Things can always be worse - the worst job experience contest

[okarol]

Things can always be worse.


This is even funnier when you realize it's real! Next time you have a bad
day at work think of this guy.

Bob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana .  He
performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs.  Below is an E-mail
he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.5 on FM dial in
Indiana, who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest.

Needless to say, she won. Read his letter below.

****************************************************************************

Hi Sue,
Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother.  Last week I had a bad
day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I
thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so
bad after all. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore
you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the
bottom of the sea.

I wear a suit to the office. It's a wet suit. This time of year the water is
quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered
industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out
of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature.  It then pumps it down
to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with
no  complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is
take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit.  This floods my
whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch.
So, of course, I scratched it.  This only made things worse. Within a few
seconds my ass started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the
damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water
machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I
don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it, however,
the crack of my ass was not as fortunate.  When I scratched what I thought
was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my ass.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator.  His
instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other
divers, were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say, I aborted the dive.
I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops
totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my
chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was  wearing
nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with
tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told
me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the
fire out, but I couldn't shit for two days because my ass was swollen shut.

So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it
would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your ass. Now repeat to yourself,
'I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.'   Whenever you have a bad
day, ask yourself, is this a jellyfish bad day?  May you NEVER have a
jellyfish bad day! !!!!

[kitkatz]

The intern, second day on the job, had been invited to meeting with the bosses. 
They spent the next hour reviewing the drunken phone calls he had made over the weekend to the office phones.

[twirl]

we had a sub come in one moring and she was drunk --- we called her Miss Jack Daniels ---  she throw up in front of the first period class and then passed out ---- I got to cover all her classes with my own classes because we both taught 8th grade literature ---- and we did not have the same conference period or the same lunch period  ------ I'd still go back to teaching in a second -- if I could forget dialysis ---

[TynyWonder]

we had a sub come in one moring and she was drunk --- we called her Miss Jack Daniels ---  she throw up in front of the first period class and then passed out ---- I got to cover all her classes with my own classes because we both taught 8th grade literature ---- and we did not have the same conference period or the same lunch period  ------ I'd still go back to teaching in a second -- if I could forget dialysis ---

That is kinda funny, Twirl!   

[Joe Paul]

I had a 1985 Monte Carlo come in for a ignition missfire problem, when it was raining out. The thing to do when that was the complaint, was to use a spray bottle of water, and while the car is running, spray the ignition wires, and distributor with the water to see if I could find the missfire. I was reaching back, to the distributor at the rear of the engine (thats the part of the engine that sends spark to the spark plugs) while my private parts came in contact with the radiator support. The spark jumped from the distributor, through my hand - right to my crotch. Keep in mind, that engine produces up to 70 thousand volts. I soon found myself laying on the ground in front of the car, with a pain I cannot describe, right where it counts the most. There isnt enough amps there to kill, but I thought for sure I had seen God that day.

[TynyWonder]

I had a 1985 Monte Carlo come in for a ignition missfire problem, when it was raining out. The thing to do when that was the complaint, was to use a spray bottle of water, and while the car is running, spray the ignition wires, and distributor with the water to see if I could find the missfire. I was reaching back, to the distributor at the rear of the engine (thats the part of the engine that sends spark to the spark plugs) while my private parts came in contact with the radiator support. The spark jumped from the distributor, right to my crotch. Keep in mind, that engine produces up to 70 thousand volts. I soon found myself laying on the ground in front of the car, with a pain I cannot describe, right where it counts the most. There isnt enough amps there to kill, but I thought for sure I had seen God that day.

OUCH!!!!!!

[pelagia]

I have had a whole slew of bad experiences while diving for my job.  Sometimes I am amazed that I am still alive:

I one time (and one time only) forgot to cover my neck during a summer dive in Chesapeake Bay.  I worked on the bottom for about 45 minutes.  When I was on my way up I had to pass through a dense layer of stinging jellyfish.  We're talking like 6 feet thick and running with the tide.  The jellies completely wrapped around my neck.  I almost passed out from the pain.  I had welts around my neck for days.

