OT: Worst Jobs (or bad things found while working/gross out)

[dean]

Iguanagirl and reagan? where did you work? Just wondering so I never go there by chance!

I've had nothing really that disgusting in my jobs over the years except for foodstuffs that have bad smells.  But a friend of mine told me a funny story once:

He worked with the local Tram company [trams aren't quite a bus, not quite a train, in case you were wondering] and was in his uniform catching the Train home from work.  There was a man in one section of the train that looked like he was sitting down, except if you paid close enough attention, you'd come to realise he wasn't actually sitting on a seat.

Soon enough, a smell starts wafting through the train carriage as this man has just relieved himself, and because my friend is in a public transport uniform [though a different company to the one he was currently on] people expected him to do something about it.


I also remember feeling very sorry for myself and many other passengers of a tram with a huge pool of vomit on the floor: when the tram moved, the vomit moved; up and down practically the whole damn Tram.  Nasty, nasty nasty.

[beatrix]

I have some disgusting experiences from work, not as nasty as the J.C Penny story though.  As a lifeguard I've seen many people pukin in the pool, and had to scoop the chunks out (which still makes me gag).  My mother is constantly grossing me out with her job (she's an enterostomal nurse), with descriptions of "oozing wound" and "seepage", it totally grosses me out but excites her (shudder).  Ugh...that's it.

[SadClown]

i wonder why poop is most poular?... i worked in a bar for over a year.. and the men's room ws particularly nasty... so we all took turns cleaning it.... i was about 4 months pregnant w/our daughter and i walk in there and someone had smeared poop all over the toilet and wall beside the toilet.. and left diarhea in hte bowl.... now come on!!  needless to say i puked (pregnant) and being supervisor i made some one else clean it up... (i'm not a b***h i was just practically passed out form puking.... and had to go clean myself up...)

[AndyC]

I can't believe how many of these stories bring back memories.

In high school, I was a janitor at the local tourist trap. I was glad I'd never eaten there before. I watched dishwashers throw mashed potatoes at the kitchen ceiling, that remained there, changing colour, for the duration of my employment. One guy used to eat salads from the salad bar. I mean, he'd go to the cooler where it was kept after hours, grab the egg salad, and eat a couple of big scoops with the serving spoon that was in it. Another guy would grab the bowl of jello cubes and eat them with his fingers. He'd toss them up in the air and try to catch them in his mouth. The owner was no example either. One time, the cheapskate dropped a roast beef on the floor while taking it out of the oven, and chased it around the greasy, dirty floor trying to slide the platter under it. Then he served it.

My job there included taking out the kitchen garbage. There were bags of it by the end of the day, many of them full of the stuff cleaned out of the bottom of the dishwasher - soggy crap and liquid. We had cheap bags, and they'd leak. I'd either double or triple bag it (and risk getting in trouble), or I'd have to mop up the trail between the kitchen and the bin. Sometimes, the bin would get filled to the top, and we'd just pile the bags beside the building (in full view of the parking lot) until it could be emptied. One of the managers usually tossed it in during the day, after the truck had come. After I was fired from there (that would be a whole other thread), I used to walk by at night, and if I saw bags of soggy kitchen garbage, I'd stop and neatly slice the bottom with a pocket knife. They'd leak, of course, but that was not unusual. Still, you could imagine what happened when somebody grabbed the top and gave a hard yank.

I have heard a similar story to Ash's turkey. An electrician buddy was working in a turkey barn, among the turkeys. He was looking up at his work, took a step backward off a short platform, and stepped on a turkey. Guts shot out its ass.

He told me another story about a coworker who, while working at a feed mill, fell into a huge vat of liquid fat. The guy actually wiped off what he could and kept working in grease-soaked clothes.

I can also relate to the gross stuff police have to deal with. My dad did it for over 30 years. He didn't talk about the bad stuff much, but I remember he used to own a filter mask - the kind you might use when painting a car or spraying weeds - that I'd never seen him use. When I asked about it, he told me it was for those solitary old folks whose absence is not noticed for a few weeks.

