Worst place you've ever worked?

[gingapar]

Only factory job I've ever had, was testing semi conductor chips for mp3 players. This consisted of 12 hour night shifts listening to the same ten seconds of Axel F in 3 different file formats for each chip, listening for any quality issues. Doot, doot, dootdoodoot doot doo. Over and over again. Had to use a wee sucker pen thing and wear wee condoms on my fingers to prevent static damaging the chips between changes. So fiddly and monotonous. So glad I opted for night shift, more money and no bosses kicking about to catch me zoning out. I lasted a couple of months before I left to go get pished in Ibiza for a week.

That was 12 years ago, and seeing beverley hills cop appear on the tv listings still makes me shudder.

[DAFC]

Only factory job I've ever had, was testing semi conductor chips for mp3 players. This consisted of 12 hour night shifts listening to the same ten seconds of Axel F in 3 different file formats for each chip, listening for any quality issues. Doot, doot, dootdoodoot doot doo. Over and over again. Had to use a wee sucker pen thing and wear wee condoms on my fingers to prevent static damaging the chips between changes. So fiddly and monotonous. So glad I opted for night shift, more money and no bosses kicking about to catch me zoning out. I lasted a couple of months before I left to go get pished in Ibiza for a week.

That was 12 years ago, and seeing beverley hills cop appear on the tv listings still makes me shudder.

Have experienced jobs like this in electronics. Who the hell designs these jobs?

Ok axel f once is ok, but six million times?

One job i had was standing next to a solder wave machine for 12 hours and taking off the carriers and taking the PCBs out.

Absolute nightmare in the summer, thankfully we swapped jobs in the nightshift when there was no bosses around. If you were lucky you got the seat and tweezers pulling of pieces of tape from the solder holes. We built the tape into a foot high yellow Godzilla monster. Took around a year and this was a real 'highlight'.

[ToonBairn]

Scumthorpe by a considerable distance

Sighthill in Glasgow on a nightshift takes some beating right enough

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

That was 12 years ago, and seeing beverley hills cop appear on the tv listings still makes me shudder.

You must have loved that Crazy Frog ringtone fad.

[~~~]

Scumthorpe by a considerable distance

Sighthill in Glasgow on a nightshift takes some beating right enough

You just walk about Sighthill at night?

[Cardinal Richelieu]

I reckon any tune that you are forced to listen to repeatedly will eventually make you hate the song more than life itself.

The exception, of course, being the sax solo from Moldova's 2010 Eurovision Song Contest entry.

[Archie]

Dundee.

[HTG]

My worst job was at the now defunct GR Stein brickwork near Linlithgow. It was a summer job so had a defined time to it. 10 weeks of standing on or between wee cars which went down a rail track where some vaguely female people would start to build up piles of bricks. The wee cars came out of a kiln with a base layer of fire bricks. My job was to lift the bsse layer of bricks, sweep surplus sand off the cars and put the fire bricks back again. 8 hours a day for 10 weeks. There were a few of us who started out but I was the only one to see it to the end. I did it because I needed the money and it was ok. I had the option of working for the Cream Boy company opening up new runs around Scotland and turned it down because the money was shite. Probably a mistake in hindsight but in 1980 £15 a week difference was more than plenty.

[muirkirk nil]

Boko Haram?

Whiter Shade Of Pale ?

[ToonBairn]

You just walk about Sighthill at night?

Mob handed on the railway can still be an experience in Sighthill

[BFTD]

Curious about how much you guys earned on your paper rounds.

About twenty years ago, I had a round for one of the local free papers that paid 1p per paper delivered, and I was responsible for over 200 houses, twice a week. Didn't realise how little I would be getting paid until after I started, and we were so broke at the time that I couldn't afford to quit. Was cracking stuff, putting all the adverts into the papers, folding them all up, then walking a couple of miles to the furthest away houses, before walking back home to load up again. Repeat five or six times. And then the weeks when they'd have catalogues or other heavy pish for me to include...I'd still be delivering the old edition when the new one came out. This went on for about eighteen months. Was basically a full-time job, thinking about it.

Mentioned this to one of the kids at school when he was talking about his round, and he just about pissed his pants. His round was for thirteen houses and he got paid £15 for doing it

[banana]

Only factory job I've ever had, was testing semi conductor chips for mp3 players. This consisted of 12 hour night shifts listening to the same ten seconds of Axel F in 3 different file formats for each chip, listening for any quality issues. Doot, doot, dootdoodoot doot doo. Over and over again. Had to use a wee sucker pen thing and wear wee condoms on my fingers to prevent static damaging the chips between changes. So fiddly and monotonous. So glad I opted for night shift, more money and no bosses kicking about to catch me zoning out. I lasted a couple of months before I left to go get pished in Ibiza for a week.

