What was your most degrading* job? (*As defined by you.)

[sunshinegal1981]

So as a spinoff from Swamp's 'stripper' thread, I thought it would be fun to compare stories of the most degrading jobs we've ever held.

Ever had a job where you felt used and abused? What was it? Why did you feel degraded?  Spill your best woe-is-me stories of workplace exploitation and mistreatment!

I'll go first.  It's not THAT good (I've been lucky? Lol), but it's the best I've got.

--

After grad school, my first major job offer fell through in spectacular fashion. I ended up boomeranging back to mom and dad's place, and had to find a job QUICK to keep ahead of my student loan payments.

So I answered a wanted ad, lied my face off about experience, and became a bartender in some slimy bar in downtown Toronto where they didn't check references.  The dude who was my boss was a total greasy creep, and encouraged me to drink with patrons as long as they were offering to buy, while he disappeared for hours at a time to do god knows what with the waitresses from the Italian joint across the street.

The place was a mess... fruit flies drowning in all the liquor bottles on the bar, suspicious drug activity, plumbing issues, etc.  The pay was dismal, and the tips were not much better.  Every night, Creepy McCreepster would go over the cash with me, reconciling cc transactions, etc.  He NEVER got the math right, and couldn't figure why numbers weren't matching up.  Finally, he went postal and accused me of stealing $15 from the register.  I was absolutely STUNNED.  I wanted to punch the fucker in the face and scream "I have $150,000 of grad school loans! How the hell would your grimy fifteen bucks even TOUCH THAT, you moron?!?"  Thankfully he 'fired' me shortly thereafter.  I'm pretty sure he's still convinced I was stealing from the cashbox. 

I still feel dirty just reminiscing about that shithole. 

[sheilaincali]

The summer before I left for college I worked on the road construction crew (now 20 years later I work there again but in a different capacity).  It wasn't "bad" like I imagine many jobs are but I didn't enjoy it.  The days I had to be a flag person were the worst.  People would drive by and try to play chicken with me (real fair- car- vs me standing there).  Throw things out the car window as they drove past.  Scream swear words at me because it was my fault they had to slow down.  Proposition me, catcalls, lewd names, etc. 

The people I actually worked with were great (except for one creeper but he got fired).  It was the general public that were the assholes.

[swamp]

Stripping.

[imawino]

LOL.  I've had some sucky jobs, but I'm not sure I would say that I felt degraded by any of them. 

Probably the closest was when I was a telephone operator.  I heard the most vile, perverted things in my life during that job.  I was in often working at 2am and we mostly handled calls from a prison, and payphones in Daytona Beach.  It was not the classiest clientele calling in.   Basically they were gross, lonely, had some sort of mental problem and/or were just too poor to call a 900-number.

I worked at Victoria's Secret for a bit when I was in college.  Men think it's hilarious to ask a 20 year old to try on lingerie because "you look about the same size as my girlfriend".

I did a very brief stint as a cocktail waitress wearing the fishnets and heels in a theme bar in a tourist area.  Really the only degrading part was how bad I was at it!  

My very first job was at Kmart.  Announcing those Blue Light Specials cracked me up no matter how many times I did it! 

[souldoubt]

I don't consider any of my jobs degrading but like everyone I had less than desirable first jobs but that's generally the type of job 99% of us first start working at.  I worked retail and then at a grocery store.  My retail job involved stocking items and I was the only one there doing that in my department during my shifts.  The job itself was fine but early on I didn't know the store well and I recall getting yelled at after someone asked where something was and I said "I'm not sure let me find out."   At the grocery store it was more of the same as the job and co-workers I actually liked for what it was (bag boy) but some of the customers were aholes.  I used to love people who would knock things over which created a mess and a liability if someone slipped and they wouldn't even say anything to tell you it happened or apologize if you saw it happen.  Cleaning bathrooms were a nightmare because quite honestly people are pigs.  The jobs themselves were starter jobs that had me on my feet and meeting a bunch of people at a time in my life when I had less responsiblity and had a lot of fun so I actually look back fondly on those times.  The customers though...yeah I don't miss them at all because if you had 100 customers of which 99 were awesome you only remember the 1 ahole.   

[muttleynfelix]

Sept 18, 2013 14:01:50 GMT -5 sheilaincali said:

The summer before I left for college I worked on the road construction crew (now 20 years later I work there again but in a different capacity).  It wasn't "bad" like I imagine many jobs are but I didn't enjoy it.  The days I had to be a flag person were the worst.  People would drive by and try to play chicken with me (real fair- car- vs me standing there).  Throw things out the car window as they drove past.  Scream swear words at me because it was my fault they had to slow down.  Proposition me, catcalls, lewd names, etc. 

