Hi there, Mrs. 1500 again.
Last week, I asked you if you ever loaned money to friends or family. (Mr. 1500 recently received a request via Facebook for money from the wife of an old friend, who really isn’t a friend any longer due to extremely poor decisions and no desire to change his ways. But I digress…)
I was really interested in the responses on this question. Reading Ask Amy every morning in my local paper, it seems that many people cannot say ‘no’ to a request for cash from family or friends, but that it ALWAYS leads to problems between the lender and the lendee, mostly because the lendee doesn’t ever pay back everything, if anything at all.
I really wanted to know what like-minded people thought of this dilemma. Turns out, none of you would have lent Tony money, either.
Meg from Chocolate and Woolens said “I wouldn’t loan money to anyone I knew, because I think it’s too much of a strain on the relationship.” Absolutely right, as evidenced from Ask Amy, Dear Abby, Ann Landers, etc…
I really was expecting most of the responses to be along these lines, but was surprised to hear several people side with Jen from Jen Spends, who said “I don’t lend money, I give it. If they want to pay it back, that’s great.” Done by Forty has this same feeling, as does Janine at MoneySmartGuides.
I think Steve from Do Something Cool summed it up best: “Lending money to friends and family is hard. On the one hand you want to help them out, but on the other you don’t want to lose the money if they never pay you back.”
I have no clever segue into this week’s question, so I will just throw it out there. What was your worst job? And what made it so awful? Did you learn anything from it, or did you just learn not to take jobs like that anymore?
I have had many jobs, some of them were really good and some were really bad. I worked as the overnight dishwasher at a Denny’s for a short time, which is probably the worst job I ever held. There have been aspects of other jobs that were horrible, like the boss who took credit for my ideas. All the time. And when she was praised for “her” idea in front of me, she thanked the boss for the compliment, glanced at me, and said nothing about how I came up with it. OK, fine. Take credit for it, because we both know who came up with it, and I don’t really need the praise.
Mr. 1500 will share his worst job story with you tomorrow, but I would love to hear your stories today.
What a great question. If you had asked this question three months ago, I would have quickly gone back in time to my first “real” job at 16 years old, which lasted just one VERY LONG day. I was hired at the local Kentucky Fried Chicken. I showed up, put on the uniform and went to work. I was so grossed out by the heaps of dead chickens that I quit at the end of the shift. I couldn’t eat chicken for years after that. (Side note: everything was clean but I have always been grossed out by dead animal flesh.)
But, since you ask the question today, my answer is much different. I worked Corp America jobs for the last 36 years and made a good living doing it. But, I always wanted to build something that could support me while letting me work on things I’m passionate about.
I left Corp America last October and gave myself a year to build a life that supports my values; however, I’m not “retired.” For seven months I worked on building my website and while there were days I was tired and at times frustrated, I loved doing it. Got up earlier, worked longer hours, smiled a lot.
Seven months in I got a call asking if I’d like some contract work writing policies & procedures for the industry I left. The offer was too good to turn down so for the last two months I’ve been working on my site in the mornings before going in to work and then putting in a full day of work. Mind you, the people are great but what I’ve realized is that I can’t tolerate mind-numbing boring work any more. Work that in my opinion adds no value to the people who might ever look at the finished product.
I’m still grateful for the contract and give the company my best work. But I cannot wait for this commitment to end and it’s fueled my personal commitment to monetize my real passion. Because that will add value to the lives of the people who want what I have to offer.
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Sometimes it is nice to know for sure you don’t ever want to go back again. But it sure does feel nice when someone wants you to come back to a job you have held before.
Working at a municipal summer camp. The town ran it as the cheapest childcare available, so it was another counselor and me with 35 rising first graders in an empty school cafeteria all day. When we weren’t in the cafeteria, we were outside and it was blazingly hot. It is the only job I was ever fired from, and I was happy about that.
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I have a soon-to-be first grader. I cannot imagine 34 more of her.
