DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Court ordered community service?
Most boring job (you've ever done)?
- Thread starter obanite
- Start date
Court ordered community service?
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
That would have been preferable, as it would have been of shorter duration. This was my job, working for the Parks Department. I did it for five winters in a row.
EastEnder
Brixton Barnacle
Even worse than that has to be those pseudo-security guard chaps employed by big banks / city firms, who have to stand just inside the main entrance all day long, glaring at anyone who walks in not wearing an expensive suit. They must be aware of the fact that they're even lower down the pecking order than the girl at the reception desk, and have to spend their days being ignored by everyone who works there (no doubt earning orders of magnitude more), desperately hoping against all hope that someone for some bizarre reason tries to "break in"!
Many years ago when I worked at a fast food place in Vancouver, a mate of mine was employed to "greet" customers at a clothes shop in the same shopping mall. Her job entailed standing just inside the shop entrance saying "Welcome to XXXXX" when people came in, and "Have a nice day" as people left. The scary thing was that they had mystery shoppers who'd grass on her if she ever got it wrong...
AnnaKarpik
Queen of all she surveys
Putting LPs (remember those folks?) on a conveyor belt*. To the constant accompaniment of the dross on the LP - Wings. Fucking Mull of Kintyre.
*They ran under a machine which stuck a price tag on them and then were packed back into boxes. I stuck 4 days.
*They ran under a machine which stuck a price tag on them and then were packed back into boxes. I stuck 4 days.
Voley
🐭
Potato picking. Boring and back breaking.
I did that, but it was on the back of one of them big machines. It was OK, all you had to do was sling the bad spuds and rocks over your shoulder. You could have yer Walkman on so I was happy. Well I was until I realised I'd been paid £35 for a week's work.
2 stick in my mind, both when I was doing summer work during university holidays:
The first, working in a cheese factory in Melton Mowbray. You know those gift packs you get at Xmas with a small bottle of wine and a pot of cheese - I was put on this production line. The cheese was melted to a fondue like consistency and then a big nozzle squirted it into the pots as they passed underneath on a conveyor.
My job was to wipe off any errant drips of cheese from the rim of the pots. That's it, thousands of pots per day. I had to wear full overalls, wellies and a hair-net & the whole place stank like you wouldn't believe.
The second was in a plastic moulding factory in Nottingham. Again, it was to do with gift packs but in this case those deoderant jobbies where you get a can and an aftershave in a presentation box. This machine was stamping out lines of the plastic inserts the goods fitted into in rows of four and it was my job to remove the inserts from the line, stack them in batches of ten and put them on the table behind me.
It was a wide belt so I did the 2 nearest of the 4 lines and there was a fellow on the other side of the conveyor who did the other 2.
It became apparent very quickly that the bloke opposite could not achieve this task without counting to ten. OUT LOUD!! You have no idea how annoying listen to someone say one, two, three, four, five etc is until you have to listen to it all day long. I honestly wanted to throttle him after a few hours.
I later found out he'd been doing that job for over 15 years... I managed a whole three days otherwise I may have killed him.
The first, working in a cheese factory in Melton Mowbray. You know those gift packs you get at Xmas with a small bottle of wine and a pot of cheese - I was put on this production line. The cheese was melted to a fondue like consistency and then a big nozzle squirted it into the pots as they passed underneath on a conveyor.
My job was to wipe off any errant drips of cheese from the rim of the pots. That's it, thousands of pots per day. I had to wear full overalls, wellies and a hair-net & the whole place stank like you wouldn't believe.
The second was in a plastic moulding factory in Nottingham. Again, it was to do with gift packs but in this case those deoderant jobbies where you get a can and an aftershave in a presentation box. This machine was stamping out lines of the plastic inserts the goods fitted into in rows of four and it was my job to remove the inserts from the line, stack them in batches of ten and put them on the table behind me.
It was a wide belt so I did the 2 nearest of the 4 lines and there was a fellow on the other side of the conveyor who did the other 2.
It became apparent very quickly that the bloke opposite could not achieve this task without counting to ten. OUT LOUD!! You have no idea how annoying listen to someone say one, two, three, four, five etc is until you have to listen to it all day long. I honestly wanted to throttle him after a few hours.
I later found out he'd been doing that job for over 15 years... I managed a whole three days otherwise I may have killed him.
EastEnder
Brixton Barnacle
Which begs the question, what's someone like that going to do when they invent a machine to do his job quicker & cheaper (and without counting out loud!)???
Feeding official documents through a laminator all day. Thankfully we occasionally got to switch jobs to e.g. printing out the official documents instead, which involved pressing a 'print' button all day.
