Why do we stay in such fundamentally unfulfilling jobs? Well, because we know how much worse it can be out there. After all, we could be walking into a place we absolutely loathe five times a week, simply because we have to eat and pay rent.
Today, we're going to discuss a waking nightmare, more widely known as the 'service industry.' As an introvert, my years in the people-pleasing business felt like being conscripted into a pointless army where the only battles fought were against wealthier people who wanted us to 'smile more' to make them feel like winners.
I'm hoping that by discussing the worst jobs I've ever had, I and the thousands of other people who endured similar day-to-day realities will experience some kind of cathartic release — or, at the very least, get a chuckle out of my years of on-the-job misery.
Starbucks
If you're at all familiar with any of the previous stories I've written for Narcity, you'll know that my stint as a Starbucks barista was not a very successful one. However, before I roast our great caffeine overlord for taking years off of my life, I feel I should preface those jabs by saying that I don't think it's an objectively terrible place to work. After all, some people I worked with during my time there really seemed to enjoy it.
If I could sum up why Starbucks was one of the worst jobs in my life, besides the fact that it paid pretty much nothing, it would be the simple fact that working there was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Everything the company wanted or rather expected from its employees always rubbed me the wrong way. For example, I was regularly reprimanded by higher-ups at Starbucks for not smiling or forming relationships with customers. I actually got sent home from a shift one time simply because I wasn't happy enough to be there. That's some BS.
There's something very disheartening about making 50 custom drinks in a single hour, knowing the money you've made in that time would only cover the cost of two of them and, instead of getting a pat on the back for your efforts, your manager sends you home because you didn't look like you were enjoying it enough.
Now, I'm not saying I was a stellar employee by any standards. I was mediocre at best, but reliving incidents like the one above have given me the opportunity to forgive myself for something that I now think of as objectively wrong.
Tim Hortons
I promise this isn't going to be a piece about all the coffee chains I've worked at. This is the last one.
Thankfully, my time as a Tim Hortons employee was much shorter than my stint at Starbucks. I worked there for a few months when I was finishing up my last year of high school, and man, did it ever suck. I spent most of my shifts sweeping up the endless sea of cigarette butts people would chuck out of their windows when they were rolling up to the drive-thru. This was comparatively blissful compared to what I was doing for the other half of my shifts, which was cleaning bathrooms.
I won't describe to you what I saw in those Tim Horton's toilets here, but let's just say it was pretty horrific. My manager also used to assign me tasks that I had no experience doing, under the guise that I would just figure it out on the fly. So, if you happened to go through the South Edgware Road drive-thru in St. Thomas, ON, sometime in early 2012, I apologize for massacring your breakfast. I did my best.
Dave's Burgers
There's no image for this place because it doesn't exist anymore. That's probably because it was located right across the street from the Five Guys at Yonge and Dundas Square in Toronto, which if you live in the city, you'll know is doing just fine.
I served up Dave's Burgers for a single shift before hanging up my apron. Why? Because I had no idea what I was doing. I showed up for my first day ever on the job expecting to be trained, and instead, I was plopped in front of a grill and asked to start making orders. When I couldn't, they got annoyed and instructed me to go to the "backroom" and start peeling potatoes. I pretended to do this for about an hour, during which not one person checked in on me, and then promptly left out the back without ever giving notice. I'm about 98 percent sure they didn't even notice.
This was my first-ever experience working in Toronto, and I was shell-shocked afterwards, to the point where I thought that's just how things worked out here — no training, just do it. Thankfully, that wasn't the case, and as I jumped from job to job in the city, I learned that Dave's way of doing things was a bizarre one-off and one I hope never to relive again.
Value Village
A Value Village in Ontario.Wes Foulds | Dreamstime
I can't say I totally hated working at Value Village. After all, the location at which I worked was so big that initially, my entire job revolved around picking up things that had fallen onto the ground. I had a lot of time to think and be by myself, which is my happy place. However, that was only my experience working in the front. Later, when they asked me to help unload the trucks delivering the latest round of donated stuff, I realized how badly allergic to dust I was.
From then on, my workdays involved me breaking out into constant sneezing fits, the kind that no amount of allergy medicine or face masks could prevent. Consequently, I had to retire from my position, as I was not quite ready to die for Value Village just yet.
A Short Film In Brampton
Even if I could find a still from this bizarre film, I wouldn't share it with you — because it was, and is, truly awful. But! It paid $700 for a single week's work, so at least it wasn't a total bust.
As a young and struggling actor, I was eager to take up any work I could find, which meant attending a lot of casting calls that I should've ignored. One of these excursions ended with an offer to come to Brampton for a week to shoot a short film which ended up being so cringey that I'm pretty only the cast and crew watched it.
What I thought would be an exciting adventure and an opportunity to grow as an actor quickly turned into a farce. For starters, the director of the film thought he was making the new Goodfellas, so he repeatedly asked me, a 6'2 Irish Catholic beanpole, to act more like 'Joe Pesci,' which as you can probably imagine, didn't really work.
As a result, the week-long shoot felt like an eternity. In fact, group morale was so low at one point that I considered giving the production team their money back and calling it quits. But I didn't. I stuck it out and made a piece of crap that no one has ever seen, all for $700.
Well, there you have it. Hopefully, you can relate to a few of these struggles, and perhaps we've even had a similar career trajectory. If so, hit me up; let's share war stories sometime.
Part of the comment section of Celeste's viral TikTok post.