, involving having a spide as your "team leader" and being made to wear the most awful trousers as part of the uniform
Best: Sports leader at a language school for rich kids in Switzerland - the day started at 12 and involved doing mad outdoor activities in one of the most beautiful countries in Europe.
What college was that mate ?
Worst - Male model
Best - My present job being my own boss as a Electrical Contractor
Can't say I've ever had a job I didn't like - strawberry collectin & snuffin, turf stoolin, strippin, paintin, diggin, sitework, dogsbody, telesales, mystery shoppin, writin - don't think i'd ever stay in a job for more than a day if I knew I definitely didn't like it. My present job is the bees' knees, most of the time.
Worst:
1. Chicken factory operative (some East Anglian small town, many early morning bus miles from Norwich) - involved lots of seemingly purposeless moving around of dead fowl.
2. Mushroom picker (County Down) - Output dependent pay (??p per 'chip') in pretty rank smelling environment, made bearable only by management's somewhat controversial decree that cigarette smoking whilst picking was permissable.
3. Project Finance Manager (Roswell, NM) - Lots of loud Americans enthusiastically talking about EBITA (earnings before interest tax and amortization) brings with it it's very own dead fowl / mushroom manure -reminiscent backdrop.
Best:
1. Bowling Green Attendant (Finaghy (for Belfast City Council)) - Once arrived for work so drunk that I slept through the entire evenings matches, only to be woken with a plate of sandwiches and cup of tea from a concerned ladies skip.
Mushroom picking for my uncle, christ that was an arduous, anatomically insensitive terribly paying job. Payed by the square and it took some scrubbing to get the mushroom residue off your thumb.
I don't think you can include any part time or holiday jobs in your worst list as no matter how shit they are you know they're only temporary so the sense of hopelessness isn't there.
Having said that I did a term of supply teaching at a 'city' comprehensive when I left university which quickly proved to me that i did not want to be a teacher. I know there a few teachers on here and the prevailing opinion would be that ye're all a bunch of lazy tossers but ye have my greatest admiration lads, how ye walk through those gates every night early afternoon having not killed some wee fcuker is beyond me.
Worst was definately a short stint as one of them people who ring ya up trying to get ya back to BT. Was the most soul destroying few weeks of my life. Just couldn't handle it after a while.
Quote from: TacadoirArdMhacha on February 26, 2008, 08:55:29 PM
Worst was definately a short stint as one of them people who ring ya up trying to get ya back to BT. Was the most soul destroying few weeks of my life. Just couldn't handle it after a while.
Done that myself too TAM up the Boucher Road, didn't last too long either I think a little part of me died every day I was there. Burger King was pretty shite too, but the worst was in a junior casino in Wildwood- mind numbing, on your feet all day, occasionally getting cheek from tosser customers, no Irish co-workers and to chat too (or British or American) and absolute bell-end of a boss. Lasted about a month there then changed to a real cushy number in a shop.
Best- in a cheese factory in Coleraine as nearly half the day you were on breaks, or call centre in University Street doing surveys (loads of breaks, very easy going, not trying to sell anything and the craic was always great).
That hewer hardstation must not have worked a day in his life.
Worst job was filling flower pots with peat at a gardening centre near the Moy, the boss wouldnt be the nicest man around and just a lousy place to work. Think it was bout £15 a day, was only 13 or 14 like so not too bad.
The best without a doubt was working at the Ryder Cup in '06. Was in corporate hospitality on a suite overlooking the 9th fairway, serving food and drink to clients of IBM. Started work on the monday but because the competitive golf didn't start til the friday, just polished a few glasses during the morning and then went out and watched some of the practice rounds in the afternoon. Was within touching distance with nearly all the golfers over the first four days.
Highlight of the week was meeting the all-time favourite, Michael Jordan. He was in the NBC sports suite adjacent to the one i was working in. Nearly shat myself when i seen the big man in action!
Putting washers onto screws in a cold draughty warehouse in Duncrue
Sending pager messages through to customers - "please call John on the mobile" etc.
Sorting out a basement room full of clothes hangers in Price Blasters
All holiday jobs so there was always the light at the end of the tunnel and the knowledge that this wasn't for life
Quote from: stephenite on February 27, 2008, 12:08:31 AM
Putting washers onto screws in a cold draughty warehouse in Duncrue
Sending pager messages through to customers - "please call John on the mobile" etc.
