Toughest job you ever did?

[WinterBorn]

One more job. The summer between my sophmore & junior year of high school. My grandfather joked that I wouldn't last 1 day bailing hay (in Mississippi). I had been playing football and thought I was tough and strong. Only my pride kept me from quitting. Not those handy round bales. The square ones. You walked behind the bailer and grabbed them as they came out. Then threw them up on the wagon. The longer the day went, the higher you had to throw them. Sweating like a whore in church. But you didn't take your long sleeved shirt off or that hay would scratch the hide off of you.

Football practice was a breeze that fall. lol

Hayday really sucks here. Only done it twice, and that's enough.
Red ants sting the back of your fingers. You jog along behind the baler and stack the bales as they come out.

...snakes sticking out the sides of the bales...

At least we didn't have to run...the baler shot the bales onto a wagon towed behind. We'd hook them with hay hooks and stack them on the wagon.

Round bales are a Godsend.

Yeah, every time I have used round bales my thoughts have always been "Where the hell were you in 1976!"

 

[Nosmo King]

My company had to clean up a toxic mess in Romania after the socialist collapse. Decades and decades of industrial waste had to be cleaned to make just a small place habitable again.

I am now a retired Environmental engineer. Back in the early 1990s we built a new airport here in Pittsburgh. Part of the site was a chemical waste dump. A chemical plant had closed in the mid 70s. They buried barrel after barrel with no documentation or labeling.

Large excavating machines known as pans were taking soil off a site for an entry ramp to the highway when, in their wake, appeared a streak of Pepto Bismol pink soil!

Call in the environmentalists! For the next three years we uncovered over 400 rusted steel drums, nanlyzed the contents, segregated them according to corrosively, flammability and content.

We used hNus and brass tolls to figure out what we might be dealing with. Overpacks and a biotreatment system helped dispose of the goop. Level B or A PPE, decon, profanity and sweat got us through the project

 

[aaronleland]

Working outside at a steel mill wasn't so much back-breaking labor as it was miserable. No matter what the weather looked like we worked 10-12 hours a day, six days a week in the elements. In the summer you're standing next to 40-80 foot steel pipes that were recently coated, so were about 150 degrees themselves. In the spring and fall you're working in torrential downpours. In the winter you're working in freezing rain and whiteout blizzards. Then there's the danger of being crushed by a giant steel pipe at any moment.

 

[Ridgerunner]

massive shit tsunami enveloping the lead man

Not good being the lead man in this particular situation...

 

[Dekster]

I was thinking about this as I'm getting older, not as physically dominant as I once was, but still holding on pretty well. Sometimes memories help keep me young.

I've had a few tough jobs, but for me it was probably working at a moving company. Constant work, garbage pay, it was a summer job for me before I went back to school.

One day we are doing a government office. 7th Floor, we get up there as one of the elevators is broken, the second one goes "On Service" for some lazy employees who are themselves moving their entire floor. So what do we do? What all underpaid idiots do, we go down 7 flights of stairs with massive desks cubicle walls, heavy duty metal cabinets and drawers. Then we have to walk back up seven flights and work the next load. Did that for 8 hours with a half hour lunch. It was in the summer and I was sweating like a pig.

People were bitching and crying, I'm Canadian so I'm use to hearing it, but I just did my thing. Whining solves nothing and just gives yourself an excuse to slack off. I liked the challenge anyways, I was young enough.

I recall withholding my school work on my resume knowing they wouldn't hire me, then one day, just not showing up. Phone is ringing every day, first threatening me with the voice message ("you will lose your job"), then begging me to show up for work one day ("hey give us a call, we have some good hours if you want them"). lol. They were just begging for any fool to stay the full day let alone work hard for 3 months. There were some real hard working guys there just paying their bills, but also a few arrogant pricks who liked to look down on others who were just doing their job.

So, that's my story. Any one else care to share?

I'm an industrial cleaner. Guess I could say I have a tough job sometimes. Full hazmat suit in a tower filled with a poison you could only lay in to work. Get's so hot longest you can work for is about an hour no matter how fit you are, providing you took enough fluids before you started. 12 Hour shifts, 3 actual shifts working, rinse and repeat.

LOL. A friend of mine had a job removing asbestos from a nuclear reactor. I told him he was doubly fucked, but I would watch out for his three-eyed babies after he was dead.

