Ever had a shady or terrible job experience and promptly quit?

Rodimus

Rodimus

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I was thinking about all the jobs I had and one particular was the worst. It was for a telemarketing company during my college days. We would call up random people asking for donations torwards local fire departments. It was soon after 9/11 so many American's were still very gung-ho. We were calling people in North Carolina while the telemarketing company I worked for was in in South Florida... so that was a red flag. During training the boss tells us to try and sound "authoritative" like we were cops or fire men. That was another red flag, but it seemed like a good cause so I didn't mind. After a week I got quite good at my "cop voice" so I did well for a beginner but still felt very much like a pest. As you'd imagine 80% of my calls were angry people on the other end, not that I blame them.

We had a script to read from and a seperate sheet to refer to everytime someone asked a question. We were told to read it word for word. I never read through the entire sheet. Anyways during my 2nd week someone asks me a few questions, and my answer was rather disturbing.

Lady: Are you a real firefighter?
Me: No mam, it's actually against the law for firefighters to solicit donations over the phone. So they hire outside companies to call for them.
Lady: Okay. Well I don't mind helping out but since they hired you what percentage do you get and what percentage do the firefighters get?
Me: refering to the sheet I begin to read some bullshit then get to shocking part, "the firefighters receive 20% of the donations."

I was in shock, it was the first time I had read that. The lady quickly said "No thanks, that doesn't sound fair." and hangs up. That means if this lady donated $100 only $20 would go to the cause she was donating for and the telmarketing rat bastards get the rest. That does sound unfair.

So the next day I was walking with my girlfriend and I was explaining how I hate my job and how much I do not want to work there. So right then I was like, fuck it, I quit. Called the office, told my boss I'm out and I didn't feel comfortable working there. Picked up my check a few days later. Didn't seem mad, almost like he was used to it.
 
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Not so much shady, but terrible.

I had a job working for Time Warner Cable. I made it through 3 days of training -- which was mostly trying to put on my boot spikes in New York winter to climb 20 feet up a pole. I quickly decided that my Bachelors in Telecommuncations had to get me more than $10 an hour to freeze my balls off suspended by a belt in mid-air.
 
Yeah I hear ya.

Last year I was interviewed for a teaching position in an after school program for a company that does this stuff in schools. They brought me on for like 28 dollars an hour which sounded good. As I was signing the paper work, they started telling me that I was going to be financially responsible for the equipment if anything happens to it, accident or not. Then they tell me it's not 28 dollars an hour, it's 28 dollars per class. Does not include travel time pay or reimbursement. So basically they were going to pay me 28 dollars, to drive 1 hr to their HQ, put all their computers into my car, take all that equipment to the school, set up, teach the class for one hour, pack up, sit in traffic, return the equipment, then sit in another hour in traffic for 28 bucks an hour? fuck that! :bomb::bomb::bomb:

A few days later I contacted them and informed them that another job that I applied for months ago called me and wanted me to start working for them, so they let me take that other job. Even thought I was leaving on good terms and they understood, they wanted me to give a presentation about robotics and see if it's viable for their company and wanted me to teach it on the weekends at their HQ instead of driving around the county.

So I did it, they gave me 20 bucks and lunch and said contact them in a month to give them time to advertise the whole program with me leading it. I contacted them 1 month later and the bastards told me that they found someone else because "I told them I did not know anything about robotics..." WTF?:bomb::bomb::bomb::bomb: but they wanted to hear what I had to offer them............ screw that.

Years back...

Working for Pizza Hut for 2 weeks before quitting.... got tired of my car smelling like pizza and eating Pizza for B/L/D drove me nuts :(

Don Pablos....helped open up a new location..was told they would feed us, and they never did...got tired of the job and quit.
 
[quote name='Rodimus']I was thinking about all the jobs I had and one particular was the worst. It was for a telemarketing company during my college days. We would call up random people asking for donations torwards local fire departments. It was soon after 9/11 so many American's were still very gung-ho. We were calling people in North Carolina while the telemarketing company I worked for was in in South Florida... so that was a red flag. During training the boss tells us to try and sound "authoritative" like we were cops or fire men. That was another red flag, but it seemed like a good cause so I didn't mind. After a week I got quite good at my "cop voice" so I did well for a beginner but still felt very much like a pest. As you'd imagine 80% of my calls were angry people on the other end, not that I blame them.

We had a script to read from and a seperate sheet to refer to everytime someone asked a question. We were told to read it word for word. I never read through the entire sheet. Anyways during my 2nd week someone asks me a few questions, and my answer was rather disturbing.

Lady: Are you a real firefighter?
Me: No mam, it's actually against the law for firefighters to solicit donations over the phone. So they hire outside companies to call for them.
Lady: Okay. Well I don't mind helping out but since they hired you what percentage do you get and what percentage do the firefighters get?
Me: refering to the sheet I begin to read some bullshit then get to shocking part, "the firefighters receive 20% of the donations."

