...When I was 18, I got a job as a porter at the local hospital (Southampton General), as a way of preparing myself for going to medical school.
I worked there for 9 months, doing an average over the last 6 months of about 60 hours a week, for about £3.60/hour.
I didn't mind having to carry stool samples around, or even driving bags of soiled linen and medical waste down to the skips, with the comensurate risk of something wetter tahn it should be leaking out, or being scratched by a needle from a badly closed sharps bin.
I didn't even mind the constant cold I had or the nights spent ferrying dead bodies down to the morgue with an incredibly slow-walking ghoulish old guy, who looked like he'd be next to go, singing negro spirituals as we wheeld the cart down.
I quite enjoyed rushing bags containing miscellaneous body parts from the operating theatre down to the labs, trying to guess which part it was, as though the surgeon was Rolf Harris.
The part I didn't like was that they didn't have any decent coffee-making facilities. Seriously, though, the bit which got me was the time I had to carry a dead baby in a carry cot, so that nobody would be shocked, from the morgue up to children's x-ray at a time when the hospital was full of visitors, wait for the x-ray, then carry it back down, taking a slightly long route to avoid bumping in to people.
That was probably the worst job I ever had.
(I worked there for 9 months, doing an average over the last 6 months of about 60 hours a week, for about £3.60/hour.
I didn't mind having to carry stool samples around, or even driving bags of soiled linen and medical waste down to the skips, with the comensurate risk of something wetter tahn it should be leaking out, or being scratched by a needle from a badly closed sharps bin.
I didn't even mind the constant cold I had or the nights spent ferrying dead bodies down to the morgue with an incredibly slow-walking ghoulish old guy, who looked like he'd be next to go, singing negro spirituals as we wheeld the cart down.
I quite enjoyed rushing bags containing miscellaneous body parts from the operating theatre down to the labs, trying to guess which part it was, as though the surgeon was Rolf Harris.
The part I didn't like was that they didn't have any decent coffee-making facilities. Seriously, though, the bit which got me was the time I had to carry a dead baby in a carry cot, so that nobody would be shocked, from the morgue up to children's x-ray at a time when the hospital was full of visitors, wait for the x-ray, then carry it back down, taking a slightly long route to avoid bumping in to people.
That was probably the worst job I ever had.
atomboy,
Tue 11 Nov 2003, 9:39,
archived)
actuallythat was possibly not as bad as the summer of 1999. Then I was doing my MSc, and for my dissertation, I had to spend the summer in a dark room stabbing my fingers, squeezing out drops of blood, centrifuging it and then running experiments with highly carcinogenic chromium hexachlorate on the blood, while my fingers scabbed over. For about 19 hours a day.
I couldn't quit, 'cos then I wouldn't get my masters and my year of absolute poverty would be utterly wasted. Not technically a job, since I didn't get paid, but just about the worst task I've ever performed.
(I couldn't quit, 'cos then I wouldn't get my masters and my year of absolute poverty would be utterly wasted. Not technically a job, since I didn't get paid, but just about the worst task I've ever performed.
atomboy,
Tue 11 Nov 2003, 10:23,
archived)