I've a friend who did data entry, copying information on industrial deaths from one database to another. That appeared to be both boring and rather depressing.
I've a friend who did data entry, copying information on industrial deaths from one database to another. That appeared to be both boring and rather depressing.
Which begs the question, what's someone like that going to do when they invent a machine to do his job quicker & cheaper (and without counting out loud!)???
Maybe its different now in these days of minimum wage but then (mid-90's) we only got paid about 3/hr if I remember correctly so it was probably cheaper to have us do it than pay the electricity bill to power a machine.
I got a cool job after those two though - worked for the council gardening dept cutting school playing fields, grass verges etc.
Me and a mate used to race each other (on ride-on lawnmowers - yay!!) to get them done as quickly as possible - there were only a certain quota of jobs per day no matter how long they took you, so if we got them done by midday we spent the whole afternoon in the pub playing pool.
Probably spent more in the pub in the afternoon than I earned in the morning though... no wonder I'm poor.
Bahnhof Strasse
Let's av ya fuckin' dancin'!
I know a pilot who flies for Cathay Pacific.
Sounds fun?
All he ever does is fly from Heathrow to Hong Kong. Then 2 days later flies from Hong Kong to Heathrow.
That's his entire existence.
And when I say flies, he takes off, then the plane flies itself to Hong Kong for 12 hours, then he lands it.
Glamour.
I worked for a week at a dairy, had to walk around and test the temperature of milk cartons in 3 refrigerated lorry trailers and note the results on to a clipboard. After day 1 was over, I couldn't be fucked to even do that, so I just made up the results.
Sorry if anyone in West London got ill in 1991 having drunk iffy milk.
Sounds fun?
All he ever does is fly from Heathrow to Hong Kong. Then 2 days later flies from Hong Kong to Heathrow.
That's his entire existence.
And when I say flies, he takes off, then the plane flies itself to Hong Kong for 12 hours, then he lands it.
Glamour.
I worked for a week at a dairy, had to walk around and test the temperature of milk cartons in 3 refrigerated lorry trailers and note the results on to a clipboard. After day 1 was over, I couldn't be fucked to even do that, so I just made up the results.
Sorry if anyone in West London got ill in 1991 having drunk iffy milk.
astral
author unknown
Right after University I got a job working nights at a tile factory. I had to watch the production run, wait until something went wrong and then count how many tiles broke, and how long it was before someone came along to fix the problem. I wasn't allowed to touch the tiles or fix the problem just watch the tiles break on the floor and count how many of them there were.
They cancelled the trial after three weeks when it was obvious they weren't getting any useful data from me.
They cancelled the trial after three weeks when it was obvious they weren't getting any useful data from me.
Oh I dunno, I don't think I'd mind the one day off 2 days on thing, bit of a bitch if you have a family I suppose.
The (I imagine) fairly hefty pay packet and free flights on Cathay Pacific whenever you wanted a holiday in that nice part of the world would swing it for me though.
EastEnder
Brixton Barnacle
Not to mention the ego boosting, although rather inexplicable, round of applause some people insist on when the plane lands...
I mean for fucks sake, landing the plane is the pilot's job....
I don't remember the last time I got a round of applause for meeting a project deadline...
working for Continental cans. A night job, watching cans pass by and checkign random ones to see if they were the right colour. The money was good, but it was even better when my best mate joined and we went on the roof to smoke spliffs for 3 hours, although we both got sacked shortly afterwards.
Shortly followed by data entry (lasted 3 hours) and a glorified call centre (again lasted 3 hours).
Shortly followed by data entry (lasted 3 hours) and a glorified call centre (again lasted 3 hours).
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
my most boring was probably pulling baby cabbages to pack into boxes before they were replanted. as well as being boring, it was backbreaking and sometimes done in snow/frost covered fields so your fingers would go blue and start hurting.
but surely the most boring one i ever heard of was someone i used to know who worked as a quality controller in a pencil factory. so he had to stand by the end of the production line and select random pencils and scribble them on some paper and then put them back and watch more pencils flowing past his eyes, for 8 hours a day. he used to smoke loads of spliffs, have a wank in the bogs every dinner time and he went a bit strange in the end.
but surely the most boring one i ever heard of was someone i used to know who worked as a quality controller in a pencil factory. so he had to stand by the end of the production line and select random pencils and scribble them on some paper and then put them back and watch more pencils flowing past his eyes, for 8 hours a day. he used to smoke loads of spliffs, have a wank in the bogs every dinner time and he went a bit strange in the end.
