The phone rang this morning at 9:00, a half-hour before my alarm was set to go off. Afraid that it might be Toney, or one of the schools, I leapt off the platform and ran downstairs to answer it.
“Hullo?”
“Yes. Could I please speak with Ms., um, Kay Jeffreys?”
[click]
And even though it was only thirty minutes lost, it’s going to throw my entire day off. I get by on the absolute minimum amount of sleep, and any less sends me reeling. I’ll probably drift off at dinner, and build a drool bridge to my Mrs. Paul’s fish filet.
A few days ago my cell phone rang, and it was somebody calling “on behalf of President Obama,” urging me to refinance my mortgage. WTF?
Again: [click]
What a shitty way to make a living, bothering people in their homes with highly questionable “opportunities.” I’d be overcome by guilt, if I ever found myself with such a gig. I wouldn’t be able to do it.
And I REALLY don’t care for them calling my cell phone. That’s a relatively new development, and it makes something bad even worse. I’m about to start responding in a Joe Pesci manner.
Anyway, have you ever had a job that you completely sucked at? Not so much a job that you hated, although you probably hated it as well, but something you’re just not cut out for.
I’ve written about it a few times here, but for roughly two weeks a long time ago, I sold meat and seafood door to door(!?). And I was the world’s worst salesman. My heart wasn’t in it, I felt stupid and beaten-down, and just went through the motions. It sucked so bad I could hardly believe it.
What about you? Have you ever found yourself in a job that was simply not a good match? Tell us about it in the comments.
My Thursday: awakened by a telemarketer, put the finishing touches on a ridiculous mockable, Secrets home from school half-day, oldest boy to the doctor, double ear-infection, aggravation at the pharmacy over something to do with insurance, a too-expensive lunch at Moe’s that the Secrets didn’t finish, the oldest boy to a friend’s house, over to Target to buy a gift card for the youngest boy to give away at a birthday party tonight, this update, the oldest Secret to swim practice, the youngest Secret to the party, Toney tending to her presidential duties, me fending for myself for dinner, pick up younger Secret from party, free-fall onto sofa, crack top on Yuengling, doze off and start building a bridge to the armrest…
You know, in a nutshell.
I’m on the verge of quitting Netflix. I don’t watch any of the discs anymore, I just pay the subscription fee. I’ve had Burn After Reading since March 19, and will almost certainly return it unwatched — just like I did with the last disc, after a month or so. I might try watching King of the Hill from the first episode forward, and see if that takes. If not, it could be time to cut the cord.
However, I’m still loving eMusic. It’s one of my favorite things ever. I spend all my movie-watching time on the site, plotting strategy. I’ll have fifty more songs to play with on April 23, and will be ready to strike, immediately.
For some reason this made me laugh so hard I had tears in my eyes. Sleep deprivation? Perhaps. But make sure you have your volume turned-up when you play it, to get every little nuance. Heh.
After I finish here I think I’m going to go for a long walk. It’s sunny and warmish outside, and I need to get outdoors for a little while. Holy shit on a handtruck. I feel like I’m almost completely cut-off from the world.
I might try to find that posh neighborhood that just appeared out of thin air. Wonder if it’s still there? It wouldn’t surprise me if I returned to it, and found only thick forest. It really wouldn’t.
And I’m going to stop right here. I hope you have a great weekend.
Thanks for reading, guys. I’ll see you on the other side.
UPDATE: The walk was excellent, and the posh neighborhood is still there. I picked out one of the houses, and we will someday live in it. Also, I went to the beer store and bumped into Poppa Half-Shirt. He was buying a 30-pack of Michelob Light in cans. What a predictable douchebox.
me
Top ten? Well, shoo-be-doo.
I am not a very good sales person either. I worked at a mall jewelry store years ago and was paid on commission-I sucked at it and it showed on my pitiful little paychecks. On the other hand, I was a very good lifeguard and had to quit-because of the pitiful little paychecks
3rd wow
I cleaned restrooms at the local mall. It was a paycheck but didnt help my sef esteem much.
FOR !!!!eleven!!!
loving emusic as well, thanks for the suggestion. april 15th…
fifth, maybe.
How on Earth does one not have a telephone on the nightstand?
What is this, 1972?
I have a phone on my nightstand and it doesn’t even work!!
Top Ten! It’s been awhile!
I worked at a women’s clothing store once during the Christmas season for extra money. I liked the discount, but the job was not a good fit. At all.
My worst job ever was removing asbestos in Texas. I hated wearing the suit and mask and going through the decontamination chamber. Plus we started work at midnight and worked until morning, then a crew would come in the next day and fill in what we’d remove. Sometimes we’d only have about 2 hours worth of work for them to do.