I was in shock, it was the first time I had read that. The lady quickly said "No thanks, that doesn't sound fair." and hangs up. That means if this lady donated $100 only $20 would go to the cause she was donating for and the telmarketing rat bastards get the rest. That does sound unfair.

So the next day I was walking with my girlfriend and I was explaining how I hate my job and how much I do not want to work there. So right then I was like, fuck it, I quit. Called the office, told my boss I'm out and I didn't feel comfortable working there. Picked up my check a few days later. Didn't seem mad, almost like he was used to it.[/QUOTE]
:rofl: Now I won't feel so bad about hanging up on them.
 
I had two really sketchy jobs right out of college.

One had me going to various grocery stores and stuff, talking to anyone that walked in, saying we're doing stuff for "Child Safety" which basically involved finger printing kids and selling various cheap toys and shit at a huge markup.

Another was for a place called "World Financial Group" which claims to be in the business of financial consulting, but is really a glorified pyramid scheme, because all they really seemed to teach in the month or so I was there was how to get more people to "work" for the organization.
 
Not sketchy, but lame. I was tutoring for a company that had me driving all over and filling out all sorts of paperwork, but I wasn't getting paid for it - just for the tutoring session. Then they started doubling up kids from different grades, which is a bad idea for the kids, academically. My super would schedule last-minute meetings, then show up 30 mins to an hour late, forget essential paperwork. Then she started calling me in the evenings and assign paperwork to be signed by parents by the next day - which meant more unpaid travel and time. I told her to pound sand.
 
Worked the only graveyard shift job I ever took for over two years. I had a stable day job so the night job was my 'pocket money' job at $14/hr. It was an anti-piracy firm and they needed someone at the office for whenever a movie/videogame exec feared that their movie/game has been leaked, and I was supposed to send a takedown notice. So essentially they just needed someone to pick up a phone. There was also some manual data mining/crawling I had to perform too. But in the spirit of the film Office Space, I only averaged about 15 minutes of real work per 8-hour shift.

In terms of my milking the paid time of doing nothing, I did have a number of shifts where I slept the entire time in one of the empty office rooms. I also ended up bringing my game consoles where I started and finished games like Final Fantasy XII and the Halo trilogy.
 
That sounds like a really sweet gig. I would have loled if you'd said those games you played were pirated though.
 
[quote name='Clak']That sounds like a really sweet gig. I would have loled if you'd said those games you played were pirated though.[/QUOTE]

Interestingly enough, we were expected to pirate games as part of the evidence-gathering process with the lawyers of these game companies.
 
Nothing super shady. Worst I had was working in this little small saw mill (3 employees total--made railroad ties and fence posts) for 3 weeks or so one summer. Was the summer in between high school and college.

Was hard work--the ties are heavy as shit and was hot as hell as it was outdoor sawmill with a tin roof. Pay was shit as well, $5 an hour--was back when Minimum wage was $4.25.

Quit after the owner was late on paying me the 2nd and 3rd week. Far to hard of work to not get paycheck on time.
 
wrote for the newspaper for my university as a staff reporter. if you've ever wondered why journalism is like it is today, just look at what they teach kids in college.

your job is to basically fill newspaper space with whatever bullshit you can find so the editors don't look bad. sensationalize everything and make it a mission to be the most annoying prick to your sources until they spit out information they didn't mean to say.

and get paid nothing for it. what a wonderful field.
 
[quote name='Habbler']Vector Marketing. If you know the name you already know the story.[/QUOTE]

HAA HAA HAA!

My crappy job story was actually a 3 year endeavor. It was a scam where we have people in India or the Philippines call up small US businesses and offer them an updated advertisement in their local area yellow pages...but that was the name of the company Local Area Yellow Pages. Sneaky. They would bill people who accepted the service (and many didn't pay attention or couldn't understand the rep) when they said that if the person doesn't call to cancel after their 14 day trial, that they would be charged monthly.

So lots of people who have this charge on their bill for months, not notice, then finally call in pissed off wanting hundreds of dollars in refunds. We were forbidden from doing that. Over time, I went to the Philippines to train the call center folks, tried to get them to be more clear of the ToS, and on the inbound call center side really did raise the quality standards so that at least the people who signed up were stupid and not misled, but the whole basis of the business was a scam, always being bought out, sold, or re-acquired by various parent companies. I was newly married, and had a young child, but even with that I nearly quit a half-dozen times. When I finally secured a different job, I GTFO. Worst job of my life. You feel like trash when you know your job is all about scamming people.
 
I've spent the last seven years of my life putting up with my shady boss and his even shadier, diabolic even, boss.

I've seen people receive favoritism, customers get reamed for profits, costs cut, people fired or demoted for no good reason.

