After my recent posing about 'best fun', I suppose it's obligatory to ask the opposite.
With this question I really didn't have to think for more than a split second. Without question it was my time spent on The London Stock Exchange.
I had turned down an offer to study Architecture, and on that final day at school I really didn't know what to do. It was a couple of good school-friends who suggested I join them in The City, and I soon secured myself a position with one of the oldest firms of Stockbrokers in London. I was to become a 'Blue Button', a trainee stockbroker. (I tried to find an image of a Blue Button on Google Images, but such images from the mid-60's seem not to exist)
Things did not get off to a good start, and on my very first day I was sent home for not wearing the correct city clothing. My suit was too light coloured, and I was given the day off to collect my new pin-striped dark grey suit from my father's tailor. I was made to feel like a naughty schoolboy.
Part of my job was to visit The Bank of England with Bearer Bonds, etc, for which I needed to wear a Silk Hat as above. The firm's commissionaire would brush it for me before I left the office, with all sorts of expletives, instructions, and warnings. He considered it a personal insult if it was to be damaged in any way and reminded me constantly.
Work was hard and every two weeks would continue late into the night when the firm's accounting was completed. No consideration was given to my returning by train to the South Coast where I still lived. I had absolutely no time for myself, and I didn't seem to be appreciated. I really hated it.
Then after my first full year we all received a surprise 'bonus'. Mine was twice my meagre salary and I felt like a millionaire. I handed in my notice and flew to Paris. It was the best thing I ever did.
I have not worked in an office environment since. I don't consider my teaching days as being confined to an office. That office in the city was airless and stank. It was the one place I didn't want to be. I spent as much time as possible on the floor of the house, at The Bank, or in the Pub'. Returning to my Gresham Street office was always a nightmare.
Good morning Cro. There’s nothing more ghastly than working in an office - well, an office like your one anyway, I have worked in fairly bearable ones. I’ve got to say though that the least fun I have had would have been a few years ago when I broke part of a front incisor crown which had been there with no bother for 30 years. I then spent half an hour in the chair whilst the dentist tried various methods to get the remaining part off which was stuck fast, before he could measure for a new crown. In the end he resorted to a kind of hammer and chisel type outfit and I really felt like he was going to completely knock my front tooth out. Thankfully it did the job and I have a new crown now…and I’m ever so careful with it, as it looks like I might never see an NHS dentist again, not due to their incompetence but simply because there aren’t any left it seems.
ReplyDeleteThat compares quite favourably with my city experience, although even the word 'Dentist' has me reduced to tears.
DeleteBar attendant in a disco nightclub was my worst time. I lasted two nights. I can't imagine working in an enclosed office.
ReplyDeleteAs a student I had a holiday job at Butlin's (Brits will know this). I lasted about two hours then handed in my notice. There was no way I could have worked there; it was appalling.
DeleteThe Stock Exchange is no place for an artist. I am glad that you got out of there pretty damned quick.
ReplyDeleteI quite enjoyed the actual work, but it was far too restrictive for my Bohemian ways.
DeleteReading the above - yes dentists rank quite high in worst times- having a baby is no great fun - making it is fantastic and bring it up is wonderful but the actual giving birth is just something to be endured mostly.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, it still seems popular!
DeleteThe least fun I have had must have been sitting through interminable conferences on data protection and presentations on health and safety. Yawn, yawn, yawn.
ReplyDeleteYes, that doesn't sound like something you'd wish to do for more than 10 mins.
DeleteLeast fun has to be lying on a concrete floor with coworkers during an armed robbery. With the night manager's sweaty red bald head opposite me, I had all I could do not punch him because he wouldn't stop whinning even after a robber threatened us if he didn't shut up. I held the manager's hands and assured him it would be all right to calm him down. Gross slimey hands, but he shut up, and we were not shot. Life moved on. I did not pursue a career with the grocery industry.
ReplyDeleteGoodness me Salty, that sounds like a nightmare. I hope you gave that manager a good slap after the robbers had gone. It sounds like he deserved it.
DeleteMy worst experience was sitting in a penthouse corporate conference table with the company president presiding. A VP (coworker) named my department as holding up the delivery of a product. All eyes were on me. For a moment, I was shell-shocked and taken off guard. My recovery was to state, I would accelerate delivery times one-for-one with the VP making this claim. All eyes shifted to the VP. Said VP soon lost his job. I call this poetic justice!
ReplyDeleteGood thinking. I do like to hear of nasty incompetents getting the sack. The ones who always blame others are the worst.
DeleteI lasted 1 day in the Civil Service. Never went back, got paid for one day's work and had to sign out of the Official Secrets Act.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like my less than one day at Butlin's.
DeleteChemotherapy
ReplyDeleteOh dear, I think you win the prize. Ghastly.
DeleteThe least fun I ever had was working in a railway cafeteria in a small country town. I lasted two days. People would get off the train, come in for food and drinks, rush, rush, rush, then they would be gone and it was time to clean up and prepare for the next rush. Once that was done the girls hung around in the kitchen chatting, but I was too shy at only fifteen, so I went out and read through a magazine, being careful not to bend any pages, but I got caught and got fired.
ReplyDeleteThen there was the time I worked one day sorting dirty laundry from huge trucks that collected from hotels, restaurants, hospitals and nursing homes. The items were wet, stinky and heavy. I didn't go back the next day and didn't even bother getting the $40 I'd earned until a couple of weeks later.
ReplyDeleteOther people's dirty laundry (especially from Hospitals etc) sounds like hell on earth. I don't think I would have lasted 5 mins.
Delete