I’m on the Netflix because we’re watching the Sopranos for the first time. I don’t know what season we’re on now, but we watch 3 or 4 episodes every two days. And please, don’t anyone ruin what’s coming up for me. Don’t ask me if I’ve gotten to the part where such and such happens, because I probably haven’t.
There’s a phone on Toney’s nightstand, Mark. But the cord is always (always!) so wound-up, I end up knocking shit into the floor, and turning it into a slapstick comedy. I’d rather just go downstairs and avoid the aggravation. We need to put a cordless up there, like all the rest in the house.
Wow, I wonder which was worse, spending the whole night catching asbestosis, or being in Texas…
**Screams Yee-haw and fires pistol into air**
I put my Netflix subscription on hold for a while until I was ready to dive back in. Though I recently started up again, my enthusiasm has waned.
Say anything you want about non-cordless phones but just you wait, someday when the power company loses its shit for a week, I’ll be one of the few people still able to make phone calls. Sure I’ll be eating cold spaghetti-o’s straight out of the can, but at least I’ll have contact with all the little old ladies in town.
As for crappy, unsuitable jobs…. I once in desperation applied for a job as an Avis car rental counter person. They made me take one of those personality tests and as it turns out, I was deemed “unsuitable” for a sales position. When they broke the news to me, I laughed my ass off and told them that I was employee of the month 3x in a row at a previous job because of my sales numbers. Fukkem. I ended up finding a better job, so maybe they were doing me a favor.
I lost my job at the rubber factory…allergic go figure. I was on unemployment and thought I had to take any job that was offered to me.( I was only 18) I started working at Myles Chemical. We were supposed to box grass seed and fertilizer. The assembly line never worked properly. They had an old dude there named Pops. He would drive the towmotor into trucks and cause quite a ruckus by having accidents. It would have been a lot of fun but the fertilizer gave me unreal headaches and nausea….. FAIL
Good Evening Surf Reporters………
I’ve been in sales and have held various sales positions for going on 20 years. Without a doubt, the one I was not suited for was Filter Queen vacuum cleaners.
I answered their classified ad out of desperation. I was just out of college, already married with a young son and the diapers and formula weren’t paying for themselves.
The whole set up was a scam from the get go. The ad was calling for people to do marketing and display for an “air filtration system”. It wasn’t until the 3rd day did one find out it was actually a vacuum cleaner that retailed for almost $2,500. The trainees were taught to close the sale by basically embarrassing the people in their own homes after demonstrating the product and showing the potential customer how their current vacuum cleaner sucked and they, the customer, were basically filthy pigs living in squalor. I just couldn’t do it. Although the Filter Queen was actually a pretty good appliance, just not worth the 2 grand.
And on a side note, what has happened to the weekly update recaps that all the Surf Report VIP’s were receiving?
Telephone: The car warranty pricks are wearing me out these day.
Netflix: The discs come and go, but we are LOVING the Netflix on demand available via TiVo.
E-music: My magic date is the 20th of each month
Jobs: Jeez, where to start? I did have a job (briefly) demo-ing them new fangled ATM they were installing in grocery stores back in 1985 or so. Man, were the old folks dubious.
My current job does not suit me very well. I have very little tolerance for stupidity and am bombarded by it constantly. I am also responsible for upholding rules. The problem with that is I despise confrontation. I end up burnt out, miserable, and frustarted. I am definitely ready for Wally to be done with school so we can get the hell out of here!
Worst. Job. Ever. – house roofer in the dead of summer. I’m pretty sure I had about 6 strokes over one summer. I was seeing hammers and chalk lines that weren’t even there. You guessed it, I did that for one summer.
I sold Avon and I HATED it. I didn’t even use the crap and felt like a freakin moron when people asked me about the make up.
My dream job?
I’ll let you use your imagination…
I just picked up some Dixie and Blackened Voodoo… It’s back baby!
Job I most sucked at AND most hated was working a a seafood processing factory. We had to stand in a frreezing room and use bandsaws to cut crab legs apart. Of course, in the afternoon, as a change of pace we got to cut up Orange Roughy fillets.
Working the crab line on my second and LAST day, the only person who sucked at the job more than I did ran his thumb about an inch into the bandsaw blade. There was blood everywhere. Needless to say, when I punched out for the morning break I never went back.
re: King of the Hill
The first season was a little uneven so give it a fair shot. Because once it hit its stride, their was (and is) nothing better. “Bobby, if you weren’t my son I’d hug you…”
Crap, collections calls have got to be the worst. Never had to make or recieve them but the guys in the welding shop get them all the time. We have to say “I’m sorry employees can only recieve emergency phone calls while working, which is BS but who wants to get a pay your damn bills phone call three times a day?