The people I actually worked with were great (except for one creeper but he got fired).  It was the general public that were the assholes.

What?!?!? You didn't get a date flagging traffic?  I got a date flagging traffic.   I asked him though. It was after he brought me a Pepsi one day when he had to drive by a couple time. I was working for the county and when we were on the road that had a lot of commuters, the drivers were awful. But we spent most of our time doing some work on this road that during the day was mainly farmers. The guy I went on a date with worked for the seed company on the road and he farmed with his dad.  The majority of the crew was old enough to be my dad and they were very protective of me. It made going on a date with this guy very interesting. They all knew HIS dad.

Working for my dad wasn't degrading, but man I had to do some shit jobs and I didn't have a whole lot of choice as to when I was working. I had to clean out his truck, vacuum up the bat shit in the office, clean the bathroom , go out surveying in all sorts of weather - 100 degrees  and a snowstorm and it was "hey M, I need you to work, now.  Let's go." Oh yeah, and my dad didn't want to give me a raise when I was in college!  He gave his full time guy who had less education and did less technical work than I did a raise, but didn't give me one until my mom said, you better give your daughter a raise too. 

[sunshinegal1981]

Sept 18, 2013 14:03:30 GMT -5 swamp said:

Stripping.

 Spinning pole, or static?    :-P 


 Your avatar always reminds me of a very interesting friend I had in college.  At one point, she worked as a Sunday school teacher AND a dominatrix at the same time to make tuition.    (I miss her... I should look up her number.)

[kittensaver]

When I was a broke college student, I took a job as a "dance hostess" at one of those dive-y nightclubs. I was young and ignorant and sheltered and had absolutely no idea what I was stepping into (being propositioned and inappropriately touched by the male clients who were there to dance with the "hostesses" but really wanted something else). I lasted one night and never went back.

[swamp]

Sept 18, 2013 14:18:30 GMT -5 sunshinegal1981 said:

Sept 18, 2013 14:03:30 GMT -5 swamp said:

Stripping.

 Spinning pole, or static?    :-P 


 Your avatar always reminds me of a very interesting friend I had in college.  At one point, she worked as a Sunday school teacher AND a dominatrix at the same time to make tuition.    (I miss her... I should look up her number.)

copper wire stripper.

Dominatrix and Sunday School Teacher, now that's a combination!!!!

[Otto the Orange]

Sept 18, 2013 14:19:25 GMT -5 swamp said:

Sept 18, 2013 14:18:30 GMT -5 sunshinegal1981 said:

 Spinning pole, or static?    :-P 


 Your avatar always reminds me of a very interesting friend I had in college.  At one point, she worked as a Sunday school teacher AND a dominatrix at the same time to make tuition.    (I miss her... I should look up her number.)

copper wire stripper.

Dominatrix and Sunday School Teacher, now that's a combination!!!!

not this kind of stripper?

www.indeed.com/q-Paint-Stripping-jobs.html

[Deleted]

none that were "degrading" per se, but my very first job ever was as a bagger in a grocery store. I wish I only bagged! I also had to take out the garbage in the store and by the cart return, clean up spills, and clean the restrooms.... women are nasty!

[greeniis10]

Bank Teller.  Similar to what other's have already posted: the job itself wasn't degrading or bad, but the customers and the treatment was!  We were treated like idiots who knew nothing and supervisors and management did nothing to curb it or help our cause.  In my opinion, the bank teller is not the low-man on the totem pole; they are the FIRST impression of the bank.  Your interaction with a teller will generally determine your further relationship with the bank.  But, instead of being encouraged and built-up we were treated like dirt. 

Even worse, (at the bank I worked for; I cannot speak for any others) before anyone else could enter the building and the auto bank each morning, it had to be checked and cleared.  Who did this job, you ask?  Well, the tellers rotated, of course!  They are disposable and replaceable!  God forbid the bank president or loan officers or even personal bankers take on this responsibility.  So, in other words, if someone had hidden in the building overnight and was waiting to rob or kill someone the next morning, good thing they'd only lose a teller!  They all waited out in the parking lot (in their fancy cars and SUVs) while we went in to take the possible bullet.

Ok, that sounds like I'm bitter, but I'm not at all.  I got a lot of experience from that job and it was stepping stone.

[The Captain]

I've worked in a dish room, scrubbed pots and pans and flipped burgers.  Also worked in a nursing home and slung shit/compost at a greenhouse.

The most degrading job was the third one out of college where I first made manager.  Only female in a room full of guys and during meetings I'm the one who was ALWAYS asked to take notes - Because my handwriting was the "neatest" .  (You obviously have not seen my handwriting...)

