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Worst job (by far) - I got a second job to try and boost my cash whilst I was at uni, at that 24 hour corner shop on Hutcheon Street. I lasted 2 shifts. I've never ever walked out of a job before, but that place fucking sucked. The customers were a mix of drug addicts and gay guys wanting to see what was under the counter (i.e. a bakers tray full of vibrators, I kid you not). The boss was a fucking moron as well. The worst thing about this is, because I walked out after just a couple of shifts, and never called them back, I never got paid! The second shift I did was something like 7pm-3am as well. Fucking mince.

Best job: I'll leave my current job out of it, because this is the job I spent years slogging away at uni to get to etc. Schuh was amazing back in the day. Great bunch of people, and the actual work was so much more fun than working in D2 (the only other "retail" job I've had) - when it was busy, it was fucking mental in that place. Properly hard work, which meant your shifts absolutely flew past, and the banter we had was brilliant. "Stockroom olympics" and such other delights. I used to do a rotation in the stockroom with Steven Milne, and we would write each other stories in the diary, just for a laugh. I once penned a "song" about the staff members, complete with naming all the hot birds etc. The fucking twat that he is, showed the assistant manager, and when I came in for my next shift, EVERYONE in the store had seen it!! Bastards. I never grudged going in there for a shift, even with some of the stinking hangovers I had on Sundays!!

Working in the local butcher when I was still at school was also brilliant. Just the owner, the apprentice who was one of my best mates, and me - hard work most of the time, but we all got on really well, and banter with the locals in the wee shop.

That shop is dodgy as fuck. My brother used to live on Hutcheon Street and had it nicknamed "Pills and Porn" as they had those in vast quantities.

I also worked in a shoe shop when I was going through Uni. I'd assume it would be a shit job but it was alright really. I mainly worked in the storeroom but myself and the assistant manager had a football hidden away so when we were the only ones in we would have a kickabout. It is probably the only job in retail where you get girls voluntarily leaning over in front of you, technically you can get paid to look at tits.

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Guest Gladstone
That shop is dodgy as fuck. My brother used to live on Hutcheon Street and had it nicknamed "Pills and Porn" as they had those in vast quantities.

I also worked in a shoe shop when I was going through Uni. I'd assume it would be a shit job but it was alright really. I mainly worked in the storeroom but myself and the assistant manager had a football hidden away so when we were the only ones in we would have a kickabout. It is probably the only job in retail where you get girls voluntarily leaning over in front of you, technically you can get paid to look at tits.

I never did this, what kind of man are you?

Pervert.

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Best - Well, my career in IT support pays me a good salary that enabled me to buy a nice house and keeps me well stocked in games, instruments and good food. It's not perfect but I like to think I'm very good at it and it's a decent career.

Two christmas spells at the Gadgetshop were a great laugh. Crazy when it was busy but the quiet moments when you just got to spend your time playing with toys and hanging around with some great colleagues made it worthwhile.

Working as a developer at RGU was pretty crap but the people I worked with were ace and I met my girlfriend there so it should get in the good list for that alone.

Worst - Christmas temp at Dixons was pretty bad. Constant pressure to get people to buy shit they didn't want and then persuade them to buy insurance they didn't need on top of that. Crap customers, especially the returns after Christmas and then to top it all off they gave the job centre the wrong start date so I got investigated for benefit fraud and had to pay back 120 of jobseekers allowance 4 years later when I signed on again after uni. I hated them so much for that it led to a 10 year boycott which I've only recently relented on.

But honourable mentions should also go to shelf stacking at Somerfields in Stoney and dishwasher/KP at the Creel Inn (spending 6 or 7 hours every Saturday night during the summer hunched over a sink of hot water while a chef shouts at everyone and the sun shines directly into the window you're standing in front of isn't fun)

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I've had a few jobs over the years, moslty part time work while I was at school/uni.

I wouldn't say any of them were particularly bad tbh.

Worked as a waiter/kitchen assisstant for a few years, was pretty hard work but the pay was pretty decent and sometimes the tips were really good too!

Worked a summer as a 'green keeper' although all this meant was walking up and down the fairways of the golf course re-seeding the divots left by all the golfers, kinda boring and surprisingly tiring but it was myself and my mate and we got to piss about with the 2x4 gators they used which was ace fun!

Also worked part time in a shop which wasn't too bad, worst nights were when the deliveries came in as you actually had to do some work, but the folk there were a good laugh and we managed to hook up our mp3 players to the sound system and blast some of our own tunes during out shifts.

Now I'm currently in my 'career' job as a design engineer, it's pretty cool getting evenings & w/e off and the pay is decent, there is a lot of good people here too. Wouldn't mind getting out of the office though, need to get some trips to site. :up:

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Fines Office at the Sheriff Court. The clientele was mostly petty criminals, so customer service wasn't a priority. You had to be a bit of a bastard to them, as they'd usually try the old "Naaaah I've paid more off my fine than that. Your computers are wrong". It was quite good not having to be the usual customer service pushover. Getting paid to be a cunt was ace.

