As per the title, what job have you had (past or present) that has been your most favourite job? By this I mean you looked forward to going to work, you enjoyed the work and overall you felt very happy working in the job.
I worked at the movies when I was in school and at uni and have to say that was probably the job that I most enjoyed when I look back on it, even despite the pay being very low compared to what I earn now.
While driving, I had 3 incidents involving people on the train tracks.
The first time was an attempted suicide by a man who threw himself under my train. He lost a leg but survived.
The second was a male drunk who walked almost across my trains path as I went express through a station. He basically bounced off the offside front corner of my train and landed face down and unconscious in the ballast stones. He ended up with bad bruising and lacerations.
The last was a mentally unwell man who was drunk. He thought I would stop before my train hit him as he stood in the middle of the train track. My train stopped 6 meters beyond where he had been standing and he died instantly.
Like all Train Drivers and Truckies, I had many near misses throughout my career and I was also involved in several fatalities as a relief Driver or as a Rail Guard.
Thanks for sharing.
I personally know a couple of people who have unfortunately used trains as a method to end their lives and always wondered how common it is.
I have 2 workmates who have had people in cars purposely drive at their loaded trucks head on to do it. It’s a very scarring for those involved.
Is it true after x amount of incidents you can be stood down and payed on a pension of sorts? Or just a myth?
Completely forgot about the drunks and other possible incidents.
Be scary up the front end of a train and knowing you cant steer when things pop out.
@El cheepo: I remember a female driver who quit the job after her train struck and killed a young woman.
There was also a driver many years ago who had so many fatalities that he refused to come back to work and I believe that he was eventually paid to retire early.
The company I worked for was always very supportive of any staff that were involved in a death while at work. Some Drivers would come back to work the next day and others would take up to 3 or 4 weeks off work.
I would take 3 or 4 days off work, as I found that the 24 hours after I had a bad incident, I could hardly sleep at all. I was always offered counselling, but never took it, as I was lucky enough to be able to recover quickly from the shock.
Like the Emergency Services, Train staff are taught early on that it is almost certain that they will end up involved in at least 1 serious incident.
@Eduardo Grey: Thank you for sharing that info, very insightful.
Sounds like the train industry and its operators have good training and support.
@Eduardo Grey: After reading this, I hope the rail people get all they want and more from the NSW government. Am supportive of any industrial action taken to be heard even if I rely on public transport to get to work and home.
@Eduardo Grey: Thanks for sharing mate, valuable insight into a train drivers life. Cheers.
I lived in the UK for 10 years and for a lot of that time I worked in the rail industry (engineering design) and got quite involved in it. In London there's a 'one under' (a death by being hit by a train) on average every week. It's really hard on the drivers - who have no control over the incident but get to see it first hand. There was a story we were always told about two Aussie backpackers pushing a mannequin in from of a train at Earls Court underground station - it destroyed the driver who thought he'd killed someone. Not funny.
I’ve heard people say in cases of emergency for the train operators they are to just hit the emergency brake and shut the front curtain.
Not sure if its true or not.
Would be an awful feeling knowing there’s nothing you can do but seeing such sad things play out.
I’ve heard people say in cases of emergency for the train operators they are to just hit the emergency brake and shut the front curtain.
Not sure if its true or not.
This is true. Have spoken to a psychologist who works with train drivers involved in fatalities and this was her exact advice if it happens again in the future. If you can't reach the curtain/don't have time to, an alternative is to just close your eyes. Not having the visual memory apparently makes a big difference (e.g. with PTSD).
Its not the type of work that makes a job bad, its the people in the workplace, everywhere.
Couldn’t agree more. I work in operating theatre and I have been moving around different specialties to avoid micromanagers and slackers. My best days at work are when I work with really good team and with my friends. Doesn’t feel like working at all and time flies by. I was asked which specialty I like the most - and I couldn’t find one that stands out. They are all work but shitty workmates make my work life so miserable.