Not to sure why I decided to stay on for seven years, but in the last three years alone I've almost resigned at least 5-6 times. Sadly I accumulated a lot of debt in my college years and the job market is piss poor right now, so I've never had the gull to just quit and walk out.
 
RE: Telemarketing gig in OP
What % did you think went to overhead and employment?

I worked at Blockbuster for about a month and a half when I was 19. Barely above minimum wage to take more verbal abuse than I thought possible. I did get to meet Prince though so that was pretty cool. One lady threw some impulse buy at POS candy at me because I refused to wipe off a late fee after seeing that she returned her tapes late 80% of the time. I had enough at that point and in the most sensible and reasonable tone I could muster told the lady some things that just weren't very nice. Then I punched out and left, never to work in video rental another day.
 
[quote name='nasum']RE: Telemarketing gig in OP
What % did you think went to overhead and employment?

I worked at Blockbuster for about a month and a half when I was 19. Barely above minimum wage to take more verbal abuse than I thought possible. I did get to meet Prince though so that was pretty cool. One lady threw some impulse buy at POS candy at me because I refused to wipe off a late fee after seeing that she returned her tapes late 80% of the time. I had enough at that point and in the most sensible and reasonable tone I could muster told the lady some things that just weren't very nice. Then I punched out and left, never to work in video rental another day.[/QUOTE]

That's wild. I actually had a lot of fun working at Blockbuster. It was HS and then college breaks, but I think only one time did anybody ever try to attack me over a late fee. Those high counters and quick reflexes saved me from getting punched, but the store manager would do stuff like bet me $5 I couldn't do the late fee notice phonecalls in funny accents without breaking character. Inventory nights were a blast. Getting to checkout a bunch of movies every month for free, employee discounts. Hell, there are parts of that that sound better than my current "professional" job!

I'm a wizard at patronizing or mocking people without them realizing it, so that was probably my coping mechanism for the bad customers.
 
Worked at a tech support place during college for a company that had equipment to track where various FOBs are. This is useful in situations where a place has a lot of keys, such as car dealerships, because you can see who took a key at X time, returned it at Y, etc.

It wasn't a shady place in and of itself, but my reason for leaving was. They needed someone to do the Saturday shift, which basically amounted to me sitting around for eight hours in the empty office. So it's an FNG thing. I took blankets and pillows and my GBA and played games, and the call volume was exceedingly low because most places assumed we only worked during the week. Even then, I could let the machine pick up the calls, and then return them at some later point. Pretty nice, all things considered.

Without really exaggerating, a customer calls in and says his stuff is down. I'd never heard of this particular issue before, so I called the senior tech. He gave me directions, so I called the customer back. Customer says everything is now working properly, and thanks me for returning his call.

I don't come back into work until Tuesday in the afternoon (classes in the morning). Supervisors pulls me aside and asks if I remember the customer. I said that I had talked to him on Saturday twice, but that the issue was resolved and he hadn't called back with further problems. Supervisor tells me that he called in on Tuesday morning (long before I'm there) and had a similar issue. The tech he talked to at that time told him that the equipment was more or less dead, so he'd need to RMA it in for a replacement. This normally takes a few business days, depending on how quickly the customer ships everything at THEIR own cost. Upon hearing this, the customer flipped his shit, screaming at that tech and demanding all sorts of things. Supervisor took over the call at that time and calmed the guy down, finally asking him to send in a list of grievances.

Guy faxes in this three page long rant, where he specifically says "The guy I talked to on Saturday was unhelpful and rude, and told me he couldn't help, and hung up," and maybe a few other dozen things. I think he said I stole his Snickers bar and then beat him with the leftover part, which is obviously false, because I don't eat Snickers.

Anyway, supervisor puffs himself up and says I need to sign a sheet indicating that A) I had done wrong, and B) I admitted to doing wrong. I was a little blindsided by it, and I'm tired of of supervisor by this time anyway, as he'd refused to hear my side of the story. So I signed the sheet. As I'm walking away, he then tells me "We're going to take you off the Saturday shift, so you'll have to make up the hours during the week." This was a heavy semester, so there was no way I was going to make up the hours, and told him as much. He puts on sunglasses and says DEELWIDDIT and then spikes the clipboard on the ground while making finger guns.

I turned in my two weeks the next day, finished the shift, and went home. Next shift is Friday two days later. I go in, and they tell me "you know, you can just go ahead and go home if you want, we don't need you to finish these two weeks out." So I DID; walked out, loudly lamenting how horrible it was that I'd just been handed a three day weekend.

Unrelated but at the same place: There was a car dealership that called in the day after Christmas, their shit is down, I tell them there's nothing I can do at the time, to which the guy responds YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, IT'S TOYOTATHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON.

The obvious response here was to laugh my ass off. Which I did! On mute of course.
 
