Have you ever seen somebody working a job that must be incredibly boring? Maybe very hard, or demeaning? Have you ever seen anyone with a job that made you think, man why would you pick that job?

For example:

Ticket checkers at the airport. That has got to be a hard, boring, incredibly frustrating job.

Phone Sex line operator. I remember because I picked up a "World's Worst Jobs" book in HMV(or was it Virgin?) to have a glance through and that was number 1 in the list.

I worked for a week as a Burger King Employee. That work sucked. And I think parking police work must be horrible.

Ass doctors, that's all I've got. Sorry

EDIT: If it's just me looking down on a job, then I've always wondered who'd get up at 5am to clean the streets up after the littering, puking, fighting pissheads from the night before?

That and fast-food staff. I really couldn't be bothered for that sort of work.

retail workers...

Also just go watch a series of Dirty jobs

Jarl:
I worked for a week as a Burger King Employee. That work sucked. And I think parking police work must be horrible.

It's not too bad if it is a decent country or a slightly below average or above neighbourhood.

Anything lower than that and it is shit

Yeah. I used to do a Paper Run.

Being a minor, they ripped me off (about $3 per run), and it was agonising, long and tedious work.

And I wish I was exaggerating.

Flatulence Analyst - its an actual job omfg. Any job that involves placing your face near someone's butt and telling them to fart on you will never be worth the money you're paid for it.

Lord Krunk:
Yeah. I used to do a Paper Run.

Being a minor, they ripped me off (about $3 per run), and it was agonising, long and tedious work.

And I wish I was exaggerating.

lol i did a paper run as a minor too but i just dumped all the newspapers, never bothered actually delivering them...

Don't worry, if your anything like the vast majority of workers today you'll pretty much think whatever job your doing now is ass anyway.

-Gooney

Im seconding street cleaners especially the ones in paris-have you seen how much dog "mess" appears there in just a day?

Prostitute, especially in a third world country. Also, child labour.

Pimp, especially in a third world country.

oobee:
Flatulence Analyst - its an actual job omfg. Any job that involves placing your face near someone's butt and telling them to fart on you will never be worth the money you're paid for it.

This wins the thread! Hands down.

The guys that work in construction that stand at under-construction roads all day and hold those signs that say "STOP" on one side, and "SLOW" on the other. Not only would that be boring as hell, but you constantly have to be alert, lest you end up being partially responsible for a car accident or two. If I had to do that job, I'd probably mentally fall asleep after an hour or so.

Working as a cashier also sucks, but at least you only need to be alert when a customer comes. I know of a handful of high-school students that work as cashiers, and they just chill and talk to the cashiers next to them, at least until they see me putting my groceries down on the conveyor belt. The whole memorization of product codes (ie, entering 3068 whenever someone buys a bag of triangle buns) has got to be a pain, though.

dannydamage:
Ass doctors, that's all I've got. Sorry

EDIT: If it's just me looking down on a job, then I've always wondered who'd get up at 5am to clean the streets up after the littering, puking, fighting pissheads from the night before?

That and fast-food staff. I really couldn't be bothered for that sort of work.

Proctologist or colorectal surgeon are the words you're looking for.

Commission-only salesman is pretty soul-destroying.

Customer support. My heart goes out to you brave, brave, men and women.

Janitor.

TomNook:
Customer support. My heart goes out to you brave, brave, men and women.

yeah tech/customer support has one of the worst jobs around without a doubt, they deal with abuse and such on a daily basis and are forced to deal with it

honestly i would love to say "why should i help you when you're being rude to me? do you allow your children to talk to you like this and still give them what they want?"

granted some tech support is REALLY bad however who wants to deal with being called every dirty name in the book cause the person on the other end has done something stupid for not much money at all?

I was the answering service for tech support this past summer... to say I was called more awful names than I've ever been called in my life is an understatement. By the time tech support actually got to the customer, we'd already calmed them down because they'd yelled at US the whole time.

As far as worst job goes... I'll stick with janitor, or laborer on a dairy. That one sucks pretty hard- as does cleaning out grain silos.

smallharmlesskitten:
retail workers...

Also just go watch a series of Dirty jobs

Actually the guys who do those 'dirty jobs' tend to be quite content with their lives. The job itself may be kinda nasty (i.e. landfill operators) but since they attract people who are as equally nuts as you, the working enviroment tends to be quite fun.

I have a friend who's job is doing the Networks for Dentist's computers and systems. What a niche he fills.

Health and Safety, research into Health and Safety assessment methods.

Amnestic:
Phone Sex line operator. I remember because I picked up a "World's Worst Jobs" book in HMV(or was it Virgin?) to have a glance through and that was number 1 in the list.