My wife, on the other hand, was raised by paramedics. She remembers some less than appetizing dinner table conversations when she was a kid.

The best thing I can contribute from my current job is that I've gone to a number of barn fires, and you can sometimes hear pigs exploding inside.

Generally, I'm kept away from the really gross stuff, but I once got talking to the TV cameraman who often shows up. We were both waiting at an accident until the coroner arrived, and we had nothing better to do. He's been in the business a long time, and he's seen some shocking stuff. Back before the emergency workers here had good portable lights, they'd ask him to bring his over and shine it into a wreck. There was one really bad accident that was used to scare us back when I took driver training in high school. Half a dozen intoxicated teenagers packed, without seatbelts, into a car that flew off a curve doing twice the speed limit. When he described it, I knew it right away. Turns out, this guy had to stick his head right into the car and shine a light on the passengers.



Post Edited (07-15-04 09:37)

[billy]

I knew a friend who worked at a movie theater, and apparently, during the movie "Blue Chips" starring Shaquille O'Neal, someone decided to take a piece of s**t and fling it onto the ceiling of the men's bathroom.  What made this even worse was that it was winter time, and all the heating ducts were on full blast.  The human turd was stuck to the ceiling and partially covering a heat vent.  He said the bathroom smelled so wretched that they needed masks to walk in.

[The Burgomaster]

My aunt used to work for Sears.  She said that people used to crap on the floor in the women's dressing room on a regular basis.  Also, on the floor in the restroom.  I fail to see the humor or the enjoyment in any of this, but some people are just disgusting pigs.

[Dave Munger]

I once found a turd on the floor at work, and it was so out of context  that I didn't know what it was. I thought it looked like the burnt edge of a pie or casserole or something (although it was a perfectly average looking turd). Trying to figure out what it was, I picked it up and sniffed it, DEEP. It even took me a second to identify the smell, I was like, this is so familiar.

[JohnL]

>Trying to figure out what it was, I picked it up and sniffed it, DEEP.

Good thing you didn't decide to taste it. :)

[AlexB]

The things you guys have to put up with at work! In my line of business we only have to worry about things like creep strength and butt fusion.

[AndyC]

JohnL wrote:

> >Trying to figure out what it was, I picked it up and sniffed
> it, DEEP.
>
> Good thing you didn't decide to taste it. :)


I remember an old comedy routine that went something like that. After a lengthy process of determining that the object looks, feels, smells and tastes like s**t, the comic concludes that it must be s**t.

The punchline: "Boy, lucky I didn't step in it."

[Dave Munger]

Taste it? GROSS! It was on the floor!

[Pus]

Worst job I ever had was cleaning the stalls at the local horse Race Track. The job last two whole days. On the second day I was shoveling horses**t from a stall where the thorobred horse was still in. As I lfted the shovel full of s**t the damn horse clamped down on my shoulder with his teeth. It almost took a chunk out of my skin. I turned around an hit him square between the eyes with the shovel. The b***h was, the owner just happened to be walking by at the time. End of job. Thank god.

[Yaddo42]

Don't think I can top these but I'll contribute what I can recall:

A high school buddy used to work at the local Wendy's, and told us to avoid the chili since much of the beef was made up of the leftover hamburger patties from the previous day when the last shift had cooked too many patties. He also had various minor horror stories of stuff pulled from grease traps.

The worst thing I found at work once was an apparently used condom left lying on a table right in the middle of a busy work area. I work at a newspaper, so these things don't up everyday. One of my co-workers, a very demur church-going woman, discovered it at the same time and was on the very of screaming hysterics once she figured out what it was. I threw it away after picking it up with a old copy of the newspaper laying around. The bad part was that if I had to guess who put it there, a safe bet would be my then boss who was later fired for sexual harassment.