I worked at a shoe store one summer at the mall and came into work one day (after working the day before) to find that the store was completely gutted and contractors were there turning it into something else. No one said anything to anyone so I guess I quit?
 
I've always wondered how it would feel to come to work one day only to find the place is gone. I don't mean gutted, I mean gone, like the building is dust.

Worst job I ever had was at Hollywood video. Manager was such a weasel that he expected us to restart the POS machines if we needed to remove an item, he claimed that loss prevention watched that shit. That company must have been run like shit.
 
I had one job back in the 90s where I didnt even last half the day. I found it through some ad in the classfieds and it basically had no description for what it was. I went and it turned out it was going into different business and selling them cards and various junk items from heavy briefcases you toted around.

THe guy who was doing the interview car was broke so he had me drive him around. One business told us to get out as soon as we showed up. Don't think we sold anything that day at all. By lunch I said this wasnt for me, and I went home.

Another job was at a local video store in a neighberhood known for its "cathouse" and crackheads. This place was still using paper index cards to check things out. There was also a seperate file cabinet for people with outstanding late fees who were paying things back on credit that could still check things out.
Once I got a feel of how unsavory the place was I only lasted there 2-3 days.
 
[quote name='nasum']RE: Telemarketing gig in OP
What % did you think went to overhead and employment?[/QUOTE]

I honestly don't know, but that's a damn good question. The company is called Xentel. I just googled them and the first thing that pops up on the auto search is "Xentel scam." I guess they're still doing this "charity scam."

BTW I also worked at a Blockbuster so I know that feel bro. You get some real prick customers there. I later got a job at Suncoast video in a mall so I GTFO out of Blockbuster. Pretty cool job I must say. Ironiclly at Suncoast we started selling subscriptions to a new service called "Netflix." At first I thought this thing is never gonna fly. Oh how wrong I was.
 
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This was easily in 97 or 98. There was an ad in the paper about selling and installing surround sound speakers etc.

I went in, filled out the app, got hired.

*this part will probably sound familiar to those in Tx and probably elsewhere*

It turned out to be you driving a company vehicle which consisted of a minivan trying to sell people speakers.

You could tell anyone whatever you wanted, but the breakdown was as long as the company got 100.00 a pair, you could sell them for whatever you wanted and thats how you got paid.

The story that was used when I was being "trained" was we were installing at a local music venue and the company sent too many speakers but invoiced us for the correct amount so we were looking to flip the rest etc. Had a fancy shmancy laminated printout making them seem worth more than they were etc but they were hands down the worst quality ever.
 
[quote name='Clak']I've always wondered how it would feel to come to work one day only to find the place is gone. I don't mean gutted, I mean gone, like the building is dust.[/QUOTE]

My dad used to work at a country club in the 80s. They closed down for an entire summer to remodel. When it was set to open the next spring, the day before it was supposed to open, it burned down. My dad spent an entire year remodeling the place, only to come into work one day and find nothing left except the brick chimney, still standing. :lol:
 
I actually quit the very first job I had within 2 hours. My friend's grandfather was a manager of some sort in a packing plant for oranges. My brother and I were 15 and wanted some cash so we asked him for a job. He hired us no problem. My mom dropped us off at this big building with no AC. Our job was to build boxes, yep. So for 2 hours we built boxes. It was monotonous and boring. During our break we decided to call mommy and GTFO of there. I felt like shite since he was my friends grandfather and helped us out, but seriously it was illegal immigrant grunt work for $5 an hour.
 
[quote name='Will']This was easily in 97 or 98. There was an ad in the paper about selling and installing surround sound speakers etc.

I went in, filled out the app, got hired.

*this part will probably sound familiar to those in Tx and probably elsewhere*

It turned out to be you driving a company vehicle which consisted of a minivan trying to sell people speakers.

You could tell anyone whatever you wanted, but the breakdown was as long as the company got 100.00 a pair, you could sell them for whatever you wanted and thats how you got paid.

The story that was used when I was being "trained" was we were installing at a local music venue and the company sent too many speakers but invoiced us for the correct amount so we were looking to flip the rest etc. Had a fancy shmancy laminated printout making them seem worth more than they were etc but they were hands down the worst quality ever.[/QUOTE]

Whoa! THAT's how it was done. I always wondered. I bought a pair of speakers out of a van like that, and so did two friends. I don't remember what I paid, but it was definitely less than $100 for the pair. My buddy paid like, $300 for them or something insane. They have been solid speakers. I've had them for over 10 years and they still work quite well. Not home theater quality, but for blasting out enough sound while DJing in the garage, they've been nice. I always wondered how that scam got it's origins.
 
I remember those audio vans. I had two guys come up to me when I was pumping gas a few years ago after work. Seemed shady as all hell too.
 
