Worst job and smell and worst job you have experienced.

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    Marksman
    Rating - 100%
    2   0   0
    May 4, 2016
    293
    18
    Tippecanoe County
    10 yrs at a waste water treatment facility. There is no place that doesn't smell bad. When I was new I could even smell it in the lunch room. Eventually you get used to it. You always smell it but much like your own farts it's not a bother. I've had to remove animals (deer and dogs) from the coarse screens at times. Thats a combo effect of death and sewage. Sometimes the closer you get to the source, the worse the smell. If you think you've had a bad day at the office try crawling a sewer not much larger than you and getting to the upstream manhole standing up and being covered in EVERYTHING one flushes down the toilet. I've had used tampons, pads, condoms found in my pocket or stuck to me, much less the feces.

    I did some time as a sexton at a local graveyard. The liquids that leak from the vault next to the hole I would be preparing for the current burials was a odor so far unmatched by anything I've been around. Jumping down in the plot to corner and level out after said leakage always resulted in getting it splashed on my clothing. It would take many a wash cycles to get the smell out. Some people request not to be embalmed (religious reasons I suppose) and that always presented a time sensitive situation before the odor became very noticeable.
     

    daddyusmaximus

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 98.8%
    82   1   0
    Aug 21, 2013
    8,504
    113
    Remington
    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...
     
    Last edited:

    red_zr24x4

    UA#190
    Rating - 100%
    4   0   0
    Mar 14, 2009
    28,790
    113
    Walkerton
    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...

    Thanks brother
     

    kevman65

    Sharpshooter
    Rating - 0%
    0   0   0
    Oct 10, 2010
    725
    16
    Indy
    National By Products, just off of south Meridian just south of Raymond in Indy.

    Tis where roadkill, dead farm animals and such go to be rendered to base products.

    Semi dump bed dumps them, some explode on contact, front loader shoves them into grinder, then they grind.


    National Starch and Chemical just east of Eli Lilly LTC south and just west of White River.

    They process corn from start to finish to create base product for many food stuffs.

    Fermented corn is nasty.


    Old Eli Lilly Insulin Plant downtown Indy, where they processed sheep pancreas to make insulin.


    These are just 3 of the nasty places around Indy that most people have no clue about.





    Oh yeah, don't eat ANYTHING from Hebrew National
     

    bulletsmith

    Master
    Rating - 100%
    11   0   0
    Apr 26, 2015
    2,050
    48
    Lake County
    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...

    I want to say something in reply to this, but I don't know the words. At the very least, I'd like to shake your hand and say thank you.
     

    longbow

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 100%
    3   0   0
    Apr 2, 2008
    6,900
    63
    south central IN
    This one happened this summer. We have one trash can for depends and like items and the other for normal trash. I was throwing out a super bag of depends and my watch clasp caught the side of the trash can and fell in when I tossed the trash.

    Luckily most most of the trash bags were intact to get the watch but the summer cooked smell of urine was heavy on ammonia. I am much more careful now.
     

    Leo

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 100%
    30   0   0
    Mar 3, 2011
    9,733
    113
    Lafayette, IN
    worst sounds

    Animal bones and body parts being torn apart on the screw auger at rendering plant.

    The sound of skin being forced off a cow with an air lance at a rendering plant is unique.

    The swine kill line at a hog processing plant is right at the top. They know what is happening.

    The sound of a dump truck load of dead dogs being off loaded at a rendering plant.

    As you can tell, rendering plants are not a great place to be.

    I will second this observation. I spent two weeks at the Darling International Rendering plant in the south side of Chicago. I was repairing, calibrating and certifying EPA mandated instruments. As jobs go there, my duties were the nicest. I would take a turd plant over a rendering plant if giving the choice in the future. At least a sewer plant is not preparing, packaging and shipping the waste as finished product.
     