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Guest Gladstone
Fines Office at the Sheriff Court. The clientele was mostly petty criminals, so customer service wasn't a priority. You had to be a bit of a bastard to them, as they'd usually try the old "Naaaah I've paid more off my fine than that. Your computers are wrong". It was quite good not having to be the usual customer service pushover. Getting paid to be a cunt was ace.

I too had that job once upon a time. I worked for a year at the Sheriff Court, the best 3 months by a long way was working in the fines office.

Some of the excuses for non-payment of fines were brilliant. I also got to issue extract warrants to arrest non-payers. Happy days.

And yeah, you could be a total dick if you wanted to, safe in the knowledge that there was a massive perspex screen between you and the angry criminal, and at least one copper just a few seconds away. Some of them were right knobs, but they were actually generally okay.

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The worst part was taking the money. Their notes always stunk of piss or stale smoke. Grim. I always seperated my intake between clean fresh notes, and stinky gross notes, and I'd give the stinky shite out as change if it was needed.

No one in that place is trained with any sort of customer service. I remember my first day, having to ring the bell, and trhe security guard opened the door and yelled "What did I just say? We're not fucking open, aye?". I nearly poo'd myself. He quickly threw on a smile when I said I was there to work. Brill!

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Guest Gladstone
The worst part was taking the money. Their notes always stunk of piss or stale smoke. Grim. I always seperated my intake between clean fresh notes, and stinky gross notes, and I'd give the stinky shite out as change if it was needed.

No one in that place is trained with any sort of customer service. I remember my first day, having to ring the bell, and trhe security guard opened the door and yelled "What did I just say? We're not fucking open, aye?". I nearly poo'd myself. He quickly threw on a smile when I said I was there to work. Brill!

I hated the place - totally hated it. Bunch of useless, lazy, incompetents with rubbish attitudes that worked there. Typical public sector (or what you'd expect from public sector...) workplace. Full of bitter middle aged women with absolutely no respect for anyone or anything. Hated it.

The fines office was magic though - the customers were more civil than most of the staff.

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Guest davetherave

Jobs

Worst Job - many years ago, I worked in a wheelchair factory for a month, dipping the bare metal parts in Trichloroethane (a nasty chemical), no mask, no extractor fan! The fumes got you so light headed and dizzy that you felt like you were stoned all day!

Best job --- see above ;o) JK. My best job was probably as a training consultant for several years, loads of travel, good hotels, food, drink, etc. :up:

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I hated the place - totally hated it. Bunch of useless, lazy, incompetents with rubbish attitudes that worked there. Typical public sector (or what you'd expect from public sector...) workplace. Full of bitter middle aged women with absolutely no respect for anyone or anything. Hated it.

The fines office was magic though - the customers were more civil than most of the staff.

Yeah, I was the only male and the only person under the age of about 40 in the fines office when I was there. They were all pretty nasty, but they really sorted out the gobshites who tried to take the staff for a ride.

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Best - working on a campsite in catalunia... Hard work in the morning, beach and a game of tennis in the afternoon, getting KBed by the local woman and settling for a loose English girl at night. It was an ace job.

Worst - Working in a cafeteria within the offices of an oil company. I've never felt more looked down upon. Loads of awful HR women on total power trips and folk who were clearly idiots who did nothing all day except drink coffee, all whilst I'm ruing the fact it was the only job I could get after uni. We worked twice as hard as anyone in there and got zero respect.

I worked in the cafe at the railway station for a year and I've had my fair share of being treated like shit by snobby customers. It gets manic in there sometimes. One time the person was working with didn't show up, so I had to work on my own for 6 hours from 7am-1pm, during which time it was quite busy, had queues to the door half the time, and also had to get in the cups and put them through the dishwasher, whilst trying to serve people. As the assisstant manager and supervisers at the time were assholes no way they would help out, and the manager who was ace was on holiday.

Best job.... Probably working at a petrol station. Had to be alert all the time for drive offs but it was nowhere near as boring as the other jobs I've had. Plus on the night shift was no one in half the time so could just listen to metal insanely loud to keep me awake, which was ace. The only customers that did come in were cabbies or people coming back from nights out usually in some absurd fancy dress. Worst part of the job...? As the only person on site if you needed the toilet you had to be really quick and keep the door open to see if anyone was walking in, Thankfully was never caught short myself there.

Most disappointing job? I temped at Toys'R'Us just before xmas. Nothing wrong with it really, it was just boring and repetetive. Plus I had to try flog bikes to parents, which I hate doing. Were pressured to try sell helmets/pads to everyone and told off if we didn't sell at least one accessory to everyone who bought a bike. I was rubbish at that, if they already have what they need... why convince them they need more?

