Worst jobs on the road to success in finance?

Couple of jobs in the last 2-3 years

1) Crew member then shift lead at Taco Bell. At 18 I was the manager and oldest person there past 6 pm. Plenty of late nights smoking in the parking lot with the high schoolers before we started closing up.

2) Crew member at McDonalds. Worst job ever but close to my house and good schedule. Had a sewage leak in the basement they refused to fix, probably spent ~100 hours shop vaccing shit. Probably paid more in labor than it would have cost to fix but what do I know about business

3) Kitchen staff at a fast-casual pizza chain. Nicer place (not like a Domino’s), management is shit though. In the process of quietly quitting.

Plan on selling plasma for April/May to get to me to SA paycheck. Hopefully live frugally enough this summer and save enough to coast through senior year without having to work food service again.

Worked on a farm located within very close vicinity to a landfill, 9-5 during summers up until my sophomore year in college. Picking vegetables, lifting large rocks in fields and putting them into a skidder bucket (had to do this each year because rocks always surface), mixing dirt for mums and then filling a field with the seeded mum pots, stacking hundreds of hay bales in hayloft was definitely the worst because of how hot the loft was and I was also allergic to hay.

Oh man, so many. The worst was door to door sales for a home improvement company that made windows and doors. I was a door-to-door door salesman.

That job also made me realize just how generous the FHA was to boomers. There are some really, really stupid fucking people with mortgages and homes lol. Bless their heart.

I worked fast food at the same restaurant chain from 17-20. Worked all the way up to manager and having my own store. Was recognized as the youngest GM on the west coast. Hated it and never want to go back

When I was 15/16 I washed prime movers and lorries on Friday night and Saturday morning for a local trucking company. I started at 7am on Saturday, it was especially hellish in winter, you get soaked and you're outside in the wind. I'll never take an office job for granted.

Worked in a call center for a telecom provider - fun part was that it was servicing bad / no credit customers and their cell service got cut after they accrued more than $200 in charges so typically the customers you were speaking to were calling in upset that their service was cut.

Not my shittiest job, but one that stands out is a job I had in college. I worked in a university office with another student- one of us would sit at the front desk and direct students and man the phones, the other would act as a gopher for the department heads. One department head had lots of manual setup work to do, and had a separate team of student workers to do it. But being the lazy pieces of shit they were, they would often times not show up. So who was there, sitting at the front desk with nothing better to do? You guessed it- me. And the girls I worked with would always have me go do the manual work and they'd just pivot to the desk. Gender equality only goes one way.

So he'd pull me out to set up tables, move chairs, haul shit in the blazing sun. But I was desperate to keep my job so I wasn't willing to tell him to fuck off. Sometimes I'd be banking on front desk time to study for a test, get a bit of homework done. But this bald fuck would poke his head in and have me busting my ass because I was reliable and his workers were not.

One time I was literally hauling table after table in the scorching sun and my phone rang- it was the verbal offer for my after college job. Only $60k or so but I was over the moon and almost quit right there. Made it all the more sweet to get the call while hauling tables for 8 bucks an hour.

When I was 20, I literally drove the local garbage truck around my village, picking up people’s trash and changing out garbage bags at public trash cans.

My partner was this 50 year old Mexican guy — awesome dude. He worked his ass off and blew through 2 monster energies + 9-10 cigs a day

I didn’t get a signing a bonus for an apartment for my first summer on Wall Street. So to cover it I worked for months as a dishwasher for minimum wage and would constantly get gross food on me and stay late to unclog the dish washing machine. I would smell like death after work, on top of balancing all my athletics, clubs, and classwork. Would also sometimes go to work at 6am for breakfast and stay in the business school til 1am.

Grit I think is the #1 thing that leads to success.

I had a few shitty jobs throughout HS/college

1. First job I was a dishwasher at a higher end Italian restaurant. Perks: free food. Cons: The guy I worked with would have meltdowns when he couldn’t find his cigs. He ran off one day and I had to work the Saturday night shift by myself as a 16 year old. Worked until 2am. Eerily similar to my current job…

2. Landscaping for two summers going 6 days per week, 10-12 hours per day. The crew was actually a lot of fun for the most part although I inhaled enough cigarette smoke that summer to crave it when I got back to tailgates in the Fall. One day I moved rocks in a wheelbarrow for 13 hours. Once every two weeks I spent 5 hours weedwacking a housing complex (my forearms were massive by August). Although my favorite was finishing my gallon jug of water by noon bc it was 95 degrees. At least I got tan.

