MVWJ started out well. I was nannying for a family with a seven-week old baby. She had some health issues, but they were all temporary. The family treated me well and helped me out financially a few times. Part of the responsibilities of caring for their child was learning now to use a feeding tube and a machine to basically suck snot out of the child’s nose. Again…all temporary. But then she had to be put in a cast for her hips. This didn’t matter to me as I was attached to the baby and happy with the family, but let me point out that these are not normal nanny functions. You would usually have to hire a nurse for things like this and they charge a lot more.
So fast forward a year and I find out I’m pregnant. My husband and I were surprised as we didn’t plan on children for a few more years. I told my employers and they were excited for me, but later told me they didn’t want me to bring my child to work. I understood, but couldn’t see myself dropping off my infant with a stranger only to take care of someone else’s. So my husband and I started saving money and decided I would quit work and go to school full time and somehow try to make it financially.
About a month later, the mother told me she had reconsidered and thinks it would be fine if I brought my baby to work. We really needed the money so I was happy.
Fast forward a few months to my birthday weekend. I gave it up and stayed the weekend at their house so they could go away for their anniversary. They came home Sunday and wanted to talk to me. I was not nervous and was 6 1/2 months pregnant at this point. They told me they had found someone else and were replacing me. They wanted me to work until the end of the month though. I was a hysterical mess and left immediately. I looked down at my pregnant belly. Who the heck would hire me? I hated their faces. So as much as I still miss their little girl and wonder how she is doing physically, I have my sweet boy now and karma, karma, KARMA. A friend of a friend interviewed with them and they haven’t been able to keep a nanny since I left!
This was in 2002, and I had recently completed a degree in Theatre and Performance (yes, a VERY useful qualification). I had no idea how unprepared this would make me for the working world. I was panicking a bit in the months after graduation, so I leapt at the chance to work for a theatre company that was run by a friend of mine’s dad. I had met this friend at Drama School, and his dad was very well known, so I knew it was a legitimate company, not just some fly by night enterprise.
I went for an interview with Mr E, who told me that this job would involve managing the theatre, doing publicity, stage managing the shows (and doing the lights and sound) as well as handling the theatre dinner bookings. And all he could pay me was R2,000 a month (To put this into perspective: R2,000 is just under $200) but I was promised the glory of commission if I filled the theatre every night. I was filled with compassion for his heart wrenching speech about the realities of being an artist, and seduced by his lies of it being physically possible to fill the theatre EVERY night of the week when it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. His idea was I put on my own shows….with what budget? Anyway.
I would drive the 40 km to work, be there at 8 a.m. and do all the dogsbody work in the office (I had to sort out the recycling for them on one memorable occasion), leave for the theatre at about 5pm, put up the show, handle the front of house, sweep the stage and leave when everything was over at about 11pm. R2,000 a month for a 15 hour day?
Not only that, I was also asked if my cell phone could be used as the booking line for the theatre. Naively I said ‘sure’, not realizing that I had to be available at ALL times for the theatre, from being called at 6am on a Sunday morning, to having dinners, movies and all kinds of social engagements interrupted by theatre goers. And if I wasn’t available I would get called in with a kindly, “Darling, don’t you love the idea of theatre? Please always be there for us…” from Mr E, the emotional blackmailing bastard. I lasted for four months. And now I lecture in the Drama Department of my Alma Mater!
My Very Worst Job was actually a job I never took. I received an interview invite from a long-standing company in the film and television industry and was excited. When the interviewer called me, he told me they had something different in mind for me than the writing job I had applied for. Either way, I was excited beyond belief when I went to the interview two days later.
When I arrived, I was left to wait in the reception area for 45 minutes. The receptionist apologized profusely in embarrassment. Finally, the VP of the company came down to greet me and took me into a lovely library-esque room, which I commented was beautiful. She immediately shot me a look like I had said something out of the ordinary. The interview began and I received the traditional questions. She told me of the position I was interviewing for and it was quite obvious I was not only under qualified but it was in a field I had zero experience or interest in. When she asked me to briefly summarize my resume, however, things got weird.
Every job I spoke about, she believed was a scam. Umm, what? One job in particular, she had a problem with because she had never heard of the company’s CEO. I mentioned it was an independent film company and she seemed to get really tense before she blurted out, “You know, this guy might try to attach himself to our company if he sees you’ve been offered a job here. And then he could try to use our name for his benefit. We could sue you for that. The CEO could sue you for defamation of character!” I sat there confused. How had my boss suddenly become her greatest enemy? She elaborated, telling me that I would not be able to continue to work that job and that I would have to sign a contract, cutting all ties from him. I mentioned that he was my reference and she said, “Don’t even tell him you’re looking for a job here.”
