your best and worst job

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Originally Posted by Modelboard4

thanks for the reply to the post, but what bad ideas? like what kind? It wasn't investing in a electronics cd based media system by Phillips around 1993

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The place I worked at took used car parts and refurbished them to sell to dealerships and autobody shops. The CEO or Boss or what have you ordered a shipment for one million dollars of these parts from somewhere in Southeast Asia that was so damaged it couldn't be refurbished. Instead of not ordering more from this seller, he went and ordered another five hundred thousand to a million dollars worth because he wanted to "stick to the plan".

Apparently this sort of thing happened a lot more, but I do not know how much more.

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Originally Posted by 16-bit

The place I worked at took used car parts and refurbished them to sell to dealerships and autobody shops. The CEO or Boss or what have you ordered a shipment for one million dollars of these parts from somewhere in Southeast Asia that was so damaged it couldn't be refurbished. Instead of not ordering more from this seller, he went and ordered another five hundred thousand to a million dollars worth because he wanted to "stick to the plan".

Apparently this sort of thing happened a lot more, but I do not know how much more.

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sounds like something a small 2nd hand car dealer would do, wouldn't have thought Asian parts were kosher as they say in London, meaning legal, imagine being there when he discovered the parts were too damaged, sounds like something from a comedy show thanks for replying

Best Job: Working at Sears' electronics department. It was close to home, people were pretty great, and I got to play Pro Skater 2 all day. Shrink was a major problem at our store, and I noticed the head of security moving product into her car quite a bit. I phoned in an anonymous tip to the posted company hotline reporting the potential issue, and the next day I was called into a meeting and terminated for using a day old coupon (something we were encouraged to accept if it meant capturing a sale).

Worst Job: Working as an office manager/accountant at a company ran by an abusive bi-polar schizophrenic. Pay was fine and I enjoyed the work, but he made life miserable for everyone, just sitting in his office smoking and watching porn all day, and the parent company never did a thing about him since we were off-site and they didn't want to deal with him. Eventually, they sold the company, making my four years there feel like a waste.

I'm not a fortunate person.

Worst job: My last one comes to mind. I had applied for the position because the job offer asked for a guy capable of creating technical documentation and implementing measures making hardware more accessible for new customers. The first warning signs went off when I started and realized that the existing documentation was in shambles and hopelessly outdated; my predecessor had left more than three months prior to me joining the company, and no one in the department had any idea what exactly he had been doing – in fact, they had no idea about technology at all (using a Word processor proved a challenge for most of my colleagues time and again). Turns out the department head had claimed the responsibility for technical documentation for her department without realizing or even understanding what this job entailed; this had been part of an inter-company power play where several department heads where fighting for power or acknowledgement, and my boss – sympathetic as she may have been as a private person – had an unfortunate tendency of doing things for the sake of doing them, because in her mind, more work for her department meant more acknowledgement. So she took on projects without understanding them, or without even knowing whether we were able to realize them, what kind of ressources where necessary or who the right contractors or other departments were for realizing them. Heck, three months passed and I didn’t even have the software necessary doing what I was hired to do – I didn’t even have my own PC (just a loaner 14’’ notebook) and had to use a TV if I wanted to have a halfway decent screen. And whenever I actually did do some technical documentation I usually had neither access to specs nor access to legal or licensing information – and was actually told off, because In my boss’ Ieyes our department should have nothing to do with anything potentially dealing with legal implications (obviously she didn’t understand what Technical Documentation was all about)..
Instead, I mostly created powerpoint presentations, because the managers loved powerpoint presentations. They also loved projects, but after one or two months I realized that most projects where critically overdue or close to failing. It seemed like nobody wanted to take on responsibility – in fact, I learned from one department head that some projects where intentionally created with ridiculously short deadlines because they wanted a certain other department to fail. Almost every project basically turned into a company-wide game of Old Maid – try to get the most credit while at the same time dodging responsibility while trying to pass the blame (or workload) whenever possible. At one point, when I got an email from another department (from someone I actually got along with pretty well) that told me that no, at this point they needed no input from our department, my boss told me to “save the Email, print it out, and archive it, so we have ammo against them when we need it”.
In the few months I was there, I could maybe dedicate 10% of my actual worktime towards things I was actually hired to do. Most of my time there I was more or less ordered to try passing on work to other departments, create presentations on the status of proposed projects (our department had no business dealing with), and update project lists in such a way that it looked like we made great progress when, in fact, virtually nothing had happened.
Basically I had two options: Lay back and totally, utterly, completely half-ass my job, savor the fact that the department desperately needed anyone with even the slightest technical understanding, sucking up to my superiors while trying to dodge work whenever possible – or do something I could be actually proud of. So I decided to quit.