1995, when I was a stude. Was told by an agency I had a data entry job at Cosworth. Turned up suited and booted only to be sat at a drill press for 12 hours, making tiny holes in exhaust brackets while the rest of the workshop sniggered at my white shirt getting greyer and greyer as the day went on. Haven't used an agency since.
How did you feel about this?
ScallyWag II
New Member
Some parts of my job are mind-numbingly boring at times, having to input masses of numbers so that we can play around with them later on. Not so bad now that a lot of the paperwork we receive is now in electronic form thank god.
One job i saw someone doing always struck me as possibly one of the worst for sheer boredom and pointlesness. Some poor sod had to stand all day in the foyer of a hotel in Hamburg pushing the revolving door around whenever a guest or visitor wanted to come through. Like the guest or visitor was incapable or something.
One job i saw someone doing always struck me as possibly one of the worst for sheer boredom and pointlesness. Some poor sod had to stand all day in the foyer of a hotel in Hamburg pushing the revolving door around whenever a guest or visitor wanted to come through. Like the guest or visitor was incapable or something.
I approve of this thread. 
The world of work is meaningful and satisfying, and your lives have all been worthwhile.
Betty!!!
What did these letters... you know... say?
Day 1: Dropped off at a portacabin outside a warehouse in the arse-end of Wigan. Night-time. Winter. No lights. No heating. The supervisor opens the boot of his car, hands me a crowbar for my personal protection and fucks off sharpish. 12 hours sat freezing my bollocks off, in a portacabin, in total darkness. They connected a generator for lighting the next day and I spent 12 hours a day there, 5 nights a week, for 3 weeks. Never saw a single burglar - would've welcomed the company - but did have a high old time chasing errant security signs around in a force 9 gale and getting knee-deep in shit in the swamp round the back.
Halton College, Widnes: I walked round and round and round and round that fucking shithole for 12 hours at a time - studiously ignoring all the little cunts playing football in the corridors - 'til my feet were nothing but bones and blisters. This came as a welcome break from sitting in the security office with Terry and the onsite security lads who - par for the course - made me, the contract security man, feel as welcome as a turd in a bowl of soup. Oh, ok - they weren't that bad. I've met far, far fucking worse.
TK Maxx, Milton Keynes: Not a bad job as such, working - sorry, standing about like a prize prick - in the warehouse with the lads there. The banter on the shopfloor helped to pass the time (and oh my Lord, time - it's the enemy). I mention it only to send fond regards to the head of security there - a monstrous, arrogant cunt whose name I can't remember, who took sadistic pleasure in belittling all the guards under his command. Lost count of the number of times I thought about breaking the cunt's jaw and walking out. Instead, I just stood there like a dumb animal and absorbed all the abuse. I was a security man and I knew my place. If you're reading this: I hope you die of cancer, you fucking horrible, vile piece of shit.
Some mobile phone warehouse near Crewe: Can't remember the name. Let's call it... Alcatraz. Millions of pounds worth of mobile phones there, so security tighter than a gnat's arse. Everyone scanned in and out using hand-scanners. Again, it was the onsite security - and, in particular, creepy, stuck-up Don - who made the job such a pleasure, by treating us contract scum with the same respect accorded Japanese prisoners of war. Go here, stand there, smile, stop chewing. Fuckers. Highlight of the job was standing at the entrance on the phone-assembly side, waiting to scan the shifts in and out. Hours on end, stood in a metal cage, on your jack, pacing up and down, round and round, like a traumatised animal to relieve the boredom and shift the weight on your feet.
Good memories. Eventually I got a nice sit-down job, pleasant surroundings, no fucking uniform, which led to the job I'm doing now, and that's the only reason I stuck it so long.
The world of work is meaningful and satisfying, and your lives have all been worthwhile.
Betty!!!What did these letters... you know... say?
Yep, this is the glamorous world of security: standing there like a prize cunt for hours on end, sickly smile on your face, cheap nylon pants playing havoc with your balls, being ignored by people earning far more money than you. I did it for a couple of years in a variety of locations so I have many happy memories.
Day 1: Dropped off at a portacabin outside a warehouse in the arse-end of Wigan. Night-time. Winter. No lights. No heating. The supervisor opens the boot of his car, hands me a crowbar for my personal protection and fucks off sharpish. 12 hours sat freezing my bollocks off, in a portacabin, in total darkness. They connected a generator for lighting the next day and I spent 12 hours a day there, 5 nights a week, for 3 weeks. Never saw a single burglar - would've welcomed the company - but did have a high old time chasing errant security signs around in a force 9 gale and getting knee-deep in shit in the swamp round the back.
