8.28.2008

Worst Job Ever



I had a job at the Holbrook Hospital the end of my senior high school year and through the summer. I still don't know 1. why I kept the job and 2. how I survived working with an old grumpy senile woman named Gladys who was my boss.

The job essentially was me standing at a rickety copy machine, copying hundreds, nay, thousands of bills that were not being paid every month. This was 1979 and there were no computers and apparently no brain cells working at this hospital. Every morning I woke up like I was going to my death sentence, no actually death I would have welcomed, it was worse than having bamboo shoots shoved under my fingernails. Imagine an old crotchety windbag watching everything you do and never telling you it is done right. She had white hair, a nose with pores the size of a walnut with springy black hairs sprouting out of each one. She wore thick eye glasses and squinted up at me all day long as she questioned my work. I wanted her dead.

I would gather the million files, drag them to the copy machine, copy the bill that would never get paid, fold them into little envelopes and mail them out. An effing monkey could have done the work, but according to Gladys you would think I was handling delicate top-secret monumentally important documents. They were barely legible copies to begin with and mostly 10 years old, belonging to Indians on the reservation that probably used the bill for fire kindling. They never got paid.

The only thing I looked forward to was my boyfriend picking me up for lunch. I would watch every single minute tick by and then run out front to wait for him, I would almost cry when my hour was over. He called her Glad-bag and thought my torture was terribly funny.

What was your worst job?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for using "nay" in your post.

My worst job was working for a weasely little guy named Reid Tanner at his home office.

The job itself wasn't so bad - I'm not even sure what it was I did (computer related) as I've blocked it out, and it led to a pretty good freelance gig as sole training specialist in the area for a specialized (and very expensive) accounting software for construction companies. Would have been better if the software actually WORKED like it should (the developer was constantly making fixes I had to help install).

But I digress.

The problem with Reid is that he was verbally abusive. It took me a couple of months to pin point why I hated him so much, and then a friend of mine who had recently gotten herself out of a verbally abusive marriage, pointed out all the signs. He didn't swear at me or call me names, but he used all sorts of fear/irrational control tactics. He creeped me out.

An on top of being mean to me, he wanted to date me (gagarama) and my rejection of his advances only made him worse. It felt so good to quit.

Sassy said...

I happened onto your blog by way of Karen's...I lived in Holbrook and knew Gladys and she was creepy...JUST ABOUT AS SCARY AS THE HOSPITAL...KIND OF LIKE THE SHINING CREEPY...I also live next door to one of the Cotter girls who knows your daughter Erica...it is such a small world and I knew your sister Jeri...

My worst job was working at golfland a few summers ago in between my taching jobs so my kids could go there for the summer for free...I cooked on the hot grills out in the hot sun for company parties...it was seriously hell and my dang kids went once all summer...it was crap!!!!! Never again. By the way you probably don't have a clue who I am...my name is Kayola McLaws now Skinner...I have enjoyed reading your posts a lot...this blogging thing can be a little on the addictive side but it sure is FUN!!!

#1 Brooke said...

I used to work at the DMV! Are anymore words required?

Probably not, but my days were filled with listening to people yell at me for things that were their fault, not mine.

That place was my own personal hell! I dreaded going to work every day! AND I was required to work every single Saturday. double yuck!

Anonymous said...

LOL the pic of that woman!!

Allison, that dude sounds like a total perv--of course it is his home office, how conveeeeenient.

I worked for a daycare center and had to change the owner's child's diapers, among all the other fun daycare duties of 10-15 children. He had Down Syndrome and was 12 years old. I think I would have preferred Gladys. :(

EEK said...

All jobs are the worst job ever. Just let me stay home, work in my yard, have lunch with the girls, blog, and nap with the cats. Everything else is glorified prostitution.

Michelle said...

Alli, I still chuckle when I think of your former fellow employee that thought you used "big words" on purpose to confuse her. lol.

It is a small world indeed, I'm sorry you knew Gladys.

DMV? I usually go home and take a rape shower after being there.

Chris you could do an entire post on all your crap jobs.

Glorified prostitution lol.

Anonymous said...

The worst job I ever had wasn’t bad because of the drudgery of every day, but because of the pure hell of some days. While I was in High School, some summers I worked for the town doing whatever they needed me to do. Things like re-roofing the ice rink, various painting projects, laying water lines. We also put in new sewer lines, and those days weren’t bad at all – sit around waiting for the ditch to be dug, scramble down and lay some pipe, then run the tamper as the back-hoe filled the ditch back up. The days of pure hell were the ones we had to deal with old, clogged sewer lines.

To unclog a sewer line you uncovered it, tapped the pipe to find the clog (a full sewer line – above the clog – sounds a lot different than an empty one below the clog), then broke into the pipe to clean it out. So, we were breaking into the pipe right at the point were the pressure – from all that backed up stuff – was the highest. So when you put a hole in it, it sprayed out with great force. Just think, all the stuff that goes away down your toilet, spraying out all over the place. Yup, that was the worse job I ever had…

Anonymous said...

Ewwwwwwww! Man, Craig.....



Yes, Michelle - that was very funny. An example - she got upset when I used "ominous" to describe the clouds rolling in.

"You just use words like that becuase you know I don't know what they mean...."

And she wasn't just a fellow employee - she was my sister-in-law at the time. The little tumbleweeds in her head kept me, and the nerdy/brilliant engineers I worked with, pretty amused.

Michelle said...

Craig you win! The worst job ever.

LOL, "ominous."