What have you done today thread?

[Potter]

Blew up Facebook by suggesting kids need to go back to school so they don’t end up working in a chicken processing plant when they are older....

That's decent motivation.
Years ago in my neck of the woods most of the halfwits that I thought were fun to hang around with either ended up going to the local contract window cleaning company or the chicken processing factory - I remember at some point this revelation dawning on me and I thought bugger that.

I'll do any sort of graft for a pound note, I've dug holes in the ground, peeled spuds and driven a van for a wage, so I'm not judging anyone, but my fear is being trapped in a job that I hate and pays crap wages - and if you don't put any effort in then that's where a lot of people end up.

[Bwana]

It wasn't today, it was two days ago. Sort of kind of yesterday for me as I've not been to bed yet.

Rode 130 miles to do an impromptu fund raising ride. It's one I participate in every year - usually scheduled for sometime in September. They cancelled it this year due to the pandemic. Someone decided to do a smaller run sans all the program associated with it. Usually there's coffee, doughnuts, and juice offered up in the morning during sign up and a program to give the total after the run. Lunch is usually served and a few survivors are introduced along with family. And updates on what is going on with the organization, Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, are given. A good day will have 200 or so bikes. I counted roughly 40 on Sunday. Quick pre-ride meeting and donation collection where masks were mandatory and social distancing encouraged. Then a 90 + cruise through some rural, suburban, and small urban areas.

In a typical year there will be police escort so we can run traffic lights and stop signs with impunity. No police this year. We divided up into four groups of 10 bikes and headed off on a loop course that had been laid out prior. First group headed off starting at one end of the loop, the second headed off in the opposite direction, third followed the first some minutes behind, and fourth followed the second some minutes behind.

My morning ride out was in fog, but not so thick I couldn't see well off to the sides or ahead of me for suicidal deer and dozey motorists. That cleared off to really nice weather for the ride.

After it was over I headed off to DC to see my friend that just finished up her final round of chemo. Had a nice Thai carry out with them and headed back home. More nice weather, a bit on the warm side but not unbearable. A good 350 miles in the saddle for the day.

[Silly Car]

Blew up Facebook by suggesting kids need to go back to school so they don’t end up working in a chicken processing plant when they are older....

Haha! Good to see the old threats still work, I recall when we were both at school it was, if you work hard you can work at Norwich Union, if you don’t, you’ll work at Banham Poultry

[Wreckless Rat]

Blew up Facebook by suggesting kids need to go back to school so they don’t end up working in a chicken processing plant when they are older....

Haha! Good to see the old threats still work, I recall when we were both at school it was, if you work hard you can work at Norwich Union, if you don’t, you’ll work at Banham Poultry

Haha... I don't know if you saw it, but it was funny as fuck, now deleted by admin. The funniest part being all the thickos who could hardly put a sentence together claiming that people work there through choice. Ya.. because every single person I know who has worked there has a} hated every second, and b} had no other choice.

That said, I think one of the funniest replies was from a girl with '9 O-levels, X A-levels, and a masters degree' saying that education was a waste of time because her Daddy pushed her hard... he wanted her to be GP, she wanted to read English at Cambridge... with all those qualifications, she was still to fucking thick to see you don't get to read English at Cambridge if you leave school with fuck all....

Ho hum... it was funny to stir to parochial town mind ne'er-do-wells for a few hours.

[MrLongbeard]

I'll do any sort of graft for a pound note, I've dug holes in the ground, peeled spuds and driven a van for a wage, so I'm not judging anyone, but my fear is being trapped in a job that I hate and pays crap wages - and if you don't put any effort in then that's where a lot of people end up.

Luxury is that, I cleaned spillages from around conveyors at the local quarry and picked ragwort from the verges of Leicestershire for the council , them were the days, we were happy to go home with an aching back and blisters up our arms just to earn a few quid for a bottle of Hooch on a Friday night

[Wreckless Rat]

Well, I'm a bully, ignorant, a twat, obnoxious, a c'unt, up my own arse, a wanker..... I thought, tell me something I don't know, but that's beside the point.

Bad school results = limited options = shit, dead end work and at the bottom of that pile, imho, is pulling the guts out of chickens on a meat processing line. One person tried to say "my husband owns a chicken factory". Yeah love, that's slightly different to sitting on the evisceration line, eh.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I worked in a chicken factory for about a year, 1985-1986 I think (Sovereign in Eye for anyone interested), it was boring, hard work and the pay was okay for a 18 year old, my job was mostly picking up pre-frozen chickens in bags and putting them in boxes according to the weight marked on the bag, I was given this job because most people who worked there weren't capable of doing it, occasionally I'd be assembling the boxes the chickens went in, another job most people there couldn't be trusted to get right.

Nobody works in a chicken processing plant because they have love turning chickens into food, they work there because they need or want the money, if you work there long term you do it because you can't get a better job, I went from there to a lawnmower factory where I learnt to machine lawn mower parts, assemble lawn mower engines, assemble lawn mowers and then make electric motors for lawn mowers and tumble driers - the work was less boring, physically harder but paid better.

I worked there two years and then got a proper job.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I once did a summer job at an injection mouldings firm. I had to take a plastic bowl out of the machine every 30s and press the go button again. If you opened the door at anything less than 29s it would sound an alarm and you'd have to start again. It also showed the average cycle time...

Got my average down to 29.1s after about a month

I doubt I could have stomached it as a career.

[MrLongbeard]

I once did a summer job at an injection mouldings firm. I had to take a plastic bowl out of the machine every 30s and press the go button again. If you opened the door at anything less than 29s it would sound an alarm and you'd have to start again. It also showed the average cycle time...

