Ha! Just been up a ladder clearing out the guttering - disgusting - and there was more grass than the lawn's got (how does that happen?) and then I bump into this thread.
Physically for me was working for my Dad in the school holidays when I was 17. He had a contract putting in new pipes at an oil refinery. My job was to drill holes in the reinforced concrete retaining walls around the storage tanks for the pipes to go through.
Despite having a hose attached to the pneumatic drill to avoid sparks it was all going well until both the light and medium drills broke on the first morning meaning I was left with holding a heavyweight drill horizontally with massive vibration and while getting soaked in water. Back then there wasn't all that health and safety stuff like steel toe caps, hard hats and ear defenders. It was enough to persuade me that an office job was the way to go!
Mentally was getting up at 4am to prepare for executing a search warrant at 6am and finishing at 3am the following day. The last three hours was just watching a locksmith drill out a safe: there was nothing in it!
Back in the day, when I was an apprentice in the print, we used to start on a Friday morning at 8.15am and work all the way through to 6.15am the next day (Saturday), this was known as a rounder. We used to do that at least once a month. Not sure you would get away with it these days!
Up at 6am for presentation in Manila. Worked all day. Got flight to Jakarta to repeat presentation the next day to an Indonesian audience (flight time almost 4 hours) Flight badly delayed Arrived in Jakarta at 3.30am Taxi took me to the wrong hotel. Arrived at right hotel at 5am. Given note at reception that client had been trying to contact me to change presentation from 11am to 8.30 am Didn't bother going to bed. Taxi at 7.30 am to meeting. Presented at 8.30 am Finished at noon. Had to have lunch with the clients. 3pm died. 7pm woke to an alarm for taxi to take me to airport/
Used to do a 17 hour shift every Sunday, 8am until 1am when doing my A-levels at school (I also did Friday and Saturday evenings). It was non-stop bar two twenty minutes breaks. I would smell of onions until about Thursday and then be back on Friday re-hydrating more of them. Can honestly say I can't remember working harder during the last 34 years whilst in full-time employment, so it was a good learning experience. I did it in order to pay my rent.
Doha 18 hours a day , only sandwiches from the day befores room service to eat, fecking hot during day freezing at night. Still the money made it worth it
Doha 18 hours a day , only sandwiches from the day befores room service to eat, fecking hot during day freezing at night. Still the money made it worth it
A friend of a friend had the contract to setup all the barriers along the roadside for the London Marathon probably about 9 or 10 years ago now.
Myself and my mates, about 14 or 15 of us had the job of assembling all of it.
We worked from about 6am to 8pm taking the barriers apart as the race moved along, flipping them up and balancing it on your shoulder, then launching them onto a lorry as it drove very slowly around most of London. I was about 17 at the time and weighed about 8 stone, felt battered after it all.
Decent hourly rate if I remember though. Oh and I'm pretty sure I went Venue in New Cross the night before!
A friend of a friend had the contract to setup all the barriers along the roadside for the London Marathon probably about 9 or 10 years ago now.
Myself and my mates, about 14 or 15 of us had the job of assembling all of it.
We worked from about 6am to 8pm taking the barriers apart as the race moved along, flipping them up and balancing it on your shoulder, then launching them onto a lorry as it drove very slowly around most of London. I was about 17 at the time and weighed about 8 stone, felt battered after it all.
Decent hourly rate if I remember though. Oh and I'm pretty sure I went Venue in New Cross the night before!
I worked a double shift on new years eve from 12:30 PM all the way through till 11 the next morning in an Alcoholic And Drugs Rehab. As a recovery worker .then gets a phone call to say a pipe had burst at another rehab fixed that got home about 2pm new day. Tired but worth it
A friend of a friend had the contract to setup all the barriers along the roadside for the London Marathon probably about 9 or 10 years ago now.
Myself and my mates, about 14 or 15 of us had the job of assembling all of it.
We worked from about 6am to 8pm taking the barriers apart as the race moved along, flipping them up and balancing it on your shoulder, then launching them onto a lorry as it drove very slowly around most of London. I was about 17 at the time and weighed about 8 stone, felt battered after it all.
Decent hourly rate if I remember though. Oh and I'm pretty sure I went Venue in New Cross the night before!