My worst “job” ever was for an environmental action company, in which we went door to door asking for donations related to the Clean Water Act. My training was following around this hippie for 60 minutes as he failed, over and over, to actually pry money from homeowners, and then sending me off on my own while he canvassed another neighborhood. I struck out for one day and immediately realized, nope, this is not for me.
I ended up with no money since it was a weird commissions only system, where you earned nothing until you hit a quota, then started getting a percentage. I was 16 at the time but in retrospect it seems like a pretty shady operation…
Thanks for the mention, and again, good on you for helping out that kid. That’s pretty cool.
Done by Forty recently posted…Should I Buy Investment Property Locally?
Commissions for an environmental company for how much you brought in? That DOES seem shady!
My worst job lasted two weeks because it was so horrible. It was advertised incorrectly in the first place, and I wasn’t given a great idea of it on the interview. It was basically being in a call center, taking food orders from places like Subway, Blimpee, Applebees, and other restaurants. They barely trained me, and then the woman that was “training” me went away for a few days on vacation. Since I was with her for such a short time, they somehow thought it was a great idea for me to take over her accounts. I knew nothing about them, and got in trouble for “mishandling” one of them. I hated to leave them because the girls were, in general, pretty nice, and it was clear that everyone was overworked, but they really needed to do a better job finding time to train new employees. Half the time I had to put people on hold for 5 minutes before others could get off their phone calls and help me. It was a miserable time.
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I, too have had many misrepresented-during-the-interview jobs. The worst one was at a gym. I applied for the manager position, but during the interview they described a mostly math and accounting position. I said point blank, “It sounds like there is a lot of math involved. If this position is mostly accounting, I am not the right person for the job.” He said it wasn’t, and then it turned out to be ALL MATH!
I was a dishwasher at a chain restaurant once – it paid 50¢ more an hour than my current job, but I only lasted one night. Money isn’t everything! 🙂 The dishwasher was in a tiny little room with no air flow, so it was super hot and smelled awful. After about a half hour, I was completely soaked and miserable.
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Amen, sister. Money is NOT everything. I remember the dishpit. All the food wasted, all the disgustingness mixed together. Blehhh.
All of my jobs have had their pluses and minuses. The worst might have been when I worked seasonally at the mall photo display. So I was an elf around Christmas and the Easter Bunny in the spring. Do you have any idea how much some children weigh? It’s ungodly. And then their parents get all huffy when you can’t lift 4ft tall 145lb Johnny up onto Santa’s lap. Not to mention being the Easter bunny and having piles of people jump into your lap at once. Oof. But hey, the money was good in high-school terms.
Mrs PoP @ Planting Our Pennies recently posted…The Mystical Qualities of Cash
Ahhh the temporary holiday job. I never worked at the Santa place, but had a ton of respect for people who did. Did you ever see Bad Santa? Horribly inapropriate, but so funny.
When I was 13 I worked in a comic book store, which at the time I thought was the greatest thing ever, but I was literally paid in store credit instead of cash and the owner was extremely sketchy and quite unsettling to be around.
We all had a sense there was something not right with him, but thankfully he sold the store after about a year and I didn’t have to deal with him any longer.
At the time I didn’t realize it was my worst job because I was really young and naive, but looking back let’s just say it’s amazing I didn’t end up as a cautionary tale on Dateline or something….
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I guess getting paid in store credit is good, if you like their product. But I would still rather have the cash.
I worked for a university department as a systems administrator for 6 months as I finished my masters’ thesis – I liked the general work I was supposed to be doing, and I liked the people, but it was so mind-numbingly boring that I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I worked for the same university in a different department (same job) and loved it. For me, the mental stimulation a job provides is super important! My current job is excellent. I rarely do the exact same thing twice, and I get to exercise my brain muscles all of the time. The hours may be bad sometimes, but I’ve been here almost 10 years, so I must like it 🙂
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1500! Teaching elementary music by a long shot. The pay is mediocre, I suppose, but the discipline problems, the incompetent co-workers, and righteously indignant parents who thought learning was only for school hours were simply too much. Baking bagels when I was 16 was a far better gig.