I also was the one who had to clean up meeting rooms and buy refreshments for meetings when we had out of town guests.  Mind you there were junior people on staff, but they were all guys who "didn't do this stuff as well as you do".  I put up with a lot of shit to get that manager title so I guess in the long run it paid off.

[Phoenix84]

That's a tough one.  But if I had to choose one, it would be when I worked for the dining halls in college.  I would stand there, and if someone said they wanted mashed potatoes, or corn, or whatever, I'd scoop it into a bowel and hand it to them.  I swear, a monkey could have been trained to do it. 

It didn't help that the chefs were assholes, or that you couldn't call in sick, ever.  That's right, when I tried to call in sick they threatened to fire me if I did it again.  I guess it's preferable to have somone with snot dripping down their face and sneezing into the food than to have to find a replacement.  Obvously food safety was not a big priority.

I've worked crappy retail jobs before, but usually in retail, the managers have at least some semblence of professionalism.  That wasn't the case here.  After I left for winter break, I just stopped showing up.  I didn't even bother to tell them I was quitting.  That job didn't deserve such a courtesy.

[sunshinegal1981]

Sept 18, 2013 14:57:26 GMT -5 Phoenix84 said:

.. if someone said they wanted mashed potatoes, or corn, or whatever, I'd scoop it into a bowel ...

Directly into a bowel, huh?  Mashed potato enemas... yeah, kinky.  

[Deleted]

Selling chemical toilets at the Fair. I was 14 and mortified.

[swamp]

But if I had to choose one, it would be when I worked for the dining halls in college. I would stand there, and if someone said they wanted mashed potatoes, or corn, or whatever, I'd scoop it into a bowel and hand it to them

Yeah, I guess it is true that dining all food is crappy.

[Chocolate Lover]

Sept 18, 2013 14:03:30 GMT -5 swamp said:

Stripping.

You spelled LAWYER wrong  

[shanendoah]

I don't think I've ever had a degrading job, though I've had one where I felt degraded by the management.

I worked for a video rental place (talk about a sign of the times), and officially I was not fired. I was removed from my shift supervisor role and given the option of being a floater staff for all the stores (over a fairly wide geographic area) when it was known I did not drive. It was not a realistic option for me, so boom, out of a job.

Why was I really fired? My guess is because two different people who stole from the organization used me as a scapegoat. Let me be clear, I have NO EVIDENCE that anyone stole. It's just a suspicion.

Person 1- she was a brand new employee, but close to the company operations manager in age and someone the Ops manager identified with (she may even have been a friend of hers, I don't know) who was working the busy Friday night shift the first night we went to assigned drawers. Her drawer was WAY short when I counted her out that night. I told her not to worry about it, that at my previous store, the first night of assigned drawers was really off too, and that I expected it would all come even (or close enough) when I counted out the other drawers later that night. I told her that if she was really worried, she could call between 1-1:30am that night (when I would be in back doing reconciliations),either of the next two nights when I was back on shift (I worked Wed-Sun nights) or that I could leave a note for the day manager, and she could call Saturday during the day.
I never heard from her. The day manager didn't hear from her. I thought nothing of it.
I come into work on Wednesday, and there's the company Ops manager there to talk to me because this employee (who had been with the company less than 2 weeks, while I'd been with them over a year and gotten 2 promotions) had called her on Monday "all freaked out" and said that I had told her if the drawers didn't come out, she would be responsible for the money her drawer was short and it would come out of her paycheck. Let me be clear, she didn't call the store manager (who was my boss), even though she only worked at our one store, she called the Ops Manager for the company directly (which is why I think they might have been friends).
I repeated what I had actually told the person, and in the end, the Ops Manager couldn't do anything because it was my word against the new employees and nothing actually happened. But it started the Ops Manager's dislike of me.
Now, we did balance that night, or at least came close enough to balancing that I didn't worry about it (we never balanced exactly, especially on Friday and Saturday nights). But the only reason I can think of for someone to be calling over my head like that, without ever checking in with someone at the actual store, is that she did take some money from her till.
As a side note, that employee was with the company less than a month. She quit just a couple of weeks later.