You kidding? That would be hilarious! I could mess with a hell of a lot of people doing that. I'd probably get sacked after a couple days but it'd be fun while it lasted.

I would despise any job with large amounts of repetition. Like shelf stacker or a bus driver. I wouldn't mind getting my hands dirty at all so long as I get a bit of variation.

Bomb tester

MA7743W:
Bomb tester

Bomb defusal would be worse. I'm sure someone could be good at it, but their heart would probably be pounding like a jackhammer every time they went to work. I couldn't do it, for sure, though I did once entertain the notion of becoming a Underwater Demolitionist for the Navy...

Boy, I thought working as a telemarketer sucked ass until I read that "Flatulence Analyst" was a real job. I mean, couldn't they call it a "Flatulence Tester" or something like that? Something in the word "Analyst" just makes me not want to to see it near "Flatulence". Like pouring salt on the wound.

Working at any fast food establishment

I use to be a sous chef at a restaurant...it even that was insanity.

Dealing with customers or other people

bad.

MA7743W:
Bomb tester

Are you kidding? Benzene Chemistry is fun!

I once worked at a waste water treatment plant. Thankfully, I was part of the landscape maintenance crew... but we had open aeration tanks. You could always tell which way the wind was blowing there.

But enough of that. I actually enjoyed the job overall. Some of the people you saw there, though... Maintaining sewage vats, taking samples, trucking that shit (literally) around, all that good stuff. None of them seem to mind though, I guess you can get used to anything, even the smell of fermenting shit after a while.

silentsentinel:

MA7743W:
Bomb tester

Bomb defusal would be worse. I'm sure someone could be good at it, but their heart would probably be pounding like a jackhammer every time they went to work. I couldn't do it, for sure, though I did once entertain the notion of becoming a Underwater Demolitionist for the Navy...

I think they get over it pretty quick. They wouldn't let you do it if you panicked every time you had to handle a live bomb. Also, they have a lot of robots to do work too dangerous for humans. They get some pretty impressive gadgets to work with, really.

My job is pretty terrible sometimes. Co-workers who have shitty attitudes and never do anything right, handling trash with old food in it, scrubbing, for literally hours every day on crusty dishes. I do a lot of the cooking, but on the employee sheet, I'm down as "dishwash/prep" in fact, referring to the OP of this thread, I myself would not have picked this job if I had any choice in the matter.

I grew up doing one of the most dangerous, dirtiest (at times), most demanding, longest hours (try on-call 24/7/365), worst paying (you might break even at the end of the year if you are lucky) jobs you can imagine: ranching. My parents have a cattle ranch in Nebraska. I had to ride horses to round up cattle. Sounds great right? It's ok at first, but try doing it all day long riding for miles at a time with no break, chasing down cows who won't go where they are supposed to (especially the calves as they are so dang fast and hard to catch).

You have to be able to do just about anything at any given time, sometimes using tools that were not even meant for the purpose. Try fixing a tractor in sub-zero temperatures with worn out hand tools. Real fun. Or, cleaning out moldy, caked on cattle feed out of a feed truck so you can wrench out the broken auger and try to fix it. If it's really cold, even the water in the troughs freezes and you have to break holes in it with a long, iron chopping bar.

In summer, you get to spend the whole day cutting hay. For variety, you get to try to fix the hay equipment when it breaks down. Try crawling inside a round baler and unplugging the hay feeders with your gloved hands when it's over 100 degrees out and well over 100 degrees inside that metal contraption. You nearly pass out after a while.

In ranching, you get to be exposed to injury from heavy machinery, livestock (getting bucked off your horse is a blast, let me tell ya), barbed wire (really nice when it breaks while you are trying to tighten a fence), extreme weather (cows have to be fed and calves have to be birthed no matter how cold it gets) etc.

You risk losing money from break downs, dying livestock, seed you plant that doesn't come up or does come up and then dies from some disease or hail storm. The price you get for your crop, cattle, is dictated by the markets and the government (run by a bunch of idiots who know nothing about what it takes to raise the commodities they trade back and forth). If you have a good relationship with your banker, you might get your operating loan extended in years where the prices are low and expenses are high. If not, you can possibly lose your whole ranch in having to sell it to pay your debts. If you are lucky, you break even. If you are really lucky, you make enough money to pay off some debts (never really get them all paid off), reinvest some money in buying replacement equipment, bulls, horses etc, and maybe even a few things your family wants like say new clothes, a new appliance etc.

Sure, there were times that were fun, but most of the time, it's back breaking work with little chance of making enough of a profit to actually put it away in savings. These days, I live in Vegas and do retail jobs (at game and/or electronics stores when I can) and computer repair out of my house. I still don't make a lot of money, but the work is far easier and far far less dangerous than ranching.