2025, animals, books, Food, work

Not a Chance

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In a conversation yesterday afternoon, YA was telling about some woman online who has quit her job to be an influencer.  Apparently this woman is garnering a lot of negative attention right now and shedding followers like a Samoyed in summer.  She then went on to suggest that I could become an influencer.  When I stopped laughing (quite a bit later), I asked her what I could possibly influence.  She said baking or book reviews. 

While I do think my baking is usually top notch, I am not meticulous.  A co-worker way back in the day said once that “done is better than perfect” and if I have a motto in life, this is it.  I also do not think that I am a discerning enough reader to do book reviews.  I like what I like and would be the first to admit that I’m probably not consistent in how I allot my praise or criticism.

My comment to YA was that I’d be ashamed to leave the house if my job title were “social influencer”. 

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

36 thoughts on “Not a Chance”

  1. That samoyed could influence me.
    Since the only “social media” I participate in is the Trail, influencing is probably not in my future.

    When I was in college, I held several janitorial jobs as work-study. I rather liked them, took pride in the job I did, and view them as an apt prelude to living as an adult in a domestic setting.

    By far the worst job, also in college, was working at an all-night gas station in the middle of winter, all alone, at a time when gas stations were full service, so the attendant pumped the gas. I lasted about two weeks. I’ve mentioned it before on the Trail.

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  2. My worst job was package sorter at the airport post office right after high school (late 80s). I was trying to figure out what to do with my life, and my dad needled me into working at the PO like he had–he was in flats, which was magazines I think? The application asked if I could lift 50 pounds, and I said yes because I could lift it…once. Who knew it involved hurling packages into big bins across the room all night? I lasted 2 days, earned about $70 and spent the whole thing on a shopping spree at my favorite bookstore. After that I was hired as a library shelver, which was still physical but much easier!

    –Crow Girl

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  3. Well, my worst job was working in the Waterville fish hatchery, but I’ve talked about that one enough. My second worst job was in high school. I waitressed at a little truck stop cafe on the west edge of Faribault. I was a lousy, clumsy waitress. Some of the truck drivers that came in were just plain mean. I worked the front counter because the other waitresses had been there longer and needed the bigger tips. I got next to nothing at the front counter. 35 cents was a tip. It was cold near the door. I think I’ve told the story about coming in to work on my usual day and time to find a new girl behind the counter and my name removed from the schedule. The boss, CJ, never bothered to tell me he’d let me go.

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    1. By any chance was that truck stop the Lavender Inn? Or was it something else back in your time there? Is it the same site? Just curious. I have no connection to it other than maybe eating there once at least 20 years ago.

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      1. No, I wasn’t a good enough waitress to work at the Lav. I had a friend who was a very good waitress. She really got good tips. The little place I worked at was called C.J.’s Truck Stop and Cafe (if I recall correctly). It was at the intersection of Hwy 60 and Western Avenue in Faribault. (The second freeway exit for Faribault.) There’s a little strip mall there now. CJ had another place in Medford, which I think is a small grocery store now, or was. He’s a pretty well-known business man in Steele and Rice counties.

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        1. I worked at The Country Kitchen that used to be out Highway 19. I loved working the counter because it was always regulars. I could put in their order when I saw them pulling up in the parking lot.

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  5. magazine sales with a troop of nere do wells in the back of the sales manager cadalac going to poor neighborhoods and knocking on doors trying to fool old ladies into magazine subscriptions i think it was day 3 before i couldnt do it anymore
    influencer… i think youd be great as a book review reference and also as a cook and particularly as a card maker stamper. i know nothing avout becoming an influencer but its a fairly straightforward premise and if you do it because you love it the money end of the deal is not a concern. my concern would be if you turned your loves into work related tedium (wow two days in a row for tedium)

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  6. The trouble with being a book reviewer is that you wouldn’t get to choose (not entirely anyway) the books you read and review. They would all have to be new books.

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      1. I have a feeling that even if you don’t like the book you are expected to say something that can be excerpted out of context that sounds like a recommendation.

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  7. I never had any truly bad jobs. Painting houses one summer after HS graduation was tough, but I became quite skilled at painting.

    If selling candy door to door for Little League qualifies as a job, then that’s a contender. Also, cold calling when I was a financial planner was almost ulcer-inducing. To put it mildly, I was not a high-earner for my company. 😉 But the planning and investing part was enjoyable.

