We have a hard time keeping qualified people. Now we hired a guy who lied on his resume and is basically as useful as a high school intern. Plus, we can't easily fire him. The work load continues to increase.

I need a beverage.

quote:

Originally posted by kidcop:
Preretirement: handling infant death cases. I handled every one, and was first on the scene of one the day before I turned in all my gear and got my retired creds.

Post retirement: The counter at the LGS I work at is exactly the wrong height for doing paperwork/4473s. It's too low to stand up straight and too high for a chair, which they wouldn't let us have anyway. So after a thrilling day of selling Heritage revolvers and SCYY pistols I've got the throbbing back from hell.

Maybe a barstool?

10 years as a correctional deputy, 6 now as correctional sergeant… the worst minutes of my life was having to fight a very large and very very ripe naked homeless lady who really wanted to tussle with us.

The smell emanating from that lady were demonic. It was truly horrific.

Second place is having to fight a guy who was also naked, but covered in his own feces. Yes, the lady was worse.

it's a toss up between the people, or some of the bosses.

I don't normally have a "worst part", but right now, it's supply chain.

I'm pretty much worn out substituting parts and designing around said "unavailable parts".

Edited to say: Compared to you guys giving death notices, the worst part of my job is petty & easy to deal with!


I'm a R&D machinist/mechanical designer.
As such, get very odd jobs of either fixing poorly made parts or creating a solution to an issue. I love the problem solving aspect.

Worst part of the job....time
My immediate boss asks me for time quotes on the fly. To CYA, I tell him in units of days instead of hours. He watches videos of high speed machining & expects that of every part.
Since it is only me doing every step of the task, he also doesn't understand why my cost isn't competitive with the local machine shop that has modern equipment and various workers at different salary levels doing multiple tasks simultaneously. They are setup to make a profit on every single part.
He loves the results I give him. Often they are amazed that I'm able to do difficult tasks. Many of the tasks other shops either won't do or charge a lot for doing with a long return date.

The other is the f'n time clock. I absolutely hate that thing. Punching in one minute late brings down the wrath of upper mgt. The same people who see others talking for 15 mins to an hour about anything but work during the day while I work non-stop.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TRIO,

In my early career it was making death notifications. When you knock on that door and are standing there they know why you are there without having to say a word. It motivated me to implement a robust chaplain program later on.

As a chief, it was dealing with slimy elected officials and a predatory, agenda driven media.

For the most part, it’s employees, but that’s a problem which tends to be solved by throwing money at it.

Undoing bad management practices is not really a surprise, just a thing.

The supply chain stuff is getting weird - I have customers who refuse to accept anything other than 1 gallon plastic tubs, even though the main maker is out of production and they cost so much, that they’re the same price as a 1.5 gallon paperboard drum…

I sell my time, and time is not scalable.

Dealing with people who call the police over stupid crap...like what other people say on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram etc. Grow up, act like an adult, and if you can't handle it, shut it off and stay off of it. I didn't get into this job to referee your inter-personal social media drama.

I've had to see and handle some really horrible stuff in this job...some of which will stay with me for the rest of my life. But I knew that was going to happen when I got into this line of work, and it's what I signed up to do. What I didn't anticipate was the segment of the population that is made up of healthy, able-bodied adults who can't handle life on their own and rely on government services (both emergency and non-emergency) for everything.

The worst part of my job are the people below me, and the people above me, and my coworkers, and the "customers".


I work at a large state university so there's all the "stupid" most jobs have, but with a special taint to it. The State Liberal Indoctrination Center and Diploma Factory (all while trying to operate like a small scale model of failed communism) I am "a pilgrim in an unholy land".

Some of you are thinking "why bring politics into this thread?" That's just my point, every single thing here has a social/political slant to it. It's inescapable. The example I often give is a lobby bathroom, one sink, one toilet, locking door. And a sign that say "This bathroom can be used by any gender, regardless of sexual orientation or identity" (or some such thing) Yeah... you know what that's called? A fucking bathroom. The sign should say "Bathroom"

I am hourly production in a steel mill. Nothing fancy and not nearly as hard as some of the things described above, but an honest living for the most part.

I think the hardest part is twofold. First our schedule is weekly rotation for each of 3 8 hour shifts. As a result of this and a lack of planning/scheduling/maintenance efforts etc. I find myself not knowing from week to week what my schedule will be and do not know of my weekend schedule until Thursday's shift, which may and has changed by Friday. So I find my friends and family getting fed up with my alwayd volatile schedule and drifting away because I can never plan anything until the last damn minute.
It also fucks with my already poor sleep leading to a host of other issues.

Wife and I both retired, we're around each other so much we grate on each other some.

I work in higher education and I'd say the worst, and fortunately they are not that common, is working with students who have been sexually assaulted. Still, the 2-3 per year is way too many. (These are the reported ones which triggers the Cleary Act emails). The most recent was a student assaulted by another student who they met in one of their classes.

Being alone.

I was a commodities trade on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. They closed the live auction trading floor as computers made trading faster and cheaper.

Now I work on my computer in my home office and hardly ever have any contact with anyone other than my wife until I go to the gym in the evening.

quote:

Originally posted by Todd Huffman:
I'm a 911 dispatcher. The biggest thing I hate about my job are the idiot callers. Not the uninformed, but the true idiots. The people that call 911 for a stumped toe at 0300, or the ones that want an officer to make their 8 year old get ready for school. THOSE callers.

The thing I love the most about my job are the people. Those truly in need. I love hearing a baby take it's first breath. Or someone following my instructions properly do the Heimlich and get an 8 year old breathing again. Or the family when their father having a heart attack gets a pulse back after proper CPR.

Those moments are why I do this job. Few and far between, for sure, but when they come it's worth all the bullshit I've put up with over the years.

Only 7 more years to go until I retire.

God Bless you, and your fellow Dispatchers, your Fire & Rescue colleagues, EMT & Paramedics, and the local and state LEOs you guide to the scenes, and the LIVES you PERSONALLY save. It's an amazing job you do with rare talent and difficult training to actually get stuff done during impossible situations. I don't know how you do it. But you guys just plain rock.

quote:

Originally posted by BigJoe:
When my director won't hold one of his managers accountable for a mistake I found that the manager made.

Don't hold your breath until your Director asks you to fix it. No shit.

Waiting.

Not having it anymore. Mandatory retirement at sixty.
I'd still be there if I could.
Uniform has been hanging in my office for years, but they don't call, write...!

Having to put down an animal, especially a young one.