 

[forkup]

I was thinking about this as I'm getting older, not as physically dominant as I once was, but still holding on pretty well. Sometimes memories help keep me young.

I've had a few tough jobs, but for me it was probably working at a moving company. Constant work, garbage pay, it was a summer job for me before I went back to school.

One day we are doing a government office. 7th Floor, we get up there as one of the elevators is broken, the second one goes "On Service" for some lazy employees who are themselves moving their entire floor. So what do we do? What all underpaid idiots do, we go down 7 flights of stairs with massive desks cubicle walls, heavy duty metal cabinets and drawers. Then we have to walk back up seven flights and work the next load. Did that for 8 hours with a half hour lunch. It was in the summer and I was sweating like a pig.

People were bitching and crying, I'm Canadian so I'm use to hearing it, but I just did my thing. Whining solves nothing and just gives yourself an excuse to slack off. I liked the challenge anyways, I was young enough.

I recall withholding my school work on my resume knowing they wouldn't hire me, then one day, just not showing up. Phone is ringing every day, first threatening me with the voice message ("you will lose your job"), then begging me to show up for work one day ("hey give us a call, we have some good hours if you want them"). lol. They were just begging for any fool to stay the full day let alone work hard for 3 months. There were some real hard working guys there just paying their bills, but also a few arrogant pricks who liked to look down on others who were just doing their job.

So, that's my story. Any one else care to share?

I'm an industrial cleaner. Guess I could say I have a tough job sometimes. Full hazmat suit in a tower filled with a poison you could only lay in to work. Get's so hot longest you can work for is about an hour no matter how fit you are, providing you took enough fluids before you started. 12 Hour shifts, 3 actual shifts working, rinse and repeat.

LOL. A friend of mine had a job removing asbestos from a nuclear reactor. I told him he was doubly fucked, but I would watch out for his three-eyed babies after he was dead.

It all depends on the precautions you take. We work in nuclear power plants but not in the so-called hot-zone. As for asbestos. The danger is breathing in the dust. So you just use a mask and a disposable cover-all. That combined with a shower afterward minimizes the risk. As I said that job I described brings me in contact with phosgene. That's why you wear gear that makes you autonomous from the place you are working.

 

[blastoff]

Hot walking thoroughbreds early mornings during kidhood. Some could be sonsabitches nasty now and then. But the pay was good.

 

[Persistence Of Memory]

Machine operator. I ran an Acme-Gridley 6 spindle automatic screw machine. Cut the hardest damned stainless steel forgings. High pressure hydraulic tube fittings that went in to heart-lung machines and NASA.
Extremely close tolerances on blueprint dimensions.

Best job was being a caddie when I was a kid. It was like being in the movie Caddyshack. All the same characters including the greens keeper that lived in a tiny pull along trailer. Drunker than drunk. Boy could he really cross-cut the greens with perfection.

 

[Dekster]

I was thinking about this as I'm getting older, not as physically dominant as I once was, but still holding on pretty well. Sometimes memories help keep me young.

I've had a few tough jobs, but for me it was probably working at a moving company. Constant work, garbage pay, it was a summer job for me before I went back to school.

One day we are doing a government office. 7th Floor, we get up there as one of the elevators is broken, the second one goes "On Service" for some lazy employees who are themselves moving their entire floor. So what do we do? What all underpaid idiots do, we go down 7 flights of stairs with massive desks cubicle walls, heavy duty metal cabinets and drawers. Then we have to walk back up seven flights and work the next load. Did that for 8 hours with a half hour lunch. It was in the summer and I was sweating like a pig.

People were bitching and crying, I'm Canadian so I'm use to hearing it, but I just did my thing. Whining solves nothing and just gives yourself an excuse to slack off. I liked the challenge anyways, I was young enough.

I recall withholding my school work on my resume knowing they wouldn't hire me, then one day, just not showing up. Phone is ringing every day, first threatening me with the voice message ("you will lose your job"), then begging me to show up for work one day ("hey give us a call, we have some good hours if you want them"). lol. They were just begging for any fool to stay the full day let alone work hard for 3 months. There were some real hard working guys there just paying their bills, but also a few arrogant pricks who liked to look down on others who were just doing their job.

So, that's my story. Any one else care to share?

