Painter & Decorator
A guy in the pub asked me if I wanted to give him a hand with a job the next day - painting some woman's living room and hallway.

"Fine" said I, and he picked me up at 11.

We got there, and she was out, so he gave her a ring. Oh - she couldn't be about that day. How about next week some time? OK - well - do you mind if we pick up our stuff? No worries - you know where the key is.

We went in, and I carried a pot of paint down stairs to the van.

We went to the caff and he bought me a fry-up for lunch.

He then handed me £30, and we were in the pub by 1230.

I worked out at that rate I was on approximately £55k pa for carrying a pot of paint downstairs (I was once told as a temp you take your hourly rate, double it and multiply it by 1000 to work out what you'd be doing for a salary).
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 13 Sep 2010, 11:09, 9 replies)

OAP ENTERTAINMENT ENTREPRENEUR
I was a SAGA rep - with literally hundreds of the moaning old bastards cooped up in University accomodation for two weeks at a time.
Now that sounds really hellish (and at times it was see below) but it was also easy pickings because SAGA paid you crap weekly money but expected you to offer entertainment for the old dears and in return you kept all the profits.
I was rolling in it - even the city tour charged at 50p each made a 375 pound profit and this was in 1976. Other trips to Highland Games, music hall events made similar dosh and this was a two-week repeating programme with a different influx of crones arriving each other Sunday.
Still it wasn't all simple - hassles to be confronted included keeping from jail the 75 year old hubby who severely beat up a 82 year old peeping tom who thought that watching the former's wife removing her bloomers to pee was the height of eroticism (uni-sex cubical toilets!), the daily fight over who was to be at the picture window at the front of the bus (with a near riot when I put a woman with a broken leg at the front in the prized seats - there was no compassion in these wrinklies), the mass ranks queueing for everything at least 30 minutes before necessary, regular calls to the ambulance service for the early morning heart attack cases (one a month) and, for me anyway, worst of all, having to search for a missing pair of false teeth in a huge laundry bag of geriatric clothes which smelled exactly how you would guess it would.
I don't want to get old - it sucks and when I eventually get there I'm not going to trust any young cunt who says he wants to help.
I promise you - Dignitas and a first class flight to Switzerland is far better than the grumpy selfish misanthrope you will slowly evolve into otherwise.
(beaverwastemanagement a real company. I want to work for them!, Mon 13 Sep 2010, 11:02, Reply)

I like this QOTW
Mainly because I can relate to it. I am a member of the police force and unlike most of the people that work in the force I will admit that life is easy (I can just picture a number of disgruntled readers becoming infuriated and typing a message to their local newspaper already).

Many a cop will usually tell you life is hard and you have crap hours doing a job that only 50% of the population respect you for but that’s not really true especially for our department. Our usual routine is to get into work, brew a coffee while the computer boots up and then check for emails, read B3ta, etc etc.

Should any major crimes come through then I will pull myself off my seat, grab my coat and another coffee and make my way outside to the roof. I then switch on a light and some dude dressed as a flying rodent usually turns up in next to no time and does all the hard work for us. All we have to deal with is the paperwork afterwards and lock up the offending party.

I love working in Gotham. True it can be a pain in the ass hanging about the rooftops in the colder months waiting for him to turn up but hey I’d rather do that than be shot at.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Mon 13 Sep 2010, 10:05, 7 replies)

Not me personally but....
When I worked in Sainsbury's many moons ago, it was approaching the millenium and of course the Y2K bug was on everyone's mind. The district office had decided that our store would melt down unless some staff were present to monitor all the fridges, computers, tills etc

I volunteered for the job, since it was a straight forward £500 + overtime added at double time. Without that no-one was giving up their new years eve.

Alas they picked the deputy store manager and a department manager. Now the Deputy Store manager was gorgeous and recently had her hubby walk out on her.

Anyway, the next day we all came back to work and asked how the previous night went for them.

Deputy Manager: "Oh we just packed shelves, had a glass of champagne at midnight and shut the systems down shortly after, nothing special"

That didn't explain the big greasy arse and hand prints we found on the office desks and the used condom we found in the skips.

Over a grand in pay for that, yes I'm jealous. Seen her last year too, you still would.
( Bamboo Steamer, Mon 13 Sep 2010, 9:36, Reply)

I worked one Xmas Day for an ISP support centre
5.30pm until 2am. Twas a weird shift as there were about 10 of us in the building, as opposed to the usual 200 or so we normally had. Obviously with it being Xmas an all it was dead quiet in terms of work and on me first break 2 hours into the shift I drove home and picked up me Sega Dreamcast and a load of games.

