Courtney Heitman

Working with flowers can’t be that bad, can it?

My first job I started at the ripe age of 15. I worked in a greenhouse. It started off great but then the retail opened and the weather got hotter. What most people don’t realize is that greenhouses trap lots of heat. So that nice balmy 80 degree day in May is easily 95 degrees in a greenhouse. There are some days in July that greenhouses can get up to 150 degrees.

Now the obnoxious heat is just the tip of the iceberg, you also have to carry flats of plants. Flats are these long plastic box like things that hold anywhere from 12 to 40 individual plants. Now you have efficient when carrying them because carrying just one at a time will take forever to restock the retail. But the thing about plants is, you can’t stack them like normal boxes. So you have to carry 3 or 4 of them on your arms while balancing them and trying not to get paper cut like cuts all over your hands and arms from the thin plastic that they are made out of.

Not so horrible yet but then you have to carry bags of soil that weigh 50 plus pounds, deal with other employees watering the plants and the random puddles of water that get left behing. All the while managing to still look presentable, because you are working in a retail store.

Tyson Reeder

Okay, so this picture may be an exaggeration, but who in their right mind signs up to be surrounded by bees for a living. No thank you.

That being said, to those of you that are in this line of work. Thank you because honey is delicious.

Kacie Woodley

At waterparks around the world, there are children who fail to make it to the restroom in time.

The worst job I had was the summer I was a lifeguard at the local waterpark. There were a record twelve “Code Blue” calls while I was on duty. By the luck of the draw, I ended up on the cleanup crew for seven of these.

Who wouldn’t want to spend their afternoon in the sun cleaning vomit and/or feces off the deck, the guard house, or the bottom of the kiddie fort?

On the job bonus: a sun tan and the gratitude of hundreds of disgusted parents.

Dennis Bukowski

The Johnson’s always had that weird vibe about them. The same kind of vibe a neighbor gets when they mow the yard at midnight. So did it worry the neighbors when they announced that they would be starting a business out of their own home? A simple answer to that is, yes, it did a lot.

The neighbors had had every right to be concerned, because the matter of the fact is that the Johnson’s were planning on running a rat daycare center. Yes, rats, the same animal that wiped out nearly half of the European population in 1300’s.

The Johnson’s decided that they would watch after every rat that crawled in through their door, crack, vent, etc. Job responsibilities consisted of counting and cleaning up after all 30+ free-running rodents. Definitely makes you rethink the difficulty of picking up after a dog. Business was slow at first but it caught up eventually. The only problem was that for some reason, unknown to them, no one ever seemed to want to pick up their “pet”. Hmmm…

Wei Peng

It is a wall made of banana. Is the designer fantastic of banana? Or maybe banana has a scent of tropical Amazon?
But it is a unique design. Piling up needs a week. Even if it is not for the zoo, it is unforgettable. Gorilla will be crazy about it. So will the employees working there.
But this job make the bananas rot in a week. Is it crappy? Sometimes not. Impressiveness is the goal for some reasons.
Photo Courtesy of pop.pcpop.com

Ian Stanek

The crappiest job I ever had in a summer was that of the Wal-Mart Cart Pusher.

This particular Wal-Mart was rather new in my home town and so people from all over would flock to the store as if they would find some invaluable treasure within. Unfortunately, since the Wal-Mart was so new, they were under-staffed in some areas, cart pushers especially.

There was only one other employee who had the cart pushing job and we rotated shifts, so we didn’t even get to work together (except for the odd Sunday).

Why was it so crappy you ask? The hours were long. It was the middle of summer in Nebraska, it felt like it was over 100 degrees outside. The work was physically hard and mentally numbing. I had no mechanical help in pushing the carts. It was all muscle for about 8 hours a day.

Aside from the physical toils, I also had to pick up trash in the parking lot. So I had pick up people’s half filled soda cups, McDonald’s bags, stray plastic bags, and the occasional dirty diaper. Then there was always the inevitable stray cart. The carts people would leave at the far end of the parking lot, or the ones where the front wheels are propped on the concrete islands, or carts just plain left out in the lot, because the person who last used it was too lazy to walk to the coral and push it in there.

And I thought all of this was worth $7.50 an hour.

Sammi Cook

Spending all day in a Disney character shaped pool of your own sweat, being mauled by children for hours at a time, hardly being able to walk, and being unable to have any conversations with people because they can’t hear you through the mask.

Not to mention the stains and stink from the people who have worn the suit before you.

I do not envy those people.

Miranda Aden

I can’t even begin to imagine what is lurking in the pool waters at the set of Jersey Shore. I don’t even watch the show, and i’m still shaking in my boots.

Matt Haron

After guests chow down their food and eat more than their fair share, where is the next place they go?
That’s right the restroom (which always has fewer stalls than it needs).

Once an hour the man or woman lowest on the totem pole, walks into what smells like a pigsty as he gets ready to clean the bathroom for the next hour’s use. By the end of night the walls usually aren’t white anymore.

Be sure to bring your protection, because once it gets on you, it will surely stain. (Not to mention the smell will last until you hit the shower.) This job ain’t for the faint of heart, because only the strong survive.

Just a reminder. Applications are due March 4th. Make sure you get it in on time or you probably won’t forgive yourself for the rest of your life.