Best Job: Being an editor for a computer magazine. I was part of a small, but very dedicated team I got wonderfully along with, and I’m still friends with most of them (even though I and some others have by now left the company). I dealt with a big range of interesting topics, and for a while, being a video games correspondent was officially part of my job description. I had lots of responsibility (heading several projects), but at the same time also quite some liberty when it came down to decision-making. Unfortunately things turned sour after a change in management; the company was downsized in two separate waves, which hit our department both times even though we were running a profit at the time (and I’ve heard through the grapevine that a third wave is looming on the horizon). Simultaneously the overhead, that is the number of managers and directors within the company, has increased. Many great people were laid off, and as a result, many others quit (either out of protest or due to a decline in work conditions). I’ve recently visited my former colleagues and was shocked and pained to find that the work conditions there continue to deteriorate. It seems to me that the course the new management has set is about to run the company into the ground (and rumor has it that may even be on purpose…)

Best:
Movie theater

Worst:
McDonald's

Best - Locomotive engineer

Worst - Tech support and sales at a call center.

Anyone that has a job dealing directly with the public doesn't get paid nearly enough.

Best- Any job i've had in Special Education.

Worst- Kitchen at Applebee's. I lasted a day.

My current job is kind of love/hate...

I'm a paperboy which is a very nice occupation on the countryside (where I live so it takes me five minutes to get to my office). I'm all by myself, out in the middle of nowhere and there's nothing but forest out here. That's my cup of tea. Salaries are also very decent considering the relatively small amount of hours I put on it. If I could get another part time job on the daytime I'd be able to move out immediately.

Only issue is that for the past nine months we've started distributing mail in the meantime, which is tedious as hell if you've got a big track and twelve boxes of mail. Then add all 400 newspapers at the same time. I've done all tracks and some are certainly completely tolerable any day while others are pretty much always impossible to finish in time.

Worst job - I worked in sales at a place that sold used sports cars. I don't know how car salesmen remain sane, someone please tell me. For every 1 customer that actually bought something, I had to deal with at least 10 that would enthusiastically say: "wow, I really want that car". Only to then (after a test drive and a conversation about how much it costs) say something like: "But I don't have any money right now, sorry, I can't buy it". BTW, if you're the type of person that likes to mess with car salesmen, please kill yourself.

Best job - The one I do now, I don't have to deal with customers directly, I have a great team, and work very close to my house.

Car salesmen are trash though.

They seem to always be from some war-torn country. There was a time when luxury brands in good locations were exempt from this rule, but it's all gone to hell recently.

To any car salesmen out there, if you don't lie for a week on the job I will personally deliver my ego on a platter.

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Originally Posted by Blades

Car salesmen are trash though.

They seem to always be from some war-torn country. There was a time when luxury brands in good locations were exempt from this rule, but it's all gone to hell recently.

To any car salesmen out there, if you don't lie for a week on the job I will personally deliver my ego on a platter.

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I can't say I've ever experienced that. Honestly, the only time I lied in that job was if I was asked "have you had much interest in this car?" I was hardly going to say that its been in the yard for 6 months with no one looking at it. If you've been ripped off by a car dealership, you may have a good case to go to court against the dealer. I only worked in sales for 1 year, but I can't see any reason for you to generalise an entire group of workers. There's assholes and idiots in just about every line of work, just like there's great people in almost every job.

Best: My current job.

Worst: No job.

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Originally Posted by Mad Moham

I can't say I've ever experienced that. Honestly, the only time I lied in that job was if I was asked "have you had much interest in this car?" I was hardly going to say that its been in the yard for 6 months with no one looking at it. If you've been ripped off by a car dealership, you may have a good case to go to court against the dealer. I only worked in sales for 1 year, but I can't see any reason for you to generalise an entire group of workers. There's assholes and idiots in just about every line of work, just like there's great people in almost every job.

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Really? Never? You've never bumped someone up to a fully loaded new car to make more of a profit margin? You've never said "there are no oil leaks...that I know of."

My deals have always been good because I always buy new and never compromise. The salesman knows they can make a sale if they swallow their ego, and I'm not too much of a cheapskate either.

However, some of my friends have asked me questions about their purchases and I've been appalled by the lies they've been told, especially by used car salespeople. Often outright lies that the brochure contradicts about the car's features, mileage, etc. As a classic car hobbyist, I know my way around an engine bay, and I've seen some awful mechanical conditions sold for premium prices, solely because the customer didn't know enough to check. These salesmen are opportunists, albeit perhaps not by lack of morals but the realities of their work.

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Originally Posted by Blades

Really? Never? You've never bumped someone up to a fully loaded new car to make more of a profit margin? You've never said "there are no oil leaks...that I know of."

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I never lied about the condition of any car I sold.

You clearly have an issue with car dealerships that I cannot resolve for you. If you really have been ripped off by a car dealer, then you should seek legal advice.

Like I said, I've never had any problems.

If you truly never have, I doff my hat to you and realize that there are exceptions.