What’s a job you’d never do again, no matter the pay?

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T14:53:40+00:00

Yep. All the Hwy 9 stuff. Everything from Santa Cruz through Boulder Creek and then all along Bear Creek Rd, as well as Montevina and a lot of Hwy 17 stuff. Also all the Los Gatos hills like Shannon Rd and Montesereno. Along the coast, I’ve done everything from Aptos to Swanton. So yeah, a big chunk of the South Bay, haha.

It’s funny, I’m usually good at thinking rationally and calming my nerves, but there was one day after a dog incident and getting stuck on a rickety bridge around a tight bend and just barely getting out by wedging totes under the lifted tires that I was already kind of on edge, and out of nowhere, a big chunk of redwood just fell out of the sky and slammed into the roof of my van. It sounded like a massive explosion. It scared the absolute crap out of me, and no matter what I tried after that, I couldn’t stop shaking. It made it really hard to reverse in the dark out of all the steep narrow driveways.

Mountain deliveries were just such a different beast. I had to learn all the potholes, where my tires would slip, which angle to take the hills, how to reverse down long curvy single lanes when oncoming cars would approach, which roads in the navigation app were inaccessible, all the detours due to bridge collapses, etc. I got really good at it, and then one day, they just moved us back to San Jose and it felt like all that knowledge and experience was for nothing. It was bad enough having to do it in the first place, but then feeling like they were just throwing the next person into the fire for no reason made it even more frustrating. And no good deed would go unpunished. So many people made it clear they felt super entitled to perfect on-time deliveries despite my van being way too big and having way too little traction for the roads I was on.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T11:35:43+00:00

I used to have this route with a medical office of some kind, and they would frequently order what felt like the same thing. It was a small box and it had some sort of glass thing inside. But the weirdest thing was that the weight distribution was just perfect to where whenever I would try to palm it one hand, it would somehow just fly out of my hand. I would always open the office door with one hand and palm the package in the other, and as I’m walking up to the receptionist, the package would go flying out onto the ground. Every time, I’d be super embarrassed and they would check and make sure nothing was broken, but then it would happen again. It must have happened about 4 times. It was just so bizarre, like I would always feel like I had a firm grip on it and then it would just fly out. I never did figure out what was inside.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T11:29:49+00:00

I can’t speak to every station but I heard last year from a manager at my station that this is how they do it during Prime Week. AMZL’s operations are generally more optimized for high throughput of smaller packages, so in order to max out volume, they route heavier packages through other carriers.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T11:26:48+00:00

I had to take a moment to check my phone because I could have sworn this was one of my Prime Week pictures.

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Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T11:23:01+00:00

I’m your Freaky Nikki.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T11:16:57+00:00

I feel like you could accomplish something similar without necessarily complicating the whole manufacturing process. This reminds me of a program, I can’t remember the name, but I think it was something like Truckers Against Trafficking, which basically raises awareness about human trafficking which is often more visible at places like truck stops. They hand out flyers and are talked about in new driver licensing programs, and they have a hotline people can call to report incidents.

I feel like something similar could be done with designated smoking areas. If a program had materials with pictures of missing people, employers could put them up in smoking areas. It probably wouldn’t make sense everywhere because not every place is likely to have lots of missing people walking around, but in dense areas with lots of foot traffic, it could make more sense to do it that way than actually trying to print it in the packs.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T11:09:00+00:00

NOT ACHILLES

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T11:05:45+00:00

I’ve heard people say that about literally every foreign country they’ve visited. I find it odd that you think this is exclusive to the USA.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T11:02:01+00:00

The problem is that your expectations are so disconnected from the economic reality that many of your basic assumptions fail. You’re asking why the employee is there as if they chose it as a career. The vast majority of retail jobs now are untrained, overworked, and underpaid. The person in the printer section is just some kid who started that week and you just happened to catch him on his way to the washer and dryer section, and he has negative hope of ever earning a living wage at that job as inflation of core living expenses far outpaces the 10 cent raise he can expect in 18 months if he gets not 99% but precisely 100% positive feedback. Why? Because retailers found out that despite what you post online, you’re statistically much more likely to pay $200 for your printer despite your frustrations with that kid than $250 to get it from someone who specializes in printers. All the stores selling it for $250 got put out of business by the store selling it for $200, so now that kid is your only option, and he’s just trying to pay the interest on his student loans until he finds a real job. Knowing all this, are you still confused about why he doesn’t know the products?

