The Absolute Worst Working Environment?

goodEvans writes "As I write this, there is a window open behind me with a small jet engine outside. This is supplying vast amounts of compressed air to the aircraft undergoing heavy maintenance in the hangar right outside my door. There is a 6-inch diameter air hose going through the office and out the door. All this requires that I sit at my desk wearing a body warmer to keep out the cold, and both ear defenders AND ear plugs to keep out the noise! And this will go on for half a day once a week! What are the worst conditions you have ever had to work under?" Can you top that? (If top is the word ...)

Comments

Thats really minor

[nurb432]

Try working in an assembly plant for a while where you breathe clouds of oil based coolant and it drips off the celing after condensing. Even IT guys have to work out there on the PLC's and network hardware.

How about a PCB etching line where you have clouds of nitric acid..

Try a coke processing plant ( the black coal stuff, not the drink ) or a casting plant that uses graphite as a release agent.. Both will cause black lung, among other things...

This stuff kills you .. your 'bad job' is just an irritant... Be happy you are employed and quit whining.

How about any of these?

[DaRat]

I was going to make a crack about an OfficeSpace like big mutual insurance company where I was consulting, but then I got to thinking a bit more. I think that we all probably have pretty good working environments, all things considered. Think about these environments (among others):

• Working in an illegal diamond mine. Hot as hell, hard to breathe, little food, you get shot if you don't find anything or enough.
• Picking through a trash dump in a third world city for anything that can be sold.
• A brothel where mama-san or the russian mafia guy holds the keys to the locks and all of the cards (including your passport, if any).
• Subsistence farming in the third world, particularly in a war torn region.
• A sweatshop
• Standing on a street corner hoping for day laborer work knowing that half the time you are going to get stiffed for pay.
• Sitting on your butt at home because you've been out of work for 9 months.

Software engineer at SCO

[wowbagger]

(note: I have NOTHING to do with SCO)

Think about what it would be like to be a bit slinger at SCO in Utah:

First of all, SCO is looking to hire people in India - in other words, you know your job is going to be outsourced soon.

Second of all, you likely are a Unix or Linux programmer - and your company name is reviled in the industry you are in.

Third of all, if you ARE looking to move, nobody wants to hire you for fear of SCO suing them for some imagined infringment.

Fourth of all, the only company that MIGHT hire you as a bit slinger is Microsoft.

Fifth of all, you know points 3 and 4 won't change until AFTER the company collapes - and then you are out of work.

Granted, unlike soldiers in Iraq nobody is shooting at SCO employees or trying to blow them up (AND NOBODY SHOULD, EITHER!). But still, for tech jobs, being a programmer at SCO has to blow.

Re:Are you being shot at?

[mrphish697]

This type of "You got nothing to complain about" comment always comes up in discussions like these. This thread is about somebody with a loud, comedic work setting. It does not detract from what our (or anybody else's) soldiers have to endure, nor from any other dangerous vocation. Get over yourself.