Your most hated job?

[Packard]

On a nice weather morning, I bought a copy of the newspaper and a cup of coffee and sat at one end of a park bench with my adult German Shepard.  At the other end of the bench sat an older woman and her even older mother.

Sometime, while I was reading, my typically reserved dog had moved over to the two women, sat and rested his head on the older woman’s lap.

When I looked up, I was upset that the older woman was crying. The younger of the two said that her mother had just lost her husband and my dog reminded her of a dog they used to have.

Both the woman and my dog seemed to be getting a great deal out of this encounter, so I sat a good deal longer than I had intended.

So what drove my dog, who was usually wary of strangers, to step out of character and comfort this woman?  Clearly, this was a measure of empathy at a subtle and primal level.

One of the reasons I prefer the company of older dogs—they can read moods and respond accordingly.

 

[luvmytoolz]

Dogs absolutely know when somethings amiss, and they form a bond special beyond words. My wife's suffered chronic illness over many years, from the year we got married in fact (but not because of me!), and our dogs (Chihuahua's) who are usually little demons can always tell when she's not well and just lie peacefullly on her for hours on end.

Nothing reduces stress like a loving affectionate dog.

 

[peter halle]

When I went thru cancer and treatment my dogs definitely knew things were not right.  I had to sleep on the couch downstairs so that my wife could get a good uninterrupted sleep so the dogs were always with me.  MacGyver stayed on the armrest of the sofa by my head and the others were tight against the couch. They always acted a tiny bit different when I came home from chemo but I wrote that off as them probably smelling the chemicals still in me.

Peter

 

[Michael Kellough]

Peter, the injustice of the way those clients treated you makes my blood boil, so I’ll step back from that and go with the empathy part of your post.

Animals absolutely are empathic, not only with their fellows but with us too. Not just dogs, cats, and other pets we are familiar with. Great story Packard!

Of course people don’t require having pets to learn empathy but many people seem like they have never felt it.
Maybe politicians should be required to have pets? And maybe be able to pass the Civil Service Exam?

 

[luvmytoolz]

Peter, the injustice of the way those clients treated you makes my blood boil, so I’ll step back from that and go with the empathy part of your post.

Animals absolutely are empathic, not only with their fellows but with us too. Not just dogs, cats, and other pets we are familiar with. Great story Packard!

Of course people don’t require having pets to learn empathy but many people seem like they have never felt it.
Maybe politicians should be required to have pets? And maybe be able to pass the Civil Service Exam?

Growing up I didn't know any friends that didn't have dogs or cats, and/or other pets.

The missus and I have always felt kids having pets is not only good for their immune system, but also teaches empathy and responsibility while also getting them outdoors more. Over the years aside from the dogs, we've had all manner of birds from doves to sulphur crested parrots, Guinea pigs, rabbits, lizards, etc. As young kids the excitement they had whenever the Guinea pigs had a litter was amazing. Our youngest daughter now has her own little Chihuahua, and it was the best thing we could have done for her!

 

[Crazyraceguy]

I thought we were talking about "tasks" that are not so enjoyable, not the project itself.
I have quite a few of those, most of them are from installs. It's not necessarily the job itself, but the site. That could be the conditions or just the management.
I have always disliked doing installs. There is usually something that makes it way more difficult than it needs to be.
In the shop, most of the annoyance comes from building something that I know is not going to work. Knowing it will end up being modified but having to complete it "as drawn" first.

 

[luvmytoolz]

I never minded installs, but early on a lot of my work was fixup work for other "handymen" or tradies that did a junk job. One particular site the family was paying a day rate of $500 to a chippie who lived 2 hours away, the low cost should have raised alarms straight off. He'd ordered a pallet of solid timber 4 panel doors for the customer, but mistakenly he'd ordered 4 panel solids, not 2 panel solid/2 acid etch.

Instead of negotiating with the supplier, or even taking a small restocking fee, he started cutting out the top panels with a jigsaw to then order the glass panels and fit them. It was as horrific as you could imagine. The family ended up dropping him when they saw the end result of the jigsaw, and I was asked to come in and made a jig to route out uniform top openings, and machined some beading to match, and then fitted them all. Came out really except the tops weren't arched but angled now.

The funny thing was they felt I should do a very discounted price as they'd already paid so much to the prior chippie, despite the fact he'd made the work load for me so much more. I finished off the last few bits of work I as doing there on the bathroom and kitchen, and happily didn't take on any more work there.

 

[redcliff]

he started cutting out the top panels with a jigsaw to then order the glass panels and fit them. It was as horrific as you could imagine.

Maybe he was using a Carvex.  [eek]

 

[luvmytoolz]

he started cutting out the top panels with a jigsaw to then order the glass panels and fit them. It was as horrific as you could imagine.

Maybe he was using a Carvex.  [eek]

I don't think it was anything so exotic, I saw the sedan he used for work and anything Festool would have well exceeded the car value! The edges were almost 45 degrees in spots!

 

[Cheese]

I don't think it was anything so exotic, I saw the sedan he used for work and anything Festool would have well exceeded the car value! The edges were almost 45 degrees in spots!

My neighbor added a huge addition to his house and in the process he needed to have some original stucco repaired. He casually hired a guy that arrived in a Honda Civic and proceeded to shovel the sand that was located where his rear seat should be and then combine the remaining ingredients of the stucco mixture in the trunk of his Civic...that working relationship didn't last long.  [blink] [huh] [sad]