Friday OT #1 - Dirty Jobs

[carvers4math]

I walked beans but lifeguarding was dirtier.

As a waitress, you get accustomed to men’s rooms being disgusting. At the pool, it is no contest, the women’s. The men’s you can just hose down with disinfectant, but the women always get the kids. Used diapers, feminine hygiene products, candy, food, etc. all over floors and showers and benches. Revolting.

It’s a good thing you have sunglasses because some of the swimsuits and speedo crap do not cover enough body and you see things you never want to see ever.

Every day, you have to fish at least one **** log out of the pool. Sweeping bottom of the deep end no fun. Pervy guys always saying some crude thing and delusional enough to think they are Clooney.

Then when you have to do CPR, it isn’t The Sandlot, it’s some middle aged guy having a heart attack.

The rest is glorified daycare.

My kids have all had the same job. You can get all the hours you want and it pays more than minimum wage, but it sure isn’t Baywatch.

 

[Gossamer]

i've got three kids and two dogs...being a parent is the weirdest job I've had...I've cleaned up Poocaso's from the crib/wall and been pissed/puked on. Stepped in dog **** in my own home...the list seems to go on and on

 

[BoxsterCy]

Thread earns the Mike Rowe seal of approval.

 

[Entropy]

Dirtiest job I had was the summer I was the assistant Ranger at the local summer camp in WI. Good parts was mowing grass and fixing cabins. The hard part, like many have posted here, was plumbing.

Things that are memorable.
1. Cleaning poop out of a garbage can when the toilet right next to it was perfectly functional.

2. Having to unclog a toilet 3 days after it got clogged. When you have 400+ people at camp, and the number of flush toilets can be counted on one hand (there were lots of pit toilets), it's a recipe for disaster. We had creative names like "code brown" or "Moundezuma" for radio traffic.

3. Shutting down a shower house because there was 6 inches of grey water on the floor (this is why I wear Gore-tex boots). I got to watch the local Roto Rooter guy have the normal 1/2" power snake bog down and have to get the big dog out and then watch it pull out a t-shirt that a kid had flushed down the toilet at some earlier point in the summer.

It really makes me appreciate my current job.

 

[jdcyclone19]

Cleaning out the boot pit of a grain leg.

Another would be cleaning out a bin of soybeans that had spoiled.

The first one was just plain nasty and the most disgusting texture and smell I've ever encountered. The second was disgusting and about killed me.

Both of those smells in each scenario above are putrid. And the smell doesn't come off or go away for atleast a week afterwards. I threw a pair relatively new boots out once, due to rotten soybeans. Once that smell touches something, just do everyone a favor and throw out your clothes and boots.

 

[Al_4_State]

I grew up on a farm, and my brother and I always got stuck doing the terrible **** that my dad and uncle wouldn't make the people who voluntarily worked for us do.

One of the worst jobs was cleaning the scale pit.

They had bought a defunct grain elevator to get the storage and have space to build a new shop. The elevator naturally had a scale that could weigh semis. The scale floated above a pit that was about 4 feet deep. Over the years, that pit filled up with mud, water, spilled grain, whatever. The old man waited until it was the middle of August, when it was 100 degrees out and my brother and I had football 2 a days before making us clean it.

It required one guy to go down the little man hole on top of the scale with a 5 gallon bucket and a couple shovels. You filled the bucket with a scoop shovel, while the guy above ground hoisted it out and dumped the muck into a skid loader bucket.

If you've ever encountered spoiled grain, you can imagine what it would be like to remove it from a confined space in 100 degree heat with no air flow. Throw in the muck, bugs, and the god damned rats that lived down there and it just sucked. Earlier I mentioned that we had to use "shovels". The scoop shovel was for shoveling. The spade was for killing off the god damn rats. A lot of rats died in that scale pit that week.

 

[Cyclonepride]

A work related one: tearing out old dog pee stained carpet and then sanding the wood floors underneath. Nothing like heating that old pee up with a sander while releasing all that pent up smell from the wood.

 

[LindenCy]

After having been a caregiver I can tell you that sometimes those public bathroom incidents are just because of the condition of the person. I always cleaned up after my 'patient' if there was a mess in there. Except once. One guy was pounding on the bathroom door. "What are you doing in there? It's taking too long." I said I was cleaning up a mess. He basically said to leave it, he needed to get in there. So we left. As he walked in I heard, "Oh my god!" We just kept on going.

This is the laugh I needed this morning.

 

[Doc]

I cleaned welding curtains at Vermeer for about two weeks straight. That was dirty.

 

[dosry5]

I walked beans but lifeguarding was dirtier.

As a waitress, you get accustomed to men’s rooms being disgusting. At the pool, it is no contest, the women’s. The men’s you can just hose down with disinfectant, but the women always get the kids. Used diapers, feminine hygiene products, candy, food, etc. all over floors and showers and benches. Revolting.

It’s a good thing you have sunglasses because some of the swimsuits and speedo crap do not cover enough body and you see things you never want to see ever.

