Odd Jobs

[Lord Krunk]

I don't have any set job; which doesn't matter that much, considering that I'm a minor.

But today, i was given $40 to spend an hour cleaning up this abandoned orchard; and I couldn't pass it up.

Anyway, it's been about 10 years since this orchard has even been touched, and it showed.
When I entered, hacking down the vines and various shrubs that filled it, I noticed that the place looked like a scene from Morrowind.

Now, I don't have much experience in the workforce, but I wish to pose this discussion:

What are the weirdest, funniest, best or worst moments that you have had during work, or similar ventures?

I figured that this would be an interesting topic, and considering smallharmlesskitten's (alleged) 300 parody, I continued to wonder what escapades you yourselves have had.

 

[xitel]

Well, I had one of my senior friends pay me $40 to do his senior final project in Comp Sci, which was a project I had already done. I just changed some shapes, lines of code, added some comments, and changed the text in some areas. Took me 15 mins. He realized he had just payed me $160 per hour. He still said it was worth it, but still.

Wierdest day AT WORK would probably be when I trudged through the snow to get to the Giant I worked at when my car was snowed in, and spent 5 hours mucking about in the store with the few other people that showed up because we had no customers and all but the one awesome manager decided not to show up. The one time we got a customer we sat down with him and palyed a couple hands of poker on the floor before he got up, bought the stuff he had come for and went home. It was awesome.

 

[The Kind Cannibal]

My friends uncle worked a morgue, and I helped them on random week ends for like, $20 a day.
Needless to say I know hate the smell of iodine.

 

[Altorin]

taking apart a disgusting macdonald's garbage can with a screwdriver and a wrench in an office job was pretty interesting, and definately a change of pace.

 

[JMeganSnow]

I used to work in a tissue bank, and we once got a donor in who'd been in some kind of accident. Most of her bones were so soft that you could put your finger through them--except her left femur, the middle third of which was a solid mass of cortical bone the size of your two fists together.

I also had to clean out the waste sink manually one day (that's where we dumped our buckets of blood and lipids from cleaning the donor). There was probably an inch thick layer of human fat floating on the water of this thing, so I turned to look at the CS guy who was sterilizing our bandsaw and said "We should make soap!" It took him a second to get it, but then he said, "Yeah, I've seen Fight Club, too."

I miss that job, the work was very interesting, but I don't miss the B.S. I had to put up with as a consequence.

 

[Altorin]

that's his response to "We should make soap!"?

Way to get into the spirit buddy.

"Yes. That was quite a good movie. Hrmm. Quite. Yes."

 

[IronDuke]

As a pizza boy delivering into the early morning on weekends, had my fair share of shouted weed and beers on the job, seen alot of naked girls and strippers (an unusual amount, i dont get it), Hooked up with a hot girl for giving her a lift (plus 50 dollars mwahha). Delivered to an office party with strippers and the girls made me do funnels, tipped me 30 dollars and made (like it was hard to convince me) me spank them.

Drunk people are cool when you have pizza.

 

[Khedive Rex]

I worked at a haunted house once. It wasn't the kind with the deafening screamo music and foul smelling mist making every room practically unbearable; it was more a "freak-out" haunted house. Strobe lights, optical illusions, rooms with slanted or moving floors, and most importantly lots of devoted actors in really good costumes.

I guess I'm saying it was the kind of fun house that's fun to work at as opposed to the kind that's torture.

Anyway, I was a vampire (not the stupid kind, they basically just gave me a suit made me really pale and put some fake blood running from the corner of my mouth) and I was in a room with two other "vampire" people and one girl with the whole bloody neck thing going.

Just scaring people was very fun but there was one group we dealt with that was simply amazing. It was the end of the day and the last 4 customers were coming through. They reach our room and they aren't really scared so I get up into one of their faces and start hissing(we aren't allowed to touch them so staring and hissing are our standard scaring actions). Not only does he not back off, he returns the stare and starts hissing too.

One thing lead to another and we basically ended up with everyone in the room standing in a line staring at each other taking turns shouting at the top of their lungs. Other actors came from rooms in the front to see what was happening and a few actually joined in. After a few minutes though everyone in the room just stopped as a single unit, looked at each other and fell about laughing.

We stalked that group through the rest of the house and all the way to their car. It was a good night.

 

[Anarchemitis]

That one time with the noodles.