Halton College, Widnes: I walked round and round and round and round that fucking shithole for 12 hours at a time - studiously ignoring all the little cunts playing football in the corridors - 'til my feet were nothing but bones and blisters. This came as a welcome break from sitting in the security office with Terry and the onsite security lads who - par for the course - made me, the contract security man, feel as welcome as a turd in a bowl of soup. Oh, ok - they weren't that bad. I've met far, far fucking worse.
TK Maxx, Milton Keynes: Not a bad job as such, working - sorry, standing about like a prize prick - in the warehouse with the lads there. The banter on the shopfloor helped to pass the time (and oh my Lord, time - it's the enemy). I mention it only to send fond regards to the head of security there - a monstrous, arrogant cunt whose name I can't remember, who took sadistic pleasure in belittling all the guards under his command. Lost count of the number of times I thought about breaking the cunt's jaw and walking out. Instead, I just stood there like a dumb animal and absorbed all the abuse. I was a security man and I knew my place. If you're reading this: I hope you die of cancer, you fucking horrible, vile piece of shit.
Some mobile phone warehouse near Crewe: Can't remember the name. Let's call it... Alcatraz. Millions of pounds worth of mobile phones there, so security tighter than a gnat's arse. Everyone scanned in and out using hand-scanners. Again, it was the onsite security - and, in particular, creepy, stuck-up Don - who made the job such a pleasure, by treating us contract scum with the same respect accorded Japanese prisoners of war. Go here, stand there, smile, stop chewing. Fuckers. Highlight of the job was standing at the entrance on the phone-assembly side, waiting to scan the shifts in and out. Hours on end, stood in a metal cage, on your jack, pacing up and down, round and round, like a traumatised animal to relieve the boredom and shift the weight on your feet.
Good memories. Eventually I got a nice sit-down job, pleasant surroundings, no fucking uniform, which led to the job I'm doing now, and that's the only reason I stuck it so long.
fogbat
The Talibum
Worked for the despatch department of a company that sent out various travelcards, as well as the associated consumables, to most of the shops in London that sold the things.
All day every day involved carefully counting out the right number of each kind of ticket, various different till-rolls, travelcard wallets etc. While listening to Heart FM all day. Occasional moments of variety were provided by two of the senior management having a farting competition in the kitchen
It was a shitty job, and I wasn't exactly a happy bunny at the time anyway, but I'd swear that a daily diet of Heart FM has a strong correlation with increased suicidal thoughts.
All day every day involved carefully counting out the right number of each kind of ticket, various different till-rolls, travelcard wallets etc. While listening to Heart FM all day. Occasional moments of variety were provided by two of the senior management having a farting competition in the kitchen
It was a shitty job, and I wasn't exactly a happy bunny at the time anyway, but I'd swear that a daily diet of Heart FM has a strong correlation with increased suicidal thoughts.
Hellsbells
World's best procrastinator
Counting a back log (i.e. several sack loads) of school lunch tickets.
8 hours a day of nothing but filing
8 hours a day of nothing but shredding
8 hours a day with absoultely no work to do, no internet access and being forced to look cheerful and busy
8 hours a day of nothing but filing
8 hours a day of nothing but shredding
8 hours a day with absoultely no work to do, no internet access and being forced to look cheerful and busy
EastEnder
Brixton Barnacle
I've got to say it's that sort of "security" guard role that I take greatest exception to. I mean, there's plenty of crappy jobs out there, most of which actually need doing by someone, albeit often simply cos a robot would cost more. But when big city firms pay some bloke to stand in their doorway all day long it's clearly got nothing to do with security (I bet they've another half down security bods who get to sit down behind a desk somewhere), and everything to do with an ostentatious display of power/wealth. It's a bit sick really.Yep, this is the glamorous world of security: standing there like a prize cunt for hours on end, sickly smile on your face, cheap nylon pants playing havoc with your balls, being ignored by people earning far more money than you. I did it for a couple of years in a variety of locations so I have many happy memories.
obanite
Kroketten
I approve of this thread.
The world of work is meaningful and satisfying, and your lives have all been worthwhile.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I think what the pilot is there for, is to be a failsafe backup system. He isn't paid the big bucks to sit there while the copilot flies, or the plane flies itself. He gets paid to be there for those rare times when something goes wrong, like the BA flight from Nairobi where the guy came into the cockpit and sent the plane into three separate nosedives.
I'd think that if you're a pilot, somewhere inside, you have to maintain a state of readiness, for that rare occasion.