💯
Being in my workplace has been stressful.
Have a particular work colleague who constantly is mean and says comments that are rude. Bullies others and says nasty remarks and backstabs others.
Another thing is there’s a dish washing roster where we wash other peoples dishes. She brings her food in a large casserole dish, reheats the food on a small plate, and leaves the dirty dish and casserole dish for the rostered person to wash up. Not only that but she has breakfast before her shift at work to dirty more dishes. On her day to wash, it’s the smallest amount of dishes out of the week.
Does anyone else have a dish washing roster at work? Btw I work in retail.
We have a dishwasher… but I get that it’s a privilege.
That's all it is. No one taught me that at school.
Worked at an arcade attendant part time when i was in high school. We could play unlimited old school DDR when the place is closed to public. Aye aye aye you're my little butterfly…
When I was a teenager, working in the boning room at the Byron Bay abattoir. Good pay, start early, usually finish early, if the boners had finished their 'overs'. Full days pay either way. Beach across the road. Take your board to work, in case the surf was up.
I've worked with a few boners in my time.
Surveillance operative. The adrenaline rush was amazing.
What is this?
Ive never looked forward to going to paid work but did prefer jobs were i worked outside.
Managed a bottleshop 3 decades ago for nearly ten years proud of myself for taking it from $1500 a week turnover to $90,000 a week turnover didnt have a qlue what i was doing when i started. But being trapped inside all day in one location dealing with drunks, theft underage ruined the job. ( be okay without the customers ).
Working with the aim of early retirement.
Customs.
Never done it so it doesn’t qualify. But watching border patrol, it looks like fun 😄
It was.
I worked at a major sportsbetting company in Darwin. Got paid well to watch and talk about sports whilst manning the phones to take bets. There were literally 50 screens around the room with every sport on and expectation was to be watching when not on a call so we were up to speed with any client queries.
Eventually moved over to the trading side which is setting prices/lines for sports and racing, which is mainly keeping a track of the liability on any given event and also ensuring pricing was reflective of other bookies in the market.
Great job that I would still probably be in if we did not need to leave NT to come home to SA. I was on approx $80k + super + 6 weeks annual leave, this was within 12 months of moving to NT. Recommend it to anyone who is into sports/racing.
There are lots of maths/tech guys who would not work in the gambling industry for any amount of treasure, yet you did it for 80k. Whatever floats your boat I guess.
That’s a bit rude mate.
What's wrong with the industry?
It's quite predatory
@us3rnam3tak3n: I'm sure all industries can act predatory and corrupt.
I was employed to find future sources of drinking water— gave up approx. 100k+ to avoid working for the oil industry.
One major project was commissioned (albeit through multiple layers of commissioning) ultimately by the World Bank to find and dictate global uses of drinking water. Another project was done in secret so-as to sabotage native title planning efforts. It was all 'legal' but I wouldn't call it ethical. Overall it was a lot less corrupt that oil, but it never really was as clean as I originally made it out to be.
*OP: Geoscientist— I really like my job. Fresh air, explore to places where people tend not to venture, decent pay, big computers and most importantly, nobody in the public really understands what you do, so you don't get people in the early stages of the Dunning-Kruger effect thinking they can do your job.
@randomvis: I don't gamble myself (besides the occasional lotto ticket) but in a previous workplace it was rife. The most successful guy in the office was always finding ways to exploit the system and his accounts would be suspended regularly. Meanwhile the guy with the worst win ratio would voluntarily quit every few weeks and the betting agencies would call him up with offers to lure him back. Completely legal but textbook predatory behaviour.
I'm in mining, working with geologists and geotechs. I also did a year of geophysics so I could totally do your job ;)
Eventually moved over to the trading side which is setting prices/lines for sports and racing, which is mainly keeping a track of the liability on any given event and also ensuring pricing was reflective of other bookies in the market.
