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Boring Job
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- Lemon Slice
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Re: Boring Job
In the 1980s, t-shirts with naff slogans were all the rage. One regular was "I ate at a Motorway Service Station and survived". I doctored it to read "I worked at a Motorway Service Station and survived" then wore it on the last day of my Summer Job.
The work was mundane (clear tables, load dishwasher with dirty crockery or remove clean crockery from other end. Repeat for 8 hours.) and we were (it probably still is) the busiest in the UK (Gordano near Bristol) which at least meant that time during the day passed quicker as you never stopped. If you were seen with time on your hands it was "sweep and mop" the whole dining area floor. Cleanest floor in the UK, that. Always someone doing it.
The highlight of my two seasons was once being asked to spend the shift using a spade to fill the gaps in the paving slabs outside with cement then brush it in. Heady times.
The work was mundane (clear tables, load dishwasher with dirty crockery or remove clean crockery from other end. Repeat for 8 hours.) and we were (it probably still is) the busiest in the UK (Gordano near Bristol) which at least meant that time during the day passed quicker as you never stopped. If you were seen with time on your hands it was "sweep and mop" the whole dining area floor. Cleanest floor in the UK, that. Always someone doing it.
The highlight of my two seasons was once being asked to spend the shift using a spade to fill the gaps in the paving slabs outside with cement then brush it in. Heady times.
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- Lemon Slice
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Re: Boring Job
It seems to me Court security men have a pretty boring job.
All they do is shepherd people through the metal detector, search their bags on the other side and smoke fags outside the door.
I don't know about this. An employee of mine, her husband worked for most of his working life in a car manufacturing plant, not on the line, he had a skilled well paid job in repairing machinery. Come hard times in the car industry and the factory closed. Bit of a disaster financially as the best alternative employment he could find was in an airport doing pretty much what you've said above - well without the fags as he didn't smoke. The odd thing was that he absolutely loved it, he loved it so much that my employee didn't mind a bit that as a family their income level went down rather a lot because her husband was just so happy. Why? Well he was a pleasant and sociable man. All his highly skilled working life he was working alone. In the airport he was working with people and he was really good with people and dealing with all the situations which arose when you have to search people and their luggage. I have some very happy memories of him coming to pick up his wife and lingering to tell us stories of what had gone on in the airport that day. I'm still laughing about some of the stories to this day.
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- Lemon Half
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Re: Boring Job
ap8889 wrote:I once spent a summer at a factory assembling CRT televisions. 8 hours, 6 days per week plus regular overtime. Three months of it was enough to pay my student digs rent for the year but by the end I was starting to solder components in my sleep.
The highlight was the day the alcoholic on the degaussing station up line from me drank from his hip flask for most of his shift, falling comatose onto the assembly line, to be carried snoring past his cheering colleagues towards an inevitable P45.
I always felt terrible that people had been content to waste decades working there. The pay was ok, I guess, but the braindead nature of the work got to me.
My first 'proper' job was working in a factory making CRT TVs and monitors. I was in the QC area, which was thankfully not on the line, but was mind numbingly boring. There were loading bay doors near my workstation and during winter the freezing wind used to blow in. We all built walls from old packing boxes to act as windbreaks, but got told to remove them as they were a fire risk...
Still remember testing degaussing coils for insulation breakdown...crates of the damn things. Worst was scanning barcodes on sat receiver modules, blip blip blip for hours, making my arms ache.
I was very glad to be made redundant after a year or two. Production eventually moved to Thailand and the old factory reduced to a small returns and repairs depot.
The highlight was the day the alcoholic on the degaussing station up line from me drank from his hip flask for most of his shift
Hmm, he wasn't called Brian was he? Sounds horribly familiar
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Boring Job
I always felt terrible that people had been content to waste decades working there. The pay was ok, I guess, but the braindead nature of the work got to me.
My brain-dead holiday jobs gave me a respect for higher education that I've never lost. The job I hated the most was in a small meat factory that made faggots, sausages, pates and black puddings. My Mum has happy memories of it because she could order loads of steaks at cost price - a perk that I didn't really appreciate! But there was a guy who had been there about a year or so, had a 1st class degree in Maths from UCL, got his girlfriend pregnant, and had decided to get any job in order to provide for the family. His idea was to get noticed and moved to management sometime. Bear in mind that this was a small place where the managers were distinguished by their cleaner white overalls. So, in addition to my respect for higher education, I learnt a very strong respect for contraception!
Steve
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- Lemon Half
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Re: Boring Job
My mum appreciated my temp job sorting and bagging potatoes, as the farmer let us take as many as we could carry free.
I couldn't face a potato for months after. Still remember the variety was Wilja..
I couldn't face a potato for months after. Still remember the variety was Wilja..
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Boring Job
I met someone who described himself as a chicken sexer - he had to pick up chicks, turn them upside down, note their gender and put them into the relevant male or female pens. He said it was more complicated than he made it sound, so I nodded sagely.
Cheers, OLTB.
Cheers, OLTB.
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Boring Job
OLTB wrote:I met someone who described himself as a chicken sexer - he had to pick up chicks, turn them upside down, note their gender and put them into the relevant male or female pens. He said it was more complicated than he made it sound, so I nodded sagely.
Cheers, OLTB.
My aunt kept chickens and I watched her do this - you have to blow on them (to open the feathers), which is funny, because usually we've been not to blow....
Mel
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Boring Job
In the days when computers were fed with punched cards, I once had responsibility for a large group of key-punch 'girls' (age immaterial).
It appeared that the more experienced ones could punch/verify the never-ending sheets of meaningless numbers completely on autopilot while chatting with their neighbours.
It appeared that the more experienced ones could punch/verify the never-ending sheets of meaningless numbers completely on autopilot while chatting with their neighbours.
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- Lemon Quarter
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- Lemon Half
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Re: Boring Job
I can only do a few before my arms start aching. Perhaps it's some disease I have (postural hypotension?)
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