Takeaway: Sometimes you have to embrace the shittiness and just get the job done

Worked as a janitor for a summer as my first job to gather enough cash to buy my first computer (to then make money through online poker) and was regularly getting massive headaches/getting sick from all the product fumes I was inhaling. The job itself is also soul sucking and repetitive.

The worst was I worked at a highly illegal moving company that pretty much skirted every OSHA violation and fire hazard imaginable. 90 hours / week in the hot summer, coworkers were all felons less 2 guys, and a couple illegals. I drove a 40 year old truck operating on just a hand brake around a large downtown city. Coworkers were constantly not showing up because they violated parole, didn't give a fuck, etc. Only good other workers were the illegals and 2 other college guys just as desperate as me.To make matters worse, I had a target on my back. Place was originally offering $13/hr, but I leveraged the fact I had two other college guys looking to join to get us all set at $16/hr. One of the guys ran his mouth and all of a sudden all these underpaid ex cons had a big issue with me. It turned out alright though, I just taught them how to use collective bargaining power (some used it successfully, most were hotheads so they blew up before they could effectively negotiate). I also ended up being a driver and leader of a team, that came with a pay bump - again, 40 year olds from the street don't want to listen to me, but they ended up listening when they realized our team got the biggest cash tips (avg. $50/person per job, 3 jobs per day).

Some highlights: one fellow was a driver before I became one. He would smoke weed while driving, and decided it was smart to lean down when lighting up so cops don't see (always smoked out of bowls). We ended up crashing into a tanker truck full of gasoline on a train track with an incoming train. I shit you not. Luckily, train stopped in time.

One mover had severe brain damage and would rage hard unless he was consistently sedated with hash (think weed concentrate). He ran out one day and raged so hard he punched a steel elevator door and dented that shit in so far the door couldn't open. Total nutcase.

I was blamed for having an ounce of coke in the dash of my moving truck by an ex con on his first day (I was training him). Almost was fired by dispatch because I wouldn't snitch on who did it. Options were be a rat and again, surrounded by ex cons, or don't rat and be fired / potential legal issues. Luckily, dispatch had enough trust in me and figured it out himself.

Regularly ending at 4am after moving out disgusting filthy hoarders houses that don't tip (newbies got this duty), then being expected back at 6am. Get in screaminf match with dispatch about how I'm not showing up, but I would agree if he handed me the right amount of cash to shut up (usually $200). I lived 45mn away, so I would end up making a bed out of moving blankets, sleep on that, and hose myself off with a garden hose before starting the next morning.2x got bed bugs from moving out section 8 housing.

Crashed the moving truck at a rich apartment downtown because I had 10 hours of sleep total the past 5 days. Small crash, I clipped an overhang from the building that didn't have proper signage. Rich people at apartment freaking out at me, dispatcher freaking out at me, tenant trying to move freaking out, and dealt with cops. Dispatcher and I almost got in a fight when I got back until I reminded him that DOT says 8 hours off between driving and I could bring that place down.

All this and I'm still the main face on their website as I was one of the only presentable movers they've ever had, LOL.

For those that may ask why I did this: I netted over $20k in the 3 summer months. That was huge to me in college.

After that experience, life in banking has truly been considerably easier.

My first "real" job that wasn't something BS like coaching sports was at a Macy's / Bloomingdale's type of place. Which really wasn't all too bad except my first day was the overnight shift on Black Friday, and then over the holidays there were a number of days where the store was open for like 72 hours straight which also resulted in some terrible hours. Definitely gained a lot of respect for people working any retail / service job - people just straight up suck at times, whether that's to your face and putting people down (recall one guy mocking a coworker for not having perfect English when she wasn't fully understanding how a coupon worked), or things like leaving food / drinks around the store. Never had to personally deal with any theft issues or crazies taking a shit in the changing rooms or things like that, but yeah.

I had a good childhood, but we weren’t very well off. I was on the reduced price lunch program through high school and then worked 2-3 jobs during my freshman / sophomore year (e.g., food service, on campus jobs, etc.) before using paid IB internships to get me through college. 

