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The Breakroom is a show hosted by the three cofounders of Conversion Factory, the marketing agency at the forefront of SaaS growth. Tune into the Factory Floor, our other show, to stay up to date with the changing landscape of the marketing world.
On the Break Room, we just like to chill out and tell stories. Whether you're on your way to work, just passing the time, or stuck somewhere with nothing but an internet connection, tune in. We're here for you, a couple of dudes hanging out.
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Nick Loudon (00:00)
Three, two...
Hey everybody, welcome to the break room where we talk and you listen. I think I say that like almost every time, which is the worst intro to possibly give. ⁓ I am Nick Loud and I'm joined by Zach and Corey, my co-founders over at Conversion Factory and we're just gonna start talking. I have a great topic today for these clowns, which is
Worst job you've ever had and what made it awful. ⁓ I have mine locked and loaded I have like two actually in my head, but we can go with ⁓ You know, you can pick one or pick a bunch doesn't matter This could be like a real job, you know quote-unquote like a professional office job Or it could be like first job out of high school. Whatever you want to do Corey already is ready to go
Corey Haines (00:42)
I have several.
Nick Loudon (00:52)
So I want to hear yours first.
Corey Haines (00:54)
Okay, let me give, I'll give two examples. one was like my first paid, I wouldn't call it like a job, but it was like a temporary, like summer gig. And, ⁓ one of our friends, Jeremy from high school, his dad owned a landscaping business and Jeremy was always working for his dad. And he was just like on the routes and he was working part-time, you know, even during high school. So he was like, Hey, if you want some work and you want to come with me on the routes, like
My dad can probably like hook it up and like we can get you a job. And I was like, Oh, for sure. I'll do that. Like if you can do it, I can definitely do it. And so he was like, okay, cool. Like I think they need some extra hands because they're working on a special project. So I was like, great. That's perfect. So I do all the paperwork, talk to them, get the equipment, whatever. I show up at like four 30 in the morning on a Friday and I was scheduled to work Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
And then it was going to be like only weekends. So I show up four, three in the morning on Friday. I thought it was going to be a Jeremy. They put me with like a random crew. And then there's like six of us and we go to this job site where they're completely demoing the whole backyard of like a retiree center. Um, like a, not like hospice, but like, uh, yeah, just like a, a retirement community. And, um, and so, you know, we get on there at like,
Nick Loudon (02:15)
All folks home.
Corey Haines (02:22)
530 in the morning and they're like, all right, your job is you're going to take this pickaxe and you're going to dig out the trench that we're going to run the irrigation from one side of the yard to the other. And just however far you can get through throughout the day is great. So, you know, at first it wasn't so bad, right? But then your, your back starts going out and then the heat and then the sun comes out and then by like nine in the morning,
I was like, I'm literally dying right now. And I'm trying to be like a good diligent worker, you know, I'm like 16 or something and everyone else is doing other things. I have like the worst job of all of them. And so then like we have lunch, I finally get a little break. They're all like, stay in school. Like, you know, this sucks, huh? And like, like you don't want this to be your job. Trust me. Like do something else with your life and
Nick Loudon (03:11)
Hahaha
Zach Stevens (03:14)
You
Nick Loudon (03:19)
Corey's like, I know.
Corey Haines (03:21)
Yeah, like, trust me,
I'm getting the picture now. Went back and did the same thing the next day, just all over again, just, you know, completed the trench, by the way, but I was literally like, like pickaxing rocks and concrete and like digging through just the hardest ground you've ever you've ever looked at. And then I came home with Jeremy, I think at like, you know, four o'clock that Saturday. And I was like, hey, bro, I'm done.
Like this is it. That's all I got. I can't do this again. It's not worth it. You know, I think I was getting paid like 8.50 an hour and I was like, I just made like a hundred dollars for what? Like the most literally backbreaking work of my entire life. No, thank you. So that was job number one. Job number two is like less funny and more just like sucky. It was, I had a brief stint at Subway ⁓ as a sandwich artiste. Yeah.
Nick Loudon (03:53)
you
Eat fresh,
Corey Haines (04:19)
and yeah
Nick Loudon (04:20)
Architect. Yeah.
Zach Stevens (04:22)
And it turns out Jared
Corey Haines (04:23)
a bread and
Zach Stevens (04:24)
was at that subway and Corey was a very attractive teenager.
Nick Loudon (04:25)
no. Is that why it was such a
Corey Haines (04:26)
Right.
Nick Loudon (04:29)
bad job?