That was 12 years ago, and seeing beverley hills cop appear on the tv listings still makes me shudder.

Good lord, that sounds like actual torture. Was the ten seconds of the song in your head day and night, working and out of work, awake and trying to sleep? Any PTSD?

[Cardinal Richelieu]

Curious about how much you guys earned on your paper rounds.

About twenty years ago, I had a round for one of the local free papers that paid 1p per paper delivered, and I was responsible for over 200 houses, twice a week. Didn't realise how little I would be getting paid until after I started, and we were so broke at the time that I couldn't afford to quit. Was cracking stuff, putting all the adverts into the papers, folding them all up, then walking a couple of miles to the furthest away houses, before walking back home to load up again. Repeat five or six times. And then the weeks when they'd have catalogues or other heavy pish for me to include...I'd still be delivering the old edition when the new one came out. This went on for about eighteen months. Was basically a full-time job, thinking about it.

Mentioned this to one of the kids at school when he was talking about his round, and he just about pissed his pants. His round was for thirteen houses and he got paid £15 for doing it

I did a free paper round in Belfast about 23 years ago, and I'm pretty sure I got 2p per paper.

[scottsdad]

I got £9 a week (Mon-Sat) for a paper round in the mid-90s.

My wife's current job is the pits. She started 3 weeks ago for a windows company, cold calling in the evenings. She gets dogs abuse, and last night an old woman blew a whistle down the phone. Even now my wife's ear is sore. But it gets worse.

They call people, and if someone agrees to a call back, that's called a bite. If during this call they agree to a salesman coming that's called a pitch. My wife started on £5.50 an hour, but gets £5 for a pitch as well. In theory, they say, she could make NMW.

Last night she goes in and they say that from next week, if you don't get 2 pitches in a week you won't get paid. So in theory my wife could work 18 hours next week and earn zero. I told her to jack the job in but she doesn't want to lose money we're trying to save.

[Cardinal Richelieu]

I got £9 a week (Mon-Sat) for a paper round in the mid-90s.

My wife's current job is the pits. She started 3 weeks ago for a windows company, cold calling in the evenings. She gets dogs abuse, and last night an old woman blew a whistle down the phone. Even now my wife's ear is sore. But it gets worse.

They call people, and if someone agrees to a call back, that's called a bite. If during this call they agree to a salesman coming that's called a pitch. My wife started on £5.50 an hour, but gets £5 for a pitch as well. In theory, they say, she could make NMW.

Last night she goes in and they say that from next week, if you don't get 2 pitches in a week you won't get paid. So in theory my wife could work 18 hours next week and earn zero. I told her to jack the job in but she doesn't want to lose money we're trying to save.

Can't you get your mates to agree to a bite and subsequent pitch? I'm sure they'd catch on eventually (especially when your mate tells the salesman to GTF) but it might work in the short-term.

And who the feck actually buys double-glazing off someone who phones them out of the blue?

[Jimmy Shaker]

My wife's current job is the pits. She started 3 weeks ago for a windows company, cold calling in the evenings. She gets dogs abuse, and last night an old woman blew a whistle down the phone. Even now my wife's ear is sore. But it gets worse.

Harsh, but having seen the stress caused by b*****ds at window firms cold-calling my parents for years, I'm not surprised people take matters into their own hands. Who the hell wants phoned about new windows?

[P.C]

See thats when you start getting folk starting to put through bookings just so they can meet targets which then leads to pushy salesmen turning up unannounced at folks doorsteps. For £5 a hr she would be better off working in a supermarket or someting instead at least its a steady wage and alot less pressure

[gingapar]

Good lord, that sounds like actual torture. Was the ten seconds of the song in your head day and night, working and out of work, awake and trying to sleep? Any PTSD?

it was 4 days on, 4 days off. The 4 days off I did a lot of drinking. I bought a fuckload of CD's at the time too, just blotting out the noise. I vowed never to work in a factory again. I was 5 years working in a car wash which whilst physically demanding, was heaven in comparison. Both shit jobs though, made going to uni as a mature studentvan easy decision!

[Hedgecutter]

I got £9 a week (Mon-Sat) for a paper round in the mid-90s.

I got £2 a week for walking my mum's friend's dog every day after school, rain or shine (mid 90's too).

Eventually I managed to take her neighbour's dog too which made a whopping £4pw. Paper round in the mornings before school took that up to ~£10 pw.

[P.C]

remember doing Betterware when i was 15 to get some money for xmas. What a scam that was. You got 20% comission from memory but you would only get paid if you sold £50/60 worth of stuff in a week. There was times i was having to get friends and family to buy stuff just so i could get cash. Also was out almost every day posting those fudging booklets and picking them back up