I drove back to work, grabbed a portable from one of the training rooms and set it up next to me work pc, and ended up playing a mixture of Jet Set Radio and Quake 3 all evening.

It was during this that I took my one and only phonecall for the evening that was from a granny trying to email her family in Australia and needing Outlook Express reconfigured. So I was walking her through this while randomly blowing up bots on Quake 3. At one point I did press mute on the phone to shout out "Fuck me, did you see that rocket jump?" then straight back to the customer I continued "...and then type in your email address there please."

Finished the call in about 6 minutes and played the Dreamcast until the end of the shift. After treble time and all the bonuses I got paid a good few hundred quid extra all for practicing me rocket jumping skillz :D
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 13 Sep 2010, 8:22, Reply)

'Archaeology'
After nearly a week of washing pots in the kitchen of a particularily fancy restaurant I decided the job wasn't for me and left at about 6PM on a Friday.

So off I go, freshly unburdened of unfulfilling work, I head to my local alehouse, where I informed my good friend behind the bar of my vocational quandry. After much smalltalk, while my friend is pulling pints for someone else, a stranger who was sitting next to me said (rather pissedly):

'I hear you're out of work...' (or something to that effect.)

A week later I'm doing post-excavation work for a rescue-archaeology firm.

Still washing pots, but from different millenium; all the time thinking: They're paying me to do this?

I would have done it for free! Luckily I didn't let them know this and they employed me again a couple of years later to work on-site while they excavated a previously undiscovered Roman military settlement which is now an Argos distribution centre.

Apparently the company I worked for have a reputation for press-ganging people into work in pubs. I wouldn't be surprised if some b3tan could work out who I was working for!

:)
(hadr0n Craic whore, Mon 13 Sep 2010, 2:38, 2 replies)

Talking about the Millenium bug..
I was contracting for the National power lines company in 1999 and they were concerned about what would happen if the 'bug' hit and the electricity fell over or one of the hydro dam's gates suddenly opened and flooded the country.

Being the first country in the world to welcome the Millenium no one knew what to expect.

Long story short. My task was to manually operate the reporting systems in the days leading up to New Year and for a few days after. Just in case!!

I sat at home on the computer, recorded the readings every hour and filled in a spreadsheet then uploaded. 4 mins.
In a week I picked up over 8 grand (pounds) and was rewarded with an extra week's paid leave for a total of 11 hours work.
(Jimmyinnz was sprung at work on b3ta on, Mon 13 Sep 2010, 0:34, Reply)

Office Monkey
For the local MP (conservative) in his solicitors office. Easiest six months I could handle before leaving, prior to the place having a routine inspection of its records. £10,000 had been misplaced, through what I think was the HR managers incompetence.

Account numbers and case numbers were separate system and there was no way of matching up the old account numbers with their cases. I offered to make such a system (simple access database), an offer which was refused. Come inspection time I walked out on them leaving their current MS Word database with a macro which would delete the file a week later, a little present I left them.

Other than that the job was just drinking coffee all day, reading B3ta, occasionally hand delivering a letter (I.e. fag break), walking to B&Q for a radiator key (McDonalds breakfast) and playing Solitaire.

Interesting working for an M.P, he had a burgundy leather case containing a freemasonry sash and rulebook. Turns out he's one of their money handlers, clerk of accounting. I know this as this box is in my possession now, hehehe.

As a side note i'm afraid he got re-elected in the recent elections.
(Joe Guevara is well known for stealing your biscuits, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 23:53, 7 replies)

Our latest contract
was completed two months ago, but the terms state we have to be there until the jobs finished, eta June 2011. We've treated the building site like a giant adventure playground, looked at everything that was new, spoken to and helped everyone on site and learnt everything there is to know about each other. We're bored, so very bored. I honestly don't know how we're going to keep this up for another eight or nine months.

One of the topics of conversation last week was about previous jobs we've had.

One of our guys used to work as an army recruiter. He used to be given £600 expenses a week and told to recruit in London pubs by buying rounds and chatting. Another worked as a poolside bar manager who was paid good money for sitting by the pool, drinking, chain smoking and telling people to 'help yourself' when they wanted a drink. Another worked as a temp in a factory for three years, clocking in, going home, then returning to clock out.