[quote name='Javery']I worked at a shoe store one summer at the mall and came into work one day (after working the day before) to find that the store was completely gutted and contractors were there turning it into something else. No one said anything to anyone so I guess I quit?[/QUOTE]


was this guy your co-worker?

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Oh yeah, I worked at that Xentel place for like 3 days doing "Charity Fundraising" They let me go for what I basically surmised as "I wasn't being a big enough asshole"
 
I had the craziest experience at a gas station the other day.

Guy comes up and starts polishing my car, trying to sell me 2 cans of miracle cleaner for $25 (yeah sure pal)

Then some guy who's gassing up starts smoking and another guy starts yelling and threatening to punch the smoker's lights out.

That was my cue to GO.
 
Job #1: MCI
Training was 5 days, and 4 of those days consisted of getting to know the culture. This meant, you sat down next to a "trainer" and listened to him make calls to sell long distance. I sat there and listened to this dude make phone calls for 8 damn hours. In between calls, he would tell me who to see if I wanted drugs and which of the girls were "loose". I didn't bother showing up the following Monday, but I did get 15 girl's phone numbers (I called none of them).

Job #2:
Went in for the interview. The interview consisted of this greased up "bro" asking me: Do you have a car? Do you want to make money? I said yes to both and he said "Congrats, training starts in the next room." I go to this training room and there are 15 other people sitting in chairs. The "bro" tells us congrats for being hired and we are about to be trained! We start watching a 30 minute video on CutCo Knives. I immediately knew that I was going to be a door to door salesman. As I was leaving, the "bro" asked me "I thought you wanted to make money." I replied, "I did, but this is a damn scam." I remember the secretary was HOT though.
 
[quote name='iambeaker']

Job #2:
Went in for the interview. The interview consisted of this greased up "bro" asking me: Do you have a car? Do you want to make money? I said yes to both and he said "Congrats, training starts in the next room." I go to this training room and there are 15 other people sitting in chairs. The "bro" tells us congrats for being hired and we are about to be trained! We start watching a 30 minute video on CutCo Knives. I immediately knew that I was going to be a door to door salesman. As I was leaving, the "bro" asked me "I thought you wanted to make money." I replied, "I did, but this is a damn scam." I remember the secretary was HOT though.[/QUOTE]


OMG I totally forgot about that! LOL I had a similar experience with "CutCo". Now that I remembered it, it was around 1997 and I was responding to a job ad in the paper. I went to the "meeting" at 7:00 at this one place along with several others who had NO idea what this job was about. After like 20 mins of these guys talking, I remembered something similar to what you described and them talking about the knives, which was actually pretty cool, but I kept my mouth shut and was kinda bored after awhile. In the end me and this other guy was selected for "paying attention" during the interview so that's why we got the job and they wanted us to attend a major training seminar and so on. The job sounded really shady and boring so I told them that I wasn't able to make the training meeting and decided instead to attend the first day of "Return of the Jedi: Special edition" in theaters that day.

After reading about them, I am so glad I didn't get that job.
 
During my last year of college, I picked up a job cooking that was 1-2 nights per week and fit around the other part time job I had and my internship. I got the job easily with references because I had cooked before and everything seemed to be alright for the first couple weeks or so.

After a few weeks I started noticing how much of a jerk the owner was. He would call people worthless and say some pretty degrading things. He seriously told this waitress something along the lines of "if your ass wasn't so big, maybe you could give these people faster service." I started contemplating dropping the job after this because I really didn't need the money and being in that atmosphere with the owner being such an ass was pretty miserable.

Well, one night we were slammed pretty hard and the owner was working in the kitchen and I guess he messed something up that was a pretty big deal so he was getting visibly angry. I just ignored it and kept cooking. I wasn't having any problems keeping up with my tickets, but I guess he just let his anger consume him because he turned at me and said something like "hurry up you piece of shit we're getting way behind here". I'm not sure what the exact sentence was, but I clearly heard three specific words.

I stopped, took my apron off and laid it on the counter, walked up right in his face and said, "If you think I need this job bad enough that I will stand around and let you speak to me in that tone, you are sadly mistaken." I walked out through the packed dining room and he chased me down and said "Where the hell are you going?!" I turned and looked at him for second. He obviously didn't get it, so I just said "fuck off, you piece of shit." and walked out the front door.

My final paycheck arrived in the mail a few weeks later. I was pretty surprised it showed up. I seriously do not understand how someone can speak to employees the way in which this guy did and manage to keep them around. Needless to say, I never went back to that restaurant again.
 
Does it count if I never actually got hired at the place?

About four years ago, I was fresh out of college, and was sending resumes to just about any place that I could find. I received a response from a company I didn't exactly remember applying to, but then again I was sending out dozens of resumes, so that wasn't too surprising. A couple of phone interviews and online tests later, they were flying me out to San Diego to attend their "open house" for prospective hires (and formal interview the next day).

