Miserable Jobs
Got to spend some time on Friday of last week with Patrick Lencioni, best-selling author and management expert. Pat was speaking at Maximum Impact on his most recent book, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job.
So Ken and I decided to take a few minutes on the upcoming edition of the Catalyst Podcast to discuss what we would consider our most miserable jobs. I only mentioned one on the broadcast, but thought I would list a few more here.
1. Hay Hauling during the summer in Oklahoma.
2. Building/fencing fence in Oklahoma, Colorado, and all points in between. Especially barbed wire fence. And sidenote- I was struck by lightning while working on a barbed wire fence in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
3. Sandblasting oil tanks, and then repainting. Again in Oklahoma in the summer. The problem with sandblasting on hard surfaces is that the sand actually kicks back off of the hard surface and onto your skin. Not good.
4. Stock boy at Reasor’s Grocery Store. It actually wasn’t that bad, but definitely despised having to close the store, which meant you had to mop the entire floor, by hand. No motorized mops- all by hand with an old fashioned mop and broom. Misery.
5. Poop scooper upper- while working at Lost Valley Ranch in Colorado. When you have 150 horses, 200 head of cattle, and a lot of alfalfa and grain, lots of poop gets formed. And the only way to clean it up in the corrals and in areas where guests walked was by rake and shovel. 5 years of poop scooping every day. Wow.
What about you?
My worst job was working for a huge mowing company – we worked from 6 am ’til dark, mowing orange groves and medians and industrial parks. I wasn’t old enough to drive the big tractors, so I had to weed-eat miles of landscaping. All for $5 an hour. Not a fun job.
I’m in FL, so the heat and humidity, added to the dust, added to the manual labor = not good for my social life. I’m glad that was 13 years ago.
Weird, I just listened to Patricks catalyst message over the weekend as I drove around running errands. Love it.
My worst job would have been working on a road crew that did not work. There were 6 of us in a 1960′s van that would drive all over the county to find places to hid so that we did not have to do work. My favorite story was when my boss’s boss found us and I was sleeping in the back of the van. He asked what I was doing and my boss responded, com’on you know he is a christian, look at him, he is praying. This job was soo boring because we did nothing!
Worst job ever? Possibly every man’s fantasy…working for Victoria’s Secret. There are only so many hours you can spend folding panties a certain way. Only so many times you can hear an obese woman say, “Ma’am, can you help me with this bra?…”
I’m just guessing but Reasor’s Grocery is in Oklahoma, no?
Worst jobs: I have to agree — stock boy, floor mopper and pooper scooper upper is worst.
Eeyore – Summer of ’98. Anaheim, CA
Hot as hell.
Los