    Fester

    Expert
    Rating - 0%
    0   0   0
    Dec 21, 2012
    762
    93
    Greenfield
    While in the Air Force stationed at Karamusel CDI, Turkey on the Marmara Sea, I was part of a volunteer group that scuba dived for Turkish drowning victims. Rarely did they drown in clear water. Normally it was black, nasty water that you could only feel around for their remains. While the sight was bad enough, the smell was as bad as can be imagined. I could thankfully breathe through my regulator, but when handing the remains off to the "dry team" in the boat, the sights and sounds of retching men heaving over the side of the boat just added to the fun. The flesh had a habit of sliding off the bone akin to boiled chicken.
    While stationed at Sembach AB Germany, I was again on a volunteer team that would be dispatched to aircraft crashes and retrieve the remains of aircrew. The sights were not as bad as the drownings but the smell of burnt flesh had its own disgust. An aircraft hitting the ground at 400 miles per hour tends to spread anyone inside over a large area. Before we removed any remains, we had to wait for them to cool, the a doctor to declare them "dead". Now I've never been to medical school but somethings are obvious.
    Shortly after retiring I worked part time at a Mortuary. When being interviewed, I was asked if I had ever been around the dead, I replied, "None in one piece, this is a snap."
    As a result, even today my gag reflex is almost non existent, except fresh poo in the car litter box. That almost brings it on.
     

    pearlman1966

    Marksman
    Rating - 100%
    5   0   0
    Sep 27, 2010
    249
    18
    Smell

    worldwide-back alley in Calcutta India in the summer heat, rotting flesh, urine/feces and cooking food smells hitting you in the face from a mild breeze topped with the order of unwashed human BO. The smelly dust that gets on your sweaty skin is flakes of dried animal and human waste.

    United States-several

    Entering an apartment in the South Bend area. The body of the gentleman had already been removed. However he had expired on a reclining couch in late summer. His body had decomposed and "exploded". He was a large man and his post death fluids sprayed out at amazing distances.

    The customer I was working with was a crime scene remediation company. The owner said he had a good jobsite for me to see. I'm pretty sure another ingo member also talked about this job. From the looks of the floor in front of the recliner it looked like the morgue guys moved him, but he broke apart on the floor and they scooped him up into several body bags. I was in full tyvek with a respirator. His employees where to remove everything touched or soaked by these fluids. The clean up bill and repairs where in the high 5 figures.

    The raw water intake area at the south side waste water treatment plant in Indy. It was July and my tour guide tried to gross me out. It had a sweet but disgusting order. I hurt his feelings when I told him the unit I visited in Muncie smelled about the same.

    Columbus In and Plymouth In- both were rendering plants. Late summer at the inspection pipe at the hammer mill. That is a smell. Lots of surface area on decomposing animal parts. Don't have any appointments after those visits! The vats holding freshly removed animal hides is also pretty bad.

    The coworker I took with me to see the plant had mental health issues two weeks later. The piles of dead animals messed with him and he had to be reassigned to another area of the company. I warned him, but he wanted to experience it.

    The liquid waste pits under hog confinement building are pretty nasty too. Pig crap and raw pork at times smells about the same......it just depends on the cut!
    I used to be maintenance at the rendering plant in Columbus. Utility workers dumped a whole semi trailer of dead hog into auger for grinder with out turning it on first. The hogs caught in screw busted the chain drive. I had to crawl down in auger and cut the hogs apart to get it loose and repair the chain.
    Fun times.
     

    padawan

    Expert
    Rating - 100%
    1   0   0
    Feb 3, 2009
    1,400
    38
    N/A
    You guys lead some very exciting lives... I had to empty the cat litter boxes yesterday. Stiiiinnnnkkkkyyyy!!! Whew... Stinky. :noway:
     

    JT1968

    Plinker
    Rating - 100%
    1   0   0
    Aug 20, 2014
    59
    6
    Aurora
    I work at a chemical plant. We store and handle anhydrous ammonia. The smell is like your standard household ammonia times 100. If you get a good snoot full your ears hurt.. It's weird. Also we have some water treatment chemicals that make your saliva glands go into overdrive. If you smell it, you start spitting a lot . The smell is real sweet..
     

