Being shot at, getting excema and pea shovelling
Some good tales but I think I can top them. Quite a few people have been scarred but I almost got killed.
My dad is big into shooting. He used to therefore take me beating on a pheasant shoot so he could get the once-a-year "beaters day" where the beaters have a free days shooting.

Basically, clay pigeon shooters tend to be a good lot, kinda like golfers with guns, and are fairly competitive and capable. However, pheasant shoots are run on behalf of corporate cocks and inbreds, none of whom can really shoot well at all. Nor do they appreciate the destructive power of the penis substitute they aim at these poor creatures. Bear in mind that the beaters job is to put the birds into flight by walking towards these toffee-nosed twats making a noise and tapping the trees.

On more than one occasion I almost got shot, however the worst one was when I was about twenty feet (ie well within killing range) from one of these eejits and they took it upon themselves to take a pot shot at some poor bird about five feet above my head. I actually ended up with shot in my hair after that one. All this for fifteen pounds a (14 hour) day and lunch, in the company of the inbreds and a load of working class tories (the other beaters) who all thought Maggie Thatcher was a bit of a softy and once threatened to shoot some poor sod who'd happened upon the proceedings and tried to debate the ethics of such activity.

From this I then took a job in a chippy, peeling spuds and making chips. 3 nights a week for four quid a day, in a shitty, freezing extension with no roof with your hands in freezing water, which gave me masses of excema. However I did get free food and my dealer lived about 2 minutes up the road, perfect for paydays. I say my dealer - he was a wholesaler to the area for miles around and I used to go into his house for a sixteenth. They had no furniture in their front room apart from shelving units full of tupperware containing deals of different drugs in different weights - blatant as fuck - and the best garden on the estate by miles. When his brother OD'd, he moved one street away into a shop which suspiciously never had any real stock in...

Anyway, where was I? The last truly shitty job I did was at uni in the summer, when I worked in a pea factory, doing 12 hour shifts for £2.30 an hour. The first year we simply put together massive cardboard containers, which was great, but the next year I was on one of the machines. Hose - sweep - hose - sweep - hose - sweep - hose - sweep, for twelve hours, on a brutal shift system which alternated day/night in some strange way. The only good thing about it was the weekends (double time or time and a half) and the fact that because you didn't have any time or energy to do anything other than work, eat and sleep, you'd end up with a big bag of cash by the end of the summer. I bought a bass guitar the second year.

As for my best job - hopefully that'll be the next QOTW as I have a cracker.

First post - yay - no apologies for length or girth, you loved it you filthy slaaaaags.
(keeferreefer, Fri 17 Feb 2006, 15:34, Reply)