I was scouring the web looking for suitable jobs to apply for and I found this:
“Wanted – A Game Bug Tester”
Isn’t it great to be able to play online games at work and get paid for it at the same time? I’m not a hardcore gamer but I’ve always envied people who work in this line, be it as a game designer or a bug tester. What I’m saying is, working in the online gaming industry is definitely more fun than working in the marine engineering industry for example. Or the waste management industry.
Since I’m on the topic of boring industries, I’d like to share with you the worst job I’ve ever done in my life. As much as I don’t like certain aspects of my job as a HR personnel, none of my past HR roles could compare to this one – a QC checker at a manufacturing plant.
I’d just completed my ‘O’ Levels and it was common back then for school leavers to look for temporary jobs at factories or restaurants while waiting for the new polytechnic semester to start. My task at the factory was to check through bags of electronics parts for defective ones. Some days I got stuff that looked like tiny 5mm computer chips while others I got bars of plastics with metal/steel/whatever alloy pins embedded in them. To this day I still don’t know what the company sells.
I had to check every single damn miniscule item for imperfections without the use of any optical instrument. If that wasn’t bad enough, chatting with colleagues while we were on the job was frowned upon in that plant. That meant not opening your mouth at all except during lunchtime, which was a pitiful 30 minutes. At the end of each day, I had to report the number of bags checked and the supervisor would cast me this disapproving look if I’d been less efficient in my checking. Also, most of the QC checkers were middle-aged aunties and it was miserable having them as co-workers since I was then a 16-year-old teenager. You don’t normally expect 16-year-olds to bond with aunties instantly, do you?
Anyway, I lasted only one month in that factory. I guess I’ll never understand how anyone could work in that environment for years without losing their mind (and eyesight). Suddenly I feel glad that I’m in the HR line.