The worst job as far for me, in terms of manual labor, is when I worked for a cable contractor in the North Carolina heat during the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. It paid well, $80 a day. That said, I would work 12 hour days sometimes and I essentially just dug holes and put in cable boxes (more labor intensive than I had originally thought). It would be around 105 and 100% humidity and I'd ask how far down this time, they'd say, oh, only about five feet. Of course it never rained so the ground was essentially rock. Despite all that, I actually enjoyed working outside and I had a good lunch break and was allowed to leave whenever the work was finished so some days I'd be off in 4 hours. I also worked with my cousin so I enjoyed that. I learned numerous expletives in Spanish. Only one day was really bad and it was when I had to pull 1200 yards of cable through conduit that went up and all-around due to the rock underground so pulling it was almost impossible. I had to call in help for 7 other guys just so we could grab the end and pull with all our might just to slowly move it. And it was in front of Time Warner so we had to do it all flawlessly. Never heard more expletives in a 4 period than then. I did like the job for the most part though.
The job that I hated the most was McDonalds during the summer of my sophomore year in high school and the beginning of junior year. My managers were the dumbest SOB's ever. It was a brand new place and it opened off a populated road. I worked my arse off and it was disgusting. I still refuse to eat McDonald's food. I saw my manager drop a burger on the floor, pick it up 20 seconds and send it on its way and she just turned and said you saw nothing. A couple times they made me take the burgers off before they were fully done. They were still raw in the middle and bleeding and they would slop it on the burger and give it to the customer. It's truly a repulsive place. I avoid most fast food at all costs. Not to mention the burgers frozen double as hockey pucks. I never quit or was ever fired. I asked off for Thanksgiving weekend because I'd be out of town and gave multiple notes of notice a couple weeks leading up to it. The town idiot, my manager, put me on the schedule every single day. I told him I wouldn't be showing up and he was like you have to! it's on the schedule. All I said was you better find someone to come in because I will not be in town. The next week I had no hours when I showed up to check and I never went back in that store. I still cringe driving past the place when I come home and haven't been in it. NEVER EAT MCDONALD'S!
This wasn't the worst but I didn't like umpiring like I thought I would. I made $25 a game so it wasn't terrible pay. The parents just sucked beyond belief. It made me hate all adults at sporting events. I'll never heckle a referee in any youth sport as long as I live because of it so I guess it was a nice lesson of sorts to learn. I had parents threaten me and call me every name in the book and tell me they wanted to fight me. And I have always been a big guy so I was about 6'4 and 240 then (I was in high school) and they would tell me to see them in the parking lot and all I could do was just laugh at them. I wanted to knock so many of those yuppy parents out. It made me feel bad for the kids especially. I had an incident where the kid on the mound (probably 7, 8 or 9) was pitching really badly. He was the coaches son and he was visibly distraught because I can't call a bouncing pitch a strike and he was walking everyone, all the while his dad was berating him. The kid wet himself, on the mound, and burst out crying. I had to call times and the kid went to the port-a-john and came back. The dad got a tub of water and poured it on the kid and said, yup you're ready, go back out and pitch. The kid was having a full-blown panic attack, it seemed, while pitching and the father did nothing. That specific incident ruined it for me, I did a couple more games but then quit due to the insane parents and some of the inept other umpires who had no grasp of the game that I got paired up with. Every parent thinks their kid is the next amazing athlete.