 

[Good morning blues]

I've had some bizarre customers to deal with. There was the lady who was clearly on speed who would always power-walk her way over to me and talk at me at a mile a minute for ten or fifteen minutes at a time while I worked at the Safeway meat shop; I don't miss her. There was also an old man who showed up just rarely enough that I couldn't recognize him; he got offended when I asked if I could help with anything (which was just policy), apparently thinking I was saying it because he was old. At my current job at a Greek restaurant, we once had some bum come in and demand to sit down with a group of people that didn't know him. There was also a guy who pushed his cart into the employees-only loading bay area when I worked at Costco; he looked around, looked at me, asked, "is this an employees-only area?", and when I told him it was, stared at me for a couple of seconds, said, "Well, maybe you should mark it better...," looked at my nametag, looked back up to me, and finished, "...David."

Fuck people who call retail clerks by the name on their nametag.

Actually, that reminds me of the Asian kid in the produce department at Safeway. His name was Martin, but at night when the day managers were all gone, he would put on his alternative nametag, which read "That Tienanmen Square Guy." He would also give me a nazi salute as I passed and say, "white power." He was, as I have previously stated, Asian.

 

[NeedAUserName]

That one time with the noodles.

Lol gotta love Calvin and Hobbs

 

[Lord Krunk]

At my current job at a Greek restaurant, we once had some bum come in and demand to sit down with a group of people that didn't know him.

That must have had interesting results. What happened in the end?

Actually, that reminds me of the Asian kid in the produce department at Safeway. His name was Martin, but at night when the day managers were all gone, he would put on his alternative nametag, which read "That Tienanmen Square Guy." He would also give me a nazi salute as I passed and say, "white power." He was, as I have previously stated, Asian.

Yeah, over at the local pub, the only Asian worker there dubs himself 'Asian Dave'. He even puts that down on the 'Employees On Staff' noticeboard. Funny thing is, he's one of the most Aussie guys you'll ever meet.

 

[curlycrouton]

This isn't me, this is Peter Kay, but I felt it belongs in this thread.

Robbers with guns: Get down!

Peter Kay: What, you mean dance?

+que recorded laughter+

 

[Jamanticus]

Well....

At a wine tasting I was playing at (just me on the cello), the people tasting the wine invariably got rather intoxicated.

One group of said tipsy people said they'd give me a $20 tip if I could play 'La Cucaracha' for them.

I did.

I got $20 (in addition to the other tips and my fee).

Awesomeness.

That's the first weird thing that popped into my mind, but don't go away- I might think up more.

 

[Good morning blues]

At my current job at a Greek restaurant, we once had some bum come in and demand to sit down with a group of people that didn't know him.

That must have had interesting results. What happened in the end?

Well, he came in with the group; at first I thought he was with them, but they said they didn't know him, so I had him wait in the foyer while I sat them down. I came back and told him he couldn't be sitting with them, and he told me to prepare him a fine feast out of all our finest alcoholic beverages, and then wandered into the bathroom. I went to grab my manager, who waited for about five minutes; the guy didn't come out. Eventually he managed to sneak out without us noticing and sit at the table directly next to the people he'd walked in with; we saw him, the owner waved him over, and convinced him to bugger off. Not a terribly exciting story, but it certainly was an odd occurrence.

 

[Ophiuchus]

I used to work as an admin assistant in the training department at my local NHS place. Lots of training materials for stuff like bowel management, sexual health, diabetic footcare - that's some interesting anatomical models right there, without even mentioning the stuff I had to photocopy on a daily basis...

 

[Beowulf DW]

I work part time at my family's sheet metal fabrication shop. My grandfather and his older brother started the entire business, and many of my cousins and uncles work or worked there. Usually, I have to organize/clean some part of the shop or another, and sometimes the areas I find myself in haven't been even touched since my father worked there in the capacity. Occaisionally, I'll find a item or tool that grandfather probably used. I'll always bring them back to my dad, who will usually show it to one of the older workers, who will then proceed down Memory Lane.

 

[Susan Arendt]

A few years back, when I was laid off and looking for work, I took a job at a shipping store to make ends meet. Fun people, close to home, and the holiday season...I really rather enjoyed it.

Let's just say that folks ship some truly bizarre things. I had to box a fully decorated Christmas tree-- that was challenging, but my co-worker had to pack a particularly unusual work of art for an adult film actress. She'd had a part of her anatomy removed and encased in a lucite block. She was really quite proud of it, too.