The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday at noon.
QUESTION: What’s the one job you’ve had in your lifetime that you absolutely hated?
Talk about it.
When I was younger, I had a job that wasn’t bad, but one coworker fancied himself as a self-appointed boss. Every day, he would criticize me, and try to tell me what to do. I ignored him and went about doing my job. I outperformed him in everything I did, and my real boss would praise me for it. Well, the self-appointed boss kept on needling me until I had enough and walked out, went to my bosses office and told him I quit. He asked my why, but I am not a fink, so I told him that I just didn’t get along with the co-worker. I had that job for exactly one week.
I once had a job where I needed to go to large cities and help with sales presentations. I have no skill set to convince companies to buy stuff. None. It feels lousy and demoralizing to be doing a job you know you are really bad at.
It is possible to learn sales skills, if one wants to. First of all a good company would train their sales people before they send them out in the field. Also to be good at selling and sales presentation you have to believe in the product you are selling.
This is going to sound totally lame but it never occurred to me it was their responsibility to actually try. You are right.
I have been in sales a long time, even when you have experience most companies these days will train new people, because they want their product to be presented a certain way. Don’t how long ago you had that job, but I think in the past 30 or so years companies have caught on to this idea.
I think sales people are born not made. Sure, one can learn how to handle a cash register etc but then the people who make the big money in sales have a knack for it. Same for music, teaching, computer programming, carpentry, yada, yada, yada.
Yes, and no. You have to have an outgoing personality and be able to connect with people, and of course like people. The rest can be learned if you are willing. Someone I know from the Long term care insurance business, writes a lot of business, he is at the top of most agent. He use to be a social worker so he is very people oriented. Most people sell without really knowing it, if you are married, in a relationship or have children you have at one point sold them on some idea, product, trip etc. it is not selling the way most think of as selling. However, selling is merely convincing the other person how their life will be better with your product, trip, car etc. without being pushy.
I agree with Captain Bebops. Sales skills is something you have, or you don’t. You have to be a skilled negotiator. And a people person. It comes naturally to many and others, no matter how hard they try will never succeed. There are personalities that will lie down saying it’s okay if you don’t buy. They don’t belong in sales…
You are right you have to be a certain personality, even so there’s still much to be learned when you start a job as a sales person. I had sold retail of and on for years, then I got my insurance license, of course first I had to learn the ins and outs of the different policies I was selling. When I first started selling long term care, I was not very good at it, still I sold policies. Then I joined another local brokerage firm, they offered more support and training, I then went up to their top seller and asked if I could come along with her a day, which I did, and I learned even more. You have to have an open mind, be curious and constantly work on improving yourself, not only in sales, but in life as well.
When I started selling in insurance I was told to try to close the sale 3 times before you give up, you also do a trial close. Meaning at the beginnng of the sale you might ask the client if, it the product and price sound reasonable to you, how they answer gives you a good idea of where the presentation is going. Sometimes you think it is a sure thing and then all of sudden at the end the client backs out. However, I was often able to set a second appointment and then close the sale, I also got referrals because I was not being obnoxious and pushy.
You cannot learn to sing or play music if you are not born with a great voice and an ear for music..Whitney Houston was born with an amazing voice, most of us cannot sing like that. Selling can be learned if one is so inclined.
I worked for a credit card company for a couple of months once. That was the worst.
Filling sandbags in the pouring down rain (hundreds and hundreds of them). Definitely needed but totally sucked.