As for myself, I haven't got a story yet, but by this time next year, I'm expecting to be able to talk about hibernating in a drying room during winter or sunbathing in the park for days on end.
(Unit, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 23:19, Reply)

Footie gate man
Stand on pitch at footie match beside gate. If the stand went on fire my job was to open the gate and let the (other) supporters onto the pitch.
In three years there never was a fire. Even better view than the Manager.
(midlifecrisis, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 21:24, 1 reply)

Games support - Night shift
Who needs game support in the middle of the night? No-one, that's who.

Complimentary taxis to and from work, paid ~£12ph for sitting with my feet up playing San Andreas for 8 hours every night.

Sheer bliss.
(Funtime_Frankie, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 19:42, 1 reply)

Is/Was Ben Collins' stylist on Top Gear easy enough?

(CactusZack Shaved his coin purse on, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 17:59, 1 reply)

I sometimes do 'sleep-ins'
which consist of, well, going to bed and sleeping all night.

Hard to imagine an easier job than that!
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 17:58, Reply)

I was once Jeremy Beadle's assistant.
His right hand man.
(CactusZack Shaved his coin purse on, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 16:34, 4 replies)

Picking fruit on a fruit farm.
The fruit farm is 5 minutes walk from my house for starters, so I didn't have far to go and I didn't need breakfast because I'd eat fruit all day as I was picking (I'd only eat the ones that we deemed 'below shop standards', which was a shockingly high percentage).

On top of this, I was paid by the amount I picked so I didn't have to be in on time in the morning. In fact, being late was an advantage; most of the output of the farm was strawberries which paid less per punnet picked. By turning up late I was often put onto raspberries, tayberries or black and redcurrants 'cos there were too many picking strawberries.

We also sometimes got driven up to a separate field to a massive raspberry field and left there all day to pick a set amount of fruit. We'd usually pick this fairly fast, and spend the rest of the day sleeping in the sun and eating the rejects.

The strawberry fights were pretty good too.
( guffguff fuckes your gradeds balls!, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 16:15, 4 replies)

Student computer consultant at a college in the 1980s
The best part was that because we were in some quasi-instructor position but still students, this seemed to attract other students. I don't know anybody who worked in the English computer lab that didn't hook up with someone. Hermilo may have left a virgin as he was a good Filipino boy, but he was handsome and got dates at least.

There were the busy times when an instructor had their class in the lab or at end of the semester when papers were due, but for the most part it was sitting on my butt and playing computer games (pre-'net days), goofing off, and pirating the university's software.

My duties were fixing minor computer problems, teaching liberal arts majors to use MicroSoft Word and easier programs, replacing printers' ink, and filling out repair forms. Oh, I also fixed corrupted discs sometimes and often told people "no, I can't retrieve your term paper if you didn't save it often."

Stunts we pulled: a rather unattractive grad assistant and we talked his cute ginger student into bringing in the video of her high school gymnastic performance while we all perved over it (she seemed to get off on that); loading prank programs so when students did something like "bold" text, the computer did something harmless but scary to the screen (like little "bugs" crawling across it or characters "dripping" down the screen); using a teacher "switchboard" to exchange screens, fooling students into thinking that their screen went blank and lost their paper.

College: six of the best years of my life.
(ChiTown Guy Dating when 35+: sane, single, attractive - pick 2, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 16:03, Reply)

Pointless clipboard wanderings and covert spying activities
1) Council 'security' job:

T'was a temporary job for 6 months, which i signed up after being on the dole for too long. The job basically consisted of being given a baby-blue uniform, a radio and a clipboard. My job description was 'council community security' and it basically involved wandering around a set route in town, visiting local shops, car parks, and other public buildings and asking the staff to tick a box which told me that everything was 'ok'.

Quite literally i got paid to do not very much at all... there was absolutely no trouble, no inconveniences and I only ever used my radio once to report a flat battery on shop mobility scooter.

All for £9 and hour. The council also overpaid me £100.

2)

The EASIEST / dullest job i have EVER had was the 'spy' job i was given by an agency. Far from the MI6 shennanigans or anything of the sort, i was paid by the agency to 'monitor taxi ranks' - and make a note of how many black cab taxis used each designated rank every hour.

For the first two weeks or so, i was told to stay in a certain area and would be told to just observe the taxis and make note of any cabs that either stayed in the rank or picked up passengers. Sadly this was incredibly dull, and for many hours there were zero pick ups or in some cases zero taxis.

