"I Don't Get Paid Enough For This": 35 People Are Sharing The Moment They Understood They Were Being Exploited

Holding a pair of dying twin boys so they wouldn't die alone.
Their mother hadn't wanted the pregnancy, hadn't even told anyone she was pregnant, so it was a bit of a blessing when she went into preterm labor and delivered them 4 months early.
She was relieved to not have to raise twins on her own and didn't want anything to do with her sons. 22 weeks is too early to live very long, but they were alive long enough to have some consciousness, some awareness and I couldn't bear the thought of them spending their whole short little lives cold and alone. I took them to another room and kept changing their blankets to keep them warm and comfortable until their chests finally stopped moving a couple of hours later. I sang to them "you are my sunshine" and then tucked their little bodies away in the morgue, and clocked out. As an obstetric nurse, I deal with the very best and worst in people. I love my job, but my heart broke that day. All the wonderful happy days at work just barely make up for the days like that one. tl;dr - don't get paid enough to show someone else's kids the only love they'll ever know in their very short lives.

I was 19. I enrolled to gain a certification as an EMT. I followed that by busting my a**, sometimes literally, to somehow be qualified to save a person or their entire life's earnings from a fire. I then followed that by sacrificing a year of my life, or ~90/hrs a week between work/school to become a paramedic at age 23. I've been sh*t on, puked on, bled on. I've smelled the previously mentioned, I've smelled brains, which has it's own distinct smell. I've held body parts that have been detached moments before. I've shoved tubes down peoples throats so they may breathe, despite the number of gunshot wounds they received. I've performed CPR on infants. I did this for ~$13/hr.

Firefighters, EMTs/Paramedics, and Police are not compensated nearly enough for what they experience.

I'm a "helper" for people with mental disabilities.

Have you ever pulled a turd out of a man's a** when he is stuck halfway through his pooping?

Have you ever woken him up to find he has smeared sh*t all over his face like war paint?

Have you ever been jabbed in the eye because you made him eat his vegetables?

Have you ever had to convince someone with paranoid schizophrenia that you were, in fact, real and not a hallucination while they held a knife?

11.50 per hour

Worked retail, worked night fill as assistant manager, assistant day manager thought he was god's gift to women.

During stocktake (when both night and day staff are in store) walked in on said manager trying to force himself on a night fill staff member. Pulled him off her, got punched in the face and chest multiple times. filed a police report.

Was then written up for not 'escalating' the incident to upper management instead of reporting the rapist prick to the police. Flipped them the bird and told them to f*ck off. Was really tempted to deck the dude on the way out, but instead went and filed a second police report for assault (on myself) and got his ass fired by regional management who some how knew nothing about this whole thing until the police called them.

Gave up on retail at that point and went back to university.

I was a teacher.

A 6th grader hurled a book at my head from behind.

I got to have a meeting with the principal and the mother where she screamed at me for 20 minutes because I wrote her daughter up for it.

Principal did nothing.

10 years later I design fiber cable routes and make twice the money.

I worked at a gas station in my teens. Lived on my own, needed the money, and there weren't many options in my area for someone my age. Every week I'd clock in a minimum of 50 hours and only ever get paid for 30-38 hrs. They kept saying they'd fix it, it never got fixed. I worked double shifts regularly and got called in every single day off I had scheduled. Every one. I couldn't afford caller ID at the time (this was before it was standard) so on my day off, I had to stop answering the phone because simply telling them I couldn't make it in would result in them calling all. f*cking. day. Then, since I lived so close by, they started sending other employees to my apartment. Most of them felt bad about it, and eventually refused but then the manager and district manager started showing up, pounding at my door, pleading with me, slipping notes under my door, and trying to guilt trip and threaten my job safety. I can't even begin to explain the toll that took on me, physically and mentally. I stopped menstruating (TMI, sorry) and actually started losing my hair. But, I needed the money.

My breaking point was shortly after I'd already quit once. The first time was because I'd requested my birthday off, they approved it, and then the day before told me I'd need to come in. I said no and stood my ground. The manager eventually agreed to figure something else out. Birthday comes around and my phone gets blown up by every on duty employee and one off duty. I finally tell the boss they can leave me alone for the rest of the day or I quit. He replies "Well... we're going to need you to come in still." So I quit. I got rehired the next day after I plugged my phone back in (because quitting didn't stop the calls) by the district manager who begged me to stay and promised to have the store back off when I had a free day.

A few weeks later was Easter. I'd surprisingly been given it off, and was excited to finally get to spend a holiday with my family. That morning I woke up to the phone ringing. And ringing. And ringing. It was 6:30 AM. I am not a morning person. I answered, told them no, and ignored the barrage of calls that continued until I went out the door. About an hour after I got to my Mom's, the calls started there. I'd never given them her number. I refused, asked them not to call there again and hung up. My mom answered and asked them not to call back. My step dad answered and threatened to call the cops for harassment. They wouldn't stop. We had to unplug all the phones for dinner and I was terrified they were going to show up there too. As soon as the phone reconnected, the calls started again. That's when I finally snapped. I answered and told the boss every possible way to go f*ck himself. He eventually hung up on me so I called his a** right back and continued. I didn't just quit, I unhinged. I kept calling until they took their phone off the hook. Then I (kind of) enjoyed the rest of my Easter evening. I've had my share of sh*tty jobs before and since, but nothing that compares to that place.

Me and 3 others got the sh*t kicked out of us in a small horse stall by 5 emus we were trying to deworm. Not worth $8 an hour.

When I got texts like these from my boss' boss' boss.

