By: Addie Newman

I have had many jobs over the years and some of them ranked OK while others were just mildly annoying but I kept a bottle of Tylenol nearby, just in case. When it came to my last horrid place of employment, I thought a bottle of Jack Daniels was apropos. The good news is that I am no longer there with plenty of stories from my years in work hell.

 I will start with what I consider to be one of the worst jobs out there - working in lending at a financial institution! This began just over three years ago after my first round of graduate school went bust and I needed full time work in the worst way. I had worked as a teller part time for a couple of years and thought going full time would be a good learning experience. I was more wrong than leather in summer but here's my take of working in lending.

            As I began this new job in Lending, I had no idea what my job duties were and didn’t know for a couple of months while I assisted my co-workers with their work instead. Not only would my boss at the time begin to contradict herself in my reviews, but she would start trying to break me by giving me the damn grunt work - filing 600-700 loan packets per month in heavy drawers, matching titles to packets, incoming mail for the entire lending department that had to be sorted and researched, paid off loans, and other miscellaneous office duties. Hello, I’m happy to have a job but isn’t this why most companies have a clerical or secretarial department.  And even though my responsibilities grew over time, all I got was a friggin’ $0.35 raise.

That’s right, I could make a 20-minute phone call, buy a small pack of Doublemint gum or hot dog from the convenience store.  I got so damn depressed one time that I almost got that hot dog just so that I could go to ER for food poisoning and not have to look at my wretched boss lady.

It would get “better” though as my co-workers and boss would show what kind of people they really are.