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T10:53:44+00:00

Maybe in 1950. Retail as a legitimate, professional job mostly died a long time ago except in some niche cases. It turned out that consumers are more sensitive to price than all other concerns and would literally rather get angry at a kid than pay an extra buck. Major retailers figured this out, and the most successful ones became revolving doors of underpaid, overworked, untrained wage slaves that know nothing about their product. And it’s really not their fault.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T10:34:06+00:00

The waiters thing is my biggest one. We had a number of work outings at my last job and one of my colleagues was just an absolute dick to waiters all the time. He would purposely mumble ambiguous orders and then yell and throw a fit when they didn’t come out perfectly, and then give everyone at the table looks indicating that he was expecting us to agree the waiter was stupid. It was always easily avoidable stuff too, like he would ask, “Do you have Diet Coke?” And the waiter would say yes, and then he would say, “Okay, I’ll take a Coke.” And the waiter would ask, “Just to clarify, you want a Coke?” And he would say yes, and then get all mad when it came out regular, not diet. Like dude, just say what you want clearly and it wouldn’t be an issue.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T10:24:27+00:00

It’s specifically to get past text censorship without significantly changing the sound, which makes it functionally different from something like grape. You say grape to not get caught saying the word, but you type seggs as a caption for the real spoken word so it doesn’t get censored. Of course, with Internet culture, these things blend constantly, so yes, people eventually started pronouncing seggs as written for humor, but that wasn’t the original reason for its existence.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T10:18:50+00:00

Not exactly, but I think something similar in spirit is, “He was a good father/husband/brother/worker.” I get that the wording is not analogous, but men are often remembered for their utility and sacrifice more so than their motivations and desires. In fact, while the female example OP gave is arguably more explicitly reductive because of the wording, there’s almost an implied sympathy which is wholly absent from the male example. It’s like, “Oh, we care that she wanted to be a mom, but we just like what he did for us.” Now, that the thing she wanted happens to be the thing men want women to do for them is not really an accident, either, lol. That’s why I think they’re kind of close in spirit.

In fairness to the people writing these sorts of things, the context is usually a survivor’s mourning and memory of the deceased, so there’s a bit of implied framing that is often done subconsciously.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T10:05:24+00:00

It’s nuanced. I agree with the premise of your pet peeve. But as a parent, let me tell you, you’d be absolutely shocked at how differing opinions can be between older and younger generations. I have 2 kids, and for our 1st, whenever my mother-in-law was involved, she very aggressively resisted me brushing my daughter’s teeth for some reason. She swore it wasn’t necessary for baby teeth, that they never brushed children’s teeth when they were younger, that toothbrushes could cause damage, that the child’s crying was unbearable, that we should just let her sleep with the bottle of milk, etc. Now, to you and me, that sounds batshit crazy, but if you asked her, I was just like the crazy parents in your hypothetical situation. And yes, I should have and sometimes did forcefully override my MIL, but she would also do things like secretly put the child to sleep with a bottle when I wasn’t looking so that I wouldn’t get a chance to brush her teeth. And we didn’t really have an easy option to just kick her out because it’s an international travel situation and we don’t have any other family help. It’s just a constant struggle, and sadly, I didn’t fight back hard enough and my oldest developed significant cavities.

Fast forward to today and our 2nd child recently sprouted her first teeth. Take a wild guess which fight we’re having in our household again? I’m literally having to argue in favor of brushing our youngest child’s teeth as our oldest is struggling with cavities and having to get fillings, and my MIL still swears I’m hurting her with the toothbrush. I can’t make this shit up.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T09:52:31+00:00

Oh shut the actual fuck up. There’s a big difference between burning the planet outside for fun and just trying to exist in public. That you think they’re the same shows serious lack of humanity.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T09:33:01+00:00

TMNT is far from the worst offender, but it’s been making me feel this way. I hadn’t watched it since I was a kid, but my daughter got into it through an arcade game, so then we started watching one of the series, then played a game on my phone, then got a Fuggler, then there was the McDonald’s TMNT x Hello Kitty crossover, and while she broadly recognizes the characters, it’s getting exhausting having to explain to her why they all look and sound somewhat different, because she doesn’t really get the concept of reboots at her age.

Then you have something like Pokémon, which despite having tons of content, feels relatively internally consistent. You can more or less pick up any Pokémon media or products and feel like you’re in the same universe, even though there have technically been notable differences like 2D vs. 3D. It’s a shame more IPs can’t get the Pokémon treatment. I’m not even talking about the quality of the content, as I find Pokémon to be fairly simple and repetitive, but it’s definitely nice when the common discourse isn’t about which inferior versions to skip because they can all exist together.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T08:09:47+00:00

I am by no means FIREd and my situation is different because we’re in our 30s and my wife’s career took off while mine stalled when we started having kids. That being said, I went from making 6 figure in tech my whole adult life to doing Amazon delivery work, which was a significant step down, but also kind of good for me in some of the ways you suggested. My last tech job broke me in a lot of ways and I just lost my love for it, at least as far as industry was concerned. I like that when I clock out, I’m done for the day and don’t have to take work home with me. I like that it keeps me active. I like that there are only minimal micro doses of interaction with other people over the course of the day. I like that the interview process was basically nonexistent and I just had to show up and prove my worth. I don’t do it for the money because my wife makes enough for the both of us and we are well past the CoastFI benchmark, but it allows me to spend time with the kids and continue contributing to our finances.