We are aware of that and adjust BF markets accordingly before the hit is ordered
What is your view on value bets & sporting betting companies limit winners?
I'm going to say that my favourite job is the one I never got.
A long, long time ago, I applied for a job with ASIO. It was only an "admin" job, not a "spy" or anything like that, but I think there would have been opportunities down the track for more interesting work. I never wanted to be a spy, my forte has always been as a "backroom" person working and facilitating others on the front lines to do their jobs. It would not have been easy work by any stretch, and there would have been the added problems of never being able to tell anyone where you worked or what you did. But I think the opportunities to help defend our country, and to see tangible results of the work would have been very rewarding.
Sadly I didn't get the job. They made all sorts of bullsxxt excuses as to why I was unsuccessful when I fought back against the decision, but I think it would have turned out to be the most interesting thing I could have done in my life.
Oh yeah, I tried out with them too for vaguely the same reasons :D Same answer too but I didn't fight against it.
Goes to show why you didn't get the job when the question was what job have you had (past or present) - meaning you actually got the job.
I understood exactly what the question was, I just chose to answer it in a different way. On a forum such as this, it doesn't matter. I would not have done it in a job interview, where I have never had a problem with questions - or getting jobs. In a previous life I was a Job Search Trainer, and interviewing skills was one of my specialties.
With this particular job, candidates were not judged solely on interview questions and how they were answered. That initial process probably just sorted the wheat from the chaff, and I have no doubt these people were very skilled at identifying time wasters. But there was also a wide range of other factors once you got over the first hurdle. It was a very long, and I would say, very costly recruitment process. To be eliminated at the very end was disappointing, given the amount of time and effort I had invested in it.
I have had a variety of jobs in my life, some interesting, some not. But, I come back to my original point, this particular job WOULD have been my favourite had I got it. In and of itself, even the the whole recruitment process was interesting to say the least, and like nothing else I have ever experienced.
I worked in a call centre doing the graveyard duty (8pm to 7am). The shifts were 3 days on and 3 days off, 4 on 4 off, 5 on 5 off. So essentially I was having good leave period to be able to manage uni work and still be employed pretty much fulltime.
Also, on average I was getting about 2-3 calls a night. The rest of the night I was able to put my feet up, watch a movie, or do my uni assingments - During the 5 on 5 off, I would take my PC into work and switch to it do my assignment. This job was crucial while i was at uni, it was soooooo good.
Right now. Self employed, work from home and get to spend all day with the kids. Can't ask for more.
Doing what exactly? would be good to know what people manage to do from home.
We are in the property business. It's stressful but my time belongs to me.
We are in the property business.
Property and property accessories?
not sure why you got negged but here is a +
Kids are great. But sometimes going into an office feels like a reward for looking after the kids when WFH haha
Worked at a Video store (Video Ezy) throughout the end of high school and university… best job (apart from being held up one time)
McDonald's. Just a lot of dicking around, flirting with boss, making custom burgers for myself, getting high on night shift, no stress about huge rents back then or planning for future. The worst and best job ever.
Trades - Gyprocking Dry waller. Did 3 months of it and loved it. The design, working with my hands and seeing the result was very satisfying.
I often went back to jobs to see the finished post painted work.
NEET
Strangely in a way it was McDonalds. Went in at a time where i had low self esteem , and it really built up my confidence plus such a social aspect to it both friends wise and in the romantic sense.
I am coach / Junior Development Officer for a state orienteering body. Dream job, heaps of variety, my own boss, pay is crap, hours long. (It's Sunday, I've just been 4W-driving around a scout camp property to set up for an event next weekend.) Gold.
Ice cream man at the Royal Show!
Why?
Salting: The pay, hours and management are always awful, but nothing beats the warm feeling of helping others.
Used to work at Apus Computers (selling PC & computer parts) before they expanded to become Shopping Square
I was a junior technician and occasional sales person. Helped build PCs and also assisting with repairs and entering stocks
It was a sweet time as my boss and the managers are really nice and forgiving as I fumbled a few times at my job, though some of my coworkers can be (profanity). That situation itself was a rarity. These days, it tends to be the other way round.
