There is an irony in complaining of old jobs at the exact moment in history when jobs may become a precious scarcity…yet job stories always get me. More than love stories do, whatever that says about me.

For the record, I regret no job I’ve taken because every one teaches something, even if it is something petty or vicious about the world or yourself. Still, I find it interesting to consider how does each of us qualify “worst”? I’m giving five snapshots from your basic not so great job, to the anvil-on-the-head balancing one, to show my process of elimination…

5. A manufacturer of parts for Boeing. The factory floor is so loud they give you earplugs when you go out to do filing at 10:00 a.m. One morning a sloppy looking guy gets behind you at the copier. You get reprimanded later. That guy is the “big boss” (who, funny enough, prefers employees to call him “the big boss”) and protocol required that you pause mid set to let him commandeer the machine. The only decoration in the office is a vase of dusty silk irises, and for some reason the sad bouquet reminds you of Tom Hanks’ little palm tree lamp in Joe verses the Volcano. Except it’s less adorable. A guy in his forties buys you coffee one afternoon and tells you, unlike the other women in your office who you go out with after work for drinks, you “have potential.”

4. A Seattle attorney’s office. You work for three lawyers, but the most important one has a reputation for philanthropy, and even his own charitable organization in South America, which impresses you when you’re hired. Your first week on the job you learn he has employed eight legal assistants in the past two years, the one before you lasting less than one morning. Part of your instruction on the job is not to look Mr. Lee in the eye because it embarrasses him to look at the people who work for him. You hate to humiliate the guy by making him look at you! You need the money, though, and luckily you are already seeing a therapist that summer who puts it into words, “he’s looking for a mother to read his mind…” One day another attorney pulls you into his office to tell you Mr. Lee “probably” doesn’t like you and “probably” wants to hire someone else by the end of the summer. The woman later hired to replace you is approximately 97 years old and has been a legal assistant since puberty. But you get a severance package big enough to pay for another full quarter of tuition and you consider looking Mr. Lee in the eye on your way out the door to communicate your gratitude.

3. A Korean lanugage institute. You go to Korea to teach English, not knowing anyone, and lucky enough to accidentally land with an amazing roommate, Bridget. Some teachers are less lucky. One girl named Pam who is six feet tall, a platinum blond who you can see walk down the streets of Korea from a mile away, lands a teaching job where she lives with her boss. One day her boss invites her to the spa. If you want to imagine culture shock, imagine going to a spa as a six foot, pale blond beauty with tattoos all over your body in a foreign country, where suddenly you are the center of a lot of attention and pointing in a language you barely understand, and the person talking loudest and pointing to your naked, tattoo covered body is your boss/roommate. So, relatively speaking, you are lucky. Still, you are surprised in September when your boss pulls you into a room and tells you that the school knows that you are teaching private lessons, and that they could deport you. “What??” All the Americans teach private lessons, but it turns out your offense was to say “no thanks” to taking your only three consecutive day vacation in eight months of six day work weeks to go to the spa with two other teachers and eighty Korean elementary students, unpaid. They found it quite insulting that you had spent your vacation on the beach in Pusan with a friend instead. “Leave in the middle of the night,” was the advice given to teachers who were unhappy. It was one way to ensure there would be no argument over your last paychecks, or that they just fired you, etc. You think about it but decide to give thirty days notice that you are resigning. The school is decent about it and pays you a part of the bonus you would have received for staying a year. You go backpacking in China and Tibet for six weeks, come back the next January to a better teaching situation.

2. An almost jail for girls. This one could be #1 but it isn’t. You work as an apartment supervisor in a school for adolescent, troubled girls. The worst part is the tackling lesson they give once a week after the staff meeting. All the teachers and staff must learn how to safely “take a girl down” if she tries to run away. It is nonviolent (as much as possible) and legal, but the kind of thing that you have nightmares about…chasing after a girl in pajamas running through the New England snow….“Taking her down.” You get in trouble for things like letting the girls eat two four ounce muffins one morning instead of one, and giving a girl a ride to school on icy mornings instead of making her walk two miles. This school of hard knocks goes against every inclination you have about kids. You, a childhood fan of Annie, develop a passionate and perverse sympathy for Miss Hannigan--oh that love of gin makes so much sense now. But, not your worst job because these girls teach you a little about their world. And you accept your lack of coolness and become willing to embarrass them by letting them watch films like Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (against the rules)…but watching it with them, and then having a conversation about it afterward. “You think he’s a sexist,” one girl asks, you say, pretty much, and ask if she agrees. “Nooooo…” But she’s laughing. These girls rarely laugh. Almost every girl you work with has black or brown skin. The town the school is in is largely working class and white. Every day you enter the main building it feels like you’re balancing an enormous anvil on your head. You turn in your resignation at the end of the school year when you know “your” girls are graduating. The good part is when a girl tells you that she would have run away if not for you because no one else cared about her. The bad part is after you leave and she moves to another group home, within six months she is pregnant with twins and gives birth at 18. She still calls you occasionally, and you will probably never stop worrying about her.

1. A cruise ship. The reason this one wins out against the rest is simply the staggering emotional, mental and physical toll of 92-94 hours of intensive physical work on your feet each week which averages 12 to 14.5 hours per day, seven days a week for six to ten weeks on end, which you might not have thought humanly possible, and just barely is. Cruise ships are the liquor stores of the sea. At one point you are instructed to offer alcoholic beverages at six separate predetermined moments during dinner service. The company develops a twist in the tipping policy (no tips) which, for your last two months, results in the loss of one third of income (though they promised this would not happen). So, without tips, the crew earns $5.40 or $5.80 per hour, or only federal minimum wage. Letters and phone calls to complain about the loss don’t help. Finally your whole department decides to have a sit-in that lasts all of three minutes. After which the whole group is fired. And when you go to collect unemployment you find that the company reported to the federal agencies that you’d all “quit” your jobs, and so are ineligible for unemployment benefits. Bon voyage!

Okay, I’m off for a glass of something Miss Hannigan would perfectly understand my need for. Thank-you for listening.