    warthog

    Shooter
    Rating - 100%
    66   0   0
    Feb 12, 2013
    5,166
    63
    Vigo County
    Kraft-Humco in Champaign, IL would be my second worst smelling place I have worked
    but by far and away my number one worst smelling place to work and live has been
    ADM in Decatur, IL. The corn processing plant and distillery is so foul when you are in there for a few minutes your eyes and throat and nasal passages are on fire. I usually wore a gas mask if I had to enter there to get parts or find someone to fix something I couldn't. I worked next door in the hydroponic greenhouses. they were that bad at all unless it was a summer day and all the fans were on and the houses were open wide, then all that foul smell would be sucked in and circulated around the houses. :n00b:
     

    warthog

    Shooter
    Rating - 100%
    66   0   0
    Feb 12, 2013
    5,166
    63
    Vigo County
    worst sound... that would have to be the day the Humco, non-dairy creamer building blew up. I was in it too, the top of the place disappeared in a blinding dust explosion because there are many folks, who lack brains, who think yu can smoke in a room full of fine dust without problem
     

    PGRChaplain

    Master
    Rating - 100%
    7   0   0
    Jan 13, 2011
    3,765
    83
    Waynedale (FT Wayne)
    Smell

    worldwide-back alley in Calcutta India in the summer heat, rotting flesh, urine/feces and cooking food smells hitting you in the face from a mild breeze topped with the order of unwashed human BO. The smelly dust that gets on your sweaty skin is flakes of dried animal and human waste.

    United States-several

    Entering an apartment in the South Bend area. The body of the gentleman had already been removed. However he had expired on a reclining couch in late summer. His body had decomposed and "exploded". He was a large man and his post death fluids sprayed out at amazing distances.

    The customer I was working with was a crime scene remediation company. The owner said he had a good jobsite for me to see. I'm pretty sure another ingo member also talked about this job. From the looks of the floor in front of the recliner it looked like the morgue guys moved him, but he broke apart on the floor and they scooped him up into several body bags. I was in full tyvek with a respirator. His employees where to remove everything touched or soaked by these fluids. The clean up bill and repairs where in the high 5 figures.

    The raw water intake area at the south side waste water treatment plant in Indy. It was July and my tour guide tried to gross me out. It had a sweet but disgusting order. I hurt his feelings when I told him the unit I visited in Muncie smelled about the same.

    Columbus In and Plymouth In- both were rendering plants. Late summer at the inspection pipe at the hammer mill. That is a smell. Lots of surface area on decomposing animal parts. Don't have any appointments after those visits! The vats holding freshly removed animal hides is also pretty bad.

    The coworker I took with me to see the plant had mental health issues two weeks later. The piles of dead animals messed with him and he had to be reassigned to another area of the company. I warned him, but he wanted to experience it.

    The liquid waste pits under hog confinement building are pretty nasty too. Pig crap and raw pork at times smells about the same......it just depends on the cut!

    I remember the Rendering Plant at Plymouth. When I first started Driving Trucks US 30 was all 2 lane. After the 4 lane opened it only got you closer to the Smell. You can't hold your breath long enough to avoid the Smell. In the Summer I never could figure out how people could live near that.
     

    padawan

    Expert
    Rating - 100%
    1   0   0
    Feb 3, 2009
    1,400
    38
    N/A
    I remember the Rendering Plant at Plymouth. When I first started Driving Trucks US 30 was all 2 lane. After the 4 lane opened it only got you closer to the Smell. You can't hold your breath long enough to avoid the Smell. In the Summer I never could figure out how people could live near that.

    Is that related to what folks used to call the 'dead wagon'... A 'fertilizer' company that would pick up deceased livestock. I remember as a youth, when something would fall out the back onto the road. Quite odorous.
     

    Magneto

    Master
    Rating - 100%
    1   0   0
    Dec 6, 2009
    2,188
    48
    New Albany
    Back many years ago I was working a temporary job in Louisville at a chemical plant. They were replacing one of the old reactors and had purged all the lines...or so they thought. They breached a line and a chemical started leaking and within seconds I vomited. No idea what it was, but I was the only person that had that reaction.
     

    sharkey

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 0%
    0   0   0
    Oct 13, 2009
    6,003
    113
    Hognuts' Liberal ****hole
    Wow, and I thought stomping down the trash at the Rivi was bad. And using rebar to scrape out the possum that gave it all to ****ing the main sewer valve.






    I have led a blessed life.
     

    K_W

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 100%
    8   0   0
    Aug 14, 2008
    5,385
    63
    Indy / Carmel
    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.
     
    Last edited:
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