Person 2- my store manager or (less likely) the weekend day shift supervisor. And I hate to say this, because we the store manager and I had mutual friends outside of work and we occasionally partied together. Story goes like this- store manager was supposed to make the weekly drop box deposit on Fridays after he got off shift. He thought he did this, but the bank notified the company on Monday that the deposit bag was empty. The company called him, and he decided he must have grabbed the wrong deposit envelope out of the safe and left the full one (how you don't notice the weight difference between a full deposit envelope and an empty one is beyond me) in. He checks the store safe and the deposit bag is not there. The weekend day shift manager covers the night shift on Mondays & Tuesdays (my days off), so when he comes in Monday night, they ask him about it. He claims to no nothing.
There are only three people at the store who have the combination to the safe, store manager, weekend day shift supervisor, and me. So I come in Wednesday night, and there's the Ops Manager, wanting to talk to me about it. Here's the thing- I rarely opened the safe. I only opened the safe if I had to take a cash deposit for renting one of the video game systems. Otherwise, I put the money from the drawers in envelopes and dropped them through the slot into the safe. I had not had to open the safe on Friday or Saturday night. This means I can't tell the Ops Manager if the full deposit envelope had been in there over the weekend or not. She starts asking if anyone has talked about a big shopping spree lately or a major bill. Well, we had all just been paid, the Wednesday before the deposit bag went missing, so I couldn't think of anything out of the ordinary. (Forgetting that I myself had complained about getting a collection notice for a cell phone bill that I had cosigned on for an ex-boyfriend. I didn't think about it because I knew I hadn't taken the money.)
But the money was gone, and I'm pretty certain the Ops Manager decided I was the one that took it, but couldn't prove it. So by then, she was looking for a reason to get rid of me.

So no, the work wasn't degrading, but being viewed as a liar and a thief by management was.

[Miss Tequila]

I worked in a fetish club

[greeniis10]

Sept 18, 2013 15:30:05 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

I worked in a fetish club

Ooooh, there's GOT to be more to that story!  Care to share?

[Chocolate Lover]

I'm pretty sure she's yanking your chain.

[imawino]

Sept 18, 2013 15:30:05 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

I worked in a fetish club

LOL.  Was the degrading part when they fired you for being too pervy for even their clientele??

[Miss Tequila]

Sept 18, 2013 15:39:41 GMT -5 imawino said:

Sept 18, 2013 15:30:05 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

I worked in a fetish club

LOL.  Was the degrading part when they fired you for being too pervy for even their clientele??

Shit....how did you know??

[shanendoah]

Also at the video rental place, we had porn.
My first supervisor, when I started there, delighted in sending females in to the porn room to reshelve movies, timing it for when there were customers in that back room. (We had closed circuit video feed of the room, so he would check and see if there were people back there before he decided who to ask to do the reshelving.) And then he would stand and watch the video feed of the back room and laugh about it with other male employees. I actually think it bothered him that he couldn't send the 16 y/os to do it.
I'd been at work maybe 2 hours when he sent me in. Sadly for him, I was 20 not 18, and most of my friends were guys, who the moment they learned I was going to work there had been asking me to use my free rentals to get them porn. I was not going to be embarrassed. I actually found reshelving the porn easier than other reshelving because the room was much smaller. The only annoyance was the fact that so many titles were incredibly similar.
After that, he only specifically sent me in to reshelve the porn when there wasn't a younger girl he could pick on. I mostly ended up getting around it by paying attention to how many titles we'd had returned and just going to shelve the movies without being told, therefore keeping him from being able to harass the younger girls like that.

Unsurprisingly (if you knew the Reno PD), this a**hole also wanted to be a cop and would miss work for ride-alongs.

[imawino]

Sept 18, 2013 15:40:32 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Sept 18, 2013 15:39:41 GMT -5 imawino said:

LOL.  Was the degrading part when they fired you for being too pervy for even their clientele??

Shit....how did you know??

You get around.  I mean "word"!!!  WORD gets around!  ooopsie. 

[imawino]

Sept 18, 2013 15:42:28 GMT -5 shanendoah said:

I actually found reshelving the porn easier than other reshelving because the room was much smaller. The only annoyance was the fact that so many titles were incredibly similar.

I don't know why, but that just struck me as hilarous!  I'm picturing it only taking 30 seconds to reshelve a handful of "high school girl" "horny housewife" "hot asian chick" titles. 

[Miss Tequila]

Sept 18, 2013 15:46:36 GMT -5 imawino said:

Sept 18, 2013 15:40:32 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

Shit....how did you know??

You get around.  I mean "word"!!!  WORD gets around!  ooopsie. 

In my defense, I did NOT know he was an undercover cop...seriously, it's not like I killed someone... A golden shower is harmless :-(

[Deleted]

never had a degrading job

had some tough dirty jobs

dishwasher/busboy in a really fast paced restaurant

worked at a stable when i was in my early teens.....thought it sounded cool....it was for an hour a day (rest was cleaning stalls and other crappy jobs)

been working since i was 12....and since i was 9 if you count paper routes

lots of jobs before military.....no idea on what i wanted to do, so i tried lots of different things

[haapai]

Crimping pies with the owner's recently divorced sister in law.

She had been the good Catholic wife of a guy who had made a nice income.  They divorced around the 20-year mark.  She got the kids, he got the "mistress".  I had never heard a native speaker of English use that term and the confusion, surprise, and doubt showed in my face.  Things went downhill from there.