[gwnn]

My roommate and I had an argument about our preferred job.

edit: yes, same pay absolutely. plus dental.

[pclayton]

I suppose if I was hired to copy old copies of Playboy, I might take it.

[helene_t]

The toilets, obviously. Feels more productive and besides it leaves more time for bridge.

I had such a job while at grammar school. Biggest disadvantage was that the chemicals made me sneeze.

[han]

Didn't consider the chemicals when I voted for the 4-hour job. When will you post the right answer Csaba?

[luke warm]

same pay for 4 hr vs. 8 hr? 4 hr for me

[jdonn]

I would choose 6 hours a day photocopying my butt.

[han]

jdonn, on Mar 5 2008, 06:11 PM, said:

I would choose 6 hours a day photocopying my butt.

If that keeps the toilets clean then you should receive the same pay for only 2 hours and 40 minutes of this activity per day.

[Winstonm]

I take the 2 hours a day supervising both of you.

[finally17]

In high school I bagged groceries over the summers. I won't share the grocery store (local chain anyway), but they used to make the baggers (yes, those same folks that handle all your groceries) clean the toilets, etc. And I don't mean at the end of shift or anything, we'd go clean the bathroom and go right back to handling your food in the same clothing.

Looking back, it seems like it was probably a health code violation of some sort, but I was unconcerned at the time.

Anyway, I usually got stuck with the task because I didn't really mind it, whereas most folks complained vehemently. I'd take 4 hours of that over 8 hours of photocopying any day.

[Codo]

I had been in the army, so I know how it feels if you have to clean toilets after some gorillas used it.

I will copy all day.

Besides: When you are as young as Csaba, how will you get more chicks?

Hi, I am working as a toilet cleaner, what are you doing?

Or

Hello, I am junior vice manager in a big office?

[1eyedjack]

I'd like to be able to say, "sewage is my bread and butter"

[Fluffy]

It depends on how much of the 8 hours I can spend on my computer losing my time on the forums. If none I'd go for the 4 hours, I can hardly smell anyway.


BTW monocled1, that thing sound really disgusting to me lol, I wonder if it soudns as bad for a native english.

[Gerben42]

100% the copy job. I'm a paper guy, not a cleaning guy.

[mycroft]

I was a lab rat for 3 summers during University. The job I hated the most was the dreaded stack of journals from the Professor, with post-its all through them with the various post-docs' (and sometimes labrat! I have two papers to my name from this job) names on them. Thus proceeded a good 4 hours at the photocopier, getting them all printed out and passed around appropriately.

My eyes *still* hurt.

If the photocopying doesn't involve book copying, so it can all go into the feeder, and I don't have to look at that insanely bright green light leaking from the cover (even while deliberately looking away, it might change my mind. But I'd still rather have the job of fixing the copiers when they break (preferably with the same clothing allowance the guy on the toilets gets); I do not do well with repetitive drudgework.

My wife drives for city transit - I would last about two trips before going muy loco. My job involves problem solving and not knowing what I will have to do until the phone rings. Love it.

Michael.

[kenberg]

My career is in the toilet.

I am taking the spirit of this to be that the job will be for a long time and that all side conditions, beyond dental insurance and pay, are similar.

I held an large number of different jobs when I was young. I could deal with hard work, repulsive work and even dangerous work. Boring work was tough. What really got to me though was having close supervision. I once had a job sorting seeds, extracting thirty at a time from a pile and putting them into small envelopes. They were dusted with mercury (some experimental project, who knows why) so this probably wasn't real good for my health, but that wasn't what bothered me. Here I am, scraping six groups of five at a time into a pile and pushing them into the packet. My employer comes around to point out that I could do five groups of six at a time and it would be more efficient. Fortunately he also needed someone to stuff varied growth through a thrasher that was missing its protective guard. I volunteered for that with the agreement that he would leave me alone to do it.

So as long as I am not expected to listen to detailed instructions about the proper way to remove ***** from toilet bowls I'll go with that.

[1eyedjack]

Don't forget that a simple comparison of the unpleasantness of the respective jobs is incomplete until you take into account the value that you place on the 4 hours that you have freed up for personal time. Personally, I place a very high value on that. If I had nothing worthwhile to do with my free time I might feel otherwise.

[andy_h]

I'll take the 8hrs photocopying! Don't think I would be able to stand the toilets as I would probably need a gas mask otherwise I would start throwing up. And besides, we are still able to have small breaks or converse with other people whilst photocopying? I don't mind the extra 4hrs!

[Gerben42]

In the old days, mercury wasn't that dangerous for people

My mother still had her chemistry teacher show mercury in class, putting one droplet on each table and let the students play with it. After the lesson, there was one little problem. The teacher couldn't find his wedding ring...

I did some tough summer jobs too, for example packaging apples / tomatoes / paprika etc. This was basically physically tough (esp. for someone as bad in sport as me) and started in the middle of the night. And no one had heard of the rule that you are only allowed to work only 10 hours a day either...

The kiwis were the worst. The dust from the scales was EVERYWHERE.

The summer after that, I got a administration job at some company making air conditioners. I was basically doing database stuff. 500% better!

[kenberg]

Now that you mention it, I recall similar things with mercury.

When I think back on the jobs I found unbearable, boredom was a very significant component. Somewhere during my sophomore year I was given a job by the Physics department. I was very enthusiastic and gave up a job delivering furniture to take it. What a mistake. At Minnesota they had a strong group in cosmic ray research. They sent plates with photographic emulsion up in balloons and collected the results. My job was to scan each one of these plates under a microscope, find where the rays had left tracks, copy the tracks onto graph paper, and file the results. I had stuck with many jobs, but this one I could not stay at. I was a physics major at the time and I have always wondered how much of a role this played in my switch to mathematics. Copy these plates or clean toilets? A close call, but if its four hours of toilets against eight hours of microscope work, bring on the toilets!.