Corn picker at the septic plant.

We have all seen the scene it in movies, when the officers in dress uniforms come to a family's house to tell them their father or mother was killed while on duty. It would have to be an emotionally challenging thing to do, especially in a time of war when it is more common.

I saw it happen to one of my neighbor friends on Maxwell AFB. A big car with several solemn officers all approach the door of the base housing. And the crying of the family. My buddy lost his dad, and a few weeks later, they were told to move as the housing was only for active duty officers.

During the summer after I graduated from H.S., worked at the local garden tool plant loading bundles of rakes and shovels in a rail car for $1.90 an hour. Zero benefits, hot hard work. You couldn’t believe how many rakes and shovels will fit in a rail car. Took all day to fill one car. Did that every day all summer long. My dad knew the foreman and I found out later in life he told Pete to give me a crappy job so I would go onto college and get a good education. Dad was a welder for 30+years. He knew what hard work was. Worst job ever.

I think Mike Rowe covered this.

Forensic engineer in central FL.
Gathering data at accident sites in 100F heat out in the sun.
Then collecting data from the car, which in some cases was filled with blood and sitting in the hot FL sun for weeks before I got to it.
Sounded interesting at first, but took a pay cut to leave that job.

I had a job putting down haybales for a construction site in July. Every time I put one down, I had to walk that much further to the point where I was walking an 1/8 of a mile through the woods on each run. The heat and bugs were intense.

Then I had another one where my father had me run the 90lbs jackhammer for like half a day. I was like 120lbs at the time. The worst part was their were no pads on the handles, just bare metal.

My worse job by far is being a tax professional. Talk about a meaningless job. I have no problem with gross stuff though I couldn't work in a slaughter house.

Tool and Die maker helper when I was 17...summer job. Taking orders from old grumpy toolmakers who would give you every miserable job they didnt want to do. Climbing inside of large draw dies and grinding / spotting them in for hours and hours. Dirty nasty and dangerous work.....all for $2 an hour. Then listening to them tell you how you wont amount to anything....

Delivered furniture at 16.
Owner of the store bought a burnt out paint store for a 2nd location.
Me and another kid were given the job of cleaning it out. No safety equipment and not even instructions on how to do it.
Blown up paint cans everywhere and watch out for the big hole in the floor from the fire.

I had tons of different jobs as a kid and into my younger life. Probably not as bad a some that have been described here. I never had much choice, since I needed them for money to live. In H.S., my father lost his business (service station - city/county tore up the road for an extended time in front to repave it, so customers couldn't get to it), and had to leave for a job out of state. From my junior year to after graduation, I loaded semi truck trailers with cases of milk and products at a dairy four nights a week. On a regular night, I'd load around 4K cases stacked and associeated products. I gave a good part of my earnings to my mother to help pay the bills. I'm glad I never had to do any really gross jobs.

Very, very well.

That is remarkable, Marv. I never had to walk in those shoes.

One more, besides insulating houses, again, in the SC heat (the fluffy pink stuff - yikes!): My senior year in HS I worked as a "swing groom" for a race horse trainer on the winter Thoroughbred circuit in Aiken, SC.

My job was to stand in for the regular grooms twice a week for a day so they could have a day off on the weekend.

The trainer knew my Mom and I grew up with horses so it worked out well.

The pay was great but race horses, under training, are inside in a stall 22 hours a day. They are manure machines. The trainers want as few implements around the horses as possible to protect the horses, meaning no wheel barrows, etc. to move the gradu.

In those days you wrapped the crap in a sort-of blanket and carried it on your back to the manure pit.

Heh, sixty bucks a week in 1975 was a freaking fortune for two days work.

"gradu".

:)

Wow. It's too bad your teachers were @ssholes.

I wouldn't want to be a machinist or a T&D maker for a living, but I would love to have learned the skillset from good instructors.

I held a miniature working grease gun (maybe 2" in length) that a master T&D maker created and was just in awe of the skill and talent necessary to do that.

1. portable toilet cleaner

2. animal masturbator

Probably better $ in animal masturbation.

3.forensic diver. I don't want to go groping for some dead body in an underwater wreck with poor visibility.

Corn detasseler in a 90 degree central Illinois summer.

They had incredible skill.....and they new it. I stuck it out for a few years, but couldn't wait to get away from them and the trade. The trade is for the most part dead in this country, and the reason why.....read my first post.
Now the world goes to China, their T&D trade is thriving and their prices are very good. I have been buying tooling in China since 2001.

I hear that there's a lady in Tijuana that's got a show....

I think about my grandfather. Dad's dad. He worked at Amour and Co. from the day it opened in Oklahoma City, until the day it closed. I remember riding to the plant when grandma was dropping him off for work and the stink was horrid. It was a full on processing floor from cattle coming in to the kill floor, to train loads of meat leaving.

Next door was a rendering plant for the cattle or other livestock that died before slaughter. He said the floor where the cattle were skinned and they had stacks of skins that needed to be loaded on train cars to go to the leather facilities was horrible. Then they load the skins on a train car just salted down and retched smelling. Leather processing is stinky work.

When the depression hit he was making 2.5 cents per hour, and the management said they would not lay off anyone. They just had to share the same job. So some days you worked, some days the other guy worked.

Here's one many think is glamorous at first:

Scuba boat bottom cleaner

1. Pay for expensive scuba lessons and buy all your own gear up front worth thousands and then tear it up diving in filthy water while you pee on yourself-the joys of self employment

2. scraping barnacles off the propeller hoping the owner does not forget you are there and turn the key (listening for the whine of ignition the whole time)

3. Barnacles are like razor pieces of shell that shatter when you scrape them off the hull and float around. Then as you move your scuba suit sucks them in and they work back and forth cutting you to ribbons as you work

4. You are swimming out to boats in heavy tides but can’t really use a diver down flag for protection since the pole will scrape up the boat sides (tumblehome) so you are dodging boats in the lanes who don’t see your head poking above the water. And If you drop something (heavy zinc sacrificial anode half or bolt for screw) or tool its usually gone and you eat the cost and anger the boat owner for the delay

5. Unplannable sudden squalls or strong winds makes you have to cancel or risk get knocked out by a keel to the face, boat bottom to the top of the head or keel bottom smashing your foot against the bottom where you hope to regain consciousness again before your air runs out.

6. many other issues from boat never being where they say it is, they lie about the length to cheat you, boat is gone on scheduled day cause they went fishing or running out of air and holding your breath to finish the job.

7. Chasing the boat owners for money when the club or marina where the boats are won’t even officially let you in. Driving home covered in your own piss because the marinas never let you shower there and dont even like you around because you cut into their business hauling boats

Because your family has history, I'm sure you know all about how Upton Sinclair made his early bones writing a book about the meatpacking industry at the turn of the 20th century. Miserable conditions. (And I hope the mention of The Jungle doesn't send this into PARF territory.)