I got hired at a thrift store, which I thought I would be cashiering or helping categorize items and stuff at. It turned out this thrift store worked with and "hired" the mentally ill to do tasks like that, and what they expected ME to do was basically babysit several severely mentally ill people. For the first day, they had me watching a man who was easily twice as tall as me and had some severe developmental disorder so he wasn't good at listening or understanding what he was told, and he was clearly a lot stronger than me. I have had no training in working with people like that, and they just kind of...threw me into it. He ended up breaking a glass bottle and threatening me with it, a few of the other people there ended up having to get him under control. Not what I signed up for, not what I was qualified for, and not something I was interested in doing. I peaced out. u/Dark_Moonstruck

Cleaning houses. They gave me a quick tutorial on how they like the houses cleaned, since I would be cleaning alone, I wouldn’t clean any houses bigger then 1200 square feet. My first house was 3000 sq feet and I had 2 hours to clean top to bottom. I got what I could do done in 2 hours. Boss called me to go back because customer wasn’t satisfied, I blocked the number. u/AgePractical6298

Stepping into a failing walk-in cooler with 2 inches of standing chicken blood on the floor. u/XxCeresxX

I interviewed for a retail sales position with one of those job placement companies and on my first day I realized it was a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman job based on commission only. I vacuumed my grandma's house with the display model they gave me while she made me French toast, then I quit. u/Green420Basturds

I was a rookie driver, barely a year into it. They handed me my bills, told me I had to run Toronto->L.A.->Toronto in 7 days. I asked how I was meant to do that. The safety guy handed me a bottle of amphetamines, and told me my logs were already filled out. I walked out. u/Fit-Meal4943

Temp job right out of college. During the training phase I was told if I made an error I would get yelled at by him, his boss, his boss’s boss and the owner of the company. I assumed it was a joke and he didn’t laugh. I told him this was going to be a bad fit and walked. u/FreshlyWritten69

So I got hired as an intern, and sometime between me being hired and starting my original boss quit. So there I was with no one to report to and kinda had to figure out what to do. Anyways, a couple months later they hire my new boss. I met him in the morning, he spent the rest of the morning meeting leadership and getting acquainted with the place. At lunch he stopped by my cubicle and invited me to lunch. He drove. We ate pizza. Had a couple beers (which I thought was strange, but kinda cool), then we drove back and he dropped me off at the front door and said he was going to go park. A couple hours later the COO stopped by my desk and asked if I’d seen my new boss this afternoon. I said the last time I saw him he dropped me off after lunch. Apparently he just didn’t go back to work and quit lol. Honestly he was way over qualified for the gig and the place was a clown show. u/Sometimes_Stutters

Went into a Mexican restaurant with the idea that I was going to be a cook. And found out very quickly I was a dish washer, right after quitting another dish washing job like a week before that I hated. And on top of that I had non slip shoes on and the restaurant had slick tile in the back that still had me basically skating. u/CowboyCamploo

Worked Arby's for 4 hours. Came in 4am, prepped meat, shown registers lightly, then left to tend both lobby and drive-thru. Manager just sat in the office. Took my break and never went back. u/Just_Frosting2840

I got a job at Chipotle because my job climbing trees wasn't getting enough work and I had bills to pay. At Chipotle I worked with a bunch of highschoolers, which is fine, and one guy in his 30s. The guy in his 30s kept talking to me about the high-school coworkers high-school drama. He then gave me genuine praise for opening up a container of salt by myself. The salt thing ticked me off, but when he started telling me that this one male coworker was a little upset because he asked one of the female coworkers to some party and she wanted to go with friends and not him, I pretty much decided I was going back to the trees. I pictured myself being him one day. 30 something years old and fascinated by high-school drama. I couldn't do it. It's funny to think back on now though. I never even picked up my paycheck for that day, so I essentially just volunteered to experience a "day in the life of a Chipotle worker". u/KingOfTheLifeNewbs

I work in a factory that gets pretty hot inside during the summer. Easily over 100 degrees inside on hot summer days. I have seen so many people quit their first day i can't even give you a number. Hundreds at this point for sure. We might as well only hire in the winter because new workers just can't take the heat while also having to learn a new job that's physically laborious. u/Trickery1688

At the point I was required to sign an intellectual property agreement giving them control over any patent or copyright I may produce for the period of my employment and a year after termination, regardless if it had anything to do with their business or processes. For an assembly-line welding gig. For $10 an hour. u/[deleted]

I was hired to work at a sandwich shop. I did an hour up front figuring out where things were and then I was told to go to the walk-in fridge to get something. The smell… my god. There was unwrapped food on the floor, open pails of stuff with no lids, rotten vegetables. It smelled like a corpse and looked like a dumpster. I gagged, took my apron off and just left. u/qveeroccvlt

They kept paging me until I couldn’t take it anymore and threw the pager out the window on the freeway. Getting paged and having to find a payphone to call was a nightmare that kids today will never fully understand. u/Machiniac

Worked as a nurse in labor /delivery in big teaching hospitals in KC, Chicago and Dallas. I moved to Florida and my first L&D job was in a really snooty part of west palm Florida. I’m not changing your pad! Get up and go to the bathroom!! I lasted one shift there. Those patients treat the nurses like servants. No thank you. I didn’t go to college for 4 years to be treated like that. u/No-Independence-6842

It was a call center answering phone calls from people getting pop up ads saying "you've won a free vacation!" in the early days of the internet. I tried to follow the script for the first few calls but quickly realized it wasn't a "free" vacation. u/El-Viking

It was a new franchise owner of a classic Midwest ice cream shop. I had worked under prior owners as my first job. The new owners were idiots in daily life but they had also way overextended the menu so everything was garbage. I took a 15 minute break, just got in my car and left. u/knuckboy

When I was a freshman in college in 2002, I worked a single shift at Abercrombie after being approached about getting a job there by one of their recruiters. “What’s your favorite color” was one of the interview (group interview) questions. I knew then that I wouldn’t last but decided to give it a try. After trying to fold (terribly) women’s XS tank tops (this is literally impossible; I have no idea how retail pros do this) only for them to be immediately rifled through and messed up for a few hours I just said “f**** it” and walked. Never even went back for my check. u/justshootmestl

I worked one shift at a children's second hand store when I was a senior in high school. There was an open area in the middle of the shop where parents could drop their kids to play while they looked around. Then, a kid defecated into a fabric lined roller skate and the manager attempted to hand it to me, saying I could wash it out with the hose behind the store. Nope. My employment lasted all of 4 hours. u/Pale_Election2175

Walked into an Amazon warehouse for training and noticed the dark atmosphere with no windows or anything. Just a large gloomy warehouse. I already deal with some mental health issues so driving 45 minutes there and 45 minutes back, 12 hour shifts at odd hours (overnight shifts) 4 days a week plus mandatory overtime, nope! Not for me! Felt like I’d be working somewhere that was a constant trigger for me. I lasted 5 minutes, literally. u/zombiez87