When I first arrived in The Netherlands I didn’t have a word of Dutch. Now I have about one hundred and thirty useful words and ten I can use only in particular company. This meant of course that I wasn’t very employable. My unusual talents (Kermit impressions) and heightened sense of awareness and common sense (I was relatively sober for an Irishman abroad) wasn’t enough to guarantee the job of my dreams so I had to make do with a series of … interesting opportunities.
My first began when the recruitment agency phoned me to tell me I could work at a Butter manufacturers. I leapt at the chance having wonderful visions of a romantic old style Dutch farm with wooden instruments and everyone walking about in traditional costume whistling happily. When I got there I was certain I had the wrong address. Not a clog in sight and if there was whistling you couldn’t hear it over the colossal cacophony of the hundreds of evil looking machines. And oh my god the smell of so much butter made my stomach turn as soon as I entered the building. My job was to put the lid on the boxes after the big butter pooing machine squirted in its two litres of butter. I lasted an hour and a half (about three hundred lids) before feigning illness and fled back to the safe bosom of unemployment. I couldn’t eat butter again for years.
After that I was assigned to a computer factory. Computers don’t smell I thought – this I can do. When I arrived I looked about for the head office to see where my desk would be only to be directed to the warehouse where I was declared chief stickerer – ie I had to place annoying stickers on the back of all the computers. Having earned a degree from Galway’s finest university only weeks before I thought this was somewhat beneath my abilities but I was determined to give it my all and align all the stickers up more neatly and symmetrically than had ever been done before. And then I met my partner in this adventure. He was a sixteen year old with earring, tattoos and a very large and hardened looking fist. He informed me that he was working there as he had been kicked out of school for beating up the headmaster. As you can imagine we shared a lot of life’s philosophies in the two days I lasted in that particular job.
After some other charmingly interesting jobs I finally got one that I wanted and ended up teaching English in a language school for two years. I really loved that one and still miss it. Most of my students were French speaking Belgian teenagers. I loved the cute way they’d pronounce my name making ‘Conor’ sound suave and exotic in their strong accents. After about a year I discovered they had actually been saying ‘connard’ the whole time. Connard is the French for asshole. What a coincidence that I had been planning such a big surprise test for the following day.
Go on then, what was your worst job?
Gosh, I don’t know that anything could be worse than yer butter factory job. Except maybe the job I had when I lived in Scotland. I was looking after a little old lady who was the most hateful person I have ever met. She got physically weaker as time went on so let’s just say that my role morphed more from ‘companion’ to literal ‘arse wiper’. I didn’t stick around for long.
I worked in Galway’s finest University a few years back, albeit quite briefly. It certainly wasn’t my worst job. It was super duper!
Fun times.
Gaijin Girl – I never had to come in actual physical contact with the butter so maybe you win
Alan – was this pre or post the name change to NUIG?
We’re talking post name change. In your mind, is there a difference?
Hands down teen mental hospital. Not only did I restrain people with my body, but I locked up all the forks, knives, pens, pencils and most definitely leg-shaving razors. Unfortunately waxing was not an ok alternative for the girls.
Wait, Beth, you worked in a teen mental hospital? Why have we never discussed this?!?
I suddenly feel like you’re a stranger to me now
Ugh, that butter vibe sounds positively icky!
I worked for two summers in a state nursing home. It wasn’t particularly uplifting. I also worked for two summers in Christmas cracker making factory in Co. Galway. Surreal. And for years afterwards when everyone was gathered around the table for Christmas dinner eager to pull the crackers, I was all “Oh, GB21s? Fish, spanners and erasers…”
Barista in a South Belfast coffee shop. Now that sucks ass bigtime. “Can i get a choca woka cocka with extra cocka please?” Aaaaaaarrrrggggghhhh. Say regular coffee and get out!!!
“Go on then, what was your worst job?”
Working in a fast food place where the entrance to the toilets was on the outside of the building. Part of my job was cleaning the bathrooms. The bathrooms were open all the time (the restaurant was 24 hours). Hookers turned tricks in them, druggies would shoot up and then stash their kit in the toilet innards, thereby messing up the toilets, and homeless people would bathe in there. Oh, and people would shit on the floor and barf on the walls, and vice versa. There was a drain in the floor, but it wasn’t big enough to accomodate the chunks, so that meant I got to scoop it all up with my gloved hands.