Teacher. The holidays are insane, the pays pretty alright (depending who you ask) and the work isn't too hard either.
Just waiting for the raging teacher responses to this!
But in my view having very close relatives who are long term teachers I would mostly agree. Maybe in the most recent years they seem to be doing more work outside school hours (like most jobs, increasing box ticking and admin) but for a long time it seemed quite the bludge (and they are both good at their jobs, not slackers at all). Sister in law used to have an incredible tan every year because she would spend six weeks at the beach each summer.
There are many teachers nearing retirement that speak of the "good days" of teaching. Most early career teachers are leaving, and I see many schools unable to staff classes day after day now unfortunately
I found teaching to be way too stressful and intense for my liking, gave up the classroom after a few years. I pivoted to teaching outdoor recreation which was a lot more enjoyable for me!
After more than a decade as a permanent HS teacher I've had to take leave. Pay is acceptable (not great, but fine in a 2 person household income), but just too stressful. Work load and working conditions are unsustainable. Glad you've found a good balance within the industry, perhaps the public system operates differently to catholic or private schools..
I'm in primary - have a fantastic school and a fantastic team. Have friends who teach high school and describe it similarly to you.
crypto hodler during exponential bull market
top buyers negging me lol
Door guard on models dressing room for a fashion show. At 18 it was eye opening.
Go on
Don't get too excited, it was probably the males dressing room.
Actually was a shared one. Can say they had no time or concern for modesty.
At 18 it was eye opening.
Yeah, literally. Your face must have looked like Alex DeLarge from Clockwork Orange in that scene where he's got his eyes clamped open.
It must have been hard work keeping abreast of things in the dressing rooms.
i liked working at vivid
Standover man, till I got over it…
the one your mum gave me last night.
gigolo and trolley boy
I worked for a music start up once where my job was to listen to music all day to choose the best stuff for promotion and check for copyrighted material etc.
Then we use to go out 3-4 nights a week on company coin to see live music events and vaguely promote the business.
All while I was in my early 20s.
A great time.
I worked in Outdoor Recreation in a residential camp - taught everything from archery to rock climbing, canoeing and even dancing. Worked mostly with school children but we had groups of all ages and types attend the camp. I loved the job and still found new ways to approach my activities after 15 years - but the hours and days of needing to stay overnight on site became too much, and I wanted to have more of a life outside of work.
@Ghost47
What were your roles at the cinema (floor, candy bar, box office, bio box, management)? How many screens? Which cinema chain?
Working at a Donut King store for 4 years throughout High school. Was pretty relaxed but also had its classic hospitality lunch rush's. Started working after school for a few hours and on weekends to eventually making the donuts at 5am on a weekend. It was during the time Donut King were heavily investing in their coffee program so I got free certificate level (not just a 24hr crash course) Barista training and was lead Barista for a while. Worked with great people and I never once dreaded going to work. I do agree with above comments that a lot of that has to do with lack of life responsibility (at the time) and spending all I earned on liquor and partying. I do think if I went back to an entry level job like that 10 years on I would now hate it.
IT guy for small sized bowlo in sydney, with other sister clubs dotted around the place. bit of site-site travel, mostly one man operation (each club had its own guy, and we all covered for each other as required, contractors for the physical stuff like cabling etc). mostly just read ozbargain/forums all day and listened to music.
once I got the front of house staff to realise i was not an enemy but a friend (aka wasnt going to snitch on them) i got invited to a lot of parties with the hospo crew. from then on mostly spent days flirting and hanging out with supervisor crew while doing like 2-3 L1/L2 tickets a week because I taught most of them how to fix stuff without me (the club operated well into the AM and I didnt like getting after hours calls)
slept with a few of the girls (everyone was sleeping with everyone, high turnover so always new faces around) excellent connections for substances (most of the clientele, as the media has discovered, are laundering drug money and they tip well with drugs or cash -very well), cruisy as hell in terms of work - all the hard stuff was contracted out to vendor support so all I did was keep the management happy with flashy new toys (laptops/phones/servers) every budget and helped out with the event nights doing sound/lighting that i was interested in.