Worked with the sound crew at Glastonbury last year. I am the type of person that unless it was a severe emergency you wouldn't ask me to help with anything manually, I am utterly useless when it comes to things like that. So Setting up all the speakers at the worlds biggest festival was hardly a perfect match. It essentially meant lugging them from one place to another, and some of these speakers and sub woofers were twice my size. I Only got the job on a technicality of a legend who recommended me anyway so it wasn't on merit at all. The rest of the geezers on the team had been doing it for 20 years so were well used to carrying them about and not phased by how heavy they were. I'm only scrawny anyway so it was basically a living hell for me, the setting up took 2-3 days before the festival started, which although it was bloody hard, I had some energy and the excitement of the festival got me through it. However, the hardest day was the Monday after the festival had finished, once everyone was going home we had to load it all back up again, baring in mind some speakers were stacked on each other four or five times over. It was my first Glastonbury so naturally hit the festival pretty hard and hadn't gone to bed on the last night until 5:30am. We had to meet at 7:30am and spent the whole day carrying these speakers from van to van, it was a bloody nightmare, I genuinely started to get angry at myself for all those times in my life in which I hadn't been carrying speakers that I had taken for granted, the day didn't finish until 11pm it was truly horrible. Even though doing that work meant I got a free ticket, I'm still not sure as to whether I'd be able to handle it again this year, I was completely broken!
The hardest mentally. Some years ago a colleague was killed and four other of my workmates were badly injured in an accident while working on some electrical switchgear on a chemical plant. After the various investigations and inquiries were complete, I and another engineer were tasked with removing and replacing the damaged switchgear. We worked for about 12 hours each day until we finished after 5 days leaving only a burn mark on the ceiling. It was without doubt the saddest and hardest week in my working life
As a pupil brewer I spent some time stacking beer casks on pallets. Back in the early 80s there were still 36 gallon casks. They would come up from the cellar on a "scissor" lift and then fall off the lift and roll towards you. You then had to tip them on end, on to the pallet (2 to a pallet). I weighed about 9 stone at the time so these were over 3 times my weight. Slightly less physical, but hotter, was "throwing" (digging out) the spent grains from the mash tun after all the wort has been extracted. They are still quite wet and hot (having been sprayed with brewing liquor at around 76 degrees). Woebetide if they came over the top of your wellies!!
Longevity was a data center move a few years ago - me and six other blokes moved 60 racks of servers from one place to another, over four days. Everything working Monday morning - last server powered up and reconfigured at 2am. One sleep of 6 hours on the Saturday morning, so multiple 'days' of 24 hours worked.
Physically, I worked on the bins in gravesend for a week when I was 17. Back breaking, vile and all done in the height of summer - 30 degrees heat so everything had maggots under it
I've done a 7:30am to 10:30pm in Ashford Surrey, it turned out that that and the previous day which had an earlier finish of 8pm were a complete waste of time!!
A days labouring when I was 16. I couldn't believe how hard work could be, that one day convinced me work was not for me. I've tried to give it a miss ever since.
Comments
(Stupid brain)
Physically for me was working for my Dad in the school holidays when I was 17. He had a contract putting in new pipes at an oil refinery. My job was to drill holes in the reinforced concrete retaining walls around the storage tanks for the pipes to go through.
Despite having a hose attached to the pneumatic drill to avoid sparks it was all going well until both the light and medium drills broke on the first morning meaning I was left with holding a heavyweight drill horizontally with massive vibration and while getting soaked in water. Back then there wasn't all that health and safety stuff like steel toe caps, hard hats and ear defenders. It was enough to persuade me that an office job was the way to go!
Mentally was getting up at 4am to prepare for executing a search warrant at 6am and finishing at 3am the following day. The last three hours was just watching a locksmith drill out a safe: there was nothing in it!
Up at 6am for presentation in Manila.
Worked all day.
Got flight to Jakarta to repeat presentation the next day to an Indonesian audience (flight time almost 4 hours)
Flight badly delayed
Arrived in Jakarta at 3.30am
Taxi took me to the wrong hotel.
Arrived at right hotel at 5am.
Given note at reception that client had been trying to contact me to change presentation from 11am to 8.30 am
Didn't bother going to bed.
Taxi at 7.30 am to meeting.
Presented at 8.30 am
Finished at noon.
Had to have lunch with the clients.
3pm died.
7pm woke to an alarm for taxi to take me to airport/
Myself and my mates, about 14 or 15 of us had the job of assembling all of it.
We worked from about 6am to 8pm taking the barriers apart as the race moved along, flipping them up and balancing it on your shoulder, then launching them onto a lorry as it drove very slowly around most of London. I was about 17 at the time and weighed about 8 stone, felt battered after it all.
Decent hourly rate if I remember though. Oh and I'm pretty sure I went Venue in New Cross the night before!
After the various investigations and inquiries were complete, I and another engineer were tasked with removing and replacing the damaged switchgear. We worked for about 12 hours each day until we finished after 5 days leaving only a burn mark on the ceiling. It was without doubt the saddest and hardest week in my working life
That was hard
Physically, I worked on the bins in gravesend for a week when I was 17. Back breaking, vile and all done in the height of summer - 30 degrees heat so everything had maggots under it
Can't wait for Raheem Sterlings autobiography.
I couldn't believe how hard work could be, that one day convinced me work was not for me.
I've tried to give it a miss ever since.
Should have asked for a rise.