I know OP has much more to offer to this topic, but this is something I've been amusing myself on. Being amused about this is about as politically correct as thinking Paralympics as a comedy event, however. But since I live in China (almost) I don't have to concern about political correctness since no one else does either around here.
In fact,
nobody cares around here. Racist jokes are funny and so are people in wheelchairs playing tennis. That's the way it is. You don't have to like it if you think it's not proper, or whatever, but it won't change the fact that most people in China don't give damn. If it's funny, it's funny.
Like an extremely funny retardation
(© Borat).
Well, enough about that.
About sucky jobs. You see them a lot in China and Hong Kong too. It's, in fact, incredible how many sucky jobs there are around. Rest assured, a vast majority of the western world has no idea what it means to have a awesomely crappy job. You can watch Discovery Channel's show "Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe" and think the people on the show have it pretty bad. But the thing is, they at least get a decent wage and don't have to live in fear of getting fired for trivial reasons.
Let's take a Chinese factory as a case example. A factory worker is at the bottom of the salary-range when it comes to urban jobs. They work long shifts doing a job that repeats itself every 2-10 seconds and get a maximum three breaks a day. Be late from work once and you're fired; be tired one day with reduced efficiency and you're fired. Worst case scenario, you don't have any vacations except Chinese national holidays - not even weekends. Some factories give you one day off per week. No talking to your co-workers while working either.
Because the restriction the workplace puts on you, you probably can't stay up too late after work, so you sleep early in order to wake up in time, fresh, and able to work yet another day. And for what?.. for salary worth my average trip to a clothing store. Not only do the workers need to live on that salary but their families back home depend on the worker sending some of the money there.
Of course, the conditions in factories vary greatly depending on who is your employer. Western companies and bigger Chinese companies tend to have more humaine conditions while the smaller Chinese companies sometimes don't pay some much attention to the finer details.
I once went to a factory that manufactured LCD screens. A really mad-scientist type of underground facility with cleanrooms and high sterility and all that. Well, there were people there working 10 hour shifts, inspecting and working on microscopic details of the electronics in really close-range. They got a 15 minute break every 3 hours or so with lunch at some point. While working, they had to operate on clockwork precision to keep the production line going with required speed. No resting your eyes there.
We asked the factory management about the employees doing the work. And the management said that they have to replace the workers every few years at least since their eyes go so bad they can't do the job. Apparently there was no consideration to actually improve the workers' conditions: the cure to the problem was to replace the old workers with fresh pairs of eyes. Pay them low salary, ruin their eyesight and when they're no longer usefull, kick them out. Repeat every few years.
Well, these are the kind of sucky jobs we hear about in the media as well. Nothing new there. And these are not amusing even for me. However, there are jobs that are. Makes you wonder, what is their function in this great scheme of life and why do the poor souls have to do such a work in the first place.
Like, the legendary taxi-queue service person.
A person whose job is to show (my pointing his/her hand) the next available taxi to a person in a taxi queue. If the salary was good, it'd probably make an ideal job for a lazy excuse for a human like me. But the salary is not good, rest assured. Similar jobs can be found in other places too, like in banks or at the border for passport inspection.
I was at the Canton-fair last week (and had my share of McHell (read OP's post earlier)) and there was a security guy standing on a podium looking very serious and authoritative. Great, expect his podium was placed directly under sunshine and it was a hot, hot, hot day. In any humaine country you'd expect a watch like that to be relieved by another guard every 30 minutes or so. Not this guy. Maybe he was a
statue. No idea how he could just stand there and not collapse under hyperthermia.
Other such amusing sucky jobs include the recycling system in Hong Kong which basically is people diving the trash bins for anything suitable for recycle. They collect the stuff and take them to recycle depots. We don't really have extensive recycling program in Hong Kong but we have waste treatment plants. Someone didn't do the math of 1 (trash) + 1 (treatment plant) = 2 (a recycling program), so now there are people who gather the trash themselves for recycling.
Sometimes you see old ladies with a pile of scrap cardboard packing materials on their little trolleys and they're pouring water on the cardboard. This is because they get paid by weight, so they want to make them as heavy as possible. Illegal of course, but anything for an extra dime.
Sucky jobs for everyone! Sucky jobs for everyone! Get your sucky job from here! You want it, we got 'em!
(Salary is not included in the package.)If you think your job sucks. Don't worry. Just look at the picture below and imagine yourself doing that for € 80 per month. In the same factory, the welders didn't have proper welding masks but had makeshift masks made from cardboard and tinted glass. Now, your job isn't that bad after all, is it?
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