The worst job?

[MarkW]

I'm just looking at the safety data sheet for aldicarb, a pesticide we use as a reference chemical in the lab. Under 'Properties' it says 'Strong sulphurous odour'. A bit further down, under 'Hazards' it says 'Fatal by inhalation'. I can imagine how they discovered this, probably with the help of someone on work experience:

"Now then lad, I need to fill in this form. Have a good sniff of what's in this bottle and then tell me what it smells like. Don't spend too long thinking about it though..."

[Gerontious]

In South Africa (where Aldicarb is popularly known as Two Step) it is widely used by burglars to poison dogs

[MarkW]

Aye, we still lament the demise of aldicarb in the EU - a damn fine pesticide. There was pretty much nothing that walked or crawled that couldn't be killed with that stuff. Interestingly, its withdrawal from the market some years ago coincided with all those complaints about Jersey Royals not tasting like they used to. Maybe they're like Iceberg lettuce - it's only the Amistar they spray on them that gives them any taste.

And what pesticides we do have left have gone all soppy. Back in the good old days they had manly names like Stomp, Ambush, Cyperkill, Reaper, Enforcer, Prokill, Sniper or Tombstone. Nowadays they've all got fluffy names like Harmony, Flute and Adagio. I don't know what the world's coming to...

[Bhawk]

At a previous breeding project i worked at we reared chickens, rats and quail to kill fresh to feed to the falcons.

We killed several hundred chickens rats and quail a day (the egg production hatcheries sold us the male chickens that hatched as they were useless in the industry, we reared tens of thousands at all times)

Now several hundred animals needed gutting, which in itself is quite a smelly job, but you grow used to it.

My boss was a very eccentric and cheap ass man who had never heard of health and safety in any form.

His solution to getting rid of masses of biological waste was definitely not "by the book". He decided to hire a skip and leave it next to the woodlands. Then using one of the large blue barrels we used to get tripe from the slaughterhouse (to feed all the dogs) we would skin and gut animals into the barrel, after a few inches of offal, he would put a layer of sawdust to stop the odour, which in mid summer with all the flies developed rapidly. and so he would layer up the barrel, guts, sawdust, guts, sawdust until the barrel was full. At which point it was my job to roll the barrel without tipping it, out and onto the tractor bucket, balance it and drive it down to the skip, at which point i had to flip the barrel upside down to empty the contents and shake it so it poured out into the skip. Days worth of rotting maggot infested offal was enough to make you vomit, which i did on several occasions!

Now i would rather test a toxic gas than do that job again!

Thats definitely the worst job ive ever had in my career

[MarkW]

That does sound pretty rank mate!