I'm Just Curious: Have You Ever Done Any "Dirty Jobs" to Earn A Living?

14 years ago

I used to be a school cleaner (janitor to my American friends) and worked as a cleaner in supermarket toilets.. ahh fun times.

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rapidscc

14 years ago

I used to be a cigarette vendor when I was young, also worked as a mini zoo helper, and an errand boy for a rich family friend.

That was all before college. However, I always had this entrepreneurial spirit with me. I built my first accounting software development company in 1998, thrown in the towel a few years ago and worked as a freelance programmer. Started my online activities 2008 up to present.

I guess "dirty" jobs isn't really dirty. In fact I would say that as long as you don't do anything bad, you should be proud. A lot of people have the capacity to work but are just too lazy to get one.

I believe that "dirty" jobs are the ones that requires people to steal, cheat, lie and harm other people to make money. Those are the really "dirty" jobs...

best,

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TelegramSam

14 years ago

I had a girlfriend once who worked in a specialist hospital.

She had to wear rubber gloves some of the time.

Lets just describe her job as a "Rectum Resistance Remover" and leave it at that.

There were even worse jobs than that too...

Sam

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Steve MacLellan 14 years ago

It doesn't matter what the job is. If you do it to the best of your ability, you can come home at the end of the day proud of your accomplishments.

Regards,
Steve MacLellan
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mgkimsal

14 years ago

I cleaned up dog poop for a while.

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cindybidar 14 years ago

I worked as a telemarketer selling cemetery plots once. Not really dirty, but not the best job I've ever had.
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Glenellis

14 years ago

I was a chimney sweep for 2 years while in college. Later became part of an ownership group for a 1 star trailer park in Florida, and was the short straw who got to fix all the "plumbing" problems. Let's leave it at that.

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Stefan H. 14 years ago

Construction worker on building sites and laying cables in new built houses. The dirty part is, you have to cut pathes into the bricks for the cables which throws up a lot of dust. You can feel the dust all over your porosities, good part is when coming home and taking a shower

Other job i did, was as Programmer for CNC lathes which where cooled with oil. While cutting the component, the lathes produced a lot of oil steam which was all over the room. Was a cheap ass company so there was no ventilation and you had to breath that crap in all day long. And if a tool broke, you had to change it inside the lathe that was dripping form oil. Not to mention the worst part, cleaning the lathe which was a nice mixture of oil and swarf on you, since you had to grab shoulder-deep into the lathe to get all the swarf out...

After i quit that job, i had to wash my working clothes, underwear and socks 10 times, to finally get rid of the oily smell on them
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TheRichLife

14 years ago

I was a garbage man...I'm sorry...waste management engineer while I was in college. It was a stinky job, but it paid well.

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sbucciarel

Banned 14 years ago

As a single mother of 4, I was a waitress in an all you can eat restaurant for many years. "Moved up" to fast food management. Then taught myself what I know and do today and moved into IT Consultant positions (until the Bubble burst). Then I began to work for myself and have been doing so ever since.

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KenThompson

14 years ago

Worked as an intrument technician in a nuclear power station for 11 years. The
variety of equipment and jobs is pretty amazing. Some are in clean areas and
mostly have to do with electronics. I was in a union shop, so naturally all the
older guys (time wise) took the better jobs.

And the rest of us...

Ok: Sometimes helping operations clean what are called water boxes. Huge
vertical boxes for water intake usually from rivers. Lots of rotting things in
there.

There were lots of dirty jobs involving radiation type 'dirty'. Places with a lot
of particulate contamination. Not cool.

Working on water intake screen filters. Same stuff as the water boxes. We
took our water from the Delaware River. Most places in a nuke plant are not
air conditioned. So just imagine if it's 100 degrees outside in July or August.
So it can be 120 degrees inside some of these places. The humidity is maxed
out at 100%. And it smells like river water with rotting things.

Here's a good one for you... One of my most memorable experiences.

We were at power. Summer time. Containment, where the reactor is, is
usually anywhere from 100-130 degrees (F), roughly.

There's a very special place. lol. It's called the Pressurizer. It basically
serves to maintain the proper temp/pressure conditions inside the reactor
vessel and the water loop connected to the reactor vessel.

It's about 50 ft high, roughly, and maybe 10 ft x 10 ft, roughly. Fairly nasty
place to have to work.

We had to fix something in there while we were at power. Very important
job and a big deal. It was so hot inside "The Can", containment, that the
stay time was 15 minutes, and of course minimum crew size was two for
safety.

