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Ten-Word Tuesday. The Icky Job Edition.

trader-joes-lotion

You are looking at a delicious body lotion courtesy of Trader Joe’s, where courtesy equals no it wasn’t free — but Bossy is celebrating the fact Trader Joe’s has the wit to carry this bit of lusciousness.

According to the bottle it is lavender-scented, but Bossy has to tell you she has never liked anything that claims to be lavender-scented, with the small exception of lavender.

Typically everything that claims to be lavender-scented actually smells more reminiscent of a different sort of flower, the kind of sickeningly sweet flower one might find propped in a vase, against a casket, in a funeral home.

Maybe now would be a good time to disclose the following regarding Bossy’s sensitive olfactory system: when Bossy was in her late teens she got a job spraying perfume in an upscale department store.

young-bossy

It was fine, except for a few small issues:

The first issue was Bossy didn’t have any clothes befitting this upscale department store. So every workday she would assemble the usual ill-fitting outfit, which left her feeling like the Beast in a theatrical production with a stage full of Beauties.

The next issue was the fact that, in this same production, Bossy’s eight-hour workday was playing the part of a 92-hour workday. To combat this lag in the passing of time, Bossy had a few tricks up her sleeve. The sleeve that was attached to a shoulder pad.

First Bossy would organize all of the perfumes on display, which would kill a few minutes. Then Bossy would grab a sample bottle of whatever she was endorsing that day, and head down that long aisle over there, which would kill 93 seconds, followed by the 112 seconds she would kill walking down this long aisle here.

Sometimes a customer would have a product question, or if Bossy was really lucky, she would be asked directions to the escalator — and before she knew it, lookee there! Only seven hours and 53 minutes remaining until Bossy could walk to her 1977 Honda Civic in the dark labyrinth of a parking garage, first passing through the maze of hosiery.

Or sometimes Bossy would get lost in the checkerboard pattern on the marble floor of the perfume department. Bossy would move herself around the game board, always diagonally, avoiding cracks and knocking off imaginary opponents.

checkerboard-floor

The final issue was with the perfume itself. Bossy never had an opinion about perfume one way or the other before taking this job, but it took her approximately a day minus twenty-three-and-a-half hours to become miserably offended by the smell of almost everything. Bossy doesn’t believe in hell per se, except if there is one she’s pretty sure it involves the scent of Giorgio.

giorgio-perfume

Bossy can sum up her job spraying perfume in this way: Think they’ll notice if Bossy stays in this bathroom stall?

Which is what today’s Ten-Word Challenge is all about. In exactly ten words, can you tell Bossy about a job you couldn’t stand?

And be sure to check back later today for the ickiest jobs on all the web.

Also, Bossy would like to announce the winner of her customized notecard giveaway: Congratulations Claire from Arizona! Bossy sent you an email.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Bowling alley, recruiting leagues, should of flung self down lane

    (PS – I lasted a week, salesgirl I am not)

    Reply

  4. Oh lord… I hate the perfume ladies!!! ha ha. I always try to swerve to avoid them… yet they are on you like glue!?.

    Working at Claire’s jewelry store in college was pretty much hell. Piercing baby ears and peddling sweatshop esque cheapy junk.

    I will say though, my friend and I “borrowed” the piercing gun one night and set up shop at a fraternity party. It was the 90’s and time of 2-3 piercings in an ear. We were super popular… 😉

    Reply

  19. “Can I check the visitor stats on my blog again?”

    (I was a perfume model at Lord & Taylor once. I sympathize with you, Bossy. But did you have to do it on pink marble floors? Because that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.)

    Reply

  22. Okay, this wasn’t my job but it was Miss Led’s and since we’re sisters, I think I’ll borrow it for this writing assignment…..

    Garters, milky thighs, back seam stockings, stilettos, cigars, cigarettes, yo-yos

    Reply

  43. Food prep at a taco joint -I kept getting yelled at for not putting the toppings on in a particular order.
    Most recently, working in a dirty job trailer with no heat or air conditioning and using a porta potty every day for a year.

    Reply

  46. Boss required sharp pencil tips up, dull ones eraser up.

    [in his pencil cup on his desk. That’s how I knew which ones I had to sharpen each day.]

    Reply

  50. (The previous = True Story, but takes more than ten words to tell.) Tommy the mortician is a fellow volunteer firefighter and Funeral Home director. Came by Fire HQ late one night (early ‘70s) looking for help moving a body from Long Island to the Bronx. Promised $10, plus free beer to drink on the way. (It WAS the ‘70s, after all.) “Sure,” Stupid Me said. (C’mon: FREE beer.) Got the stiff loaded in the back of the hearse, and off we went. Hit a bumpy patch on the Throgs Neck Bridge, and stiff goes “O-o-o-o-h-h.” “Jesus CHRIST, what the #%*@ was THAT?” I screamed. (Yeah. Screamed. Like a girly-girl.) “Oh,” he said casually, “Sometimes they still have air in their lungs, and it comes out on the bumps.” Information I would have appreciated earlier. Last time for THAT job. Brrrr…

    Reply

  68. Babysat 5 kids with abusive physcho step-mother for $50/week.

    (Being a “numbers person” I should have seen the HUGE lack of proper compensation)

    Reply

  88. Hired as Bookkeeper. Office Manager was insecure Female Peter Principle stereotype.

    (she wrote me up because I tore the tractor-feed strips off the checks before I separated them from one another….)

    Reply

  96. Tedious, tedious drafting job with boring architects. Yawn. Sigh.

    Fired two hours before I quit. So got severance + unemployment.

    Reply

  97. #50–same experience
    young nursing student-patient died-Assisted nurse to roll patient over and the patient FARTED!–

    Got the hysterical giggles and could not quit–hated myself for not being compassionate.

    Reply

  100. km now realizes she had a lot of crap jobs. Hey i graduated grad school without debt!!!!

    waitress ,Irish pub, Times square,pre-Giuliani, country girl. Eyes opened

    Reply

  111. Crazy woman boss, made life hell, I lasted six months.

    (I saw her on Jeopardy years later, and couldn’t stop shaking; she lasted 4 nights.)

    (Also, can’t stand the smell of lavender since reading “Outlander”)

    Reply

  114. my very first job – in high school, one I don’t admit to to just anyone, was a telephone solicitor. I was given pages of a phone book (yes this dates me) and was told to call people on the page trying to sell magazines. I actually knew someone on the page that I had to call! Can you believe it? Anyway, I sold nary a subscription, was hung up on numerous times, and when I took my very first lunch break of my very first job on the first day of work, I didn’t return. I called them and told them I wouldn’t be back.

    Reply

  122. Frying fucking chicken for $3.00/ hour for 12 hour shifts.

    (meanwhile my coworkers were making double and I knew it, ahh to be naive and 16 again, NOT!!!)

    Reply

  129. Threw bologna onto bread coming down conveyor belt
    I know its only 8 words but that job sucked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! bread was coming down a conveyor belt and my job was to toss the bologna onto the bread. We made thousands of sandwiches a day that got packaged into vending machines. It sucked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply

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