I worked for Pike Pass which is the Toll roads here in the flat windy. Nothing pisses people off more than having to give money to drive on a toll road that their taxes paid for in the first damn place. I was lucky enough to work in an office issuing new passes. I was not exactly a people person. I quit after a year. Best job I ever quit.
Grocery store register. I was 15, worked 4 hours at it then quit. They paid me for the 4 hours.
bittorrent->pyTivo->TiVoHD, no need for NetFlix. I only download what has been broadcast on TV, no movies. Just download all the King Of The Hills – Rusty Shackleford style.
Every job I’ve ever had, except the last one before my son was born, sucked. I just loved my bosses and co-workers there and cried when I had to resign to stay at home. The stay at home mom gig is sweet, though!
Jeff – I highly recommend you phone the Evil Twin again. This time, discuss Netflix.
We live in 2700 square foot house (a decent size) and only have 2 phones. Neither are in our bedroom. One is upstairs and one is downstairs. Sleep time is ME time. IF I hear the phone and I’m down the hall, I will sprint and try to reach it. If not, there’s an answering machine for messages.
my worst job ever..one day..waiting tables at Logans roudhouse in Columbus Ga..yes you damn people. Manager was a prick..people were dumb…the southerners didn’t like my yankee self bringing them their sweet tea..ugh. Done!!
I got rid of my house phone when I was pregnant, refused to run my large buns to answer it..my cell I can turn off. haha callers
umm sorry Roadhouse up above there
Blackened Voodoo sucks. Dixie is $$$. Too bad it’s made up north now.
I use to work nights at a local factory. When I was sleeping I would wear Mack’s ear plugs. I didn’t want to hear the phone, the neighbor’s dogs, the mufflerless mail truck or anyone coming to the door.
If someone died I figured the funeral would be sometime after I woke up.
ROFLMAO That poor camel!!
Remember the scrolling add channel that was on cable channel 2 in the kanawha valley (WV) area in the 80s, that was my job, selling that crap for 2 months, it sucked.
I also wasn’t very good at loading trucks at the Hecks warehouse. That lasted 6 months.
We don’t have a land line in a three story house. The cells are turned off or left downstairs while we sleep. If someone dies during the night, they’ll still be dead when we wake up and we won’t be able to change that fact anyway, so we get our sleep no matter what. With 3 secrets you take all the shut-eye you can get, friends.
Worst job I ever had: back in the pre-energy crisis 70’s, there were these things called service stations where someone (me) came out of a stanky garage and pumped your gas for you while you sat on your duff behind the wheel. It was long hours, shitty pay (I sometimes got paid in sixpacks of cheap beer because the owner didn’t have a clue how to run a business and was always late on his bills), and people were rude – some even called me a stupid gas jockey right to my face. Even if it was true, it sucked. Also, you tended to get gas and oil spilled on you so couldn’t just leave work and go out on a date, you had to get home and scrub first. Good times.
When the place finally went bankrupt, I was giddy.
On the other hand, in college I once worked nights in a neighborhood pharmacy, not a chain like CVS, but a real pharmacy with a soda fountain, owned by a great guy named Charlie (my girlfriend’s uncle if I recall). Charlie would always, as we were closing up, slip me a brown bag containing two ice cold cans of Bud from the cooler to take home, gratis. I woudl sink them both in 10 minutes while driving home, and the pleasant afterwork buzz would kick in just as I was pulling into the driveway at home. Those really were good times.
Worst job was just out of H.S., for Fisher Sand & Gravel. My job was to take samples of the sand & gravel piles, weigh it, wash it, weigh it again. All in a shitty job trailer w/ no AC , surrounded by gravel & sand mountains. lasted till Aug. then it was just to hot. Next job had really good AC.
JCIII wrote: And on a side note, what has happened to the weekly update recaps that all the Surf Report VIP’s were receiving?
i miss them too – they are good for when i miss a day and i can catch up on the bunker cam…
I had a job working in a girls summer camp in Maine one summer. Had to rake the pine needles around the cabins. I used to get flashed all the time. Now that really sucked… The next year I worked in a boys camp. 🙂
Job I wasn’t suited for… bartending at the Harrisonburg Holiday Inn. I liked being a bartender, just not to a bunch of renecks from the auto auction who I swear to god were the ones behind the short-shorts nad cutoff tee shirt uniforms we had to wear. Humiliating doesn’t even come CLOSE.