For anyone (men can get harassed too) facing this kind of harassment, don't quit until you have another job secured, especially if you're reporting it to HR. HR departments from different companies talk to each other, and you will not believe how hard it is to find a job when you have develop a reputation as a "trouble-maker", "attention wh*re", "c*cktease", "sl*t", etc. HR is there to protect the company, not you. So no matter how close you think you are to HR, expect some sort of backlash.

The more senior the person is, the more likely they are to have gotten away with this for a looonng time. There's safety in numbers so if you can find other men/women that have faced the same harassment from the same guy (you will), report in a group and make sure everything is documented. S/he could still get away with it, but it'll be harder when there's more evidence. One person can be branded a "sl*t" but multiple people? HR must have awesome hiring policies.

When the lady at the table I was serving complained because the ice in her glass of ice water had melted and the water was "too watered down for her liking".

Right now.. I'm on hour 12 of what is shaping up to be a 16-18 hour day, and I'm fixing the mistakes of someone who gets paid at minimum 40k more than me.

Used to work as a paramedic/ER Tech. Had a homeless man come in with a narcotics overdose. He was given Narcan to reverse the effects of the drugs. Safe to say he was not happy. He assaulted one of the nurses which led to him being restrained to the bed. He began screaming at everyone that entered the room that he was "gonna kill 'em." After about 10 minutes of this, he scoots to one side of the bed, and sticks his ass in between the railings. He then projectile sh*ts all over the computer, the walls, chair, and floor. There was just so much poo. I, along with others, had to go in there and clean him/some of the room up. Thankfully housekeeping took care of the floor. I literally said, "I don't get paid enough for this sh*t."

Witnessed someone's literal 'I don't get paid enough for this sh*t' story.

I was at a ShoBiz (Similar to Chuck-e-Cheese, might even be the same place.) for a relatives birthday. All the kids are running about having fun, playing games, etc. Suddenly there is a commotion around the ball pit. Turns out some kid has had a serious diarrhea Hershey-squirt blowout and it is all over in the ball pit. The little plastic balls are all covered with a thin film of booty butter.

I'm across the room from the code brown near the counter where you trade in tickets for fake moustaches and laffy taffy and sh*t. The manager tells this teenager he needs to get to the ball pit right away, and is trying to hand him a mop. (Not sure what a mop will do in this situation but I digress.)

Anywho, the teen is not having it and loudly says, "Nah bro, that ain't me" and strolls out the door and into the sunset.

Worked at a tanning salon in college. Once a week we would deep clean the beds like overhaul clean the bed, the room, pull out the beds and get behind and everything. Well I go to slide the tanning bed out and behind it is a fully soaked, blood red stained maxipad. It was f*cking disgusting. Sad thing is another girl I worked with found used tampons wedge behind another bed. Some Women are f*cking disgusting when it comes to disposing of their lady products.

Had a guy come in with a raging hard on that wouldn't go away. Priapism for those that enjoy science. I had to hold this guys throbbing boner while a resident stabbed it with needles trying to drain it and inject medications to make it go down. After 8 stabs, no luck. Dude went to surgery and was told he will never have an erection again. I was the last person to hold his functional wiener. PSA- if you've had a four hour long stiffy, get to the ER in a jiffy.

Cable guy here:

You know that really run down trailer park with hundreds of cats running around unchecked outside? The one that's full of rust bucket trucks with confederate flags painted on the tail gate? When the wind blows you are overwhelmed by the scent of cat urine..... I go into those trailers and dig through piles of garbage/diapers/animal and human s**t all because "my Fox News pixelated once during the debate" only to find the customer had spliced in their own line because they wanted tv in the rest of the trailer. I then have to crawl under the trailer and run a new line to replace the one they f**ked up, all the while being told how I'm a piece of sh*t because Im following company policy that you pay for every room you have tv in. Also here's 2 dead cats and a black widow colony that I carefully avoid, until I am backing out (because you don't have room to turn around under a trailer) and my boot goes into the web. I do all of this just so they can have cable for the 3 months until they get disconnected for not paying the bill and switch to dish.

It was a long day.

Mental health nurse here. I witnessed this but it didn't happen to me. One day on shift I responded to a duress alarm on another ward (1 nurse from each ward responds to duress from any ward). A female patient on a psychiatric intensive care unit had become violent and and could not be deescalated. It was decided that physical restraint and intramuscular medication would be needed to settle her down.

Anyway, as the team of 5 nurses approached her she was standing there with her legs apart and shouting at us. Just as we stepped into her space to initiate the restraint she stuck her fingers into her vagina (she was menstruating at the time) and managed to stick them into the mouth of one of the female nurses doing the restraint. The patient was extremely amused. Nurse vomited after the restraint and had to leave for the day.

That's just one of the really bizarre moments I have experience since working as a mental health nurse.

When I had to clean poop of a very confused lady who thought I was forcing her to have an abortion. She was kicking and screaming every time anyone came near her with a wash cloth. When we got her her in the shower room to clean her she was was grabbing hand fulls of her own poop screaming "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BABY".

EDIT: The worst part is when the family comes in the next they and ask how the night went I put on a smile and say "Great, your mother said she couldn't wait to see you today".

I worked as a cook at a restaurant that doubled as a night club after dark. A guy got shot and killed on the front landing one night and the next day they expected me to clean up the f*cking murder scene.

Library. Found a used nappy (diaper) crammed in behind the books in the picture books area. Not the first time I'd found one, but the first one I'd found folded sh*t side out.

I was a rookie wild land fire fighter making ten/eleven bucks an hour, and I seriously questioned why I only got paid that much, particularly that one time that I had to hold two hundred yards of road with nothing but a tool, and two other rookies who were pissing their pants, when a wall of flame hit our line and started throwing spots into the tall grass we were standing in. Luckily a brush truck arrived before we lost most of our facial hair, and we made it out alright.