Jobs You've Had No Business Doing

[Samurai Waki]

I was listening to a radio show on my way home from Class, and their subject was the same as the name of this thread's title. So it actually got me thinking, have you ever had to do any job you had no business doing?

I can think of a few, but the one that strikes me as perhaps the worst, and most brief of jobs was cornering edges of Aluminum sheets in a machine shop, which later be sent to Boeing, or maybe some rail company. I'll admit it, my knowledge of anything to do with tools is abhorrently low, but I needed to break up my summer vacation a bit, and my friend's dad needed an extra hand at this job. Basically, all I was supposed to do, was to grind down the edges on these aluminum sheets to make them less rough, sounds easy enough right? Turns out you need a hell of an arm, and some know how to use an industrial sized belt sander, I ended up grinding the corners on a few of my first sheets to about the width of a sheet of paper, and then I actually ground off the entire corners of a few others, so that these 1000.00 $ sheets of aluminum were schematically incorrect. I managed to always get metal shavings into my eyes, despite the fact that I was wearing safety goggles, and then I also tore about half of the nail off my pinky. After about three days of that, I decided it was better for me to take the high road, and let my boss find someone else who wouldn't potentially cause a lawsuit. :shame:

How about you?

[seireikhaan]

This last summer, I helped keep accounting books for a guy running a small, heating and air conditioning business in town.

Yes, I am an accounting Major.

No, I had not taken a single collegiate accounting class. :embarassed: It was a bit touch and go for a bit, to say the least. I did get things figured out, I might add. :yes:

[Whacker]

When I was very, very young, in 2nd grade up until about 8th, I used to run medication from my dad's pharmacy to other doctor's offices and dentists around the professional medical complex his business was in. In hindsight, I don't think they'd let kids that young run around like that, and some of it was probably controlled substances too.

By the time I was in 5th grade, I'd taught myself more about computers than anyone in my family, so dad would often have me do his accounting payables and receivables after school. Not that he didn't know how to do it, or how to run the application, but sometimes he was just busy so he had me or my sister do them.

We were also doing compounding for him too. Some of the real simple ones, he'd set out the ingredients and materials, and we'd measure and mix things up and blend and heat up and microwave and do whatever, it was a lot of fun. He always checked on us, so it's not like we were totally unsupervised, but I'm sure people wouldn't be 100% comfortable knowing that a 10 year old made their suppositories! :laugh4:

[Lemur]

While in uni I worked for a while as a short-order cook. I have no skill with making food. I was a disaster. Amazingly, they couldn't find a competent replacement for me for six months, so I ruined good food for half a year.

Mrs. Lemur, who is a genius chef who has cooked at high-end restaurants and private cheffed for the rich and famous, still finds it hilarious that I was ever allowed to be a cook. I had no business in a professional kitchen.

[KukriKhan]

During my brief one-year stint as an illegal alien worker in Canada, I picked up cash under-the-table jobs wherever I could. My buddies, construction workers, tried to teach me plastering, but I could never get the timing right; I'd either be too slow, and the "mud" would slip off the hand trowel, or too fast, and the mud/plaster would be an unworkable glob on the drywall. Epic fail either way, and more expense/time to clean up after me.

So the lads set me to "step-n-fetchit" duty instead, which I got fairly good at. :) Strong back, weak mind: that's me.


I had no business in a professional kitchen.

Fine job, getting out of that chore, Lemur. :laugh4: I once got out of coffee-making duty (never having seen a drip coffee machine before; only percolators) by putting the coffee grounds where the water is supposed to go, and wondering how the water in the pot was gonna get over the grounds and back into the pot as coffee. Found and pushed the "on" button and waited. Burnt out the coffee maker, and almost started a fire. Never got tasked to make coffee again.