So i quickly learned that my valuable time could be spent sat in local cafes reading books, drinking coffee and getting paid for it. Or in some cases, staying at home and making up results and getting paid for it.

Good days indeed. Sadly this job only lasted a few weeks but it made me feel special.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 14:48, Reply)

I was discussing this QOTW with my sister
She told me about her job at Brach's candy. She punched holes in the bags the machine missed. She made $13.75 an hour for standing there with a hole punch barely moving.



Her title? Quality Control Supervisor.
(CactusZack Shaved his coin purse on, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 13:25, 1 reply)

Not necessarily the easiest
..but I get paid to fly around the world and make people coffee. I love it, needless to say.
( Jimbuktu See? Right here, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 13:22, 12 replies)

About eight years ago I worked for a borough council in London.
The job was an IT contract and I was employed for a hardware and software rollout. Initially I was going to different sites and sweeping the whole building with a team of about eight others.

After about six months we were down to revisiting and sorting out any new PCs or people who had been away when we'd first visited. By October there was very little to be done until the new year when there was going to be budget for a lot of new PCs that would have to be installing etc.

Logic would dictate that you would then stop employing the contractors and either re-employ them when these had arrived or employ a new team.

What my the project manager did in was to give us our week's work as usual when we turned up to head office on Monday morning, as she usually did but then tell us that we were not to come back to the office until the weekly team meeting on Friday afternoon.

So for three months (at £15ph) I would turn up on Monday, get my week's work, finish it by 2pm on the same day, go back home for the rest of the week, turn up for the meeting on Friday and then be in the pub half an hour later with teh rest of the team.

The rare occasion I'd get called at my boss asking me to visit a site I'd tell her I had to finish off a PC and would be there in 40 minutes, get on the tube, do the job and go back home.

So in effect I was doing about five hour's work and taking home just under £600 a week.

It just goes to show that the government doesn't waste a penny of your hard earned money. To stress this point I remember them buying about ten mini, wireless laser printers (about £400 in 2002) for the directors. They decided not to use them in the end so they sat in a cupboard until they slowly were liberated by various IT staff (myself not included).

Or the champainge that provided for all the director's meeting (happened once or twice a week). This, I should point out, was all going on in one of the poorest boroughs (I think it was no 3 or something) in London.
( riverghost servicing your mum since, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 11:19, Reply)

Wanking classes
I swear on my entire families' eternal soul that this is true. I discovered yesterday that someone is running a 'business' around here 'teaching' masturbation. The sign on the door states that you should 'bring your own lubrication' although 'a mat will be provided'. So, as far as I can tell, you turn up at this bloke's house and he tosses you off and/or fingers you under the guise of education, and you pay him for the privilege.
( Victor Meldrew, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 11:02, 10 replies)

Working in a Quarry
May sound like hard work, but not if you're the monkey sat behind the desk issuing pickup tickets to the HGV drivers!

Work would start at 6am, opening up the office and manning a small, ancient computer, that was hooked up to a large, even more ancient printer. A queue of HGC drivers would be out of the tiny little cabin, stinking of coffee, fags, and shuffling their knuckles along the floor in the pre-dawn gloom, patiently queuing for their little bit of paper. I would glance up at the driver, take the registration, type it into the machine, and print off a delivery ticket. They would leave, and I wouldn't see them again til the next day.

Once the mad rush of the 6AM pickup was done, (which would last maybe an hour), there was literally nothing to do until the mad rush at closing time (again, barely an hours work). I would sit, with my feet on the desk, reading every epic paperback I could get my hands on. Smoking idly and drinking coffee, popping out to Maccy D's for lunch, or the local burger van. I got paid £7 an hour, 10hrs a day, 5 days a week, for reading books. A brilliant, brilliant summer.
(Ragathi wants to know where his evil twin is on, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 11:02, Reply)

Promoting rum
Back in '02, some of my mates blagged a promotional job plugging some nice dark rum. The job consisted of going to a specified bar at a specified time, and giving out shots of free rum to customers. The company delivered 90(!) litre bottles of it to our student house, and we'd all pile into the specified bar at the specified time, drink the free rum, then follow the 'workers' to the next bar on the list.
Ended up with about 10 bottles left over at the end as well. Boonus.
(peasman, Sun 12 Sep 2010, 0:47, Reply)