Sorting out a basement room full of clothes hangers in Price Blasters
All holiday jobs so there was always the light at the end of the tunnel and the knowledge that this wasn't for life
Unless your a Dub that is :D
ha ha, trip down memory lane here
Worst
security guard - daily battles with glue beg spides and diarrhoea sodden alco's
video vacuum packer - seeing the cover of dirty f**kin dancing 10000 times a day
steel cutting - not fun in 40 degree heat.
veg/farm - weeding lettuce - drill after f**kin drill of fathen - diggin holes for dead sheep.
Fitting PVC windows - nightmare carting glass over rafters 30 ft up
various other shit too shitty to mention
Best
Landscaping - great altogether, plus others get to enjoy your work - will probably return to it all being well.
selling showbags - daily craziness from australian inbred outbackers
veg-farming - weeding aside, thoroughly enjoyed on and off over ten years from about 12 yr old, great sessions too when i got older
Best was:
Taking NI/OWC/ 6 Counties companies on trade missions all over the world when I worked for our main economic development agency in NI in the 90s.
Worst:
Trying to be pleasant serving tools and absolute dickheads while working behind the bar in Cupids in the 80s. Cnuts
Best:
Worked on a site looking down onto Bondi Beach. straight down the hill after work and into the sea in my work shorts, then across the road to the Bondi Hotel for a few scooners and some games of pool.
Worst:
3 days in the outback sorting out boxes of oranges. Putting bad oranges into one box, good in the other. What a thoroughly mind stimulating exercise
1. In the days before the machine would do it, silage bales had to be bagged using oversized bin liner-type bags. Did it for a day when I was 16 for the uncle of a certain ex-captain of Derry Minors (last year). Came home clarried in mud and stinking of rotten grass and mam kicked up a stink to which my sister replied it would be good prep for real life. She wasn't far wrong.
2. Having to follow a trenching machine with a trenching shovel and clear out all the sand that fell back in (at Perth airport) and in the Goldfields. Hot, hot, hot and feckin back-breaking. Little wonder the back is near fecked now.
Best:
Flying, especially when doing instrument approaches in the shmoo and you pop out just about minimum descent altitude. Exciting, adrenalin-pumping, satisfying.
Worst:
Logisitics Manager - interesting for a while but got depressing after a couple of months
Landscaping - Work was good but the boss' and some of the staff were the biggest wankers I ever met.
Best:
Landscape Architect - Current job, great boss, great staff, interesting work
Worst: Milked 200 cows every day after school for a whole £5. It would either of frozen the hands off you in winter or the f**king flys would drive you insane in the summer. You get used to the smell after a while. Done that for two years christmas days and all.
Quote from: johnneycool on February 27, 2008, 11:01:41 AM
Worst: Milked 200 cows every day after school for a whole £5. It would either of frozen the hands off you in winter or the f**king flys would drive you insane in the summer. You get used to the smell after a while. Done that for two years christmas days and all.
And it made you the man you are tyoday! ;)
Quote from: Colonel Cool on February 27, 2008, 11:05:28 AM
Quote from: johnneycool on February 27, 2008, 11:01:41 AM
Worst: Milked 200 cows every day after school for a whole £5. It would either of frozen the hands off you in winter or the f**king flys would drive you insane in the summer. You get used to the smell after a while. Done that for two years christmas days and all.
And it made you the man you are tyoday! ;)
you certainly know the value of a pound when you work for a farmer.
Might have got best job I ever had today - accepted by this website to do take tablets over 18 mnoths as part of an experiment - great money too! For nothing!
Best Job:
Barman at the Elk. 9-1.30 take no shit, good people, good music, great craic and no real hassle from anyone
Worst Job:
2 Summers prettie gathering... I still get chills thinking about it. 9-9 for £4 a box at a max of 5 boxes a day!!!
Quote from: pintsofguinness on February 27, 2008, 01:37:36 PM
Might have got best job I ever had today - accepted by this website to do take tablets over 18 mnoths as part of an experiment - great money too! For nothing!
:D Classic, I assume they are happy pills
Worst Job: In my second year of college in Dublin worked in Supermacs on O'Connell St for 3 months. The absolute pits, there was this culchie/dub divide, the work was bad enough, but most of your co workers were worse!
