djslater Posted April 27, 2014 Report Share Posted April 27, 2014 I know there is a wealth of knowledge/experience here...and I know we've all seen some stuff. The question is, what is the toughest/worst/grossest/hardest job or project you've encountered? The hardest I've ever worked was one spring/summer I worked for a guy who did foundations. I carried forms all day long....8' x 4' steel/wood forms, soaked with water, and coated in some kind of grease to let the concrete break away from the form when removing them....that was the hardest I've ever worked. I used to work for the County Highway Department, and had to pick up dead animals...we had a composting pile that needed to be maintained....STANK!!!! OMG!!! I just recently had to clean out my Koi pond at my house for the first time. This is my first Spring in the house...so, this will be yearly maintenance....the short story is I should have been on Dirty Jobs...and I fell a couple of times in the slimey, algae covered pond liner...stunk like a swamp...but got the job done. Again, the question is, what is the toughest/worst/grossest/hardest job or project you've encountered? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DR99 Posted April 27, 2014 Report Share Posted April 27, 2014 Nothing that crazy or dirty I helped a friend clean up a flooded out house it sucked but it wasn't insanely dirty. Just normal demo for the most part except some of it was really wet. He only got about 8 inches on water in his house so it wasn't too bad but enough to to require a ton of work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brien Posted April 27, 2014 Report Share Posted April 27, 2014 I was an on call firefighter/emt for five years. At 5'-7" and 150lbs I was voluntold for a lot of confined spaces, sewers, attics and things of that nature. I had to pull out a lot of... things... my size or larger that stunk and we're slippery and gross. It was a rough five years but I am a better man for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedSionnach Posted April 27, 2014 Report Share Posted April 27, 2014 When I was a kid my first job was on a neighbors ranch. Out of all the shit shoveling, cleaning stock trailers was the grossest. If any of you live near a dairy farm or stockyard then concentrate that odor.Most physically tough was logging. Running the yarder on downhill skidding was the most stressful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Javier Posted April 27, 2014 Report Share Posted April 27, 2014 Not the job itself but the client. This guy and everyone in the household got under my skin and because money talks you have to deal with it but I swear if I had worked another day I would have made the news. This guy always had some stupid comment and every conversation just went south. Then was all the extra stuff I did that wasn't in the agreement he expected free. I installed flooring but he decided to save some money and prep the floors for me to just lay the flooring and there was just a bunch of nails on the walls here and there. It wasn't that much but enough to be annoying, that and they left a good amount of trim on the wall. When I confronted the guy over the phone about it he was all furious at me and said he was going to storm home to do it so to please the customer I did it for him. One work day it rained and he left a bag of thinset out and he told his buddy that they should deduct it from my pay, they were just joking but I wasn't in the mood, I told him I've done so many freebies it would make up for it, not that the ruined bag of thinset was my fault then he replies "nothing is free in life" I almost lost it. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DR99 Posted April 27, 2014 Report Share Posted April 27, 2014 Yea Javier that guy was a super Douch bag. One thing in life is you should never work with a person that will nickel and dime your work its just not worth the hassle. The only problem is it sucks that you might have to turn down a job if its been slow that's really hard to justify. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Javier Posted April 27, 2014 Report Share Posted April 27, 2014 I would have walked away but I had several days worth of work and hadn't been paid a cent yet so I really would have lost out. If could do it over again I wouldn't. I'm an easy going guy and positive overall but I don't think I ever hated coming in to work the next day like that job. I was putting in laminate in that job and in some places the floor was seriously uneven so I had the guy have his people patch up the uneven spots but the guy that did it didn't take his time and left plenty of bumps and bulges. He used thinset for the patch and I told him the crappy work wasn't going to cut it. He got his guy to sand it down a bit, it was still moist but like all slackers thought his work was supreme after a couple of minutes of sanding. The floor was still that badly uneven and had I laid the laminate down it would have cracked for sure eventually and guess who would be to blame, me ofcourse so I took it upon my self to sand down the bumps and make it even. I argued with them a bit before I did it myself as it was a losing battle. They thought the flexy nature of the laminate would compensate for the uneven floor but even after the guy patched it it was still bad only because he did a poor job. I almost felt like laying the floor down and punish them for their own stupidity but in the end it would come back to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisK Posted April 27, 2014 Report Share Posted April 27, 2014 I have a business friend who works as a mortician. Now let me tell....I've helped him out a couple of times.....that is NOT an easy job! Physically and mentally and gastronomically tough! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djslater Posted April 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 27, 2014 As a DJ, I can appreciate people trying to nickel/dime scenario....never fun....like DR said....very rarely worth it unless there is no other option, which sometimes you have to pay rent!!!Chris....yikes!!!! I hope he paid well, and that is one job I've always questioned...but, that's life... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TylerDama Posted April 28, 2014 Report Share Posted April 28, 2014 When I was 14 I got my first job as a blueberry rake-er, the humid Maine weather made it a sweat fest! when I took set my socks off half an hour later they were stiff due to all the perspiration that collected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TylerDama Posted April 28, 2014 Report Share Posted April 28, 2014 Not the job itself but the client. This guy and everyone in the household got under my skin and because money talks you have to deal with it but I swear if I had worked another day I would have made the news. This guy always had some stupid comment and every conversation just went south. Then was all the extra stuff I did that wasn't in the agreement he expected free. I installed flooring but he decided to save some money and prep the floors for me to just lay the flooring and there was just a bunch of nails on the walls here and there. It wasn't that much but enough to be annoying, that and they left a good amount of trim on the wall. When I confronted the guy over the phone about it he was all furious at me and said he was going to storm home to do it so to please the customer I did it for him. One work day it rained and he left a bag of thinset out and he told his buddy that they should deduct it from my pay, they were just joking but I wasn't in the mood, I told him I've done so many freebies it would make up for it, not that the ruined bag of thinset was my fault then he replies "nothing is free in life" I almost lost it.Working with difficult people is worse then physical labor because you have to calm and collective...I recently quit my second job at Home Depot because I was so sick of working with the new difficult managers. So I feel for you Javier! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conductor562 Posted April 28, 2014 Report Share Posted April 28, 2014 My first job in the laborer's Union was pretty shitty. I was helping on a Safeway scaffold build way up in a power generating unit and being a kid and brand new, my job was to fetch components. Lots of 16' scaffold boards. They loved me. I got the list right every time, was slow enough to keep work at a casual pace, but fast enough to keep the Foreman off everyone's ass. Then the elevator went out. I'm 6' 165 lbs....now. Back then I was around 140, neither if which make me a big hulk of a guy. Fucking sucked man. Dragging those big bastards up 150-200' worth of stairs was a killer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KRK Posted May 4, 2014 Report Share Posted May 4, 2014 Probably the toughest job I've ever had is being married. Unlike some folks who just walk away, I actually want to work at it and not be a quitter. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisK Posted May 4, 2014 Report Share Posted May 4, 2014 When I was 14 I got my first job as a blueberry rake-er, the humid Maine weather made it a sweat fest! when I took set my socks off half an hour later they were stiff due to all the perspiration that collected.Tyler, where in Maine did you love? I'm from Southern Maine amongst other States. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordan.M Posted May 10, 2014 Report Share Posted May 10, 2014 I have only been in the electrical trade for about a year now, I'm currently doing a job in DC about 2 hours south from my shop and 3 hours from my house. Its in downtown DC and we are running 1" 2" and 2.5" Rigid conduits up 8 stories through a shaft, across a roof, and down the side of the building 50 feet, then over to another attached building across it, up 25 feet on another building and to a shelter we built for the cell site. We have to repel down on the buildings or use a swing stage scaffold. Now, to make things even better, its on 3 different properties, all of which have pending lawsuits against each other. We also have to carry up all pipe because the day the crane came for materials the pipe was not delivered, and the elevators are too small for the pipe. So each day we start out making a couple trips carrying hundreds of pounds each of rigid pipe up 8 flights. Not very fun. When its raining you can imagine what we do all day (25 trips up those damn stair sets.) Each one of those pipes is 55 pounds and 10 feet long btw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TylerDama Posted May 11, 2014 Report Share Posted May 11, 2014 Tyler, where in Maine did you love? I'm from Southern Maine amongst other States. I was in the Bangor area so not too far, how far south were you? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisK Posted May 11, 2014 Report Share Posted May 11, 2014 I'm in Rochester NH now which borders Lebanon and Berwick Maine. Wells is about twenty five minutes from my house and Portland is an hour from my house. I love Bangor and Maine in general but when I retire in five I probably won't move there, the taxes are horrendous. I pay out the nose for land tax in NH but Maine has many more taxes including income tax (which they will hit my pension on, sales and county and....) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tascher1 Posted October 8, 2014 Report Share Posted October 8, 2014 I work at an institution for troubled youth. This one particular day this young lady decided to bite the inside of her mouth so badly that she started to bleed profusely. She then continued to spit the blood from her mouth all over the walls and floor! It looked like someone had been brutally murdered. Non of the other staff was willing to tackle the clean up job so........boom I volunteered. Definitely the grossest thing I have seen. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigmikez Posted October 8, 2014 Report Share Posted October 8, 2014 My hardest job was roofing did that for about 2yrs and then got a job working custodial at a hospital now that job was crazy I worked in Emergency room the craziest place and it was sad man I would c people come in and have a conversation with them while I would be sweeping/mopping lobby and then hear a code blue and 2hrs later I would be helping security who were always short staffed take these peoples body that iwas just talking to earlier in the day down to the morgue... It took me awhile before I got used to that.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
claudio Posted October 8, 2014 Report Share Posted October 8, 2014 Maybe the worst job was 2 years ago for a nautical company in need of concrete blocks (160 blocks,1 block 20 ton)for build "the giant iron thing" who lift the "costa concordia" Here in Italy.whith American safety watcher always asking us to wear safety clothes (anti cut anti fire anti everything...),helmet(with nothing upstairs us),gloves,eye protection and all with 43 degrees.every day not less of 3 blocks or everything go to shit...a bad summer for me and my 4 buddy but we did it... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madman_us Posted October 9, 2014 Report Share Posted October 9, 2014 some crazy stories in here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigmikez Posted October 9, 2014 Report Share Posted October 9, 2014 yea some very crazy stories.....plus working with douch bag people sucks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DR99 Posted October 9, 2014 Report Share Posted October 9, 2014 I work at an institution for troubled youth. This one particular day this young lady decided to bite the inside of her mouth so badly that she started to bleed profusely. She then continued to spit the blood from her mouth all over the walls and floor! It looked like someone had been brutally murdered. Non of the other staff was willing to tackle the clean up job so........boom I volunteered. Definitely the grossest thing I have seen. I would have noped out like the rest of those people. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DR99 Posted October 9, 2014 Report Share Posted October 9, 2014 Maybe the worst job was 2 years ago for a nautical company in need of concrete blocks (160 blocks,1 block 20 ton)for build "the giant iron thing" who lift the "costa concordia" Here in Italy.whith American safety watcher always asking us to wear safety clothes (anti cut anti fire anti everything...),helmet(with nothing upstairs us),gloves,eye protection and all with 43 degrees.every day not less of 3 blocks or everything go to shit...a bad summer for me and my 4 buddy but we did it...Between OSHA and Lawsuits big American contractors go overboard with the safety regulations. It's pretty crazy you worked on that huge Costa Concordia project. When I saw them raise the ship is was pretty crazy to see. It makes me sick how much money was wasted though on that whole deal. Just because the Captain wanted to show off. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
claudio Posted October 10, 2014 Report Share Posted October 10, 2014 Our 2000(more or less)tons of concrete blocks all together seems big like a shit of a dog near the nasty big iron thing built on it by the holy(love them...)iron workers!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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