I almost got the job
of being Kate Winslett's masseur. But they told me it was $50,000 a year. I said "Look, I really want the job, but I just can't afford that much."
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 11 Sep 2010, 23:49, Reply)

First job...
involved sitting in a warehouse filing (reading) hospital patient documents and having rubber band wars with my co-worker. The filing involved taking them off a shelf, removing a rubberband and putting them into a bin for incineration. And I had my own desk and wheelie chair which well impressed all my mates.
( dazbrilliantwhites has been meaning to change this..., Sat 11 Sep 2010, 23:07, 1 reply)

Lightjockey in a nightclub
Got to sit on my arse all evening checking out women, occasionally press a touch sensitive button on the control panel to change the settings, unlimited post-mix drinks (with a spirit accidentally slipped in a few times) and a steady stream of crumpet throwing themselves at me because I worked in the DJ booth. Only downside was the now ex daemon bitch from hell was a barmaid there so curtailed any potential extra-curricular activities.

Oh, was cash in hand as well.
(Vigilante Man weeps because you're stupid., Sat 11 Sep 2010, 23:05, Reply)

Lifeguard at a pool that was 4.5 foot deep
The title only says half of it. This was in 1996 and a new, very flash health spa opened up down the roads from my folks house (when I was still a student) and I had a lifeguarding quali from school. As it was in Muswell Hill it attracted C list celebs like a papparzzo with a wide angle lens. Quite apart from never having to save anyone's life, I got to ogle the likes of Baby Spice (entertaining when I was 18), that one that was married to Les Dennis ("A man to hold on" I believe she was known as in the club) and got to throw her out for wearing outside shoes by the poolside (Job Nazi!) and got free food, juices (from the juice bar) and free membership to the club. Not so funny, but goddamn an easy job.
( DinivanX Has stinging piss after drinking Pact Coffee, Sat 11 Sep 2010, 22:20, Reply)

What I do now..
is possibly the easiest job I've ever had, one of the better paid jobs and I fucking hate it.
I was unemployed for ~8 months out of the last 12 months and was sick of being Dole scum and having literally no luck in the job market. I wont provide a sob story, but I was fresh out of Uni with a fairly respectable BSc (HONS) in Geology and I wasn't even glanced at by prospecting employers for basic jobs [in which I was more than willing to do.
So I snatched up the next job I was offered when I moved house as I didn't want to be in the same position as I've just started afresh down South. What is it? I'm a Live-in Carer..
Now, I'm not demeaning the work and the people who are involved in it as it's a selfless and somewhat noble profession for people who are genuine in need. However, I'm a bit of an exception to the case as even though I'm classed as "Live in" I go home every night as I'm local and there are no beds for me [thank God!]
I wont go into detail about my Clients as they aren't the issue. It's simply the long hours and the lack of work. As I'm not living in, I have to be at the Clients house at 07:00 [up at 05:45 most mornings] and leave the house any time between 21:00 and 22:00.. 7 Days a week, 28 days in a row, then I'm granted 1 week off in which I can't alter my sleeping pattern, and at a loose end as my Girlfriend works through the week and I've got no friends or anything to look forward to as I've got no ties/connections in my new abode. The first couple of days are fun doing very little and walking around in my pants. Then it gets boring and, dare I say it, depressing.
The work consists of very sporadic work. I must ACTIVELY work for 3-4 hours through my 14 hour shift, and the rest of it is merely sitting about and being attentive to my Client to make sure she/he is comfortable as possible whilst listening to domestics.. That's it. Money for old rope, some may say. Not me. I call it soul-destroyingly boring. Crap. Shit. It's worse than the Dole as I can't get out of the house and meet people or simply go for a walk/drive or watch TV, as 90% of my clients either don't have a TV or only have terrestrial channels. There's only so many antique programs and daytime television I can watch before I just take an overdose and watch myself slowly deteriorate in a mirror as it would be far more entertaining.
I can't read for most of the day as I'm simply so tired I cannot concentrate and focus. Playing my DS for long hours just looks pure lazy as we live in a cynical world and playing games is perceived as childish.

To sum it up. The work could NOT be easier and I feel slightly better as a person for doing it. However, there's the absolute monumental boredom between the busy periods.. Which is the beginning of my shift and end of my shift.
(Jon_LTD Treat the world like a head!, Sat 11 Sep 2010, 22:14, 6 replies)