I ultimately got lucky and networked with the right folks who gave me a chance. Ended up leveraging one summer internship offer for another and ultimately got in at a top bank (GS/MS/JPM/EVR/PJT). Worked like crazy during the summer and got a return offer and 4-5 years later, I am now at a MF PE firm in NY. 

I could have never predicted getting to where I am now when I first found out about WSO during my freshman year summer. There were a lot of great people that helped me along the way and I am eternally grateful for them to change the trajectory of my life.

Did construction for my old man as he wanted to teach us the value of a dollar and hard work at a young age. Was working in middle school on some Saturday’s and during the summer up until I turned 16. Job was brutal as there was no air conditioning on the houses we were working in (no shit right). It would be 95 degrees outside and over 100 inside. Threw up a couple times cus I over hydrated and nearly passed out in an attic once. Waking up at 5:30 in the morning and not coming home until 7 or 8 at night, just depended on when the sun went down. My pay increased from $50 a day in middle school to $120 in high school which was lowkey baller if you’re 15. Shit suuucked and as soon as I turned 16 dipped out to the first job I could get. Have never worked harder in my life. Would recommend tho cus you will be mentally strong.

So many, but the one that I absolutely HATED was FedEx during the holidays in undergrad. It paid well, but it was 10-12 hours of nonstop bending down and stacking boxes alone in a cold trailer. No phones or headphones were allowed. No one was in the trailer with you. It was just you and your thoughts stacking heavy ass Chewy boxes all night. I spent my entire winter break working 6 days a week like that and told myself every day that I would quit tomorrow.

Worked as a houseman at a hotel when I was 17-19. Would set up for large events & would often work them as a server. That job is the reason I don’t mind IB at all. They worked me like a dog, anywhere from 12-16 hour shifts during holidays or summers with no time for even a 10-15 minute break, it made me appreciate the fact that I was going to a good university and it only made me work harder so I wouldn’t have to work at a place like that again.

The management was god awful, they would overbook events (if there was a wedding til 3am I’d have to stay til it finished + clean the room & set up for the following event in the morning). Customers were god awful too, inherently rude and had on one occasion someone scream at me during my first few weeks there as a 17 yo because the tables for the event wasn’t set up as they requested.

Until you work within the serving industry you won’t understand how people look down upon you or treat you as less than. Whenever I go to a restaurant now I try to make the servers life as easy as possible because I know what some customers can be like.

-A

Dishwasher, bouncer at a gay night club, Jimmy John's delivery driver (my manager was an alcoholic coke head who paid me to pick him up at the train every day because his license was revoked. Every night I'd have to be the one to close up shop because he'd be zooted by 7 off of a handle of Evan Williams)

Couple shitty jobs I would add to this, most are labor jobs I worked in late high school/early college summers.

1. Worked as a laborer for a massive manufacturing plant. I was responsible for painting all of the railings in the entire warehouse yellow as well as yellow lines all around the factory floor to denote you're stepping onto the floor. You would think this would be fairly easy, but it was hot as all hell in that manufacturing plant and I had to be squatting, on my knees, or at awkward angles consistently as I painted for 9-10 hours a day for like 9.50 an hour

2. The above job was the first part of the summer so I did that for 6 weeks and then took a job as a door to door energy salesman for the last 6 weeks. It was at a time where the law passed for the right to choose your energy/electric supplier. I was selling for a predominantly solar and wind energy company in natural gas country. Our price per kwh was 40%, sometimes 50% higher and we were selling to a clientele who couldn't care less about the environment and the small percentage that did, weren't willing to pay double for it. That was a fun 6 weeks going door to door in the heat pitching a product that made no sense expanding in the region I was in.

3. Took a job as a contractor right out of college after I had 2 offers blow up based on external factors completely out of my control. It was a decent sized (150-200) Fin-Tech firm that specialized in their proprietary software providing back office solutions to asset managers. Worked there for probably 3 months learning everything I could (which was incredibly useless since the only skills learned were how to operate their software) and was consistently given no work. Boss was one of the most self absorbed arrogant guys I have ever come across and kept dismissing me when I stated I needed more work. I was finally staffed on a project where my Project Manager never reached out or worked with me in any capacity, as every time I tried I was told he had it handled. I don't think people realize how hard it is to fill up 8 hours at an office, even doing whatever you want. Days felt like weeks and weeks felt like months. I will never take for granted being busy at work because of this experience

Operations Team Member at Lifetime Fitness. I was paid a few dollars above minimum wage and given a free membership to the the club as long as I was employed by them.