I have had a few jobs I hated. The first one was after working in a kindergarten, which I loved. I went to a boarding school and while there decided along with others to go an live on a kibbutz in Israel for 3 months. When I got back from the boarding school late spring, I had 3 months before leaving for Israel, I needed spending money and money for the trip. The best way at the time in Denmark the best paying jobs that you didn’t need a degree for or much training was factories. I got a job at a battery factory 14 km from my parents home. I had to ride my bike, since there were no public transportation that would get me there by 6 a.m., sometimes it rained and were fairly cold. Besides that the job were repetitive, but I had a goal in mind, so I stuck it out. In the mid nineties I had a job in South San Francisco for a medical equipment company, that job I truly hated. The computers at that time were very backwards, we would take incoming orders by phone write on an intake form and then had to put it in the computer later, It was hard to keep up, we were overloaded, and sometimes the equipment we dealt with were lifesaving, I would have nightmares wondering if I had killed someone. Fortunately after a few month the company decided I was not a good fit for them. I was able to collect unemployment took some temporary jobs, and decided I did not work in an office ever again. I then took my insurance license and after some months decided to sell Long Term Care Insurance, which were much better than sitting in an office. I had previously worked 5 years as a staffing coordinator for a home helath care agency so I was familiar with many of the issues concerning long term care, especially the cost. It was something I believed in and had knowledge of. The second brokerage insurance firm I signed up, really had a good support and training program and it helped my sales, earned a free cruise to Mexico and a free trip to London.
Loading the back of trucks for Roadway Packaging. Couple decades ago. From my recollection, the kind of work more suited for the younger individual, a lot of bending and body twisting where a more seasoned body like mine would experience rebellion within the joints. I found it to be very tedious, and, at the time for certain, not the pay I felt I would be able to earn. Lasted a couple weeks at best, when I found a considerably higher paying job. I will say, I saw a lot of great work ethic there, with most of the truck loaders, and supervisors. Just not the job for me.
I had a job that I performed so well that my boss gave me more tasks with no raise; he asked me to do some of his duties. After securing a better job, and left a huge mess that caused many months to fix, I left. I heard from a coworker that the company fired former boss because of the mess.
Never had job I hated.
Last 30 years of working, took up people watching.
Miss that part of work, ya just can’t find that quality of entertainment on daytime TV.
They actually, gave me bosses and engineers for my entertainment.
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Made it a point to suggest new bosses and new parents watch,
Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
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from Last Lecture,
“…when you’re pissed off at somebody and you’re angry at them, you just haven’t given them enough time. Just give them a little more time and they’ll almost always impress you.”…
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“… it’s such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant.
Because it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish in life.
What a hell of a way to word “you’re being a jerk.” ”
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I watch video twice a year,
Video https://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/ is well worth your time.
Transcript https://tinyurl.com/2vkv5hbp
ORIGINAL G
The Last Lecture is one of the greatest books about human behavior. Randy was a gifted writer, storyteller and professor. I imagine he is greatly missed by his loved ones.
Thanks for reminding me about that book. I have it on our bookshelf, and I’m going to reread it.
WDG
Washing dishes in a greasy spoon restaurant … they needed two people at least .. there was only one on duty at any one time
Kinder’s Plesant Hill when TF was the manager…there I said it.
Darn I forgot that first a in Pleasant
One of my first jobs when I was in high school was calling people asking them to subscribe to magazines. It sucked…got hung up on alot. Sometimes an elderly person was so happy to get a phone call that they talked for awhile and then said no thanks. I hated cold calling and left after a couple of months.
guess I’ve been pretty lucky on this account……..
Me too S
I once had a summer job of driving a Popsicle truck. I loved that job, but I got sidelined by mononucleosis, and my boss gave my truck away. That eventually led to my worst job ever, which was selling encyclopedias, door-to-door. Selling was an overstatement, because I never sold anything. Apparently, folks don’t like it when you interrupt their supper for a product that costs way more than it’s worth.
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None. I’ve never had a job I didnt want.
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Roofing… Hot backbreaking labor.
Worked in healthcare consulting for thirty plus years. Most of my work was in patient safety, quality and performance improvement, and I was good at my jobs.
Made the mistake of taking a job with a very large for profit, money hungry hospital chain. Such an incredibly bad fit, but I had a mortgage to pay, children to feed, so you so what you gotta do.
Fortunately, I retired many years after working for them and do not miss it at all. I have two friends from that company of 150,000 employees that I still keep in touch with. I got calls from their recruiters for years afterwards, shockingly, because I made it clear when I left how much I hated the company, with every fiber of my being.
