Had A Bad Day

I’ve worked some interesting jobs over my career.

Let’s see…while selling trash container contracts I “cold called/door knocked” on a “business” and the door was answered by a woman in a negligée, with more scantily clad ladies standing behind her. Hmmm. I let that one go.  I remember getting into a shouting match with a jewelry store owner when I was “pitching” the meat I was selling from the back of my truck. Classy. More on that in the next chapter. While covering a one-lane closed construction zone, and after our radios died, I resorted to having to hand a stick to the last driver as a signal to my partner at the other end of the construction zone that the last car came through. That one was kind of fun, but some people just didn’t want me handing them a stick through their window! Whatever!

But they all pale in comparison…

While on college break, I was working for a company that cleaned out sewer lines and fixed manholes. This particular summer afternoon started out much like the others. I was in a manhole in a residential neighborhood when it happened.  

The protocol when climbing into a manhole that’s part of a residential sewer system is to plug the incoming lines in order to work on the actual task at hand, cleanly. Well, that certainly makes sense.

So there I was, in the manhole, with my partner up top doing nothing in particular. Suddenly, I hear the sound of rushing water (perhaps more than water?) and before I can properly react, I have a shower coming down on me. I was in the direct line of a bathroom flush, and I forgot to plug the hole! No freaking way!  My buddy up above knew exactly what happened and was promptly rolling around on the ground in a fit of laughter. I was not. I just got peed on, maybe worse.

Fortunately, I did have a rain coat on.  Yeah, that made things better.

I’ve had some bad days at work, heard others share their bad day experiences as well. But few people would trade their bad day for this one!

Next time you have a challenging day, just image someone flushing their toilet mess all over you.

Care to keep your bad day?