My two primary job duties consisted of maintaining the men’s locker room (stock supplies, keep clean, etc.) and managing the towel supply for the club. Managing the towel supply involved gathering up all the dirty/used up towels from the 20+ dirty bins in the locker room, gym floor, and pool area. I would then load these towels into a large 4x4x3 foot rolling bin with wheels (think mail bin) and push into the back loading dock area of the club. From there, I would put on disposable surgeon style gloves and begin to grab and stuff towels into industrial sized washing machines. Once completely stuffed, I would start the machine, check back once the wash was complete, and flip the load to the industrial grade dryers. Once everything was dry, I would begin to fold the towels into neat stacks and restock the entire club.

Anyways, one day I was gathering towels from the last dirty towel bin in the men’s locker room (there were 3 bins total) when I noticed this older man (mid to late 70s) staring at me. I gave him a wave and said good afternoon, but he immediately looked away, grabbed his bag and left the locker room. I thought this was somewhat odd, but grabbed the last of the dirty towels from the bin and headed back to the loading dock to begin the wash cycle. As I was pushing the bin, I noticed a stronger than normal odor coming from the towel bin. It was the peak of summer at the time, so figured it was just from excess sweat and moisture. Once I arrived at the back loading dock, I put my gloves on and began to grab towels to stuff them into the washing machine. I grabbed the first pile of towels and shoved them in. As I reached for the second pile of towels I noticed they were all clumped together. It looked like someone had wrapped one towel around another and around another. I knew I had to untangle these towels before washing them as they would not get clean if I didn’t. I began to pull the outermost towel away from the bunch and noticed that same strong odor I smelled earlier begin to creep out from the bunch. I then pulled off the second towel and noticed a faint brown stain on the inside. I then pulled away the final towel and could not believe what I saw. A massive turd that was atleast 6 inches wide and 24 inches long, no exaggeration.

Fast forward to today, I work in operations at a MM bank and still have to deal with pieces of shit that are disguised as dirty towels. Life is good.

Roofing in the summers to pay for school. Got paid well and it made banking look easy…

After completing my first year at uni, I flew back to my home country (non-English speaking) for the summer holiday, and I found a place to teach IELTS (an English test) for what was equivalent to £5 per hour. Had to get up at 8, take underground, and get there by 9 to teach for 2 hours and make £10. I have taught a couple of kids occasionally in later years, but thankfully my pay went up to about £30-40 per hour, and I was teaching maths, which is a lot more fun than IELTS. 

Interned at a non-profit, where I was the only employee other than the CEO. The CEO left me in charge of running the organization for weeks at a time, while they took constant vacations. Also was payed in gift cards and client gifts. Was in HS at the time, and they definitely took advantage. Looking back, I had high level management skills for a HS kid and it was a good experience. The next intern only lasted a few weeks and they asked me to replace the current CEO. Money wasn’t good enough, so I decided to go to college.

I worked in the gift shop of a popular historical site near my home back in high school. It was mostly just boring and the old ladies who came through to buy candles and Christmas ornaments would awkwardly hit on me. I did get to walk around the beautiful grounds on my lunch break though. It's a plantation so very lush in the summer

1. Did valet parking at a hotel. This was in 2013 right out of high school before uber became huge. I would give my cell to guests and let them know to call me if they needed a cab. A run to the airport got me a $10 kick back from the drivers, non airport was $5. Cabbies would never get a call from me if they dont pay up so they always did. This was outside of NYC, in NYC doormen would have never let me do this.

2. NYC Near union square; worked via a temp agency for a third party company that conducted over the phone political surveys. A very small office packed with really old computers like from the 80s and we read a script asking people about Trump, Chris Christie etc, this was in 2015 during the build up to the elections. 90% of people cursed us and hanged up, of the remaining, half would hang up after 1 or 2 questions.

