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The WORST Summer Jobs- What's Yours?

Hundreds of you responded to Monster’s Worst Summer Job Contest with the most bizarre and jaw-dropping stories (our condolences for some truly horrible summer experiences). Coming up with the top five was much harder than we thought.

Now it’s your turn to judge: Check out these five finalists’ stories (edited for brevity and grammar) and vote now for your best pick of the worst:

Monster member Casey1966 posts:

How I wanted to earn money in the summer of 1983 – enough dough for hot dates, ice cream and Springsteen tickets. Because my older sister had an in at an amusement park in central New Jersey, I was a shoo-in to get the job at the parking lot detail. About halfway through the summer, I got promoted to work the end gate at the Safari. My responsibilities were laid out by my manager. He dropped me off at the end gate of the Safari and asked Jose to show me the ropes – or the bat, that is. You see, the end gate was a passage to the real world for the monkeys and baboons. The inner fence was controlled electronically as cars drove up to it to exit the final portion of the safari. About 30 yards after that gate was my new post. The gate remained open until the safari closed. Here, Jose showed me how the baboons and monkeys would try to make a break for it by riding atop a car, under a truck or just plain rush my gate. I was trained on how to use the Baboon Beater – a three-foot-long, six-inch-round bat – to dissuade our fuzzy friends from exiting. As weeks went by, the baboons and monkeys learned to respect their new master as I maintained a batting average that would assure me a seat on any major league team. One day, I fell asleep on the job in my booth. As I lay asleep inside my booth, the baboons surrounded me. And they had my bat! I had left it outside the booth against the side. One baboon started banging the bat against the roof of my booth as I awoke in horror. I scrambled to close the door just in the nick of time. I spun the tiny latch and felt a sense of security — but not for long. They had me right where the wanted me: Stuck in the wooden shed with Plexiglas windows in 90-degree heat. Luckily, I had a radio and called for reinforcements. All this to earn $5.75 an hour and break every child labor law at the age of 15!

Monster member tomato posts:

I worked for a clown for a few summers. He had several fun businesses, and one of my roles was to be the moon-bounce operator at places like air shows, company picnics, etc. For one summer, I was a human patch. The big inflatable moon bounce had a tear in it, and my job was to sit on the duct-taped hole on top of a blanket to make sure it didn’t deflate while people were jumping around. The best event was a drunken event at a college in the Northeast. There I was, 16 years old, with a bunch of trashed frat boys flying over my head doing forbidden flips on the big smiling inflatable bounce.

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