I'm an industrial cleaner. Guess I could say I have a tough job sometimes. Full hazmat suit in a tower filled with a poison you could only lay in to work. Get's so hot longest you can work for is about an hour no matter how fit you are, providing you took enough fluids before you started. 12 Hour shifts, 3 actual shifts working, rinse and repeat.

LOL. A friend of mine had a job removing asbestos from a nuclear reactor. I told him he was doubly fucked, but I would watch out for his three-eyed babies after he was dead.

It all depends on the precautions you take. We work in nuclear power plants but not in the so-called hot-zone. As for asbestos. The danger is breathing in the dust. So you just use a mask and a disposable cover-all. That combined with a shower afterward minimizes the risk. As I said that job I described brings me in contact with phosgene. That's why you wear gear that makes you autonomous from the place you are working.

The asbestos wasn't the big problem. It was the radiation. His little radiation badge became black and thus his career in that industry came to a halt.

 

[forkup]

I was thinking about this as I'm getting older, not as physically dominant as I once was, but still holding on pretty well. Sometimes memories help keep me young.

I've had a few tough jobs, but for me it was probably working at a moving company. Constant work, garbage pay, it was a summer job for me before I went back to school.

One day we are doing a government office. 7th Floor, we get up there as one of the elevators is broken, the second one goes "On Service" for some lazy employees who are themselves moving their entire floor. So what do we do? What all underpaid idiots do, we go down 7 flights of stairs with massive desks cubicle walls, heavy duty metal cabinets and drawers. Then we have to walk back up seven flights and work the next load. Did that for 8 hours with a half hour lunch. It was in the summer and I was sweating like a pig.

People were bitching and crying, I'm Canadian so I'm use to hearing it, but I just did my thing. Whining solves nothing and just gives yourself an excuse to slack off. I liked the challenge anyways, I was young enough.

I recall withholding my school work on my resume knowing they wouldn't hire me, then one day, just not showing up. Phone is ringing every day, first threatening me with the voice message ("you will lose your job"), then begging me to show up for work one day ("hey give us a call, we have some good hours if you want them"). lol. They were just begging for any fool to stay the full day let alone work hard for 3 months. There were some real hard working guys there just paying their bills, but also a few arrogant pricks who liked to look down on others who were just doing their job.

So, that's my story. Any one else care to share?

I'm an industrial cleaner. Guess I could say I have a tough job sometimes. Full hazmat suit in a tower filled with a poison you could only lay in to work. Get's so hot longest you can work for is about an hour no matter how fit you are, providing you took enough fluids before you started. 12 Hour shifts, 3 actual shifts working, rinse and repeat.

LOL. A friend of mine had a job removing asbestos from a nuclear reactor. I told him he was doubly fucked, but I would watch out for his three-eyed babies after he was dead.

It all depends on the precautions you take. We work in nuclear power plants but not in the so-called hot-zone. As for asbestos. The danger is breathing in the dust. So you just use a mask and a disposable cover-all. That combined with a shower afterward minimizes the risk. As I said that job I described brings me in contact with phosgene. That's why you wear gear that makes you autonomous from the place you are working.

The asbestos wasn't the big problem. It was the radiation. His little radiation badge became black and thus his career in that industry came to a halt.

That I can imagine. Like I said my company doesn't work in a hot-zone. I find it actually bizarre that he did to the extent that he got irradiated to such an extent. Was this recent?

Nowadays I know and have actually operated robots that would be able to do part of that job.

 

[petro]

I still work as a carpenter at 55. Freaky heights and roof pitches. Weather varies from -10 with brutal windchill to 95 with unbearable humidity. Back busting work that most young folks will not do or go into anymore.
Yet, I love working outdoors and the fact that hundreds of families now live in those structures that will continue standing long after I am gone.

 

[Dekster]

I was thinking about this as I'm getting older, not as physically dominant as I once was, but still holding on pretty well. Sometimes memories help keep me young.

I've had a few tough jobs, but for me it was probably working at a moving company. Constant work, garbage pay, it was a summer job for me before I went back to school.

One day we are doing a government office. 7th Floor, we get up there as one of the elevators is broken, the second one goes "On Service" for some lazy employees who are themselves moving their entire floor. So what do we do? What all underpaid idiots do, we go down 7 flights of stairs with massive desks cubicle walls, heavy duty metal cabinets and drawers. Then we have to walk back up seven flights and work the next load. Did that for 8 hours with a half hour lunch. It was in the summer and I was sweating like a pig.