3. Worked for a company called Cavalry at JFK airport. Many people from NJ, CT etc rent a car locally, drive to JFK , drop off the car there and fly off. We were the ones to drive the cars back to their base locations. Company mostly hired ex felons and I got the job not knowing that. We mostly worked over night to avoid traffic, and we got paid minimum wage. Every trip however was a race, he who got there first wins some money we put down as a bet before starting the trip. I had gone thru the Verrazano bridge at 110mph multiple times. Sometimes we would stop by Flatbush to grab Jerk Chicken which means we had to drive even faster to not fall behind. One day we were deep in Jersey and a couple of us got to the Enterprise parking lot early. We still had to wait for the supervisor to pick us up with the Van and drive us back, so some of the guys started smoking, and bumping music,this was at like 3am. Few minutes later, we are surrounded by a whole squad of cops suspected of being carjackers. Cops were cool after they found out we were just dropping off rental cars. But it was funny for a minute, one cop actually had gotten there first but he drove off until he got backup and came back with the whole precinct. I did this job while waiting for my cab license to come thru. I still talk to one of the guys from back then.

4. Drove a cab (graveyard shift) in the city for 3yrs mostly during college. Drove all night, campus all day. That would be another book of its own.

I worked for a company that ran a kayak store. I helped people in and out of them all day 9-7 down in the Houston bayou. We stored them right below the Dunleavy restaurant off Allen parkway. Cleaned the life jackets, loaded up boats, cleaned boats.

Worked all day May-August for 7.25 an hour 7 days a week.

Hard to believe this was summer sophomore year of college lol but man that sucked.

Was a waiter at a restaurant during high school and college summers, could pull $50-75 cash for a 5 hour shift which was good money then.  Outside of the fact that you always left smelling like bacon it was not a bad gig.  Was good prep for S&T where I spent my first 2 years as the lunch bitch.  Analysts today have it so easy with online ordering and venmo, the hardest part was not getting the food right but figuring out the change when people would just throw cash at you.  We used to keep $100 or so in small bills on the desk so we would have change for everybody all the time.  Got a lot of strange looks at that bank branch when I would go in each Saturday to deposit the cash and get that weeks small bills.    

I think it's imperative to have at least one shitty job (ideally several) so that you can always have something to compare your misery to and know how in spite of whatever hardship you are going through at your current job, it could still be worse.

I have had several less than ideal jobs. I was pre-med and graduated with a Biology degree. The thing with a biology undergrad degree is that it's basically useless without some sort of extra schooling whether that be graduate school, nursing, medical school, etc. I was taking EMT classes at night while applying to medical school and working for a pecan distribution company. I got to drive all over the Southeast in a brand new F150 collecting samples of pecans to bid on and ship to China. That part was fine. The part that sucked was when work slowed down, I was expected to load up 50 pound bags of pecans and stack them in a semi trailer. We typically would stack about 4-5 semi loads a day. I also had to attempt this with a hurt back. During that time of my life I had serious back issues (much better now).

Then after that, I decided medical school wasn't for me and ended up seeking a restaurant franchise. So there I was working a cash register at $7.25 an hour to figure out whether or not I wanted to do this. The franchisee I worked for made a couple million a year and owned 8 or so restaurants - so I knew there was an end road. I remember during the lunch rush my very first week, one customer gave me an extra quarter after I had already opened the cash register. "Not good at math?" he asked. It's amazing how your brain can totally slow down like that whenever you're put on the spot. I felt like an idiot. I moved up to manager pretty quickly there though. I remember one person calling in and bitching me out about an order we got wrong and asking me how much I made to which I replied "not that much". "Ex-f---actly!" he exclaimed. That was tough. And then there was one Sunday where we were already short staffed and there was a random girl's softball tournament nearby. We did like $12,000 in sales by 2 pm. I had to yell at people that if they walked out on me, they were fired. I had another ex-convict grab a knife and threaten me. I still have a video of her trashing the office when I told her to leave because of her attitude. I opted not to go that route because it was a $2M investment before you even sold your first chicken finger and most of the good franchise territories were given priority to already established franchisees.

