Well, I guess I've been lucky. Done a wide range of jobs in different industries, met a lot of different types of people with different motivations and vastly differing work cultures.
The most boring job I ever did was a summer working for an electronics manufacturer - they made capacitors. This was back in the '70s and mostly they made large capacitors, like metal foil wrapped in greaseproof paper and stuffed into metal cans. But I was taken on for one summer working in the miniature capacitor room. We were told the company made miniature capacitors which went into the space program and allegedly some of the products had gone to the moon. Little metal canisters, ranged in size from about 10 mm long x 2.5 wide to the biggies, about 30mm x 8. Inside was a core of oxidised tantalum with a wire at each end. Put the tantalum inside the canister, fit an end over and solder in place. To make the solder take, the two wires were tinned - pick up the lump of tantalum, dip one wire into a cleaning solution, then into flux, then into a pot of molten lead solder, nearly up to but not touching the tantalum, then turn the thing around and repeat for the other wire. Room full of about a dozen women, I was the only male, so usually they made me do tinning the wires 'coz it was hot and uncomfortable sitting over that hot solder pot. One day, I believe we reached 6,000. That's just under five seconds per unit to tin both wires, assuming you never stopped for a pee break or a tea break.
Only job I really disliked at the time was kitchen porter at a well-known 5-star hotel in St Andrews. I've done a few KP jobs but this was easily the worst because it seemed everybody there hated the place, the job, each other. The hotel had a ground floor kitchen, next to the breakfast restaurant, and a top floor kitchen next to the dinner restaurant. You started at 7am with breakfast service in full swing, piles of dirty dishes already heaped up, piles of greasy cooking trays. The young trainee chefs who prepared breakfast hated their job, had often been out drinking the night before and came in still drunk - must have slept in the afternoon before going out to get drunk again. Everyday, a waitress would come in to ask for more fried eggs or whatever. So a chef would yell 'Oh, fuck off!' A minute later the senior waitress would come in and yell at the chefs, not to yell at her staff, and we still need more fried eggs. 'Oh, you fuck off an' all!'
You never caught up on the dishes, trays, pots & pans. But at a point mid morning, the intercomm would buzz from the top floor kitchen.' You better get up here - the bins are full.' This meant the black bin bags have burst and there's disgusting waste food all over the floor - they never told you the bins were full before they burst. Up in the lift, clear up the mess, assess the heaps of dirty dishes left over from the previous night, the growing pile of pots and pans as they did prep for the evening service. Then get back down stairs to finish clearing up the mess from breakfast, clean the work tops, mop the floor, then get back upstairs. There were 3 KPs and to cover morning and evening shifts meant there was only ever one of us on a shift. There was briefly two at lunchtime when the evening guy came in. The KP who had been there longest said the hotel was supposed to have 8 KPs so there could be three per shift. But with just one, you were fire-fighting just rushing around emptying bins, loading the dishwashers, washing greasy pots by hand, mopping floors, taking sacks of food waste out to the pig-swill hoppers.
The evening shift had an even higher tempo, eight or nine chefs running around, shouting orders, shouting for pots and pans, shouting for the floor to be mopped where a pan had been knocked over, dirty dishes coming in from the restaurant, you dealt with as many as possible because you knew what the mornings were like - the only consolation was, towards the end of an evening shift, about midnight usually, if the head chef was on duty, he would send for a pint of beer for the KP. You were so thirsty, it went down in one.
The waiting staff, neat and tidy, customer facing, looked down on and despised the uncouth, dirty, sweaty kitchen staff. The kitchen staff looked down on and despised the housekeeping staff. The receptionists looked down on and despised anybody who had to do anything more energetic than answering a phone, taking a booking or talking to the guests. And everybody looked down on and despised the KPs.
The most boring job I ever did was a summer working for an electronics manufacturer - they made capacitors. This was back in the '70s and mostly they made large capacitors, like metal foil wrapped in greaseproof paper and stuffed into metal cans. But I was taken on for one summer working in the miniature capacitor room. We were told the company made miniature capacitors which went into the space program and allegedly some of the products had gone to the moon. Little metal canisters, ranged in size from about 10 mm long x 2.5 wide to the biggies, about 30mm x 8. Inside was a core of oxidised tantalum with a wire at each end. Put the tantalum inside the canister, fit an end over and solder in place. To make the solder take, the two wires were tinned - pick up the lump of tantalum, dip one wire into a cleaning solution, then into flux, then into a pot of molten lead solder, nearly up to but not touching the tantalum, then turn the thing around and repeat for the other wire. Room full of about a dozen women, I was the only male, so usually they made me do tinning the wires 'coz it was hot and uncomfortable sitting over that hot solder pot. One day, I believe we reached 6,000. That's just under five seconds per unit to tin both wires, assuming you never stopped for a pee break or a tea break.
Only job I really disliked at the time was kitchen porter at a well-known 5-star hotel in St Andrews. I've done a few KP jobs but this was easily the worst because it seemed everybody there hated the place, the job, each other. The hotel had a ground floor kitchen, next to the breakfast restaurant, and a top floor kitchen next to the dinner restaurant. You started at 7am with breakfast service in full swing, piles of dirty dishes already heaped up, piles of greasy cooking trays. The young trainee chefs who prepared breakfast hated their job, had often been out drinking the night before and came in still drunk - must have slept in the afternoon before going out to get drunk again. Everyday, a waitress would come in to ask for more fried eggs or whatever. So a chef would yell 'Oh, fuck off!' A minute later the senior waitress would come in and yell at the chefs, not to yell at her staff, and we still need more fried eggs. 'Oh, you fuck off an' all!'
You never caught up on the dishes, trays, pots & pans. But at a point mid morning, the intercomm would buzz from the top floor kitchen.' You better get up here - the bins are full.' This meant the black bin bags have burst and there's disgusting waste food all over the floor - they never told you the bins were full before they burst. Up in the lift, clear up the mess, assess the heaps of dirty dishes left over from the previous night, the growing pile of pots and pans as they did prep for the evening service. Then get back down stairs to finish clearing up the mess from breakfast, clean the work tops, mop the floor, then get back upstairs. There were 3 KPs and to cover morning and evening shifts meant there was only ever one of us on a shift. There was briefly two at lunchtime when the evening guy came in. The KP who had been there longest said the hotel was supposed to have 8 KPs so there could be three per shift. But with just one, you were fire-fighting just rushing around emptying bins, loading the dishwashers, washing greasy pots by hand, mopping floors, taking sacks of food waste out to the pig-swill hoppers.
The evening shift had an even higher tempo, eight or nine chefs running around, shouting orders, shouting for pots and pans, shouting for the floor to be mopped where a pan had been knocked over, dirty dishes coming in from the restaurant, you dealt with as many as possible because you knew what the mornings were like - the only consolation was, towards the end of an evening shift, about midnight usually, if the head chef was on duty, he would send for a pint of beer for the KP. You were so thirsty, it went down in one.
The waiting staff, neat and tidy, customer facing, looked down on and despised the uncouth, dirty, sweaty kitchen staff. The kitchen staff looked down on and despised the housekeeping staff. The receptionists looked down on and despised anybody who had to do anything more energetic than answering a phone, taking a booking or talking to the guests. And everybody looked down on and despised the KPs.