left just before covid v1 got the whole staff stood-down/sacked. one of the other IT guys left before me, offered me a job working with him in the perfect covid-proof industry - food logistics. so very lucky connection to make. we are still mates even after moving on from there too.
pay was meh, there was only really exposure to industry specific stuff and I am not a fan of pokies/clubs in general so moved out of it, but had more fun there than anywhere else. made good friends, had heaps of fun, ended up having a great relationship post-workplace with one of the girls a few years after we'd both moved on.
downside (a big downside) was seeing the destruction that poker machines cause to people, families, and society. the thin veil of community outreach the club uses to justify the insane profits is absurd. ClubsNSW is a joke, they are not 'not for profit' organisations in the slightest. they gave back maybe 10% of what they took.
Blow up the pokies, support live music etc.
+1 on F the pokies. An absolutely awful machine. My main problem with them is that the communities who lose the most to pokies are the lowest income council areas.
I have two. One I left around 15 years ago. Lots of great and very smart people and banter, enjoyable work, learned a lot while there and lots of fun at drinks nights etc. Ultimately though they didn't pay very well and it was common for good people to leave as soon as they had decent experience. Fun fact, our PM Albo's current partner worked there with me and was still there long after I left. Absolutely mad to see her at things like the King's Coronation and I've noticed she doesn't post drunken pub photos on facebook any more! Everyone had the same reason for leaving that company, other employers would pay you considerably more. Hated the job I left it for and moved on from there after 6 months.
The other is my current job and I've been with the company over 8 years. Again great colleagues and I'm lucky enough to also have great managers which I've been around long enough to know is not that common. In the pre-covid days, there was a very cheap and decent gym we could use at the office and twice a week a group of us would go and play lunchtime football (all ages and abilities welcome) at a nearby park with views of the harbour bridge in the background. Has always been flexible and even pre covid I was working from home two days a week. Now I only have to go in once a fortnight. Money is decent, I can pretty much manage myself most of the time and everyone in my team is pretty sound. Can't ask for much more than that
Please tell us the job titles
Waiting table at a teppanyaki place.
Worked hospitality for 10 years before this job and I have never seen a FOH role more relaxed. There’re less tasks than usual, a lot of down time when we are not required to do anything (physically). Cleaning up means wiping the table and running a Dyson vacuum. On the other hands, we are asked to pay attention to guests and providing the best hospitality we can offer, which I loved doing.
The best part of it is the people. Owners treated us like family. I made connections here that I know will last me a lifetime.
I only left the job for another so my schedule matches my partner 9-to-5. Also enjoyed the extra income.
I surprised no Victorians are saying 2 yrs being paid by the govt to play your screens.
There no better dream job than that ,
I don't think that was as good as you think it was.
Blockbuster in the late 90s. I loved working there. Great group of people I worked with and genuinely enjoyed the work.
That was my dream in highschool. But they had collapsed by the time I could have worked there.
Mystery shopper
It might sound ridiculous, but I enjoyed delivering pizzas and working at McDonald’s way more than I’ve enjoyed my non-shitkicker jobs. Bugger all responsibility, just show up and get the job done. Keep busy, don’t have to think much, don’t have to worry about performance reviews, or conducting myself in a professional manner. Of course, the pay is horrific as a direct result of those positives.
