My worst job was a seasonal position, at a plant nursery. The job involved picking seedlings out of trays, and putting them into small pots. You had to stand in one position to do this, for four hours with no break. It was really tedious. I lasted one day!
New to Tattle Life? Click "Order Thread by Most Liked Posts" button below to get an idea of what the site is about:
Temp jobs were the worst, simply because you were basically ignored all the time, just part of the furniture. One job I had involved a huge pile of invoices and shelves of ring binders to file them in, all day long, painfully boring, and no one to talk to.
I had just moved to the other end of the country with my husband who had got a new job, I didn't know a soul and I couldn't find a job that was equivalent to what I had been doing so was bored and miserable at home. I'd always has a notion about becoming a nurse so thought this might well be the time to actually get some experience and go for it. Phoned round lots of nursing homes for care assistant posts and managed to get a job at one really close to me. It was awful. The manager made a big thing to all the staff about how I was wanting experience to go into nursing so people who had been care assistants for years hated me as they thought I was stuck up, they would pretend they couldn't make out what I was saying as I'm Scottish (in a place where they had about 20 different nationalities working!) and wouldn't show me how to do anything, I got given all the tit shifts over the weekends so I was still bored and miserable at home then my husband would be off and I was working the whole time. The absolute worst thing though was the smell of wee 
I lasted a month and unsurprisingly didn't go into nursing!
I lasted a month and unsurprisingly didn't go into nursing!Being asked to clean the public toilets including men’s aged aged 15 at the garden centre I used to work at, I was a hard worker and did a great job, so I think the rest of the older staff realised their luck was in when I took the job seriously they kept saving that task for me. That was on £2.50 an hour as well! 
I did have some great times there though (doing the other jobs) and the lovely owner once brought me Chanel pure parfum and I got Piper Heidsieck for my 18th.
I did have some great times there though (doing the other jobs) and the lovely owner once brought me Chanel pure parfum and I got Piper Heidsieck for my 18th.My current job....I've just reached the end of the road. Been applying for other things not in the same work environment but covid obviously makes it harder. I used to like it, it just changed with bad management, staff and people. Each time I go I think I'm closer to just quitting on the spot. I spend my entire time filled with anger and hate its the only bane of my life
I did one shift as a pole dancer when I was 19, genuinely one of the worst experiences of my life. The club chose my stage name and it was 'Chardonnay-Porsha'. Jesus wept I left after an hour. 
I thought it would have been the years of outbound debt collection I did whilst at Uni.
Until I got a job doing mortgage repossessions for a sub-prime lender. A few years after the financial crash. So, you can imagine how grim it was to speak to people who have provided all their medical histories by letter so you know they are genuine. And still have to inform them of the next steps following court. Cancer sufferers and people bereaved from suicide etc.
absolutely heart breaking and soul destroying. I always remind myself of those days whenever I think I’m having a tough shift.
Until I got a job doing mortgage repossessions for a sub-prime lender. A few years after the financial crash. So, you can imagine how grim it was to speak to people who have provided all their medical histories by letter so you know they are genuine. And still have to inform them of the next steps following court. Cancer sufferers and people bereaved from suicide etc.
absolutely heart breaking and soul destroying. I always remind myself of those days whenever I think I’m having a tough shift.
Trainee hairdresser. It was via an apprenticeship, rather than a "placement" via college etc, and I was a grown adult age 21 at the time. So I was an adult in a full time job and being paid. Yet I was still treated exactly the same as you'd imagine a teenager would be. I learned sod all while I was there, I did a whole year and I still haven't got a clue how to do a basic haircut. All I did was shampoo ALL day to the point where I had awful dermatitis on my hands from never having dry hands 10 hours a day. And if I wasn't shampooing, I was cleaning.
One day, the salon boss stopped me trying to practise on a doll head, handed me a spray bottle of Flash and a toothbrush and asked me to scrub the grout of the floor tiles. I went out for my lunch break and never went back!
One day, the salon boss stopped me trying to practise on a doll head, handed me a spray bottle of Flash and a toothbrush and asked me to scrub the grout of the floor tiles. I went out for my lunch break and never went back!
Debenhams - awful place to work. I think I would probably say that for any retail actually. Boring. ‘Look busy’. Which usually entailed folding clothes that were already folded. Told I needed to work a Thursday eve if I was contracted to work on a Saturday? Urgh, no? I am contracted to work a Saturday. Being set up by security for not checking peoples items going into the changing room and being made an example of. Someone complained as I gave the wrong discount and I got pulled into HR. I was only 16. It still enrages me now. My parents always instilled a good work ethic in me so I stuck it out until they got rid of me as I was Christmas staff but they kept me on until the March after. I remember being so happy.
Personal injury Call centre. Bizarre place to work. You get a day off if you managed to get a claim. A ‘duvet day’.I had people threatening me over the phone and to find me and my family. I was eventually sacked for not getting a claim foe like a week. I can’t force people to have a PI claim? Very strange.
professionally, I won’t mention what company as that won’t help anyone but I worked in a well known company in head office. Sexism, corruption, intimidation, bullying. Just a generally ducked up place. Affected my mental health massively that I ended up leaving my profession for 2 years. I’m now back in it &back to loving my job but I wish I had spoken out more when I was there. In fact, I wish I had the guts to have walked out when the first instance of the above happened, but I never had the balls. I didn’t do myself any favours by stating there for 2 years.
