20 People Share The Moment They Realized How Much Their Job Sucks And We're Not Okay

Most of us have had a moment where we know, "I don't get paid enough for... THIS," but some people could win an award for the things they've endured all to earn the almighty dollar.

Elana

• Published in Interesting
• June 30, 2022

It's understandable these days that the working force is a little fed up with the corporate grind. In 2020 alone, CEOs were paid 351 times higher than their average workers and since 1978, CEO compensation has grown 940% while the typical worker's compensation has only grown a meager 12%.

Then, a year later that wage gap jumped up to 670-1, which according to The Guardian means the average CEO received $670 in compensation for every $1 the worker received. In 2021, corporations were profiting from buying back their own shares while 2/3 of those same corporations who employ low-wage employees actually cut their employees' pay!

It's no surprise that unions are beginning to rise again in the United States or that low-wage businesses have been cutting their hours, if not closing their doors altogether. While the owners and managers of businesses closing will lament that it's because "nobody wants to work," it's often much more of an issue on their end where the demands and expectations don't ratio at all to the pay and/or benefits (or lack of benefits is more like it!)

Maybe you've never had the defining moment that left you ready to quit a job, or maybe you've had a lot of little ones where you mutter under your breath, "I don't get paid enough for this," while you plan to enjoy your favorite alcoholic beverage later while mentally recovering from the grind. However, you'll be hard-pressed not to agree that the following moments for these 20 individuals were not 100% a bonafide "I don't get paid enough for this" situation.

"I don't get paid enough for this."

Reddit users PM_me_gorillas, BenIrwinG, and Deer_is_me have all asked Reddit users for their stories and defining moments where they realized they gave more than they got at work. These are their answers.

1. “Holding a pair of dying twin boys so they wouldn’t die alone."

"Their mother hadn’t wanted the pregnancy, hadn’t even told anyone she was pregnant, so it was a bit of a blessing when she went into preterm labor and delivered them 4 months early.

She was relieved to not have to raise twins on her own and didn’t want anything to do with her sons. 22 weeks is too early to live very long, but they were alive long enough to have some consciousness, some awareness and I couldn’t bear the thought of them spending their whole short little lives cold and alone.

I took them to another room and kept changing their blankets to keep them warm and comfortable until their chests finally stopped moving a couple of hours later. I sang to them “you are my sunshine” and then tucked their little bodies away in the morgue, and clocked out.

As an obstetric nurse, I deal with the very best and worst in people. I love my job, but my heart broke that day. All the wonderful happy days at work just barely make up for the days like that one. tl;dr – don’t get paid enough to show someone else’s kids the only love they’ll ever know in their very short lives.”

2. “When I got texts like these from my boss’ boss’ boss."

"For anyone (men can get harassed too) facing this kind of harassment, don’t quit until you have another job secured, especially if you’re reporting it to HR. HR departments from different companies talk to each other, and you will not believe how hard it is to find a job when you have develop a reputation as a “trouble-maker”, “attention wh*re”, “c*cktease”, “sl*t”, etc. HR is there to protect the company, not you. So no matter how close you think you are to HR, expect some sort of backlash.

The more senior the person is, the more likely they are to have gotten away with this for a looonng time. There’s safety in numbers so if you can find other men/women that have faced the same harassment from the same guy (you will), report in a group and make sure everything is documented. S/he could still get away with it, but it’ll be harder when there’s more evidence. One person can be branded a “sl*t” but multiple people? HR must have awesome hiring policies.”

3. "I was a rookie wild land fire fighter making ten/eleven bucks an hour, and I seriously questioned why I only got paid that much."

"Particularly that one time that I had to hold two hundred yards of road with nothing but a tool, and two other rookies who were pissing their pants, when a wall of flame hit our line and started throwing spots into the tall grass we were standing in. Luckily a brush truck arrived before we lost most of our facial hair, and we made it out alright.”

4. “While working at an adult video store, I discovered a bucket of dehydrated piss in the broom closet."

"For a moment, I tried to summon a normal reaction of disgust or anger, but I felt nothing but indifference. The piss bucket wasn’t what broke my spirit.. it was what made me realize I had no more spirit to break.”

5. “Library. Found a used nappy (diaper) crammed in behind the books in the picture books area. Not the first time I’d found one, but the first one I’d found folded sh*t side out.”

6. “I’m a “helper” for people with mental disabilities."

"Have you ever pulled a turd out of a man’s a** when he is stuck halfway through his pooping?

Have you ever woken him up to find he has smeared sh*t all over his face like war paint?

Have you ever been jabbed in the eye because you made him eat his vegetables?

Have you ever had to convince someone with paranoid schizophrenia that you were, in fact, real and not a hallucination while they held a knife?

11.50 per hour”

7. “When a thick stream of sweat drained out of this girls cell phone case. I had to explain to her that her phone had water damage and that she shouldn’t work out with her phone in her bra, all the while trying to be professional and not gag while cleaning the mess. (I sold phones at Sprint).”

8. “Me and 3 others got the sh*t kicked out of us in a small horse stall by 5 emus we were trying to deworm. Not worth $8 an hour.”

9. “When I had to clean poop of a very confused lady who thought I was forcing her to have an abortion."

"She was kicking and screaming every time anyone came near her with a wash cloth. When we got her her in the shower room to clean her she was was grabbing hand fulls of her own poop screaming “WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BABY”.

EDIT: The worst part is when the family comes in the next they and ask how the night went I put on a smile and say “Great, your mother said she couldn’t wait to see you today”.”

10. “Worked retail, worked night fill as assistant manager, assistant day manager thought he was god’s gift to women."