People were bitching and crying, I'm Canadian so I'm use to hearing it, but I just did my thing. Whining solves nothing and just gives yourself an excuse to slack off. I liked the challenge anyways, I was young enough.

I recall withholding my school work on my resume knowing they wouldn't hire me, then one day, just not showing up. Phone is ringing every day, first threatening me with the voice message ("you will lose your job"), then begging me to show up for work one day ("hey give us a call, we have some good hours if you want them"). lol. They were just begging for any fool to stay the full day let alone work hard for 3 months. There were some real hard working guys there just paying their bills, but also a few arrogant pricks who liked to look down on others who were just doing their job.

So, that's my story. Any one else care to share?

I'm an industrial cleaner. Guess I could say I have a tough job sometimes. Full hazmat suit in a tower filled with a poison you could only lay in to work. Get's so hot longest you can work for is about an hour no matter how fit you are, providing you took enough fluids before you started. 12 Hour shifts, 3 actual shifts working, rinse and repeat.

LOL. A friend of mine had a job removing asbestos from a nuclear reactor. I told him he was doubly fucked, but I would watch out for his three-eyed babies after he was dead.

It all depends on the precautions you take. We work in nuclear power plants but not in the so-called hot-zone. As for asbestos. The danger is breathing in the dust. So you just use a mask and a disposable cover-all. That combined with a shower afterward minimizes the risk. As I said that job I described brings me in contact with phosgene. That's why you wear gear that makes you autonomous from the place you are working.

The asbestos wasn't the big problem. It was the radiation. His little radiation badge became black and thus his career in that industry came to a halt.

That I can imagine. Like I said my company doesn't work in a hot-zone. I find it actually bizarre that he did to the extent that he got irradiated to such an extent. Was this recent?

Nowadays I know and have actually operated robots that would be able to do part of that job.

It was about 5 years back. Wasn't like he got hit all at once. It was just slow chronic exposure over a year or so. Wasn't just being near the pool. He said he probably got at least as much just in handling the materials coming out as he ever got when he was near the hot zone as you call it. They were restricted in how many minutes they could be in the area at a time. Wasn't long but I forget what it was.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Installing lateral piping and tanks. Hated everything about the job

 

[PoliticalChic]

Far away and not nearly long enough ago in an exotic land that might have been a tropical paradise I was sometimes tasked with an interesting but entirely unenjoyable mission. It seems that this exotic land was had no recognizable sewer system. This was problematic for thousands of men almost all of whom had either dysentery or plain diarrhea and no patience to hold the results throughout their 12 month tour. The Army in it's infinite wisdom had us construct a series of outhouses designed to be used by 6-8 close friends at a time. They could relax and share newspapers and magazines. The ambiance was rather...uh, robust and conversation was limited due the buzz of aprox. 8 mil. flies and other assorted flying (and stinging) insects. Also a common desire to not take deep breaths or breathe through the nose. If you forgot your reading matteral one could always study the mottoes thoughtfully carved into every simi-flat surface by former occupants. Seems that Kilroy gets around. What could "FTA" possibly mean? Normal outhouses are situated over deep holes to catch waste. Not so the Army version! In the Army version half of an (to begin with)empty 55-gal drum was situated under each "user". They were collected once a day by the lucky winners of some secret contest held by the 1st Sgt..On the bright side they were only emptied once a day. Unfortunately some could only hold a half days' contributions. Two men would carry each barrelhalf a considerable distance and burn the contents useing diesel fuel kerosene thermite (my favorite) or whatever combustible could be scavenged. Carrying those quite heavy drums full of highly noxious liquid safely to the designated area required a certain amount of expertise. If at all possible they carried side by side with the drum between them. If the terrain to be covered didn't allow that the man in the rear had the favored position (usually decided by coin toss). The team was traveling over uneven, possibly cluttered, ground as rapidly as possible in order to set it down again as quickly as possible. If you were carrying in line and if tragedy struck the drum would suddenly catch on an object or uneven ground resulting in a massive shit tsunami enveloping the lead man. It would probably have been a kindness to just shoot him but we were not allowed.

Informative, interesting.