I always enjoyed bar work down home, the only time I worked in the big smoke was in the infamous "Slapper Face Jacks" which many on here will be familiar with, I actually wasn't mad on it :-\ I was younger and fitter back then and you would get some amount of offer each night from the young lady folk though.
Finished college in 99 and went into the career I am in now, still glad I made the choice and enjoy the work (well four days out of five anyway)
QuoteClassic, I assume they are happy pills
I don't know what they're for, I'm a bit worried though because Billyboots told me it might be just glucose and that would mess up my diet.
Working in the Law Library in Queens in 06. Few dickheads swanning about there, treating you like shite and you in their class.
I have enjoyed all the jobs ive ever had but if i had to rank them I would say
1. Network Engineer/ Sys Admin for three and half years
2. Bookie for a summer
3. Barman for a year or so
4. Beta Tester (Computer Games)
Really looking forward to the new career this time next year, although I would be happy to be allowed to do any type of work at the minute
Quote from: ONeill on February 26, 2008, 08:25:07 PM
Can't say I've ever had a job I didn't like - strawberry collectin & snuffin, turf stoolin, strippin, paintin, diggin, sitework, dogsbody, telesales, mystery shoppin, writin - don't think i'd ever stay in a job for more than a day if I knew I definitely didn't like it. My present job is the bees' knees, most of the time.
Mine too, more than most of the time.
Quote from: Rois on February 26, 2008, 07:05:50 PM
Best: Sports leader at a language school for rich kids in Switzerland - the day started at 12 and involved doing mad outdoor activities in one of the most beautiful countries in Europe.
Feckin' worst job I ever had. Driving busloads of similar kids from various London airports to a language school at Strawberry Hill. None of the wee feckers had anything smaller than a £50 note. Horrible, spoilt gits (especially the Croats and Israelis). Flights landing all weekend - about 20 hours driving, greeting, packing, unpacking Saturday and Sunday. Getting home at 4:00am on the Saturday morning from the Swan in Stockwell may not have helped. Nor did listening to my fellow drivers, one from Omagh and one from Derry city.
Worst, when I finished O Levels in 1970 I went to work on a building site in Birmingham. It was a complete shock to the system living in a bed sit in Sparkhill, being called Paddy and trying to lift kerbs that seemed heavier than me.
Best job, the one I'm in now, teacher, it can be stressful but I feel that I'm making a difference.
Quote from: john mcgill on February 28, 2008, 08:10:29 AM
Worst, when I finished O Levels in 1970 I went to work on a building site in Birmingham. It was a complete shock to the system living in a bed sit in Sparkhill, being called Paddy and trying to lift kerbs that seemed heavier than me.
Best job, the one I'm in now, teacher, it can be stressful but I feel that I'm making a difference.
John, did you ever frequent the Antelope (Nanny Goat) pub on the Stratford road in Sparkhill? Used to stay around the corner from it years ago when I visited the relatives in Sparkhill. Its all change now though Spakhill is nearly 100% Asian Population, most of the Irish moved out years ago.
Quote from: Doogie Browser on February 28, 2008, 10:24:54 AM
Quote from: john mcgill on February 28, 2008, 08:10:29 AM
Worst, when I finished O Levels in 1970 I went to work on a building site in Birmingham. It was a complete shock to the system living in a bed sit in Sparkhill, being called Paddy and trying to lift kerbs that seemed heavier than me.
Best job, the one I'm in now, teacher, it can be stressful but I feel that I'm making a difference.
John, did you ever frequent the Antelope (Nanny Goat) pub on the Stratford road in Sparkhill? Used to stay around the corner from it years ago when I visited the relatives in Sparkhill. Its all change now though Spakhill is nearly 100% Asian Population, most of the Irish moved out years ago.
As far as i know the Antelope is still open, the Bear is going strong as is the College. The Angel and the Mermaid are gone. The Mermaid you will remember is where the labourers used to queue up to see if they would get picked up for a days work. Sparkhill is some pit now. Most have moved out Hall Green / Shirley direction.