The open house thing was a joke. It took place at 6:00 PM, upon which every employee was still there. They kept talking about how great the company culture is...how they take you out on yachts every month...how there's no walls and a completely open atmosphere...how they believe willpower allows one to overcome any obstacle. Worst of all, they openly admitted that pay would be low, but you'd be given shares of company stock to make up for it. Because hey, "An employee with a stake in the company has more motivation to improve the company" or some crap. After the thing was over, I killed some time around town, and wondered if the employees were still there at 10:00 PM, and sure enough, they were.

Realizing I don't want to work insanely long hours for little pay, I went into the interview with the only intention of having fun. Mocked their company policies to the HR rep, and asked questions the CTO could not answer. They didn't offer me the job.

Years later I looked up the company. They've since changed their name, and have a number of complaints and lawsuits against them from employees alleging the company hasn't paid them for their work...work that eats up 12+ hour days and weekends. Their promises of Stock never panned out, as the company never went public. Employee turnover is high so they have those open houses for prospective hires every three months. They've also become notorious for seedy phishing/emailing schemes. Did get a trip to San Diego on their dime though.
 
lol, I was thinking I've never worked for a shady place, till it finally dinged.

My first real job was at a place that made webpages for people. There were less than 10 people there, including an unpaid intern. I was a senior in high school, and the place had very flexible hours, and paid me $6.50 when minimum wage was $4.25 or whatever it was. I could work whatever hours, as long as it's like 40-80 hours a month. Since I was in school, I basically worked most weekdays after school, and some Saturdays, when I didn't have school activities.

I didn't find out later that they paid everyone else there a lot more. One guy there would spend half his time download music off Napster, and he got paid almost twice what I got, plus pay for miles for driving. I started slacking off a little bit, but still getting more work done than the aforementioned guy. I also saw the prices they charged customers. It was like $1-$3k for a website, and another $1-$2k to host for a year.

I got reprimended one day because I didn't show up on a Wednesday, even though I had worked like 65+ hours that month already, so it wasn't like I wasn't doing my job. They got mad because a client whose website I was doing dropped by to see me, to share her vision of what it should be like.... Problem was, she came while I was still in school (iirc, 1:00 PM). On top of which, I had stayed late helping some chick on an assignment. They also failed to tell me the day before (or any time before) that she was stopping by. And remember, I could work whenever I wanted, as long as I get it done.

What I didn't know at the time was that they bought pirated copies of Photoshop, back when it was like $600 for the cheapest option (before Photoshop CS came out).

I quit a month or two after I got reprimended, since I was leaving for college, and wanted a month off to hang out with friends.

A year or two later, after the 2000ish tech crash, I heard that someone from my church was working for them as an accountant. He quit because they had asked him to falsify records. I don't know much of the details, unfortunately, since I didn't really care at the time.
 
I once did some time at temp agency that supplied unskilled labor to folks. I spent about 2 weeks waiting in their office along with everyone else before getting sent out on 3 jobs in one day.

First job seemed alright at first, go help clean up a construction site. When I get there, I find out they want me to clean up excess insulation from underneath new houses. I've got to crawl under these buildings and scoop out the extra stuff. I take 5 minutes to think about it; this stuff is fiberglass or something and it's in the air, and when I went to ask if they had any safety gear for me they laughed and told me to get to work. Yeah right fuck that. I told them I was leaving and they got pissed and started yelling. So when I get back to the office they were mad at me for ditching a client till I explained the situation, I was actually surprised they took my side.

Not more then an hour later, they sent me off with a bunch of other guys to help unload a moving truck. Not a U-Hual or anything, but an actual shipping container. That took FOREVER even with 5 other guys. Worst part was moving a grand piano, while the housewife was bitching and moaning about not smudging the finish on it.

So I get back, am incredibly tired and waiting for my pay, when they tell me they have one more job left and that if I go on it, they stay open till I get back to pay me. Yeah, yeah, so bloody tired, sore, but yeah, I go. It's weeding an old lady's yard. She's incredibly nice, brings me lemon aid, but the yard is a terraced hillside. It's a pain, and by the time I roll into the office, I'm covered in pin pricks from thorns and sharp rocks.

So I finally get paid, and I've given a check for nearly $50. I go over to use the cash machine in the corner, like I've seen everyone else do, only to discover it takes a nearly $8 surcharge. fuck that. I decided I was done with manual labor after that day.

Next day I drove 3 blocks up the road and applied at the temp agency that supplied office workers I didn't even have to take any tests, they told me there was telemarketing firm upstairs that needed help and told me to come back at 3pm. They did political surveys, didn't care that I read books or played on a handheld while I worked and I stayed in that job for nearly 3 years.
 