So then, like two years after graduating, I walked back to my university career fair to look for jobs. "That's weird, it says you graduated 2 years ago" when they handed me my name tag. I saw some of the people I had graduated with recruiting new hires. Super embarrassing, but I was going to do what I had to get where I wanted to be... I managed to get a couple interviews. I remember one of the interviewers losing interest mid interview and peering around the room while one of the girl's feigned interest in me as a candidate.  Basically nobody wanted to take a chance on me except for this company that was desperate for employees. It was a medical/chemical sales role, but really it was just a glorified janitorial sales job. I peddled a suitcase to different locations trying to sell chemicals and janitorial supplies. The pay was $26,000/year with bonuses (which never amounted to more than $2,000 - and I busted my ass for that bonus too sadly). There was 0 vacation the first year. Honestly, it was a reduced wage than what I was making at the restaurant. I almost quit the first day when my boss showed me the mops they sold. That was one of the lowest points in my life. I remember I would bitch about taking my girlfriend out to eat for $30 because I couldn't afford it. I was starting to get a 'woe is me' attitude and you have to be careful not to think that way or you'll never be successful. Our boss left to go make more money because he was poor just like the rest of us. We had a new boss who I guess thought $50k a year was killing it. On one of our ride alongs I remember him saying "I feel like any girl would be lucky to have you - you've got things going for you!" and I looked at him like he might as well have been speaking Arabic. Then another time we were selling some custodian at a hospital some products and the guy was like "Yeah, I used to work for so-and-so hospital, but you can't live off $35,000 a year" and my boss was like "yeah, I feel you!" knowing good and well that was uncomfortable for me. Then another time I had a janitor ask me to try and get him a job working for us until he found out it would be like a $15,000 pay cut. One summer we had to change out all the toilet paper dispensers in a whole school system. Another time I was in the area of where my high school buddy now lived and I showed up to his house with one of those wet/dry vacs in the back of my truck and he cracked a few jokes. I could go on and on about that job. I've never hated a job so bad. I remember when I put in my two weeks to pursue the real estate business. "What interests you about the real estate business?" I wish I remember what I told him. He mentioned all the ongoing sales stuff I had which were all dead ends or had modest potential. He let me go that day (it was a sales job after all). I packed my things and I was so happy driving back home.

I basically have PTSD from that time lol... That job did teach me a bit about sales and trying to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations, so I guess it wasn't a total waste of my life. I went into the real estate business and never looked back.

Worked on a family farm from age 7 until end of high school. Not in high finance yet, working to start in MM IB next summer.

My experience: Farming taught me work ethic beyond what the vast majority of my peers have and I’m eternally grateful for it. If 20 hours a day in an office sounds hard, try working 20 hour days in -10F on one meal and a canteen of coffee while it’s snowing. In the summertime, when most of our labor was done by hand, 100F weather in full sun with a single bottle of water for a 12 hour shift was normal. I have a intimate relationship with the concept of discipline. Without farming, I wouldn’t be where I am today nor would I get to where I’m going.

A fun experience with farming was during one of our harvest seasons. Where I’m from we get 150-200 inches of snow a year and we farm Christmas Trees, as you can imagine this makes it fun to actually ship out the trees. During one of our “long haul” time periods, half of our crew quit on the spot and I had to pull in the slack for them. I ended up working just shy of 40 hours; straight, over a two day period. I was in middle school at the time. This was wearing the same pair of jeans, which were frequently frozen because of the temperature and snow melting combination, in the same pair of frozen boots, and the same frozen sweatshirt. It was during this time that I decided that I was going to attend college. Didn’t know that IB was a thing until my sophomore year of uni, but I think that it’s the best place for me to be able to apply the work ethic I picked up at a young age and all the technical skills I’ve learned through university and doing CFA Lv1 prep + various valuation classes.

I’m not in high finance yet, been able to smack it out of the park at every internship I’ve gotten, no doubts about being able to do the same in IB, -given I find the opportunity.

I took a yr off school due to family issues and went into construction. I did roofing in NYC for a couple of months, working 12 hrs a day and in 104*F weather in the summer wearing a hoodie lol. Worked until my family’s financial situation improved and went back to school. Now I’m interning at a BB in S&T. Life can change in a heartbeat. Don’t regret it though, construction builds character and working 12-13 hrs in an office ain’t shit to me.

Drug dealer lol

All I have to say is that warehouse work is not for the weak