Lived in Hall Green for a year, in the appropriately named Studland Row. Previously stayed in Acock's Green and finally Bordeseley Green near the Heartlands. Is the Poitin Stil still on the go? Loved that joint. They'd put the GAA matches on at 3, close the pub so that those inside including the bar staff would head around the back for a game of cards whilst the GAA heads drank the bar dry, re-opened at 5 to the public. Many's a day I staggered home for 6 o'clock dinner and bed for 8. What was the name of the dive with the squashy sofas and drugs/stabbings/bints galore - the Garryowen?
Quote from: ONeill on February 28, 2008, 12:06:01 PM
Lived in Hall Green for a year, in the appropriately named Studland Row. Previously stayed in Acock's Green and finally Bordeseley Green near the Heartlands. Is the Poitin Stil still on the go? Loved that joint. They'd put the GAA matches on at 3, close the pub so that those inside including the bar staff would head around the back for a game of cards whilst the GAA heads drank the bar dry, re-opened at 5 to the public. Many's a day I staggered home for 6 o'clock dinner and bed for 8. What was the name of the dive with the squashy sofas and drugs/stabbings/bints galore - the Garryowen?
The Garryowen had a boisterous clientele alright, remember going back there the night Villa beat Leeds in the 1996 Coca Cola Cup as it was the only place we would get a pint, rough spot and always a few bluenoses about it too! Was over in January for a match and there was a good Irish crowd in Pat Kav's in Moseley, Moseley is very bohemian but a good crowd nonetheless.
Maddog you are right the family moved to Hall Green about 8/9 years ago serious movement of people at the time out of Sparkhill, one thing I remember about Sparkhill was the smell of curry at dinner time, it just wafted through the streets!
Remeber one night years ago we were down in the City and the cousin took me to a nightclub called Nosey Parkers owned by Paul Henry (aka Benny from Crossroads!!) It was a sleazy, rough old dive and there he was in the corner, Benny! Hat-less might I add but looked like a dirty perv!
Doogie
I lived in Showell Green Lane and there was an Irish club at the bottom on the Stratford Rd. I used to go to the Mitchells Club above Burtons. It was safe for a 16 year old. The Mermaid scared me with all the men waiting for work. I was always warned not to go in there. I went in the Bear once I think with one of the guys who used to work with me. Best pie and chips I ever had was from a chippie on Showell Green Lane. Probably a curry house now which would suit me.
I must go back and have a look around.
Got nostalgic about Birmingham or maybe the pubs there and found this
http://www.virtualbrum.co.uk/images/sparkh/antelope.jpg
Quote from: john mcgill on February 28, 2008, 04:45:32 PM
Got nostalgic about Birmingham or maybe the pubs there and found this
http://www.virtualbrum.co.uk/images/sparkh/antelope.jpg
Fantastic John! We were like most families, all my fathers siblings left Ireland in the 50's and they all edned up in Birmingham we were the only ones to remain. Have some great memories of the place from childhood visits, first time going down the Villa etc. If you frequented the boozers in Sparkhill during the 70's & 80's you most certainly would have come across my relatives.
Are you still in Brum?
No, in Armagh via NY, San Francisco, London. Unfortunately recent visits are for funerals. The aunt and uncle live out in Romsley and still have a house in Dudley.
Quote from: thewingedlady on February 26, 2008, 10:53:29 PM
Worst job was filling flower pots with peat at a gardening centre near the Moy, the boss wouldnt be the nicest man around and just a lousy place to work. Think it was bout £15 a day, was only 13 or 14 like so not too bad.
Hah! Think I did my time there as well!
Worst Job was traffic surveying out in the rain with only a clicker and cars for company
Best: Barman in The Bot (ahh memories)
I have a rela job now which is good but tough!
Best job is the job I have now. I still find it hard to believe that they pay me to do what I do!
Worst job.
I've had a few. Gathering potatoes was hard but harvesting silver skin onions in the Netherlands was worse. You smelt of onions for a year after you left.
The worst job I ever had was as a share fisherman on a trawler in the Irish Sea. I was the cook and was sick as a dog every Monday. Can you imagine cooking a big fry for the crew while sea sick?? Hard, hard work tailling prawns and gutting fish with little or no sleep, the boat rolling all over the place & sick as a dog most of the time.
If I asked my kids to do that now they would laugh at me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV2uae_s1m4&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV2uae_s1m4&feature=related)