What was the hardest job (physical labor) you ever performed?

[wally]

One summer as I worked doing concrete work. We ran a lean crew and poured about a football field sized pad of concrete in a months time. We poured 11' (about 8" thick I think) strips across the width of the area one day at a time. Each morning we had to strip the forms and set them up again for the next pour. Then we had to rake the gravel base into place, lube the forms, and apply rubber seal stripping to the previous days concrete, all before the first delivery of mud. Then we had to keep up with the arrival of delivery trucks by raking and screeding our guts out until the last truck finished pouring. The finishing work was the easy stuff.

I have grown to hate the sight of a concrete rake:



I've bucked hay, and moved irrigation line but fast-paced concrete work was the worst. Outside of HS wrestling and rugby practices, it was the only time that I have regularly felt nauseous from physical exertion.

What have your hardest working jobs been?

[Jarid in Cedar]

Worked two summers on pipeline projects. The first, I worked as a shader, where we covered the pipe with 8 inches of sand. All 40 miles worth. The second was putting the artificial snow pipeline in at brianhead. Hauling pipeline up and down the ski trails at altitude was a killer.

[Eddie]

I helped install insulation in a Jr. High gym ceiling on summer. I was hauling 2'X4' sections of insulation up a scaffolding as quickly as I could get them there.

I don't think it was just the physicallity of hauling those things up and down, it was the fact that this was done in a gym with no ventilation or A/C while wearing a hat, long sleeves, goggles, and a mask and feeling like I couldn't breath while still having an itch all the time but not being able to slow down and scratch it.

[NorthwestUteFan]

I did basement excavations for a summer when I was ~17. We would crawl in the crawlspace, shovel out a 5-gallon bucket of dirt and rocks, and carry it out to the back yard. Repeat continually for days/weeks on end, then move to the next project. We didn't even use respirators.

I hesitate to imagine all the toxins to which we were exposed.

[wally]

Worked two summers on pipeline projects. The first, I worked as a shader, where we covered the pipe with 8 inches of sand. All 40 miles worth. The second was putting the artificial snow pipeline in at brianhead. Hauling pipeline up and down the ski trails at altitude was a killer.

40 miles of pipe! What size pipe? That has to be over 7,000 cubic yards of sand for sure!

I helped install insulation in a Jr. High gym ceiling on summer. I was hauling 2'X4' sections of insulation up a scaffolding as quickly as I could get them there.

I don't think it was just the physicallity of hauling those things up and down, it was the fact that this was done in a gym with no ventilation or A/C while wearing a hat, long sleeves, goggles, and a mask and feeling like I couldn't breath while still having an itch all the time but not being able to slow down and scratch it.

I understand the need for safety equipment, but it can make a job twice as hard sometimes.

[old_gregg]

asphalt and roofing (mostly removal of old shingles/roofs). absolutely hellacious, but i made good money. i also dug sprinkling ditches with a pick and trench shovel for landscape remodels north of shriners for a summer, which was awful.

[FMCoug]

Installing sprinkler systems the summer before my mission. We didn't have a ditch witch so had to dig the trenches by hand. This was in SoCal about 89 or 90 or so ... one fo the hottest summers on record.

[kccougar]

Mine was actually in grad school - (almost)free labor!

I was running tests on sand in a pressure chamber set into the floor. It was 5 feet in diameter and 5 feet deep. I had a really cool set-up with an overhead crane and hopper to get the sand into the chamber, but the only way to get the sand out after the test was over was with a shovel. And this was saturated sand. Over 10,000 pounds of it on each test.

I would pull a Bobcat up to the edge of the chamber and start shoveling. When the bobcat bucket was full, I'd dump it and start again. It wasn't bad work until you got to the end and you were standing at the bottom of the chamber throwing shovels of wet sand up over your shoulder.

I ran two or three tests a week over much of the summer. If you've ever read the book or seen the movie Holes, you have an idea of what it was like. At least I was out of the sun, though it was in an un-airconditioned steel building in Virginia.

[Jarid in Cedar]

40 miles of pipe! What size pipe? That has to be over 7,000 cubic yards of sand for sure! .

The pipe ranged from 12" to 2" high pressure(which was heavier than the 12" pipe)

[Lost Student]

Taught ski lessons to 2-3 year olds. I basically had to carry a kid, sometimes weighing in excess of 25 lbs., down the mountain while skiing. I also had to wear sunglasses that made my nose itch sometimes (it was always sunny; otherwise the 2-3 year olds would just be kept indoors). The pace was such that I sometimes got in two entire runs during the 90-minute "lesson," whereupon the kids would invariable fall asleep and I would be forced to carry him/her to the gondola to go down the mountain.

When their parents only gave me a $20 tip I was like . Come on, the Resort only paid $22/hour (and a free season pass), people!

[Sullyute]

I unloaded semi-trailers and box cars full of frozen food (lots of marie calendar pies). We had to stack all of the boxes onto pallets by hand. It usually took about an hour and a half to unload each trailor. You got paid by the trailor not by the hour so you worked as hard as you could. The facility was just a giant warehouse sized freezor so you had to bundle up too. I only lasted two weeks.

[cougjunkie]

I unloaded semi-trailers and box cars full of frozen food (lots of marie calendar pies). We had to stack all of the boxes onto pallets by hand. It usually took about an hour and a half to unload each trailor. You got paid by the trailor not by the hour so you worked as hard as you could. The facility was just a giant warehouse sized freezor so you had to bundle up too. I only lasted two weeks.

My worst:

Day Laborer doing construction. I was the little bitch, my boss was hooked on speed so dude could go hard for days at a time. We would get up at 4am and head up to Jeremys Ranch near Park City. We would work until dark and then stop at Sundance after dark and do work on a house in Sundance until about midnight. I did this for 2 straight months. Because I was the laborer I basically moved lumber all day everyday. The Sundance house was set back on the mountain and the driveway was to steep for the delivery trucks to get up. So they dropped the lumber at the bottom of the driveway. It was my job to haul all the lumber in to the house and at times up 4 flights of stairs.

It didn't help that my boss quit paying me halfway through the summer and like a dumbass I believed him that he would get me next week.

[Devildog]

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[SteelBlue]

Two summers working in a sawmill. The toughest part of that job was during a yearly 2 week shutdown when we were sent in to clean the boiler. Even though it was shut down temps exceeded 120 degrees, I want to say that it was near 150 but that seems impossible. You basically went in for 10 minute shifts, shoveled ash (we did have respirators) and just before you passed out your shift ended and you went to the water station for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes of drinking water you went back into the boiler. Brutal.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Lumberjack.