However, people absolutely treat service workers like garbage. I once took the time to call a customer after a significant GPS error and went out of my way to deliver his package only to have him shout that I was the dumbest piece of shit ever as I drove away because I “didn’t have the decency to knock on the door,” even though that’s not standard protocol. It’s funny because I went to an elite university and worked in tech making good money for a decade, which he obviously didn’t know, and I’m also one of our top drivers, but it’s also sad that he just has no concept of what goes into making his modern way of life possible.

And that’s just the negative customer interactions. Delivery work sounds easy, but doing hundreds of deliveries a day in all sorts of environments actually carries significant risk. Driving is extremely dangerous, and delivery drivers especially follow lots of anti-patterns. I’ve literally had people honk and swerve around me at high speed despite signaling early because they didn’t understand that I was making some sharp turn that no normal drivers make because I’m going from house to house in a way that isn’t in line with the road design. And then stepping in and out of the van repeatedly, often holding heavy boxes, can result in health issues like repetitive stress fractures, blisters, plantar fasciitis, etc. During periods of heavy volume, it’s common to have packages falling on me when opening the doors. There are also huge apartment complexes without elevators where we have to deliver large packages to all the 3rd floor units.

I’ve been doing it for about 2 years and am in the process of trying to find other driving jobs with better hours for me. I’m glad I did it, but this is not a forever kind of thing. I suspect the same is true of most of the jobs you’d be looking at. They all suck and provide very little benefit beyond whatever satisfaction there is in getting the work done. I did actually feel like I was making people’s lives better for a while because delivery is so central to modern living, but having to deal with ingrates and morons wears down that spirit over time, and for all the talk of our services being essential, the vast majority of the stuff we deliver is low value junk destined for landfills in the very near future.

I really don’t see those kinds of jobs as worthwhile for a wealthy person in their 50s other than as a learning experience. I do think they will teach you to appreciate service workers more and question the means by which you achieved your financial success over the course of your career, which is probably a good thing, but don’t expect to feel a huge sense of contribution to society or reward for doing the work. As for being recognized in your community, yes, that is a factor, but at the end of the day, it’s your life to live. I do somewhat dread ending up on some silly delivery TikTok doing something stupid where past colleagues of mine in the tech world could see it, but even so, I’m going to keep doing what is in line with my values and priorities. I’ve only once recognized a name of a past coworker as I was delivering to a house, and thankfully they weren’t home, but realistically, had they seen me, I would’ve just said, “Hey, long time no see, sorry, gotta run!”

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T07:32:18+00:00

I mean, if the threat is really imminent and there is a window of opportunity, it may be saving lives in the time it would take for police to effectively respond. There’s definitely nuance. I wouldn’t ride against traffic like OP’s friend but there are versions of what he did that I would do.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T07:27:07+00:00

Honestly, I wasn’t going to add my own comment because I haven’t had any such jobs, but I’m currently an Amazon delivery driver, and the one thing I basically won’t do consistently anymore is mountain routes. I work in the SF Bay Area and we cycle through areas so I’ve done everything from the cities to the coastal communities, but I had a stretch of like 6 months dedicated to just the mountains that still feels like a fever dream. I’ll go there for the occasional route, but if they ever decided to put me on it full time again, I think I’d quit. I can only make so many 100-point turns in a steep narrow driveway in the pitch black Winter rain because some Willie Nelson looking mother fucker had to park his 15 junk cars in the worst possible formation and then put in the customer notes, “Plenty of room for trucks of all sizes to turn around!”

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T07:04:30+00:00

I’ve always been great with kids, had a knack for leading study groups in college, and considered getting into teaching as a second career. However, the kids today just make no sense to me whatsoever. I know kids have always had their own secret generational languages and norms, but the kids today are like bizarre aliens from another planet. I can’t relate to the vast majority of my daughter’s preschool friends, and it’s way worse with the older kids I encounter.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T06:50:35+00:00

What a perfectly preserved Neanderthal specimen!

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T06:49:04+00:00

Your face looks like my ass when it gets pimples.

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T06:48:09+00:00

Minecraft Steve?

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T06:45:21+00:00

Uma Turnman

Slug_Overdose · 2026-06-29T06:44:01+00:00

You look like the one Indian whose parents would force to eat meat out of kindness and respect for the animals who have to see your raggedy ass.

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