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I do not know how anyone could be a teacher. My hat is off to them. I could never do your job!
Oh that’s an easy question. My worst job was probably working at a snack bar when I was 15. Each day I was so covered in grease from the deep fryers that my dog would lick me like a popsicle when I got home. Not to mention the employees were totally sketchy and gross and the owner’s son (who was at least 30) used to date two fellow employees (at the same time) while simultaneously sexually harassing every other female staff member.
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Ahhh, the days of working in restaurants, leaving the place and smelling like the restaurant all the way home. You cannot get that smell out of your clothes. Ever work at a Mexican restaurant? You have to burn them when you quit.
Babysitting for a family in my neighborhood. Got paid so little. But I did use the money to buy myself books and 50% of a laptop.
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How about putting up with other people’s poop? I spent a few years as a teen working to dig up, mix up, and pump out septic tanks. So don’t even try and tell me that your shit doesn’t stink, because I can attest that everyone’s does 🙂
That being said, I actually didn’t mind the work as it let me be outside in the summertime, working with a fun group of co-workers while getting my first taste of a real income.
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There is a whole lot to be said for working outside. I worked in mosquito abatement over the summer and that was an outdoor job too. Lots of fun.
I would rather spend my days indoors, than anywhere near OPP (Other People’s Poop). I have been near the honey dipper trucks while they are sucking out the porta potties. Gag, vomit, gag.
You mention other people’s poop. What about cow poop? My first job was milking cows. Let me tell you this, they do not stop pooping just because someone is under them trying to put a milker on. I had to start work at 4am, only got paid $3/hr (even though minimum wage was $5.15), got cow poo on me, and was repeatedly kicked by cows (my forearms were covered in bruises). See you might not know this, but like people, some cows are just jerks! Still, I did this job for years because the conversations I had working alongside my dad at 4am on the family farm, were some of the best conversations we’ve ever had. And if you’ve never gotten up at 4am in a quiet country setting you’re missing out. I still get up at 4am – there’s just a still quiet beauty at that hour that I’ve come to appreciate.
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“And if you’ve never gotten up at 4am in a quiet country setting you’re missing out”
Wow, this is really awesome. I love the rural countryside. I can live in a big city or out in the boondocks, but as I grow older, I realize that I much prefer the latter. Good people.
We too have lived in the city (when we were in college) as well as the country (where we both grew up and now live). I like both as they each have positive sides. But you’re right about the people, we live in a great little community with great people.
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I worked at a uranium enrichment plant in the desert of New Mexico. It was routinely 110 degrees and and 300 miles from the nearest city… a pretty remote location.
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The uranium enrichment part sounds kind of cool. Security clearance?
Do you glow in the dark now?
My worst job was teaching in a public school, and I always feel a little sad admitting this. I was stressed out, spent little time with family and friends, ate pretty bad, and rarely exercised. I worked for a principal who studied for the bar exam, saw children stab each other with pencils, and too many other things to mention.
On the other hand, I got to be a part of teaching children to read, support wonderful and motivated teachers, and…well, that’s all I can think of right now.
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The state of schools is sad. I don’t envy teachers. Was it you or the other Hoombah commenting about PITA parents? I think that this cartoon sums it up: http://www.city-data.com/forum/attachments/politics-other-controversies/115076-why-us-pubilc-school-system-so-1960-2010.jpg
I think it was my other half, but I do remember one time having a parent throw themselves around because, “If my child misses one question, they will not be able to get a 90. They can only get an 88.” My response was very polite at the time, but I wanted to say, “Mrs. Wangles, this is 4th grade not Harvard.”
Tammy R recently posted…Who Cares if You Carry a Fancy Purse