At this point, I had checked out of the interview. I knew I would not take this job because the woman was obviously paranoid and suffering from delusions of grandeur considering her company specialized in an area completely different than my current boss. The interview continued and the questions got progressively more strange: Was I an only child? What did my father do? Did I rent or own? I was so pissed off at this point that I lied my way through the interview and mentally checked out. I left the interview chuckling because it was so unbelievable.
I returned home to an e-mail asking for more references not including my current boss. I didn’t respond. My friends were all shocked when they heard the story, chalking it up to the woman testing me to see if I was right for the position.
Two days later, the woman called to offer me the job. I had no intentions of taking it but was still curious about whether or not it was a test. So I dropped the name of my current boss again and told her that he was a stellar reference for me and I planned to keep in contact with him. She began freaking out and asking me “WHY?! Why?! I don’t understand! He could threaten our business!” (Still, keeping in mind, without logical reasoning as to how or why he would do this.) I told her he was a personal contact and I reserved the right to speak to whomever I wanted in my personal life. “Personal contact? What does that mean? What–I don’t understand, what does that mean?” I kid you not, I had to explain to her what a personal contact was and then went on to explain that most of my other contacts were introduced through him. “WHO? Who are these contacts?” She demanded. “I’m sorry but I’ve signed a contract. I’m not at liberty to tell you. But at this point in time, I don’t think I will be taking this job.” CLICK!
This unbelievable experience wasn’t even a job, it was a job application.
I saw an ad in the paper for help wanted at a place that claimed to be “a nurturing after-school environment,” basically a glorified daycare which promised to help with homework. I was sixteen and, for some unfathomable reason, thought this could work out. I need to have a service dog with me at all times, but since my handicap doesn’t affect my range of motion or anything like that I didn’t think there’d be a problem.
I was envisioning a nice, peaceful environment with kids calmly doing homework around a table, but what I found when I showed up to apply was at least 75 kids packed into a big, cold, tile-floored basement. Their screams echoed off the walls. There were no toys, no furniture, and no color. Even the walls were stark and white, and my service dog and I had suddenly become the most interesting things in the room.
I had about one second of “Oh, snap!” before I got mobbed by shrieking kids. Before I could leave the one adult in attendance grabbed my by the wrist and demanded to know what I thought I was doing, bringing a dog in here.
“He’s a service dog,” I said.
“WHAT?” She shouted over the shrieking.
“A SERVICE DOG,” I yelled back. “I WANTED TO APPLY FOR THE JOB!”
She looked at the kids, then back at me, then dragged my by my wrist over to a door on the opposite wall. My dog and the mob of kids trailed along behind us. She shoved some forms and a chewed pen into my hands, opened the door to reveal a coat closet, and pushed me in, saying something about my being a distraction. I probably should have left then and there, but for some reason that I can only assume was shock, I actually sat down and started filling out the forms.
The screaming and echoing outside never stopped. Eventually it sunk in that:
A. this place sucked,
and
B. I had just been shut in a dark closet by a potential employer.
I came out (nervously) handed over the forms and got the hell out of there. The woman, whose name I never learned, shouted after me that I would be called for an interview. There was no call, and if there had been, I probably would have hung up.
My Very Worst Job happened a long time ago. I was still a good summer or two away from mowing lawns for cash, and my Garbage Pail Kids addiction wasn’t satisfied through my measly allowance, so when a friend asked if I’d deliver papers on his afternoon route while he was away for a week I was extremely excited. We went over the paper route for a couple days before he left and when the day arrived I was ready to go.
I must have looked quite the sight: chubby little blond kid with socks pulled up to his knees and shorts that barely went halfway down his thigh, pedaling his bitchin red dirt bike with the plastic grocery bags full of papers up the street. Any mental image of that day, however, should include a very untied right tennis shoe.
A slob? Sure. But that’s not why I mention it. I mention it because shortly into the route I suddenly found that I couldn’t pedal the bike. At all. I also couldn’t move my right foot. The lace had wound tightly up in the pedaling mechanism and not only was making any forward progress impossible, it was making it impossible to get off the bike.
I promptly panicked and fell over. This had a dual effect of breaking the plastic bags the papers were in and bloodied my knees and elbows. Here’s another mental picture: this time the chubby blond kid is bleeding, way-too-short shorts dirty, crying on the ground with one foot tied to a bitchin red dirt bike with papers strewn around him. I somehow managed to get my foot out of the shoe, but couldn’t unwind it at all and the back wheel still wouldn’t turn. I ended up gathering as many papers I could and limped away, dragging the bitchin red dirt bike behind me to a house on the corner where I could call my mom to come get me. She did and we spent the rest of the week delivering out of her car. I’m pretty sure she ended up spending more on gas than I got for delivering.