If I had to do it again, I would’ve found something new and left them ASAP, but I was loyal to the wrong being, thought it was important to have a consistent, long track record, and didn’t want that name on my resume, especially after we figured out what terrible things they allowed all for the Almighty dollar.
Don’t stay in jobs that are a terrible fit with who you are as a person. It’s just not worth the emotional scarring and torture. Get a new job and go forward in the direction of your dreams!
Following an occupational injury, I was grounded and worked in a call center for an airline. I didn’t like that job. I was promoted to a boring supervisory position and, although I didn’t like that either, I did like the collateral duties working with community outreach and government affairs.
Working in wheat harvest in August in eastern Washington. I had to crawl under the ancient army surplus truck in the early hours to make sure it was sufficiently lubricated before driving it. I think my folks thought I had it too easy when I could play a three hour gig on a weekend and make as much money as my fellow students earned working an after school job all week. They weren’t counting the hours of practice and dedication put in to gaining that performance skill.
Finished two years of college one out of state one back in CA. It wasn’t the job I absolutely hated as asked, it was my lack of confidence at that early age, new mother, getting that big job just out the gate for BofA SF 26th Floor. I could do the work. I had to learn the politics fast as a disciplined student and musician and being raised very strictly, I missed that boat, but it was waiting to come out and it did.
Female boss, ok, np. But one thing I always did was observe, watch and listen and something was off. First I found out she chose me not for my skills, but because she compared me to the President’s Executive Secretary/strike one going in. My work was top notch. Confidence not. Commuted from Livermore in a Van with others or took it to the Bart in my Macy’s Union Square attire and heals, the best. Sneakers to walk from Bart down New Montgomery to work. One am when practractically speed walking, guy who must have been 6’7 it seemed with a trench coat before I knew it punched me in the chest hard as he could, no weapon and I didn’t fall, but it took my breath, everyone kept walking of course. I got to work told that boss, she said please go home and rest, said I’m fine, no please go home, while the wheely guy in her ear all the time to the left was sitting on edge of her desk listening to every work. That’s when I said, “All bets are off” my turn. My Uncle who had worked with Sandia told me to work at Intel in Livermore I did, and became a Intel tech in a year. Executive Secretary wasn’t my bag. Best thing long term, worst thing at the time. Ironically I retired from a Bank with a Medical Retirement. Go Figure.
Pimping and pandering. Hours were rough.
The last one I ever had. Took the job because I wanted to get my own home and wanted to tell a lender I had a full time permanent job. I call it the job from he-l. The boss wanted her employees to call her MOM. Was oblivious to misconduct of a relative. At the end of 1st year told me that while I did excellent work I didn’t put out over 110 percent so no raise (relative got one though). I left by the end of the 2nd year because I did get the loan to buy my house by then.
After I was promoted up the ranks to staff non-commissioned officer level … I saw how the military industrial complex functions … all the Semper Fi BS was gone … it’s business … money talks … follow the money … #warisaracket #SmedleyButler
… but on the other side of the coin … loved working at John’s Imported Liquor … summer 1984~1985.
Thanks Ron … you taught me a lot.
Posting on Claycord.com……….still haven’t been paid yet.
When I was young and started working I had some strange jobs but I never hated any of them. Some of them were hot and dirty but all I thought about was the pay. One summer in high school I had to go down into underground steam tanks that normally held wax in a melted state to clean old wax from around the steam pipes. It was so hot you could only stay down there for five minutes. So one guy would work for five minutes get out and the next guy went down through the hatch. I didn’t hate it. It was just a job.
I worked at a job as a project coordinator in concord for a construction company that seemed like they preyed on the elderly. When a sales rep would turn in a “sold” job for me to measure,
It seemed like 90% of them would be elderly on a fixed income. Some had no idea what was sold to them ie; windows, new roof, paint, etc. So when I would kill the job mostly on moral grounds I was the one in trouble. I understand people and companies need to make money. But not at the cost of the elderly. It was over the borderline of elder abuse with their threats and bullying to these poor people. I hated it. I would warn you good people to be aware of these predatory companies that go door to sort trying to sell you things you do not need.