What's the most difficult job you've had?

As I'm sure most of you are familiar with Steve Cohen and Point72; I recently watched a clip of Doug Haynes talking about the selection process for their Point72 Academy. He explained that they looked for candidates with grit, people who have held tough jobs. After hearing this, I thought back on my previous experience. I worked a construction job for 4-5 years while in high school. It was a mentally/physically draining job that definitely tested me. While the job sucked, I'm glad I went through the experience. So my question to you is; What's the most mentally/physically demanding job you've held and did that job end up being beneficial? Was it your stint as an analyst or have you ever held some sort of "roll up the sleeves" job?

 

Longshoreman/Stevedore on large commercial fishing trawlers. It was miserable. 12-20 hour days of hauling 45 lbs to 110 lbs frozen fish boxes, non-stop, at a quite fast pace. All done in the freezer of said boats. The pay was very, very good (given that the only qualification/skill needed was a strong back), but there's no way I'd go back.

 

I was a volunteer EMT for about two years. It was challenging in different ways to different people, but I remember a major point of stress for me was being sure we had all the relevant info from whoever we were talking to. In a lot of nightmare cases fuckups happen when the patient forgets to tell you they popped a nitroglycerin 20 minutes before your ambulance arrived and and you give them a normal dose which is obviously way too much, and then the patient's blood pressure drops and it's too late. Luckily I was never in this situation but I thought about it every day. Talk about a crash course in communication skills.

 

Worked for a roofing crew during summers of high school and first couple summers in college. Makes you appreciate sitting at a desk in an office with AC. Hearing kids at school say "I could never work in an office job" is almost comical to me.

 

I'm going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I've worked my share of manual labor (including roofing), so I will admit that controlled climate and shelter for a workplace are a bonus. But I can't say the typical windowless cube farm with fluorescent lights and shitty chairs and small monitors is the ideal.

One of my neighborhood friends growing up was the son of an architect. The dad built a home office out of a shed in a shady spot on the side of the backyard, next to the woods. Lots of windows, standing desk, quiet, beautiful setting. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, so for half the year he could just prop the doors open. All the perks of working outside with none of the downside. At least for me, that's the ideal.

"Son, life is hard. But it's harder if you're stupid." - my dad
 

Yea, without hating too hard, anyyone who has ever said something like "cant believe the 'sheepeople' sitting around in their office cubes all day," has clearly never had to work a physically taxing job in their life. I guess like everything, it's a matter of perspective, and while i consider myself a full fledged 'city-slicker' now, working class roots really help you appreciate the small comforts.

Spending my summers in South Hampton working at an ice cream shop. My manager was a bitch and didn't let me play on my phone. just kidding but in all honesty I'm secretly a hater for kids that had this luxury during their teen years.

We're not lawyers. We're investment bankers. We didn't go to Harvard. We Went to Wharton!
 
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I had tough work so many times during work. First one during my surgical rotation during internship year, frequent straight 48 hours on-call, no sleep, post-op patient passing out before my eyes and trying to find out why his blood pressure is falling rapidly while other patients are oozings bodly fluids from surgical wounds and catheters other needs investigations and newly admitted patients with full investigations orders at 3 am. Then receiving call from my senior require extra hand in theatre . After my surgical rotation I started internal medicine in place where there are shortage in doctors and during my on-call I receive 3 calls one minute apart each from a distant ward asking me to come ASAP for 3 patients angina and infarction ( heart attacks ) and another one seizing !! Just imagine the prioritizing process that was going on my mind that moment.

Then came my year when I wanted to give anesthesia and critical care a try . After one month of training I was required to put patients to sleep independently I still remember those moments where I was about to lose a patient under full anesthesia. One case as the surgeon started inflating the patient abdomen after I anesthetize her, her heart rate fell from 50 beats to 10 beats within a minute , shouted at the surgeon stop what ever you are doing stabilize her with some injections and waited for her heart rate to come back before resuming the surgery. Another case of breast cancer and a surgeon who accidentally disconnected the oxygen tube from the patients mouth, and I couldn't see it because the bloody surgeon was obscuring my view since in those kind of surgeries the surgeon may stand near the head of the patient, but thanks heaven I heard the desaturation ( low body oxygen level ) alarm, pushed the surgeon away and re-attached the tube.

Basically those were some crazy moments in my medical career .

 

Shoveled snow for some huge storms 3-4 years ago. Pretty sure I worked about 50 hours straight and only got to rest in our company truck. I'll never forget how cold and wet my feet were. Granted it paid for my trip to Colorado to going snowboarding with one of my friends (free housing and cheap tickets), but Colorado was the last place in mind I had after that. Still had a blast though.

 

Pouring concrete basement foundations. 120lb+ panels on my back all day plus raking literally tons of concrete every day. snow, rain or shine. it well and truly sucked but one has to do what he can to move forward.

"I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. " -GG
 

i guess that makes us "panel brothers" :) they really sucked - especially when you have to interlock them with the ties - those fuckers we used were metal and sharp and would cut right through my gloves. Fucking hell.

"I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. " -GG
 

Full time landscaping and painting work one summer, paid in cash at the end of each day. very very helpful in learning the value of each dollar earned.

No desire to do it again but I miss the gratification in seeing the physical change I made in the work I did. Whether painting houses, digging ditches, spreading soil, pulling weeds, it was very satisfying at the end of the day. Albeit I knew it was only a short term job, by choice.

I remember around this time a quotation that I wrote down and will always remember: "There are two types of jobs in this world: 1) moving an object from location a to location b (in physical or virtual form) and 2) telling someone else to do it" (wording might be off a bit)

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When I was doing pre-med, I interned in an alzheimer's research center. A lot of the research was tested on mice first then humans. This turned me away from going into medicine. Mentally it was challenging because I had to watch them inject disease into the mice then "sacrifice" the mice. My job as an intern was to clean poop out of the cages.

 

Washing dishes at a restaurant. The drain clogged hourly, my feet were constantly submerged in soylent green water, the smell was putrid, everyone gave a rat ass about flinging dirty dishes into the sink which inevitably splashed me with food or sauce, and there was absolutely no sense of completion or gratification--the dishes just kept coming in and no one ever spoke to me. The highlight of my shift was the end of it when I had to drain the fryers before I could leave. Still have scars from hot oil splashes.

 

Its not really difficult job but I shall say its so tiring to work in hospitals. I worked before as a medical secretary in a Therapy department. I remembered, that I ate late and seldom had a break time especially if there are numerous patients to assist. The tiring part there was the travel time and I had too much workloads.

Sugarybliss
 

I also worked a construction job for 2 years while in high school. This job tested me, but it wasn't the hardest job of my life. Being an interpreter of the Vietnamese language is much more difficult

 

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