Personal injury Call centre. Bizarre place to work. You get a day off if you managed to get a claim. A ‘duvet day’.I had people threatening me over the phone and to find me and my family. I was eventually sacked for not getting a claim foe like a week. I can’t force people to have a PI claim? Very strange.
professionally, I won’t mention what company as that won’t help anyone but I worked in a well known company in head office. Sexism, corruption, intimidation, bullying. Just a generally ducked up place. Affected my mental health massively that I ended up leaving my profession for 2 years. I’m now back in it &back to loving my job but I wish I had spoken out more when I was there. In fact, I wish I had the guts to have walked out when the first instance of the above happened, but I never had the balls. I didn’t do myself any favours by stating there for 2 years.
A similar thing happened to me when I was 16. I worked in a supermarket on the checkouts and the pod with the money in had got lost in the tubing system that took it to the cash office.
They hauled me up the offices and conducted a proper investigation even though they KNEW it was in the system and would turn up. Luckily my mum worked there and was with me. But I was timid and chronically shy. An easy victim. I was so upset at the time to be accused of theft. Ive always been an ultra goody two shoes! Now I’m angry they would pick on a teenage girl to get their kicks. It’s so awful they set you up and then publicly reprimanded you when they knew there was nothing you could do about it!
I was 17 and my first job was at Next in the children’s department. The staff were snobby and looked down on me, made me feel very uncomfortable. Expected me to know what I was doing without training and for one day I had to spend the entire shift stood at the door handing out baskets to customers 
I lasted a month, just didn’t turn up for my next shift, they called me several times but I never answered 
I lasted a month, just didn’t turn up for my next shift, they called me several times but I never answered Exactly! But a massive learning experience for 16 year old me. I definitely learnt that retail was not for me!
I worked for a company doing market research, cold calling people asking them to do surveys when I was at uni. Hated it. The pay was based on how many surveys we did, sometimes I would be earning about £9 an hour, other times it would be min wage. Thankfully the shifts weren’t very long and on the days when I did a few longer shifts it was data entry from paper surveys rather than making phone calls, which was boring but a hell of a lot better than cold calling!
I have a similar story. I worked as a junior very briefly when I was a teenager and a lot of the hairdressers were really witchy and used to spend their breaks in the kitchen snorting coke. There was another junior who they used to spend all day taking the mickey out of.
I was asked to clean the toilet. Not a problem, seemed a reasonable request as a junior. Only when I'd done it one of them shoved the toilet brush into my hands and told me to do it again as it wasn't good enough. It had been very clean before I cleaned it, so there was nothing more that needed doing. She was just on a power trip. It was a really horrible environment to work in so I walked out the fire exit at the back of the salon one day and never returned.
Can confirm they do sadly
I worked as a hotel receptionist when I was about 18 and in between jobs and it was horrendous. Zero training and minimum wage but expected ‘perfection’. My manager was a sleazy, balding middle aged man who would constantly make sexual innuendos. The head waitress had a face like a slapped a and would throw the new menu at me every day and bark at me to type it up. And the GUESTS omg the guests! Absolutely rude and stupid. There was also an elderly couple who called down saying there was a problem with their room. I went up to be faced with them in robes and a bath that wouldn’t drain and they very upset that I, a receptionist, couldn’t fix it there and then?! The man asked could I not just try. No I bleeping couldn’t! Nowhere in my contract did it state I had to root around in someone’s dirty bath water! I lasted 3 weeks.
When I worked at Debenhams, they would constantly change the rota at the last minute without telling people, so some shifts would be understaffed (more than usual) as people didn't know they were meant to be in that day. In my first or second week there, I agreed to do a night shift just to see what it was like, they then tried putting me down for all the nights without asking. You'd also get lazy staff members who'd always make excuses to avoid going on the tills when it was busy.
Worked in Primark during the Christmas period whilst at uni, the management was horrid there.
Worked in Primark during the Christmas period whilst at uni, the management was horrid there.
This actually sounds like my ideal job, boring but very little room for error
I’d probably hate it in practice.My supermarket checkout job. My manager was just useless, couldn’t do a rota without bleeping it up and having to change peoples shifts (always without warning). I would get phone calls on my day off asking where I was as the rota had been changed without my knowledge. I was meant to be part time, but was working 40+ hours a week. I couldn’t plan anything outside of work because I didn’t know what my shifts would be. They would pull me up on stupid tit all the time like not smiling constantly (probably because I was so demoralised!) and I ended up in tears in a disciplinary meeting over it where they came down ridiculously hard on me. The final straw came when after I had my first child, they couldn’t guarantee me the same hours every week which made arranging childcare a night mare. It pissed me off because someone else who was pregnant at the same time as me got preferential treatment and was allowed to work part time as per her contract as well as having regular hours. So I took my mat leave as early as I could, took the smp, then handed in my notice once that had dried up and never returned. duck those bleeps.
Last edited:
Boots. If you asked me what my dream first job was at 13 this was it. Nailed the interview, first day... oh are you here for work experience? Rude! The woman who hired me went on holiday for two weeks didn’t she so nobody had a clue what to do with me. I just did what the staff told me to do and the next day the manager said I wasn’t doing what I was meant to be doing? Nobody told me you silly bint when I asked yesterday! I had to stand on the NYX counter which was new back then and I had no clue what I was doing. The women that work there are like a cult, if you’re not 50+ they basically hate you. My nan came in on my second day at lunch time and said “shall we just go?” I came home both days crying so she took me over the road to the M&S cafe for lunch and the next day I rang to say I wasn’t coming back because I passed away 