Another time I was in a diver training program run by NOAA.  I was the first woman to go through the program, which may or may not be an important part of the story.  I was training to use a full face mask which is supplied with air from the surface via a hose.  It also allowed communication with the surface tender.  Usually divers go down in pairs - "green diver" and "red diver," but I was going solo with a scuba tender keeping tabs on me.  Shortly before they suited me up they decided that my mask had a problem, so they switched it out with the mask from the other line.  I was now red diver (mask) on the green hose.  The air hoses are about 150' long, but I was diving in the Cape Fear River in water that was only about 30' deep.  I jump into the blackest water I have ever seen and drop to the bottom (as a working diver you are typically weighted heavily and the plan is to walk around on the bottom).  I can't see my hand in front of my face and only barely realize I am on the bottom when I am already buried past my waist in soft oozy mud (it was a disgusting thought as this was at an industrial pier).  I get my buoyancy adjusted and my next task is to find my way back up to the diving bell.  Now mind you I supposedly have a tender, but I can't see anything so how the heck do I know if he's there at all?  I float up a bit and bash into the diving bell.  It's closer to the surface and there is a wee bit of visibility, but still no sign of my scubba "buddy".  I move up a little further trying to get to the side of the bell so that I can move inside.  And then I can't move at all.  I am hung on the bell (remember that long hose that is dangling in the water) and my buddy is still nowhere in sight.  Okay, I am telling myself not to panic because they are talking to me from the surface and maybe this is a test to see if I will panic.  So I calmly tell them "red diver is hung on the bell."   Okay they say, where is your tender?  How the heck do I know?  He's supposed to be tracking me, not the other way around!  Then the unthinkable happens... Within about 30 seconds of that question I am running out of air! Seriously, I am sucking in a breath and there is hardly any to be had.  I explain to the surface tender that "red diver has no air."  "Can't be" they say.  Oh yes it can, it is!  That was surely one of the longest minutes of my life.  I am very happy to say that I managed to ditch the gear and find my way into the diving bell where there was an air bubble for breathing.  They had managed to confuse my line on the console (the red diver/green diver thing, or so they said) and maybe I never had any air at all except what was already in the hose.  My friends on the deck say the trainers were testing me, but probably didn't count on me getting hung on the bell.  Well, guess what, I passed the certification.  First woman through the program!

Another story involves that same diving bell.  We were working off Duck, North Carolina.  I was on the bottom in about 60 feet of water - this time with scuba gear.  There were long period (far apart) waves at the surface that you would hardly notice except for a slight lazy rocking of the research boat.  Well, at the bottom they were causing the diving bell to make excursions of about 7-8 feet up and down.  Our plan was to follow the bell's tether to the bottom and then work out from there.  We get to the bottom and the bell is smashing up and down off the bottom due to the swell.  At least the water was clear and we could see what was happening.  We set up station and got to work.  At one point I had to go back to the bell to get some supplies that were strapped inside.  My buddy is within sight, about 20 feet out from where I am.  Well, somehow with all the crashing of the bell my weight belt gets knocked off.  I am now positively buoyant and my weight belt has positively fallen to the bottom.  I am holding on to the bell for dear life (otherwise I will shoot to the surface and that will be a very bad thing!) and at the same time trying to grab my weight belt off the bottom. About every 8 seconds or so, the bell is crashing down into the sandy bottom.  Where is my buddy, you ask?  He's working hard 20' in front of me facing the wrong direction.  He has no sense whatever that I am in trouble.  And then a miracle happens!  My hand grabs my belt and I manage to get it back around my waist.  Still don't know how I did it because in retrospect it seems impossible. 

This is entirely too long of a post -- sorry.  But get this, when we got back to the surface of that dive they asked us if we had seen any of the hammerhead sharks!  Apparently a school of them passed by the boat while we were on the bottom.  Yikes!

[nursewratchet]

I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.  That jellyfish story just made my day!!!