Got my average down to 29.1s after about a month

I doubt I could have stomached it as a career.

I did similar, but at a plastics extrusion company, 12 hour night shifts, 5 minutes of activity every hour whilst you topped the hopper off and took off a roll or bag of finished product off the end.
Easy work, easy money, unless the machine went tits up, then it was burnt fingers a plenty as you tried to re-thread the extrusion through the die and tension wheels.

[cheb]

Well, I'm a bully, ignorant, a twat, obnoxious, a c'unt, up my own arse, a wanker..... I thought, tell me something I don't know, but that's beside the point.

Bad school results = limited options = shit, dead end work and at the bottom of that pile, imho, is pulling the guts out of chickens on a meat processing line. One person tried to say "my husband owns a chicken factory". Yeah love, that's slightly different to sitting on the evisceration line, eh.

I'll see anything in your chicken factory and raise it to working on a fish farm harvest line. Blood and guts aplenty, and with the stink of fish thrown in.

Worst job on a fish farm? IME diving into a cage and having to haul out any dead rotting fish that have fallen to the bottom of the cage.

I'd still rather do that than deal with the general public.

[Wreckless Rat]

Well, I'm a bully, ignorant, a twat, obnoxious, a c'unt, up my own arse, a wanker..... I thought, tell me something I don't know, but that's beside the point.

Bad school results = limited options = shit, dead end work and at the bottom of that pile, imho, is pulling the guts out of chickens on a meat processing line. One person tried to say "my husband owns a chicken factory". Yeah love, that's slightly different to sitting on the evisceration line, eh.

I'll see anything in your chicken factory and raise it to working on a fish farm harvest line. Blood and guts aplenty, and with the stink of fish thrown in.

Worst job on a fish farm? IME diving into a cage and having to haul out any dead rotting fish that have fallen to the bottom of the cage.

I'd still rather do that than deal with the general public.

Yeah, that's pretty grim as well. There are no fish farms around here that I know of though. It's possible there are some, but it's not been a career choice of mine, so I haven't really looked into it.

I suppose it's heartening to know some people's parents aim low for their kids, we all need cheap food after-all. Although, as Silly alluded to earlier, it was used as a threat at school when I was there. How times change.

So Jonny, what do you want to be when you grow up?

"Me Sir, well I want to sit on a chair for 9hrs a day, cutting off the bits of guts that the machine misses. Apparently, if I work really hard, I can work my way up to 'killer', and kill the chicken that the machine misses, some have half their heads missing but are still alive. I think that's a good job Sir. It pays £9.85 an hour you know, and you can get some overtime in each week, nearly enough to make your salary up to the national average, not quite, but nearly"

Sounds like a plan Jonny, you'll be well suited.

[cheb]

I know it's unusual, but I know quite a few very well educated people doing menial jobs up here as they'd prefer to live here than have a proper job IYSWIM.

One of the chaps at the fish farm had a Classics degree from Cambridge. Earned enough to pay the bills and bit over and was happy.

[Wreckless Rat]

I know it's unusual, but I know quite a few very well educated people doing menial jobs up here as they'd prefer to live here than have a proper job IYSWIM.

One of the chaps at the fish farm had a Classics degree from Cambridge. Earned enough to pay the bills and bit over and was happy.

But that's via choice. If you CHOOSE to work in such places, that's a totally different ball game to ONLY being able to. IMHO of course.

[cheb]

Of course.

[chillitt]

Feeling quite lucky that my worst job was grave digger...

[Yorick]

My worst job ? Pool cleaner. Just has to do it in 35c.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

"Me Sir, well I want to sit on a chair for 9hrs a day, cutting off the bits of guts that the machine misses. Apparently, if I work really hard, I can work my way up to 'killer', and kill the chicken that the machine misses, some have half their heads missing but are still alive. I think that's a good job Sir. It pays £9.85 an hour you know, and you can get some overtime in each week, nearly enough to make your salary up to the national average, not quite, but nearly"

Sounds like a plan Jonny, you'll be well suited.

To be fair, killer was the pick of the chicken factory jobs, sat on your arse doing sod all for most of the shift, only things to do, adjust the ring saw occasionally depending on the size of chicken, cut the throats of any skinny necked chickens and let one go through when you were bored so that you could watch it boil to death and go purple in the machine that took the feathers off. The bloke I sat next to on the bus had that job, he was a bit weird, though not as weird as his transsexual cousin who also worked there.

And I'd rather work in a chicken factory again than travel to London every day on public transport, did that for 18 months, I was constantly picking up minor illnesses and the travelling gradually drove me mental.

[Horse]

... with the stink of fish ...

I'd still rather do that than deal with the general public.

I'm an outsider in this downsmanship competition. I was going to say 'rank', but I did have one fish related job. While at 6th for. I used to do 1.5 days at weekends, gardening etc. at a house. There was a pond. In the hot summer of 76 it almost dried up, all of the fish suffocated. That weekend we did 18 hours of dragging them out, burying and burning.

Otherwise, next worst was 6 weeks at a motorway services, so the great British public. See them on a Bank Holiday Monday, queuing after hours in traffic, for full effect. Only one fight

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I don't see it as "downmanship" I left school as soon as I could because I hated it, I then fucked up a lab assistant job in a beer kit factory so they sacked me (can't say I blame them I was useless and clumsy) so for the next 4 years I did whatever job was available that paid the most as I had no idea what I wanted to, tbh 35 years later I still don't know what I want to do for a living and I'm still doing whatever pays the most for the least effort.

[Horse]

I don't see it as "downmanship"

Just that the jobs have got more and more horrific as the thread progressed.

As it happens, my first proper job was determined by what I was offered after 30 applications. Wasn't what I wanted to do.