Thursday, September 2, 2010

Labor Day Giveaway, What Job Are You Glad You Don't Have Anymore??

In honor of Labor Day, I've decided to have a giveaway of my latest release, The Swap, part of Amber Quill's Working Stiffs collection.

Just leave a comment on this post about your worst/hardest/craziest job. Mine had to have been managing hotels. Between unplugging toilets, dealing with drunks and noise complaints at 3am, cleaning rooms and doing laundry when we were short on housekeepers, and dealing with cranky, rude people at the front desk (most of the time all of these in the same day), it was probably the most thankless job ever.

Tell me about your least favorite job sometime between now and Monday at midnight, and I'll draw a winner on Tuesday morning.


Meanwhile, have a great holiday weekend!

PS, speaking of the holiday weekend, Dreamspinner Press is having a Labor Day sale, 20% off all purchases from Saturday to Monday. Good time to pick up any titles you might have on your TBB list!

24 comments:

  1. Oh yes, that sale is on my calendar! :)

    Some of the jobs I'm glad I don't have anymore include waiting tables, counter and burger assembly at Burger King (my great hope is to never have to work food service again), medic in the National Guard, physical therapy orderly, janitorial assistant, and motel maid (I only lasted two days on that one).

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  2. Devon what a great contest!
    My least favorite job working at a fish hatchery.
    When it came time to clean the tanks..woooo

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  3. I worked in food preparation at a small zoo. You have not smelled foul until you've had to count half-thawed and whole baby chicks for the reptiles...

    Love the book, though! ( :

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  4. Worst job was as a waitress at Long John Silver's fast food restaurant in College in Ohio. Entire place smelled badly of fried fish, including the french fries fried in the same oil as the fish. Ugh! The manager was this teenager (you know the type that thinks they are a big fish) who was a PITA and into micromanaging thru insults and faux superiority. Think the guy from The Office movie wanting people to wear more flash. Told me a had a crappy attitude. I did and I quit. Still can't look at fried fish.

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  5. worst job EVAR is mowing lawns in Georgia summer heat! lol!

    ~smooches~
    Jase

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  6. Worst jobs were working as a cashier in a grocery store and collections rep for a credit card company.

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  7. Man, now I know how Mike Rowe must feel! Now if I only had his voice...

    Keep 'em coming, I'm loving all the answers!

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  8. Worst job....being a happy holly hostess at Bob Evans restaurant. I had to work the weekend morning shift. Like 6am morning! And I had to wear an oh-so-attractive maroon floor length polyester skirt. Let me tell you, old people are super picky about where you seat them, and they'll hunt you down if they think you skipped their name on the waiting list. ...yeah, I didn't last long there.

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  9. I've worked at Burger King (odd as a vegetarian), a chambermaid (helping an aunt, so unpaid labor), and babysitting for less than a 1 an hour, but one of my office jobs was worse.

    I worked at a tech job which involved things like refusal to pay overtime, no time for lunch, and my boss who was engaged to the CEO. When they were having a fight the entire company moved from mediocre to incredibly dysfunctional. She took off her engagement ring during my job interview, not that I would have noticed it. I was told I was stupid and that I didn't know anything for NOT using search engine optimization techniques that were valid in the early 90s even though I had gotten the results he wanted. I had two bosses in the Cambridge office (where I actually worked) and a dotted line boss in California. Gah! I have to stop, because I've already entered ranting mode.

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  10. My worst job was working at a grocery store. I loved the people I worked with. The customer might always be right, but they are not always nice.

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  11. I worked as an Accounts Receivable clerk and had to deal with clients face-to-face. UGH, I hated hounding people for money, especially if I liked them.

    Thanks for letting us know about the Dreamspinner sale, too; I just got paid!

    Tracey D
    booklover0226 at gmail dot com

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  12. Working in a restaurant whose owners treated me more like a temp than a part-timer (which I was supposed to be). They often forgot to let me know if I should go to work or not until I called and asked myself.

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  13. My worst job was a specific task assignment when I was a deli clerk. Overall I didn't mind working in the deli during college... but I /hated/ cleaning and preparing the chickens for the rotisserie oven. I had to scoop out any leftover innards hiding inside and pull excess fat from their rears. After rinsing, I had to skewer them for the oven.

    Hearing the bones crack if they were too tight for the skewer made me feel a bit .. ick.. as did finding some feathers still left attached.

    Mostly I worried about getting salmonella because each time I had to clean chickens it would be about 3 cases worth. :(

    ciara at ciaradallas dot com

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  14. My worst job was also my first job: dishwasher in a fast food restaurant.

    Not only did I have my hands in greasy dishwater all night, but this oh so glamorous position also included taking out the trash at the end of the night (after first digging through it to pull out the plastic baskets the food came in), cleaning the bathrooms, sweeping & mopping the dining room, & (the cherry on top) scooping the congealed grease out of the drain traps when they backed up.

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  15. My worst job was my very first job - I was a cashier at a grocery store. The customers were so incredibly rude and obnoxious - I was traumatized by the end of the first week and this old lady even made me cry *yeah it was that bad*.

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  16. Yikes! I don't think I'll ever look at a rotisserie chicken the same way again!

    @Ava, lol! *Someone* apparently needed some caffeine :P, but I know what you mean about seating older people. Try cooking three meals for 50 of them! The day after I fired my general manager at an assisted living facility, all three cooks called in. Hmmm. Methinks they were testing me. I passed, but boy were my feets sore by the time I cleaned up after dinner.

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  17. I used to call people for appointments at the Portrait Studio at a department store. Part time. It was the best I could get, even having a degree.

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  18. Ack! cturtlechick reminded me of my worst job ever - how could I forget?! It wasn't telemarketing exactly - it was fundraising for non-profits. Oy. I'm super introverted, so it killed me. My tendency to get laryngitis and lose my voice finally gave me the perfect reason to quit.

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  19. Oh man, I had it so easy! I've had 2 paying jobs... one in high school where I packed the groceries; and there was no way, no how I would ever move up to cashier.

    Then after I graduated high school I worked for an oil company in their computer room. That was 6½ years. Then I got married, had kids right away and I've been a stay-at-home-mom and, after 21 years, I still provide childcare from my home.

    So yeah, lucky right?

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  20. i have had a variety of jobs..it is almost easier to list what i have not done!
    Two that were soooo boring though (the plus being the people i worked with were great) In college i worked at a t shirt printing factory, not a computer printing but all hand done with screens. I was in charge of spinning the contraption, making sure the boards were tacky to hold the shirts and putting the shirts on, taking them off after the printing and setting carefully throught he dryer.If there were multi colors on the shirt you had to spin a certain way so the shirts were a little less wet between color apps, kind of dizzying and monotonous! The second a monkey could have done. Machine operator at a plastic bead production company.

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  21. Well, since I just won this at Jessewave, no need to include me in the contest. Thanks, Devon! :D

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  22. LOL, congrats Chris! Didn't even know I was Wave's AQ free read choice this weekend. Enjoy! :)

    Everyone else, two+ more days til THIS winner! ;)

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  23. Heck I am having chills just reading these. Worst job ever would have to be working in a die cast shop where it is 100 plus temps every day. Working with Magnesium and Aluminum can be dangerous. Exploding pots and all. Oh, and the burns hurt like a "B".

    Devon, enjoy your books keep them coming.

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