And people wonder why I’m so paranoid about germs.
Not enough money in the world…
Wait, this is my third comment on one post, that isn’t even on my blog! Sorry, Conor, you can have your blog back now. I’ll step away
I worked as a municipal gardener for two summers when in secondary school. Most of the work consisted of hoeing and pulling out the weeds in public flower beds, although I have also been digging drains alongside a country road. It was heavy physical work but not that bad as such – if it weren’t for the old people (them again!) in the neighbourhood who spent all day spying at you from behind their curtains, and then phoned to the management in order to complain as soon as you took off your shirt in the blistering heat. The area was much more uptightly christian than where I came from. Or perhaps they were jealous of all that adolescent skinniness.
But my real worst job (but it payed well, so I kept it for several years) must have been working as a postman on Saturday mornings, which I did when I was a student. Again, the job itself, especially the actual walking around town and delivering letters, was not the actual problem. But starting at six (on a Saturday!!) in order to presort the letters of your round (which took about half the total working time) was. Sorting letters is not rocket science of course, but it was too difficult for me (and would have been if work had started at a decent hour of the day), so every time it took me ages to do it. It was just too dull! I couldn’t concentrate on it, my thoughts wandered everywhere! In a very Clockwork Orange fashion, I also developed a very serious, and lifelong, allergy for SkyRadio in this way, because it was always on there in the post office. Just can’t stand those dynamics-less “rock classics” any more, and I still cringe when I hear a song that was popular then at that station (no, I am not going to provide any titles).
I’m sure it doesn’t sound as bad as your butter job, but it was then that I decided 1) I wasn’t a morning person, 2) I needed a job where my lack of focus would not translate immediately in a less (or slower) result. So I became a civil servant.
Hey Alan my blog is your casa as they say
I wondered if you had been working in NUIG when I was around but I think you arrived after (I left in ‘98)
Beth and Fat Sparrow – I’m pretty sure they both beat my butter woes – at least mine was never dangerous and I didn’t have to touch anything nasty apart from those damn lids
Enda – this explains soooo much – you are to blame for all those cheesy christmas cracker jokes. I should have known
Manuel – Can I have mine decaf with low fat soya milk please …
hidh – I bet you looked so cute in your postman’s uniform – any pictures from that time?
Did you ever play the butter game?
My worst job was working in a builders’ merchants. There was nothing to do . Nothing. I spent the whole time masturbating.
No photos of me in uniform, although I have kept the rain suit and the woollen sweater because it’s so thick and looks just like the ones they wear in the Navy
Yeah, I was there after that. I was thinking the same too. I think I definitely would have noticed a dreamy-eyed cutey walking around campus
And your experience is exactly why I’m dreading leaving college – I’ll end up doing a job that involves me doing something completely unrelated to my degree.
Butter game Minge – Do I want to know??
Alan, you made me blush
Dario – well I know some people who manage to never leave and I’m not sure that’s much better. Besides it’s not all bad on this side either – especially on pay day!
Worst job was working in a restaurant, because now I can’t go out to eat without the knowledge that at least half a dozen people will be eating food that has been on the floor of the dirty kitchen.
I just thought of you when you mentioned the butter factory, pinching scraps of butter for the butter game. Do you want me to tell you? It does involve the anus.
I also did one night washing dishes at a Galway restaurant during uni Kav – it also put me off eating out for quite some time.
Minge – I think we’ll leave that one to the imagination while it’s still intact
Bacon slicer.
We had to go into the huge freezer first thing in the morning and spend twenty minutes in there, freezing our nuts off, loading up all the pallets for the day.
The rest of the day was spent on the line operating the slicing machine. If you were lucky, you got to go help Billy in the vacuum packing room. Billy was a sound auld skin.
Although it was the poor eejits that worked in the fish processing plant across the way that i really felt sorry for. The stink on the bus home, jaysus !
D’accord.