I've had a couple of awful ones:

I worked as a recruiter for tech jobs. That isn't so bad in itself, but first I had to fire a guy with a family who had hygiene problems simply because he had to walk to the jobsite every day, until he could buy a car. He hadn't even gotten his first check yet. That was bad. What was worse was that my boss made a pass at me when I got upset about that, and then fired me when I turned him down. That spurred me to go to graduate school, oddly enough.

Second was working for some family friends in their computer shop/networking service center. I needed something until school started and they needed someone who spoke French and English to be their "face" with customers. I'd known them since childhood; some of them had lived with my family. We were that close.

One day I came into work to find the drawers of my desk all ripped apart, and one of them asked to talk to me. I'd just told them I was pregnant to add it to my health insurance the day before. They decided to fire me, then went through my desk and found some software that one of them had given to me because it was old but he thought my young son could play games with. Another one found it, thought I had stolen it, and decided to fire me. Later that day, AFTER I'd left, the one who gave it to me had come in and set his sister straight, but I'd already filed for unemployment. They wanted me to come back but I refused. I didn't want to work with anyone who would think I was a thief, particularly someone who was supposedly close to my family! Relations between our family have been somewhat strained ever since.
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When I was working as a legal secretary, one of the jobs I had was for a legal department for a well-known insurance company. I worked for a female attorney who was one of the partners. She was wicked! She would scream and make ridiculous demands. It was so bad that during one of her screaming tantrums, I just grabbed my things and walked out. I just can't believe I actually put up with it for a whole year!
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I worked in a children's clothing store. I don't usually drink alcohol but at Christmas time I would come home from work and pull out the vodka...

The children were usually misbehaving or arguing with their parents or begging for items, and the parents were stressed and angry with the kids and other holiday stresses (money, tight deadlines, crowds, lineups) and would take out their aggressions by yelling at the sales staff for things that are not their fault. For example, apparently I am responsible for selling someone an item on Monday and not being able to see into the future and know that on Wednesday the district manager would decide that item would be on sale.
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Telephone book delivery.

Basically I went to a loading dock, loaded my little Nissan pickup with like a half ton of phone books, then ran from door to door delivering them for minimum wage.
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Spray-painting metal 5-gallon garden cans gold (age 13). I just couldn't get the spray paint technique down, and the greenhouse owner kept griping at me for wasting spray paint. On my first try, I went through 1 can on 1 can. No talent. Pew.
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A barback in a casino's 'diamond lounge'. It doesn't sound bad, but it was an incredibly depressing job. The 'diamond lounge' was for the people who spent X amount of dollars each year at the casino, and they got the privilege of receiving free drinks and a buffet because of how much they spent. BUT, the fact was hardly any of these people were wealthy, in fact many of them made the bare minimum but would spend their entire paycheck at the casino. I can't explain how many stories I heard about people not having money for bills, their kids, etc. One woman who was in their everyday had a sister who was in the hospital and she would always talk about her sister's hospital bills, yet she was in there gambling every day. I also used to have people hit ME up for money all the time, which is just an awkward situation to be in.

Definitely would never go back to that job.
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I tried canvasing one day as a youth... passing out flyers on cars and doors.
That job is cruel and unusual punishment, trust me.
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Worked for a small company in tech. A couple months on the job, my boss pulls me into his office with HR and accusses me of being verbally abusive to a co-worker. I was aghast. This co-worker and I got along great and were becoming very good friends. He said he heard from another person that THEY heard (over the cubes) that I "commanded" this co-worker that he should go out and wash my car.

What really happened? My co-worker was being nice and offering to help with a project of mine, so he asked "How can I help you?" and I replied, "Well, my car needs a good wash..."

I knew my time at this job was limited with this kind of bad behavior. It was the worse job in my life and I was treated terribly.

Thanks for letting me vent...
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The worst job I ever had was the first one I got out of college, selling Vacuum cleaners. Although it wasn't door-to-door sales (they set up the appointments before hand), it was just as tough because I had to use my own car to drive around town to meet with potential customers - who really thought I was just there to give them a prize.

Now these weren't just any vacuum cleaners, they were pretty High End. They had me trying to sell these babies for $1999!! Imagine that, trying to convince someone to pay 2 grand for a vacuum cleaner. And you know what the craziest part was? Some people actually bought them! While I did make great money when I sold one (which was often at first), when i didn't, I got nothing because it was all work on commission.

Besides spending my days trying to sell an overpriced contraption to people who I knew couldn't afford it (I had to put people on monthly finance plans sometimes), the straw that broke the camels back was when I had to return to a motor home to have a guy refill out some paperwork on the vacuum that he'd bought a few months earlier to help remove dust from the air for his wife who had a rare lung disease. When their son answered the door and told me that his mother had just died, I almost broke down. The guy was real nice about everything and still signed the papers, but I couldn't take it anymore and quit the next day.

Lesson: Having bad jobs makes you appreciate it when you find a job that you love!
Source(s):
Personal Experience

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Working for a small IT shop doing outsourced technical support for other small and medium businesses was okay in premise. But by small, the company consisted of four people (including the owner and his wife, me, and one other technician). So we all sort of did everything. When it came time for us to move to a larger office, I was staying late to help with setup of the new space (salary, no overtime for this, but still implied to be compulsory). This was at the end of a low paying 3 months, of typically 60+ hour weeks, more than a few past-midnight projects, and them calling me our for being "late" 8 times, because I didn't log into my phone by the prescribed time (never mind being locked out of the office at least that many times, and the system being down at least once every couple weeks).

The day before (morning when?) I left, I was standing on a ladder at 3 AM (having arrived at work at 7AM, having been on the ladder for the last 6 hours), pulling network cable through the suspended ceiling. My boss, the owner, was sitting on the floor, where he'd been for about an hour, eating a cheeseburger. He said to me, plaintively, that he was "sick and tired of being the only one here."

So the next day I resigned, making his statement a little more true.
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Without a doubt the one month that I worked at a fish market. I was the rookie so I got to do all the fun stuff like washing oysters, making sure to remove the bad ones and skinning fish. They also had a smoker they used to smoke fish in the building so by the end of the day I reeked. I would always try to take a shower right away (though it didn't completely help), but one night I had to meet with my girlfriends right after work and it wasn't pretty... it was pretty much lose the job or lose my friends. So even though the job paid very well, I liked my bosses, and the hours were good... I quit this job that almost ruined my life without a second thought. And I will never ever consider working with fish again in my life... though I love a good piece of Hallibut anytime. :)
Source(s):
My simple life and my girlfriends ultimatum.

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I worked in McDonalds for 3 hours when I was 16....Never, EVER again!
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