Oh wait – another job I hated: park and rec supervisor for a summer program. A hundred sweaty kids for 9 hours a day with two other adults on staff, one of whom only took the job so he could work on his free-throw skills. By the end of that summer I’d pretty much made up my mind that people are nothing but shit sausages stuffed in a meatbag. Grrrr.
I’ve had plenty of jobs that I’ve completely sucked at.
No complaints yet.
“Anyway, have you ever had a job that you completely sucked at?”
Only one. I once spent an entire summer reviewing websites in order to count the number of questions that ended in a preposition. That is not something that I am good at.
Over here I often get nuisance sales on my cell phone. But only during waking hours (very polite). Of course, the caller is speaking Mandarin, so I can pretty much fuck with them all I want. Good times.
nuisance sales calls
For several months, in between jobs, I was a flower shop delivery driver. Not a good position for a directionless asshole like myself. I backed the crappy van into a telephone pole my second week in, and the two guys who owned the place were first class pricks. I only stayed as long as I did because a buddy of mine who worked there got me the job and I was fairly desperate. However, that job is the ONLY job I had where I fulfilled my oft-held fantasy of cussing the boss tup and down before telling him to shove the job up his ass, and man, did it ever feel good…
I was a pump jockey at full service gas stations through High School and a little afterwards, and oddly enough, I actually quite liked it. I even like the smell of gas. My first job at 15 was at a gas station about 500 feet from my house, where I worked with all my neighborhood friends. We’d sit in the garage area and get high, then argue with each other about who’s turn it was to get the next car that pulled in. It was a essentially a clubhouse for all my friends and, looking back on it, it was almost paradise for a teenager. We’d put speakers out on the top of the Pepsi machine and crank out Ted Nugent and Blue Oyster Cult as we threw frisbee in the parking lot and hung out with people who’d drop in. We’d buy pizzas with petty cash, mix up Tequila Sunrise in a big plastic buckets, and swipe cans of Pepsi out of the machine. I think I was high nearly every day I worked there. It became the central meeting place/party hangout for a lot of us guys on that part of the West Side, so you can see why I have such fond memories for a job that was otherwise considered pretty crappy…
Laid carpet for a while on the margins of my other jobs, and that shit was no fun at all.
Anyone care to guess who will be at our house tonight? And all next weekend, as well?
Nobody should ever doubt my intuitive abilities…
Eninen! Happy Easter indeed!
Jeff, what you really need to do is open all of Nancy’s boxes and pile the Lego pieces in one big heap on the floor, thus sabotaging and intermingling her precious, expensive collection. Destroy the packaging with faux teeth marks and blame it on Andy if you have to. I would add that you can even claim to have “recovered” a few pieces that he accidentally ate, but given her history of manually disimpacting the bowels of others, she might not even flinch as you hand over the pieces in question.
Perhaps she’ll curb her compulsive shopping and stay away for a while. But then again, where’s the fun in that for us?
Burn After Reading was amazing. Do not send it back without watching it! You can quit Netflix all you like but at least give BAR a chance!!!!!
I liked Burn After Reading. You have to watch it at least long enough to find out what Clooney was building in his basement.
^_^
( o.o)
( > < )
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. How could they screw up my bunny????
I got Beer nuts!
Jeff…It’s not too late to set up the box-o-beds out in the back yeard…I’m just saying…..
A few years ago I took a what I thought would be a relaxing fun part-time job at a nursery (the kind that sells plants). I’m good with plants so I thought it’d be a good match. Wrong. Incredibly labour-intensive. One day we had to move these heavy planters full of soil and flowers (of course) off a transport and into the greenhouse. It was miserably cold and drizzling. At one point as I hefted one of those f**kers off the truck I peed a little (which all women of child-bearing age will understand) but was so cold, wet and filthy I didn’t even care. At that moment I decided this was my LAST day working there and finished my shift quite happily.
Job I sucked at: Training Assistant at a foster care agency. I currently work in manufacturing as a buyer/production planner…very logical stuff, right up my alley. A few years ago, I mistakenly thought that I would like to try something different. I ended up not just taking care of the clerical stuff, but actually training. I had to get certified to teach CPR/First Aid (sucked at that), and I had to do new employee orientation, including sexual/workplace harrassment. I knew the first day that there would be a problem, because the video example of what kind of joke NOT to tell is a standard for me (what’s the difference between Protestants, Catholics and Baptists?). I stuck it out for about 6 months before the loonies drove me away. My mother says I don’t care enough about other people to work in social services. She’s right.
Netflix: LOVE IT !!! My 13-yr old son loves anything Japanese – anime and Godzilla movies included. I love being able to watch an entire season of a tv show in two weekends. We just upgraded to XBox Live Gold so that we can watch on-demand movies. I tell ya’, it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.