This job took over 24 hrs. So that's lots of people rotating in and out.

Ok... the air temperature inside the pressurizer, at the top where we
were, was about 170 degrees. We were dressed in protective jump
suits, 3 layers of gloves, booties, hoods, hard hats. Totally covered.
The temperature inside all that stuff is about 10-15 degrees plus the
environment temperature.

170 + 15 degrees.

We were wearing ice vests over our chests. They lasted for about 5
minutes before they melted.

It hurt to breath. I'm telling you it hurt. It's impossible to describe how
hot that is, and we were working in that.

I made two jumps that day inside the pressurizer. After that, they let us
just sit for the rest of the day. Total exhaustion, headache, awful feeling.

We made very good money at that place. But that day it was not worth it.

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WikiWarrior

14 years ago

Originally Posted by KenThompson

Worked as an intrument technician in a nuclear power station for 11 years. The
variety of equipment and jobs is pretty amazing. Some are in clean areas and
mostly have to do with electronics. I was in a union shop, so naturally all the
older guys (time wise) took the better jobs.

And the rest of us...

Ok: Sometimes helping operations clean what are called water boxes. Huge
vertical boxes for water intake usually from rivers. Lots of rotting things in
there.

There were lots of dirty jobs involving radiation type 'dirty'. Places with a lot
of particulate contamination. Not cool.

Working on water intake screen filters. Same stuff as the water boxes. We
took our water from the Delaware River. Most places in a nuke plant are not
air conditioned. So just imagine if it's 100 degrees outside in July or August.
So it can be 120 degrees inside some of these places. The humidity is maxed
out at 100%. And it smells like river water with rotting things.

Here's a good one for you... One of my most memorable experiences.

We were at power. Summer time. Containment, where the reactor is, is
usually anywhere from 100-130 degrees (F), roughly.

There's a very special place. lol. It's called the Pressurizer. It basically
serves to maintain the proper temp/pressure conditions inside the reactor
vessel and the water loop connected to the reactor vessel.

It's about 50 ft high, roughly, and maybe 10 ft x 10 ft, roughly. Fairly nasty
place to have to work.

We had to fix something in there while we were at power. Very important
job and a big deal. It was so hot inside "The Can", containment, that the
stay time was 15 minutes, and of course minimum crew size was two for
safety.

This job took over 24 hrs. So that's lots of people rotating in and out.

Ok... the air temperature inside the pressurizer, at the top where we
were, was about 170 degrees. We were dressed in protective jump
suits, 3 layers of gloves, booties, hoods, hard hats. Totally covered.
The temperature inside all that stuff is about 10-15 degrees plus the
environment temperature.

170 + 15 degrees.

We were wearing ice vests over our chests. They lasted for about 5
minutes before they melted.

It hurt to breath. I'm telling you it hurt. It's impossible to describe how
hot that is, and we were working in that.

I made two jumps that day inside the pressurizer. After that, they let us
just sit for the rest of the day. Total exhaustion, headache, awful feeling.

We made very good money at that place. But that day it was not worth it.

Jebus Ken, that sounds like something out of a horror movie! Gave me the chills. Makes you wonder how there must be many jobs like this all over the world people wouldn't know about or contemplate unless you actually work for those companies.

I've had a few 'dirty' jobs, mainly when I was home from uni years ago and looking to make a few 'bucks' (I'm from UK but that sounds cooler

). One day I was working at this big cleaning company - massive hangar-type place where used plastic trays were washed and cardboard recycled. Half the day, about 4 hours, was spent standing at the end of this huge conveyor belt, catching the cleaned trays and flipping them over onto pallets. Oh and the conveyor belt never stops, ever! The other half of the day was spent opening up supermarket roll-cages and pushing the cardboard onto another conveyor belt to be crushed. Actually, I guess they're not so much dirty jobs as they are mind-numbing, soul-destroying etc.

I had a cleaning job in an air aircraft hangar once; man that was a funny one. I was studying for an 'A' Level in Law at the time and it was getting close to exam time so I needed all the time I could get to study. The hangar and offices were quite sprawling and I was left to my own devices the whole shift. After the first few days I got it down to a science where I could get all the cleaning done in about 2 hours instead of 8, dusting along the office corridors every so often to make sure the managers saw I was hard at work, then disappearing back to the cleaning room to study my textbooks.

I'm actually glad I experienced these sorts of jobs when I was younger because it really makes you think about where you want to be in the future and what you want out of life. I wouldn't say it was character building but if you need a motivator to pull your finger out, set some goals and take action, these jobs will definitely do it!