Every day, you have to fish at least one **** log out of the pool. Sweeping bottom of the deep end no fun. Pervy guys always saying some crude thing and delusional enough to think they are Clooney.

Then when you have to do CPR, it isn’t The Sandlot, it’s some middle aged guy having a heart attack.

The rest is glorified daycare.

My kids have all had the same job. You can get all the hours you want and it pays more than minimum wage, but it sure isn’t Baywatch.

I found a picture of Carvers4math!

 

[CascadeClone]

Wow, I used to bale the garbage at a small plastics factory, which was gross. But doesn't hold a candle to most of this thread.

 

[Cyclonepride]

Another plumbing story (same house)!

My toilet was backing up, which was a big problem since the house had one bathroom.

I unclogged it a couple times, and then it stopped entirely.

Pulled the toilet and snaked it, which fixed it for a while.

Then it clogged solid.

Turns out that a squirrel had crawled down from the top stack and died, and as he bloated up, stopped it up entirely. I ended up snaking him out piece by piece.

 

[jdcyclone19]

Another plumbing story (same house)!

My toilet was backing up, which was a big problem since the house had one bathroom.

I unclogged it a couple times, and then it stopped entirely.

Pulled the toilet and snaked it, which fixed it for a while.

Then it clogged solid.

Turns out that a squirrel had crawled down from the top stack and died, and as he bloated up, stopped it up entirely. I ended up snaking him out piece by piece.

This is the best thing I've read all day. I probably laughed too hard at this. Thanks!

 

[jcyclonee]

One summer job I had to help pay my way through Iowa State was straightening tombstones. You dig a hole under the low corner, jack up the tombstone until it's level, then pour concrete into the hole.

When you start digging holes in a cemetery, you find out pretty quickly that not all graves were dug six feet deep. I'll leave it at that.

Based upon the old joke, that's so that farmers can still get their handouts.

 

[LindenCy]

Another plumbing story (same house)!

My toilet was backing up, which was a big problem since the house had one bathroom.

I unclogged it a couple times, and then it stopped entirely.

Pulled the toilet and snaked it, which fixed it for a while.

Then it clogged solid.

Turns out that a squirrel had crawled down from the top stack and died, and as he bloated up, stopped it up entirely. I ended up snaking him out piece by piece.

I actually had the same issue when I lived in Ames. Thankfully on the second try they pulled it out by the tail through the basement drain.

 

[J-Diggy]

Spent two summers as a garbage man for the city of West Des Moines. This was before the automated trucks so my job was to ride on the back, hop off and sling the bag/empty the can, and hop back on for 8-10 hours a day.

Worst day was Monday. Did the alleys down in Valley Junction and one of the old dudes down there went fishing alot and threw away the guts after he cleaned them. No bag, just right in the can. As wonderful as you would imagine after a few hot days.

On the bright side we could keep anything we found.

 

[Cyclonepride]

I actually had the same issue when I lived in Ames. Thankfully on the second try they pulled it out by the tail through the basement drain.

My first inkling of the problem was when I came back with a leg and a bit of fur. I'm sure my reaction was priceless. He didn't come out easily. I put a screen over the top vent quickly thereafter.

 

[ImJustKCClone]

My very first job was at a Casey's in Grand Junction. It's remarkable the art that some people can make on the bathroom walls with their own (presumably, anyway - unless they had a pal) feces.

Yup - cleaning the bathroom after closing on bar night...our Taco Time was the only thing open after 11pm.
Most creative I ever saw was people (MEN) taping a paper towel high up on the wall. They then tried to see who could shoot the highest. Most initialed their "scores", but some were drunk enough to sign the damn thing.

 

[jcyclonee]

I walked beans but lifeguarding was dirtier.

As a waitress, you get accustomed to men’s rooms being disgusting. At the pool, it is no contest, the women’s. The men’s you can just hose down with disinfectant, but the women always get the kids. Used diapers, feminine hygiene products, candy, food, etc. all over floors and showers and benches. Revolting.

It’s a good thing you have sunglasses because some of the swimsuits and speedo crap do not cover enough body and you see things you never want to see ever.

Every day, you have to fish at least one **** log out of the pool. Sweeping bottom of the deep end no fun. Pervy guys always saying some crude thing and delusional enough to think they are Clooney.

Then when you have to do CPR, it isn’t The Sandlot, it’s some middle aged guy having a heart attack.

The rest is glorified daycare.

My kids have all had the same job. You can get all the hours you want and it pays more than minimum wage, but it sure isn’t Baywatch.

I'll fix this one - Then when you have to do CPR, it isn’t The Sandlot, it’s some pervy middle aged guy faking a heart attack.

Pervy guys always saying some crude thing and delusional enough to think they are Clooney - Don't forget, Clooney got his big break as a janitor at a girls boarding school on The Facts of Life. Is there a job that can be more generalized as being pervy than that?

 

[cyclones500]

I have not one, but two friends who have had to inseminate mice as part of their job

Imagine getting paid to do that. Most of us can only do it as a hobby!