    My last two years of teaching were extremely stressful but only because of the drama and issues outside the classroom—contract negotiation, staff cuts, wimp-ass principal, stingy school board.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  8. Replacing the flooring in the toilet rooms of the Bismarck Tavern downtown Fargo. Multiple layers needed to be removed along with the wooden subfloor. Respiratory equipment was unavailable. Stinky.

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  9. I’ve had my share of crappy jobs; selling baby photos has to be right up there with the most miserable. By baby photos I don’t mean I was selling actual photos of cute babies, rather I was selling, to new parents, a subscription to have their offspring photographed yearly for a number of years. I don’t recall how many, but it was quite a few.

    My one day of training consisted of “shadowing” a slick salesman who was really good at it, and who made several sales while I was with him. He made it look easy. He convinced me I could do it, there was nothing to it. He easily overcame all of my objections. “What’s the worst that can happen,” he asked. “That the say no,” he answered himself.

    The following day I ventured out on my own. Several cold calls ended without me making a sale, mainly because I agreed with the young couple that they couldn’t afford it. The subscription was outrageously expensive, of course, and not something a lot of new parents should be spending their limited resources on. I realized that my mindset was not going to make me successful in sales, but I decided to give it one more shot before I quit.

    As luck would have it, my next stop was in a shabby looking housing development in Brooklyn Park. It was close to noon when I knocked on the door. A disheveled looking woman in a nightgown opened the door and asked what I wanted. I was telling her about the baby pictures when a male voice shouted from somewhere within “Who is it?” “It’s a lady who wants to sell baby pictures” she hollered back. “Tell her to go shit in the street” came his prompt reply.

    That was the end of my baby picture venture. Ever since then, whenever someone asks what the worst that can happen is, Hans and I will say in unison “someone will tell will you to go shit in the street.”

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  10. I also haven’t had any truly wretched jobs, although I’ve had jobs in which I’ve been unhappy. I loved my job at Software Etc. until my boss left the company and was replaced by a nasty little man who tried to get me fired (he desisted when I met with the president of the company and offered to take a lie detector test). He probably did me a favor because when I left that job, I went to BIW where I was very very happy for many years. And, of course, it was only a couple of years later that the retail software business model went topysy turvy. The company got bought by another which was swallowed by another and eventually came under the GameStop banner.

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  11. One of my first jobs was the ‘downstairs’ janitor at the civic theater. I took care of two dressing rooms, the make up room, and a lounge area (known as a ‘green room’ in theater terminology) and two stairways down to the area. It wasn’t bad, but I became very disgruntled at how sloppy people can be. And the whole, “I just cleaned this!” aspect.
    I’d never make it as the shopping cart return guy either…

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    1. There’s a guy in a wheelchair who goes out in all weather to corral the carts and bring them back to the store with some kind of robotic thing that pushes them back. He is amazing. Everyone comments on him. He’s cheerful and friendly and he works very hard, collecting the carts from the corrals, pushing them together into a long line in front of the robot thing, then returning them to the store. All done cheerfully, from a wheelchair.

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      1. I’ve been seeing stories about new carts that are rigged to not leave the store if the merchandise hasn’t been paid for. I’m wondering whether they will catch on and whether the cost of putting all the stuff back on the shelves will turn into a budget line.

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        2. Too true. Maybe one of these days they’ll have carts that return themselves to the store.

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  12. We saw in Seattle (I’m sure they have them other places too) carts with a magnetized wheel so you can’t take the cart out the doors. I guess if you get too close to the doors, the wheels lock up.

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      1. That’s one of the things I like a lot about Aldi’s. Many times I’ve been offered a cart on the way into the store by someone leaving and the person won’t take the quarter from me. I always pay it forward as well.

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  13. A couple come to mind. I was a sub-waitress one summer during high school years – you know, bussing the dishes back out to the kitchen. I overestimated how much I could carry on the tray, and dumped a large tray full of dishes on the kitchen floor. Lasted two days at that one, and I don’t remember if I quit or they did.

    Then I had several temp jobs over the years… The work itself wasn’t awful, but I found my co-workers weren’t interested in getting to know me, since I wasn’t going to be around for long. Being basically anonymous for 40 hours a week isn’t my idea of a good time.

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    1. On Mother’s Day in 1980 I was waitressing at Mr. Steak and managed to drop the food from three full plates on the floor in succession. The meat just slipped on the floor as I took the plates out from under the warming lights. I cussed very loudly in front of a restaurant full of mothers. I got sent to the cooler to calm down

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