Worst job and smell and worst job you have experienced.

[Bennettjh]

Worked in a water treatment plant too, for a SHORT time. If you have to crack open the pumps to repair one on the incoming lines it was real bad.

Spent 10 years as a correction officer down at Wabash Valley. Convicts can small bad, and can be noisy as hell. Had to "force shower: a poop thrower named Castro couple of times after he got too ripe (about a year) from refusing to come out for a shower. Also been in many fights, had poop and pee thrown on me many times, been bitten once, and stabbed twice. I hate convicts. Far as I'm concerned, anyone gets more than 10 years, just put them down. Every time I see baggy pants, I think "past or future convict".

War lived up to it's rep as being "hell". Yes, shooting people or getting shot at sucks, as does getting blowed up, but the smells of a ****hole like Iraq are unreal. People (including ours, ok, even me) just relieve themselves wherever they want. Sometimes you have to, I get it, but most times it's just because that's who they are. Any porta-pottie on the base that is used by the TCNs is something you avoid. Trash, and human waist being burned. True meaning of **** detail. Coming up on a bus full of dead police recruits that was bombed and is burning. Cooking humans smell different than any other meat I've ever smelled. People who get blown apart stick like hell too. The rotting food in their guts (basically vomit and poop) is awful when it gets splashed around and mixed with the iron smell of blood. Sometimes a body will take a dump after it dies...

Besides smells, years after you retire, sometimes a sound, or a situation will make your brain throw a flashback at you, and it will be just like you are back there. Your body will react with the flash of adrenaline that gets you ready for a fight, and you start freaking out looking for where the attack is coming from... but there isn't one. When it doesn't happen, you have to deal with that adrenaline dump without looking like a fool. I couldn't stand fireworks for the first 3 or 4 years. A large professional firework mortar sounds pretty much like a haji mortar going off. Oddly enough, when you're sitting in your lawn chair waiting for them to start, they are (or sound like they are) about the same distance away that haji would set up shop... You go to the range to shoot, and there are other guys there with their ARs, all is cool. Some dude fires off an AK on the left, and when the sound of that x39 hits you, you really wake up. I hate AKs. They're good weapons, but I hate 'em.

I took my son to see Lone Survivor. When the one guy was walking down the hall in the tent to show his buddy the horses on his laptop, the plywood walls were on screen and the sound effects of the tent blowing in the wind were too real. I swear I could smell the tent from my seat in the theater. Many vets out there probably know the smell of old Army tents and plywood.

So, I'll say that war was the worst job I had, because it doesn't want to let go of you when you're home. It's also the greatest thing I ever did. Weird, but I'd take my crippled ass back there in a heartbeat. Sadder still, I won't have to. I think it has followed us home, or is trying to...

Thank you for your service.

 

[Cameramonkey]

Not the worst smell, but offensive for civilized office/warehouse areas.

I work for a fire protection company. We inspect and recharge portable fire extinguishers. Foam fire extinguishers use animal byproducts in the foaming agents. Those byproducts go rancid in the tanks. Those tanks need to be emptied every 6 years so they can be pressure tested to make sure they are strong enough that they dont go boom. Whats the first step? Empty the tank. The stench of the output is nasty. Yes, others have bigger badder examples, but for a standard (non industrial) office its pretty bad.

 

[rw02kr43]

I have no sense of smell. Everything smells wonderful or like crap. All the same to me.

Jason

 

[padawan]

Worst job: 2004... McDonald's... cleaned a bathroom where customer had copious explosive diarrhea and hadn't made it all the way down on the seat. I cleaned that bathroom for less than $6 after taxes. Still not the worst smell.

Worst smell: 2012-13?... Two mice died in the dash of my grandfather's old Mercedes in the middle of summer. I was the only family member who was knowledgeable and limber enough to get in, remove it, and rebuild the dash.

Just mice, no big deal right? Not when you're arm deep in car's dash in 100 deg heat digging one out a nest with the other still hidden rotting body inches from your nose. I can't even describe the taste of rotten mouse smell.

We had a near miss Saturday afternoon... Had to use my Dads Olds Bravada SUV to run some errands (it doesn't get used daily). My 12 year old started it up, 15 year old was in the pass front seat, I was in the rear, all of the sudden, 12 year old yells- GET OUT! It seems a critter of some type, probably chipmunk or squirrel had started to build a nest in the blower fan. Well, it made a hell of a racket as it screeched out then the fan made a racket... 2 hours later and we had it all back together minus the well made nest.

That would have been stinky. Dead rodent in blower. Close one.

 

[Cozy439]

Worst smell: My crew responded to a RPTD missing person. The victim had been working on a rental home and not seen for days... in July. When we arrived the overwhelming smell of rotting flesh at the front porch confirmed he was in there. We went in quickly to find him and after 1 pass-thru, came up empty. Regrouping we went in second time a lot slower. This time we found him. He passed, shirtless, lying next to a pile of clothes and a clothes basket. We missed him the 1st time because his shirtless body looked exactly like the camouflage shirt laying next to him. The rookie and a medic ran outside to puke. Two of us readied our SCBA for the funeral home reps to borrow... He was beyond our help and they were getting paid to remove him. Wasn't our first experience like that but it was the worst.

Worst job: My father is a contractor. When I was in HS he had a basement foundation that was going to be backfilled the following day. The subcontractor that was supposed to spray the waterproofing coating on had major mechanical issues. I was handed a huge brush and a pile of 5-gallon buckets of tar. By 4 PM that day I looked like I had been tar and feathered (w/o the feathers). I basically had to wash off behind the barn with old rags and gasoline. Almost took longer to remove the tar from my face, body & hair than to paint it on the foundation.