Evening seniors . outside of the home , what is the hardest job you have done , a physical and or mental ?

Question

i have had two that stand out .

1st was a mentally horrible job at a fancy hair salon . the owner was very abusive to us "slaves" . lol

2nd was a 15 year job of doing painting/renos . that was very rewarding working for ourselves .

how about your tales . thanks .d.

Answer 1

1st was as a fork lift driver with a mineral company. Part of the job was filling bags of clay and stacking them on a pallet. Before moving the pallet to another area we had to whack it with a cement block to flatten it. The bags weighed about 20 kl and when you were doing it for a few hours it sure got heavy but I was really pleased with having the job as I was the only woman they had ever employed and the pay was great. However I was even more pleased when the guy who I had replaced recovered and came back. The 2nd was with a fertiliser firm. I was weighing up small bags of minerals and the distributing machine broke down so I had to do it by hand with a small hand trowel and a small scale and a incredibly large container of fertiliser about 1/2 a ton and I had individual 500 gm containers ! I also worked in a restaurant where the manager was really strange if not just rude as he kept asking the waitresses why we were working at the restaurant as we could have earned more money just selling ourselves. What a choice !.......thanks for the trip down memory lane

Answer 2

I guess the most challenging was going out on my own and repairing machines for large companies, such as packaging equipment. There were no instructions! The second was designing interface circuits for electronics in a nuclear research lab.

Answer 3

Cemetery (whoops....MEMORIAL GARDEN) supervisor. I was a 'working supervisor' and certain areas had to have the graves (internment sites) dug by hand (shovel).  There were double graves (one on top of the other) that the owner would not let us use the back hoe on (he thought the vaults would crack...I was told by the vault company that wouldn't happen) and the baby graves (not deep, but digging by hand was difficult and the knowledge that a little one would soon occupy the hole was hard).  This job was both difficult physically (when hand digging) and mentally (especially when it involved a young child or young person)

.  We did one where the teen had stuck a shot gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.  That was the hardest, just knowing. I took particular care in placing the memorial stone on that one.   I buried a few veterans, and those graves I took particular care of, too.  There are 2 vets that were friends of mine, and I still visit their graves, making sure everything is good (trimming the grass over the memorial and replacing the flag often), even though I haven't worked there since 1993.

Answer 4

The two most physically demanding jobs I ever worked, was my first,

and my last. The first, was working as a nurses aid at a convelescent

home. Lifting patients to change their sheets or put them into a wheel

chair were the most trying physically. I developed a bad back at an

early age from that   straining.

  The last job I had, was working at a thrift store in their different depts.

I pushed and pulled clothes on racks, lifted piles of them to put else-

where and in general, earned every nickel they spent on me. I ended

up getting hurt on the job and was laid off. I never went back due to

pulling something that affected some nerves in my back and leg and

I sued them to make them accept responsibility. Out of two claims

they conceded to only one. The finger one, they wouldn't accept. And

yet it took a year of therapy before the feeling returned to my index

finger. I never worked again after that. As other health issues came

to the  surface, and had to be dealt with.

Answer 5

Being a policeman but ended up that it was just fine. Got to see and do stuff that most people only read about. Just got bad towards the end when I was getting a little harsh on my family.You can only treat you kids like suspects so long and then they become suspects.

Now, however, they say I am a much better dad and parent. Heck, my wife might even like me eventually.

In all honesty, it wasn't that bad and I have been out for more that 4 years. I don't think I would have traded that time for anything but am glad it is over.

Answer 6

I would say the job that I have in nursing. My arthritic back is about worn out and I can't afford to retire.

Answer 7

I join with the people that say nursing, It is very physical, as for mental I was an Advice Nurse..and trying to determine how sick someone is over the phone is very stressful. I had someone call in one eve to say he had come home that day from having major back surg and his back was in extreme pain. Well yea, he just had back surg. As I pulled and prodded information from him, jaw pain, left arm pain, no fever..I determined he was having a heart attack. I told him to call 911 now and I would call back in 5 min. He said he lived in a small mt. town and they only had one paramedic unit...I told him in no uncertain terms he was not to come to the hospital by car..he called and when I called back in 5 min the paramedics were pulling into the driveway..If I had gone strictly by his report of back pain, there was a chance he would not have survived.

Answer 8

i was a nurse for 25 years that was hard enough..but as a teen one summer i hauled hay with my dad..sun up to sun down..i would have died before i complained but it was HOT!

Answer 9

My career of Military and Law Enforcement makes me think of many.  And I spend many nights trying not to think of them still.  Seeing families torn apart by Domestic Violence is something that takes its tole on a person.  The poor children suffer so!

Answer 10

LUMBER JACK HOUSE PAINTER  WELDER IN THAT ORDER

Answer 11

My hardest job was Hot tar roofing in the summer..and rewarding was being a finish Carpenter,,,

Answer 12

it was also the best job...being a farmer's daughter.  we bucked bales of hay, hunted down rattlers and skunks, watched storms flatten wheat fields,  got back on the horse after being bucked off, buried cows struck by lightening, reset the outhouse after a tornado knocked it over, milked cows by hand and loved every blessed minute of it!

Answer 13

Mine was not as bad as the grave supervisor.

I delivered meat to restaurants and grocery stores. Most of the meat was sides of cows, from 120-250 lbs. each. When the day got hot, the meat would bleed all over my clothes.

Really caused a uproar when I walked into businesses, covered with blood.

Answer 14

In my early 30s, when I was a single mom, I needed to make as much money as I could. I was a landscaper by day and a waitress by night. I worked out of my home for the landscaping job, so I could be near or accessible to my kids. For the evening waitress job, I brought my kids with me and they bussed tables.

I made pretty good money at both, and the bonus was that they made money bussing tables, so i didn't have to give them an allowance.

Landscaping was hard, but waitressing was much harder. It was definitely some long hard hours, but it has some great memories.

Answer 15

Lifting and stacking hay bales in the very hot, hot sun.  Every summer as a teenager.

Answer 16

I guess my hardest job.  That I ever done was driving close to 11,000 miles in 7 days.  And trying to hold my eyes open at the same time.  Some people would tell you it can't be done.  But I done it.  All tho I didn't drive the speed limit either.

Answer 17

2 nd is doing yard work.  The 1 st was working the Tropicana in Vegas.  That was tough and so many crooks to watch out for.  It was brutal at times.Now it's different I hear.  Then it was rough around the slots.