The Jobs That Made People Hate You

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Eichhörnchen

The most feared man in the British Army...

Sergeants are definitely the most terrifying force in the British Army*, they are the glue that keeps it together, no doubt, whether it be a Regimental Sergeant Major, or a Provo Sergeant, or even a Colour Sergeant. If you see a Sergeant smiling...you're probably in for a world of trouble.



*This is to say, if you're a member of the aforementioned army...if you're fighting said army then the most terrifying force is heralded by the sound of bagpipes.

[HW3]

Compliance Control Officer. I had to check all the paperwork for mistakes before it was filed. If I found mistakes, I had to take the paperwork to the person responsible for it, and have them fix it. No one likes to admit they made a mistake. BTW said paperwork was subject to inspection by the EPA and Oregon State DEQ. If errors were found by them....big fines.

[GoldenRivet]

Ok, I'll bite.

Insurance Adjuster - specifically residential and commercial property adjusters like myself.

you love them or you hate them.

My job is to inspect your home following a major wind or hail storm for example, the inspection evaluates the entire home inside and out. but people couldn't care less about their window screens, fascia and fence stain... normally the main concern is the roof.

Lets face it, roofs represent an enormously expensive part of home maintenance, depending on the type of roof, its a financial time bomb that you have to deal with one way or another every 20 years on average... so certainly a homeowner who has a roof nearing the end of its lifespan has a lot to gain by having a man like myself total it due to hail damage and cut him a hefty settlement check for $15,000 or more.

people can get rather irate our down right insane once you come down the ladder and give the roof a clean bill of health. very rarely do i have people express their relief that their home has no damage... more often than not, i have to take a deep breath and prepare for the inevitable verbal lashing that waits for me at the bottom rung of the ladder

the irony of it, as they stand there in the front yard giving me a dressing down, is that adjusters like myself are paid on a commission basis per claim, so it is to my benefit and the homeowner's benefit if i total a roof - but the photographic evidence (as well as the observations of the occasional quality control inspection) has to support my determination that the estimated work was actually warranted.

so not only do i walk away from an undamaged property leaving several hundred dollars on the table, i get a severe tongue lashing, hate speech, sometimes i am thrown off the property before my work is even completed, i get calls to corporate lodging complaints against me... and i even get to be named party to the occasional lawsuit - (three in total for 2015 alone)

and its not like identifying hail or wind damage to roofing is difficult. quite genuinely it is either there, or it isn't

fortunately, 80-90% of the time, i get to be the hero, write the folks an estimate and present them with that big check right there in the driveway.

though i have never had someone demand that i pay them at gunpoint, nor have i ever had a lady lay down behind my tires refusing to move until presented with a check - i have had both of those things happen to very close colleagues.

[Eichhörnchen]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I never noticed until now, but 'Colour-Sergeant Bourne' apparently has his stripes on the wrong arm: in those cases where a sergeant wears his stripes on one arm only, this is always the right arm (look at the tunics of guardsmen, for example) but I think I may know the answer to this, more of which in a moment.

When I was a cadet, I had an armband with the stripes on, to be worn when in 'shirt-sleeve order' so that the rank could be seen; it had a slit at the top so that the epaulette could be pulled through and support it at the top of the arm. Warrant officers (i.e. sergeant majors) wore their large crown badge of rank on a thing like a broad leather watchstrap when in shirt sleeves (it was normally displayed on the lower right sleeve of the tunic).

I used have a good friend who was once the longest serving able-seaman in the Royal Navy, and he told me how they watched the filming of one of Norman Wisdom's comedies aboard their ship in the 1950s... he said that the actors, dressed as sailors, were required to wear any badges on the wrong sleeve (badges were often worn on one side only in the British services, back when uniforms still routinely had them) so this may explain why Nigel Green had his stripes on the wrong arm, although the actor-sailors were obviously wearing them incorrectly so as not to be mistaken for real servicemen.

And it's not just a reversed image... I already checked... but I suppose it could just be that the colour-sergeant wore them on the left to distinguish him from the other sergeants. Anyone know the answer to this?

[Osmium Steele]

One of my greatest joys as a campus cop was citing cars in fire lanes.

Specifically, the lovely young ladies who would come out while I was writing the ticket, make cute excuses, then proceed to flirting in a feeble attempt to get out of the ticket.

The transformation when it dawns on them their feminine wiles aren't working, Priceless.

From ingenue to witch in under 3 seconds.

Ah, memories...

[Eichhörnchen]

People who are employed by confectionery producers to pull stunts like this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...e-lighter.html

[razark]

Originally Posted by Von Due

a.k.a Devil worshipper.

I was young! I needed the money!

I didn't realize the harm I was doing to myself and the shame to my family!

[Platapus]

The job I had that I felt made people hate me the most was as a phlebotomist.

Nothing like waking people up at 0500 just to stick needles in them. Most often sleep was the only comfort these people had.

I really hated that job and I could not blame people for hating me for it.

[fireftr18]

As a firefighter, normally people are grateful we show up and help with the problem, usually the worst day of their lives. Sometimes, people don't understand that we need to do our job safely and go home to our families. Then we're not doing enough, not getting there fast enough, doing it wrong, and so on.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Lets face it, roofs represent an enormously expensive part of home maintenance, depending on the type of roof, its a financial time bomb that you have to deal with one way or another every 20 years on average... so certainly a homeowner who has a roof nearing the end of its lifespan has a lot to gain by having a man like myself total it due to hail damage and cut him a hefty settlement check for $15,000 or more.

people can get rather irate our down right insane once you come down the ladder and give the roof a clean bill of health. very rarely do i have people express their relief that their home has no damage... more often than not, i have to take a deep breath and prepare for the inevitable verbal lashing that waits for me at the bottom rung of the ladder

Yeah, I had friends who cheerfully told me how they got on their roof with a shovel after Ike and prepped their roof for inspection. New roof! Hurrah!

And then people wonder why insurance rate go up.

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Yeah, I had friends who cheerfully told me how they got on their roof with a shovel after Ike and prepped their roof for inspection. New roof! Hurrah!

And then people wonder why insurance rate go up.

it happens, i recall one claim where the bottom two or three foot of the entire roof perimeter had "hail damage" but the rest of the roof was fine... the husband and wife were in the process of a divorce, she ratted the husband out, he had created a sort of cat of nine tails type of whip made of rope with a golf ball on each tip and had repeatedly beat the roof from the ground while walking around the house. the man withdrew his claim.

divorce also makes me the target of "hate" when the man and woman are separated and getting a divorce but still are both listed as owners and policy holders... both of them have to be named as payees on the check! talk about all hell breaking loose!