As far as “adult” jobs go, working in financial crime operations takes the cake, and it’s not even close. Unless AI makes my job redundant, can’t see myself ever leaving. I work entirely in the background in investigations, so I don’t have to speak to customers and contact with the rest of the bank is minimal and reserved for senior management, since we don’t actually want them knowing what we do, because some idiot banker will probably tell customers how to wire strip their payments. I basically just sit at my computer desk from home screening payments all day. Call center work at another bank was by far the worst. The general population are completely financially illiterate, and people are always looking for an argument. Had to do that to get to financial crime though.
Similar to delivery driving, I did a year as a mobile PC tech for a now-defunct company and it was pretty fun. company car, leave from home, return to home, only in the office when there was nothing to do or stock to pickup/drop off. Mostly in the rich areas of sydney so everyone was generous with Tips - one guy gave me a $400 tip to buy a new GPS because I was late to his address as my current GPS couldnt find it properly. I had plenty of free lunches/dinners, usually home made, with the clients. lotta beers too.
always interesting and friendly people, met a few celebs (ex politician Andrew Peacock, Caltex CEO, sports news guy last name Fidler? cant remember) and doing the part of IT stuff I actually like doing - helping people get the most of their technology and educating/empowering them, rather than helping an organisation make more money.
heaps of funny stories like the kid who was very concerned about his data security (had a bunch of pokemon furry art/porn), finding sex tapes on the hard drive (one of our services was data transfer) and the woman in the videos not being the same woman in the family photos hanging on the wall. that was a fairly high profile person and the story came out a few months later.
one bad story about finding CP material on a laptop in the process of migrating files to a new one. Cops got involved, the tech who found it nearly got charged too, as the act of copying the files (unknowingly, until he saw the file names moving across) was considered to be a crime in and of itself.
I personally love my current job. I'm a high school teacher whose now in senior leadership (at my school). I still have a few classes I teach, which are often the highlight of my week. Despite the many challenges educators face, it's great to have an impact on the lives of teenagers and the community (more broadly).
I'm glad really I'm at a private school where we have more freedom to discipline students and enact our own policies that work for our students and our community. My feeling is that state schools face too much red tape and bureaucratic oversight (at least in QLD). I want to work to reform Education one day in a way where both schools and teachers have more autonomy and independence - I think that will solve many of the current issues faced by educators. What I'm learning in my current role is a step in that direction, so I see every challenge I have as a lesson to learn - this mindset makes my work very fulfilling as I has a clear purpose.
Nice to hear a teacher happy in their job. Mostly its we don't get paid enough and work too hard and everyone gives us crap about having lots of holidays <insert excuses made why that is also so horrible too>
President of the unemployment association.
first real job in the big city when I was about 19yo - a friend was cook in a Mexican restaurant - got me job as dishwasher
boss rule was no eating the food - so we'd wait until he went away for his regular half-hour break - my friend would assemble me 6 special tacos with the spicy beef - I'd wolf them down in a hurry and I just loved the taste (maybe with the extra flavour of forbidden fruit)
in fact, as a student, the evenings I knew I'd be working I wouldn't eat all day, so I'd come in ready for that delicious feed …
Section 10er with State Forests Of NSW, great job - i like trees.
What does the section 10 have to do with working in State Forests?
And do you like fungus?
Favourite job was a dish pig (aka utility worker). Simple, easy, and you get to use all these cool machines and tools and get to see all areas back of house.
Same here. 180k a year, no responsibility, no critical thinking needed, free food and gym
WAIT WHAT?! 180K a year?! Is this out on a mine or something?
Yep. 9 hour days for 28 days straight with one RDO at day 15 with a week off so you definitely work for it. But at the same time, I've worked a lot harder for a lot less.
I liked making burgers at Maccas.
I worked at maccas too when I was in HS and I loved trying to make my burgers perfect (but still fast) to make them look like the photos on the menu. Especially cheeseburgers. Everyone else would squash the shit out of them during wrapping.
Perhaps a bit of a touchy subject, but may i ask…
Did you encounter many people using the track to end their life? I hear it’s quite common in that profession.
(Happens in trucks too, but a lot rarer)