[quote name='iambeaker']

Job #2:
Went in for the interview. The interview consisted of this greased up "bro" asking me: Do you have a car? Do you want to make money? I said yes to both and he said "Congrats, training starts in the next room." I go to this training room and there are 15 other people sitting in chairs. The "bro" tells us congrats for being hired and we are about to be trained! We start watching a 30 minute video on CutCo Knives. I immediately knew that I was going to be a door to door salesman. As I was leaving, the "bro" asked me "I thought you wanted to make money." I replied, "I did, but this is a damn scam." I remember the secretary was HOT though.[/QUOTE]

I knew that there had to be more people here who had experience with CutCo aka Vector Marketing. My experience was very similar. Hot secretary and BroDude manager. They promised they would help us find clients and it would be really easy to sell the knives. Next day they had us sit down and write 100 names on a list of friends and family. They then asked for $300 for the salesman knife kit and told us to pitch to the 100 names we wrote down. They even encouraged us to borrow the $300 from family to get started.

I told the guy he can't be serious and left that day. I have to imagine only 2-3 people at most out of the 12 decide to do it.
 
You know this is bringing back some more memories...

I now remembering that I use to work for a temp agency as well. They assigned me to work for United moving company. The guy in charge of us at United was a real asshole and the job was boring as hell. I decided not to report to work the next day and quit.
 
Iv got a good one. I got a job out of the paper when I was around 19 or so that was described as "cleaning up premises to expand our private school" or some such nonsense. When I first showed up I was informed that there would be two areas we would be cleaning, the one we arrived at and a second location later in the day that would require "more work". The first one was a breeze, I had to rip down some wall paper, carry some old desks out and remove sticks, logs and rusted equipment from the area surrounding the school.

The second location though...Jesus Christ. It was someones house that we were going to clean before they converted their garage in to a classroom. Problem was that the owner had 4 or 5 dogs that she kept in the garage...all the time...never letting them out. This means that there was poo piled a few inches high as far as the eye could see. The lady also had not prepared masks for us, just gloves. We were expected to clean out the poo, rip out the old carpeting and then take it to the dump. I believe it took me all of 30 seconds to say fuck this noise and go home. Thankfully I had gotten paid up front for the days work ;)
 
Hmmmm, I haven't really had any shady jobs.

I take that back I had a job the summer of my freshman year of college in 2003. I worked in a country store in the produce section. It was boring, On average I got like 30 hrs a week, sometimes it was up to 50 hrs as week.

I got fired for "having a bad attitude", and the owner said business was bad. A week later when I went back to get my check he had hired two people to take my place. The place also didnt pay OT and just carried it over to the next check.....
 
I've had a few instances of shady work.

1st- Right out of high school I applied at a place called Wingzone for a delivery job. The manager was late to meet me so I had to wait. I waited about 30 minutes and he called and told the other guy there to put me to work. I washed about 3 dishes then walked out. No idea if he ever showed but I don't like working for an unknown amount of money.

2nd- I got hired at a club bouncing as side work. The manager was a racist. He told me when he hired me they call "n" words Canadians because they can't say the "n" word (I thought he was joking with me). After about two days he pissed off a big black dude. He wanted me to "escort" him out. I looked at him and said "fuck this, I quit."

3rd- After I moved to Fl I was looking for a part time job. I asked a friend of mine if he knew anyone that was hiring. He hooked me up with a friend of his doing freelance security at clubs. Clubs/bars would call this guy and say they wanted x amount of guys. Then he'd call us and tell us where to go. My first night I was told the bar owners would pay us each cash at the end of the night and we typically only worked 4 hours a night. One of the guys told me not to work at a certain bar because the owner will stiff you.

They send me to a bar they usually cover. This place was in a shitty neighborhood not that I care. The place was so bad that the doormen were always armed, had shotguns in a truck steps away, and had to pat everyone down coming inside. We had to buddy up to the bathroom and had to all leave at the end of the night as one group. My first night there was a huge brawl and took two guns off people.

The next night I get a phone call from the guy wanting me to come work. He says this as he's trying to talk over police sirens in the background. I told him no that I didn't want to end up in jail or the hospital for 60 bucks a night.
 
TL;DR version - Abusive Boss, paid under the table, stolen computers, passive-aggressive coworkers, spineless professor, shady practices.

I forgot about this shady experience, probably for good reason, but while taking some classes in college my professor offered me and 3 other guys in his digital marketing something or other class (I have no clue about the name anymore) a job working for a buddy of his for a weekend setting a website for his business. I wish I had gotten out early.

It turned out this guy wanted us to set up a kids website like ABC Kids (flash games, etc) that he wanted to call XYZ Kids (original!) and he had these delusions of grandeur about it. WHATEVER. We told him it would take longer then a weekend and he promised to pay us at the end of the month, and kept the place stocked with food and water. This job robbed me of my much naivety about working for folks and having general trust in my coworkers.