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Best was BT 151, easiest job in the world, making up completely random shit to amuse yourself and your co-worker and just generally see what you can get away with

edit: ok probably the best job was working on the aberdeen - shetland ferry, easy, well paid, brilliant co-workers, travelling

Worst had to be guarding an oil compound in South Africa, 3 months of that then asked never to be put there again at night you could hear gunshots ringing out, people would lob molotov cocktails over the fences because some company forcefully took their lands, racism, ya they dont like whites there

Most stress was a job at northfield academy the head at the time kept changing the mind, never realised until about a month ago that i probably took a class my girlfriend was in o_O

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Most stress was a job at northfield academy the head at the time kept changing the mind, never realised until about a month ago that i probably took a class my girlfriend was in o_O

Please translate this. You shagged your pupil? Yassss. I think I've seen your video on teh interwebz.

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Best - Working in Virgin Megastore, which was ace - we didn't have that shitty Virgin instore radio in the wee one in the Bon Accord centre, we just had a CD player, which the staff got to choose the music for, so I pretty much had an entire shop's worth of CDs to listen to. Over lunchtimes we had to play chart music but during the rest of the time we could listen to whatever the hell we wanted. I discovered so much great music working in there.

Runner up would be Night Porter at the Holiday Inn. I had nothing to do and all night to do it, so I would go in (Lucius was my manager, and was possibly even lazier than me), do all my work in an hour and then we'd spend the next 7 hours watching films, watching wrestling or playing X-Box, or I'd learn to speak Spanish, or practice cooking with a hotel kitchen's worth of food to experiment with. If I couldn't be bothered doing that I'd either sleep in the back of the restaurant or crack one off in the disabled bogs.

Worst - toss up between Au Naturale or MacFish in Fraserburgh. Au Naturale is in Woodside and when I worked there at store opening there was no CCTV and we used to just get robbed blind by junkies every day. I was supposed to try and stop them but I got sick of being threatened, and having groups of junkies waiting for me in the car park when I finished work. We would also get groups of neds who would come in ten at a time and just start smashing the place up. They would scatter so you couldn't get hold of them all. I walked from that job after three months.

MacFish was OK I suppose, it was only weekends, but it was 6am on Saturday and Sunday, so everybody would be hungover and there would be folk puking everywhere. It was really hard work, monotonous as hell, and occasionally back-breaking, also it was freezing in there, and I would stink of fish until about Wednesday. Though it was helped immensely by the fact that all my mates worked there at the same time, and we'd normally all have been out together the night before so we stuck together and found ways to bunk off. Generally we just fucked around.

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Worst - toss up between Au Naturale or MacFish in Fraserburgh. Au Naturale is in Woodside and when I worked there at store opening there was no CCTV and we used to just get robbed blind by junkies every day. I was supposed to try and stop them but I got sick of being threatened, and having groups of junkies waiting for me in the car park when I finished work. We would also get groups of neds who would come in ten at a time and just start smashing the place up. They would scatter so you couldn't get hold of them all. I walked from that job after three months.

Were you a security guard? Or just a shop assistant? If it's the latter, I can only assume you weren't trained how to take down crooks? When I worked at Morrisons, one of the sales assistants ran after a shop lifter. He caught him and grabbed him, but then subsequently got shoved through the big glass window in the entrance. Got cut up pretty bad. Sued Morrisons, due to not being trained to deal with robbers. Got a fair wedge too. Lucky twat. I wish I'd have been cut to ribbons by broken glass.

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Were you a security guard? Or just a shop assistant? If it's the latter, I can only assume you weren't trained how to take down crooks? When I worked at Morrisons, one of the sales assistants ran after a shop lifter. He caught him and grabbed him, but then subsequently got shoved through the big glass window in the entrance. Got cut up pretty bad. Sued Morrisons, due to not being trained to deal with robbers. Got a fair wedge too. Lucky twat. I wish I'd have been cut to ribbons by broken glass.

Technically I was a storeman, but when the shop opened I was the only guy that worked there so I got lumped doing security (which is laughable when you see the size of me). Eventually we got a security guard but he was beyond useless (he got so scared of the junkies that he phoned his dad a few times to come down and stand at the door with him to protect him) so I was still doing it. I once chased a shoplifter for about half a mile, then he got sick of running so he stopped, turned round, threw the boxes on the floor and just went "come on then!". I didn't really want to fight him so I just went "ah it's alright, you can have the boxes" and went back to the shop. Eventually I just refused and told the boss I wasn't doing it any more. Then when the place was getting robbed I just stayed in my storeroom and left the lassies to deal with it :laughing:

I did security at Virgin as well, tho that was OK because we had the Bon Accord security guards backing us up, and I caught a bunch of shoplifters. But no I've never been trained in taking down bad guys, except 2 kung fu lessons and a book about Hapkido. Oh and I once suplexed a guy on Schoolhill.

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