"During stocktake (when both night and day staff are in store) walked in on said manager trying to force himself on a night fill staff member. Pulled him off her, got punched in the face and chest multiple times. filed a police report.

Was then written up for not ‘escalating’ the incident to upper management instead of reporting the rapist prick to the police. Flipped them the bird and told them to f*ck off. Was really tempted to deck the dude on the way out, but instead went and filed a second police report for assault (on myself) and got his ass fired by regional management who some how knew nothing about this whole thing until the police called them.

Gave up on retail at that point and went back to university.”

11. “I’m a mental health counselor at an eating disorder facility."

"We had a new patient arrive who previously came from a sober house and was homeless so he brought all his belongings with him, which was around two large suitcases of clothing. He stayed in program for roughly 36 hours than quickly discharged himself without much of an explanation or plan on what to do (he was from across the country).

My coworker and I go into strip and remake his bed, after he had already left, and we find BOXES full of purge (like nature valley boxes but costco size) and one suitcase full of purge and a bunch of clothes still soaking wet, full of purge.

Also found some of his purge-covered clothes outside the window, which we went to go dispose of. Those had mats all around them and i learned that maggots show up pretty fast when you leave vomit in 90 degree heat. We both look at each other and were like “….this is waaaay above our pay grade.”

I wish that was the grossest story. Just the first one that comes to mind.”

12. “When the lady at the table I was serving complained because the ice in her glass of ice water had melted and the water was “too watered down for her liking”.”

13. “I was 19. I enrolled to gain a certification as an EMT."

"I followed that by busting my a**, sometimes literally, to somehow be qualified to save a person or their entire life’s earnings from a fire. I then followed that by sacrificing a year of my life, or ~90/hrs a week between work/school to become a paramedic at age 23.

I’ve been sh*t on, puked on, bled on. I’ve smelled the previously mentioned, I’ve smelled brains, which has it’s own distinct smell. I’ve held body parts that have been detached moments before. I’ve shoved tubes down peoples throats so they may breathe, despite the number of gunshot wounds they received. I’ve performed CPR on infants. I did this for ~$13/hr.

Firefighters, EMTs/Paramedics, and Police are not compensated nearly enough for what they experience.”

14. “I worked as a cook at a restaurant that doubled as a night club after dark. A guy got shot and killed on the front landing one night and the next day they expected me to clean up the f*cking murder scene.”

15. RIGHT NOW

“Right now.. I’m on hour 12 of what is shaping up to be a 16-18 hour day, and I’m fixing the mistakes of someone who gets paid at minimum 40k more than me.”

16. “Used to work as a paramedic/ER Tech. Had a homeless man come in with a narcotics overdose."

"He was given Narcan to reverse the effects of the drugs. Safe to say he was not happy. He assaulted one of the nurses which led to him being restrained to the bed. He began screaming at everyone that entered the room that he was “gonna kill ’em.”

After about 10 minutes of this, he scoots to one side of the bed, and sticks his ass in between the railings. He then projectile sh*ts all over the computer, the walls, chair, and floor. There was just so much poo. I, along with others, had to go in there and clean him/some of the room up. Thankfully housekeeping took care of the floor. I literally said, “I don’t get paid enough for this sh*t.””

17. “I recently had to climb into a 7ft deep pit that was covered by a grate to remove lead paint from a window. The pit was obviously breeding ground for spiders. There were thousands of them… Thousands..”

Thousands? Of spiders?

18. "“Accidentally Poking myself with a needle that was just used on an hiv positive person. I did get put on post exposure prophylaxis immediately after.”

19. “I was working at a gas station on Halloween. Pretty normal night, a bit more beer than usual."

"And then I see some kid walk by with his collar pulled up, he’s walking a little odd. Then he walks back the way he cames which is a little weird. Then I notice his friends walking up. I ‘m looking at them and I see one is wearing a mask. Then I see a fire extinguisher in his hands.

I start moving to the switch that controls the electric locks but sadly I reached it half a second too late. Two kids hold the doors open and this little sh*t unloads an entire fire extinguisher into the store. Can’t see sh*t, the entire store is filled with powdery haze. It took 8 hours to clean up. Eight hours closed for a 24 hour gas station. And it turns out, the whole point was to steal an 18 rack of f*cking keystone. F*cking kids.

Edit: we had them on camera, but the managers decided it wasn’t worth pursuing I guess. Nothing came of it. None of them could have been over 17. They had two guys holding the doors open the whole time, so their friend who came in earlier ( and I hadn’t been paying attention to) could run out with the beer.

The mag locks didn’t matter since they had the door open first and kept it that way. And no it isn’t that they don’t pay me enough to clean, they don’t pay me enough to deal with some little dipsh*ts who can plan something as elaborate as that and then take the sh*ttiest beer in the store.”

20. “Had a guy come in with a raging hard on that wouldn’t go away. Priapism for those that enjoy science."

"I had to hold this guys throbbing boner while a resident stabbed it with needles trying to drain it and inject medications to make it go down. After 8 stabs, no luck. Dude went to surgery and was told he will never have an erection again. I was the last person to hold his functional wiener.

PSA- if you’ve had a four-hour long stiffy, get to the ER in a jiffy.”

I know how the saying goes, but I think we'd all be better off if our employers knew our worth and paid us accordingly.

Know your worth friends. Plenty of people are showing employers they know it, so don't be the sort of person getting thrown under the bus anymore.

They can afford to give you all a raise, a hefty one at that. They just like that 640 to 1 gap... you don't like that, do you?

Elana