#1 We worked liked dogs on this, I've never put in more hours of actual work at any other job, not to mention just the sheer actual hours. Our professor who was an "employee" like us, was just a big cheerleader and hardly did anything other then backing up his friend during his lectures about how people of his ethnic background would sacrifice everything for their jobs. If you didn't show up to work on the weekends or tried to have a personal life, you got the stinkeye. And if you were there early or on a Saturday you started to hate the guys who weren't.

#2 Originally we worked on our own (from home) computers. We were required to bring them since there wasn't any for us yet. I didn't bring mine, but used another guy's who brought two in since mine was way underpowered back then. It was this way for about a week till the work computers came in. The computers ordered for us were strange, as in, not from a chain, no packing material, and didn't match each other in components or preinstalled programs. Any attempt to bring this up got a visit from the boss who questioned our willingness to work, and claimed they were donated by members of his community. We accepted that, but afterwards we figured they were probably stolen.

#3 When we weren't working, we were sniping at each other. I quickly lost any respect for our Professor as he bent over for anything from his friend the boss. We were all paid under the table and unequally. Not by work or merit, but by loyalty. (I was apparently the most loyal since I just kept out of the squabbling, I needed cash). I started to get passive aggressive messages on my computer in the morning about how I was taking things which was assumed to be free (big stack of blank CDs out in the open everyone always used, food, coffee), and not holding up my end of the bargain. After getting a bunch of these unsigned messages, I blew up at everyone for being such pussies for not being able to voice anything. Turns out the other guys had been meeting secretly to gripe about everything in private. And because I wasn't there it was assumed I was in with boss. No one told me! I'd even gone on lunch and dinner runs with some of the guys and no had asked why I wasn't coming to the secret meetings. Even our professor was in on it. Everyone assumed someone else had told me about it, and when I didn't show up, I was against them.

The job, and the project didn't last long after the first paycheck. Big shouting match, angry posturing and in the end the boss through us all out and warned us not to step on his property unless we wanted to go to jail for trespassing.

Our professor came to his senses a bit and felt bad for screwing us over and said he talked some money out of friend and gave us each a couple of hundred bucks. I never knew if he was telling the truth or if it was his money. Most of us felt pretty bad about how we treated each other, and decided to try to start a small IT business, except for one of the guys.

He was the one leaving me messages, and could only confront people he didn't know well from behind a computer or through text messaging. Apparently by using his spare computer, which he brought in for me to use, I had deeply upset him since it was HIS COMPUTER or something.

The IT business quickly become just a excuse for daydreaming and playing Halo matches and co-op. Though it did help us mend our hurt egos and feelings.

Truly my worst summer ever.

Oh forgot my actual duties on that project, I got to "make" the flash games. The class was my first experience with flash, and I was actually quite horrible at it. Everyone else wanted to do other parts so I got the short end of the stick. I was actually instructed to find free flash games on the web that were able to be edited and change just enough of their graphics. These types of flash games were usually put up as examples for students to learn off of or by students to show their work.

So glad the entire thing collapsed.
 
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So after never hearing about Vector Marketing before reading this thread, lo and behold one of my good friends gets a job from them. I told him to GTFO, but he insists it's legit. What do I tell him?

Google returns mixed results. From the sounds of things it's 100% commission selling knives, you may or may not have to pay some up front fee for training & supplies, and your primary targets are your middle-aged friends and family. Sounds like some shady shit, but then again I've never heard of them.
 
That is exactly how it works. They find 10 people to train and then they take whoever is dumb enough to buy the Salesman's knife package. At that point its up to you to find all of your parent's friends to pitch too and pray they not only buy the knives, but word of mouth you to a new mark to push the knives on.

If you have the personality to sell a ketchup Popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves its the job for you, but just remember that you are completely on your own as soon as you pay the $200 for your salesman's set.
 
[quote name='Habbler']Vector Marketing. If you know the name you already know the story.[/QUOTE]

Oh boy- I remember that. I bailed right after training. "no pressure sales" my ass...
 
At my first full time job at a car dealership, it wasn't really shady, but it certainly was carny as heck. They tried to act like it wasn't but they always demanded I work time off the clock, were racist/bigoted, and had me doing all sorts of jobs that were nothing like what I had signed up for.

I worked for a title insurance company shortly after getting laid off. It was at the very last spot on a dead end road in a crappy dump of a building. Didn't fill out new hire paperwork until two weeks after we started. The two people who were training me and another girl both left before we knew what was going on. Our manager then changed too. He was a power hungry jerk and never had any idea of what was going on or how to do anything. He also couldn't stop talking about how great he was and all his accomplishments. Neither myself nor the girl who trained with me work there anymore, along with about 20 other people.

Got a job for Lifetouch doing photography and you were paid per diem. It was to do school photos so you had to show up extra early, didn't get reimbursed for gas, and you were regularly driving an hour or more each day. I didn't even show up for the first day.
 
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