Corey Haines (04:31)
I had a really complicated relationship with the manager. No, I actually did. I've never felt so like hated and ostracized by someone. The managers for some reason, like hired me on the spot. And then the next week just decided that she hated me, gave me all the worst shifts. I was like alone half the time. The times that I wasn't alone, she would do the shift with me like the manager.
Nick Loudon (04:50)
you
Corey Haines (04:58)
and just criticize everything that did. It was never fast enough. It was never good enough. Also, the people that come through Subway are just not the best customers. Especially in Alpine, California, where there's just an interesting crowd up there. ⁓ Like one time,
Nick Loudon (05:08)
⁓
Zach Stevens (05:09)
Really?
Nick Loudon (05:11)
They need a reposition, Yeah.
Zach Stevens (05:19)
subway,
the subway that's by Albertsons? That one? damn. Okay. Yeah.
Corey Haines (05:25)
Yeah. Uh, so, you know, white trash, homeless people, coke heads, construction workers, just not fun type of people to be around. And, um, one time this guy came in and he was like, Hey, uh, I was like, Oh, what can I help you with? He's like, I'm going to get a tuna melt. I was like, cool. What kind of bread? He's like, no bread. It's like, Oh, okay. Did you want a salad or did you want it on a
you know, like a pita bread or whatever they had that at the time. He was like, nope, you just put it on the little paper that you guys have. So was like, oh, okay. So I just like scooped a ton. He's like, make it a double. Just made a mountain of tuna on this little plastic sheet of paper that you wrap the sandwiches in. I'm like, okay, so do you want, you know, lettuce, tomatoes, onions? Nope, just the tuna. He's like, do you want any condiments or seasonings? Nope, just the tuna. I was like, okay.
I hope you understand, like I have to charge you for like two tuna melts for this. And it was literally just a mountain of tuna, which by the way, a couple of years later they got sued because it turned out that there was 0 % tuna in their tuna. It was all just like leftover fish meat fragments. Yeah. Which I always suspected because it did not look like real meat whatsoever.
Nick Loudon (06:29)
lol
Ugh.
Zach Stevens (06:39)
Ugh.
Nick Loudon (06:41)
Fish guts.
Zach Stevens (06:44)
Ew.
Corey Haines (06:49)
And he was like, yeah, it's totally fine. I was like, right. So I just took the mountain of tuna, put it on the little tray, charged him like $16, which again, at the time was like, you know, an atrocious amount for a sandwich. And then he asked for a spoon and just sat there at the table and spooned the mountain of tuna into his mouth for about half an hour while I watched him. Cause he was the only other person in there.
Zach Stevens (07:01)
Peace, dude.
Dude,
he could have literally gone to the Albertsons that was 30 yards further and grabbed some starkest packets for one quarter the price.
Corey Haines (07:17)
Yeah. ⁓
He really liked Subways, you know, grinded, yeah, quote unquote, tuna.
Zach Stevens (07:28)
Not tuna.
Nick Loudon (07:33)
He liked the way Corey handled that little ice cream scooper for the tuna. That's what he really wanted. Bro. That is gross.
Corey Haines (07:37)
Yeah.
Zach Stevens (07:37)
That's gross. That's a disgusting story. ⁓
Corey Haines (07:42)
That's just one story, man.
There's been so many crazy sandwiches or just requests the way that people want things.
Nick Loudon (07:49)
Nasty, dude
Corey Haines (07:50)
One time a dude ordered a
sandwich and he only put, ⁓ what was it? The, ⁓ banana peppers, pepperchinis He only put pepperchinis and, ⁓ it was one of the meats, but it was like a random one. It was like, not ham What did they have? There was tuna beef. think it was maybe like one. It was like only one of the Italian meats. Maybe it was like.
Zach Stevens (08:01)
Yeah, pepperchinis.
Corey Haines (08:19)
salami. It was just salimi, salami and pepperonis. No condiments, no vegetables whatsoever and just bread. Yeah.
Zach Stevens (08:20)
salami or pepperoni or something like that.
Nick Loudon (08:24)
Yum.
Zach Stevens (08:26)
and bread.
Ew.
Nick Loudon (08:29)
Some people
are broken dude, they're just broken inside.
Corey Haines (08:30)
That's what talking about.
Zach Stevens (08:33)
There it is.
Corey Haines (08:33)
Every day it was like I was surprised by what people would order.
Nick Loudon (08:38)
She's doing holy cow. Okay. This is great. That's great. I did want to ask did Jeremy give you a hard time when you quit landscaping?
Corey Haines (08:47)
at first and then he was like, I'm jealous of you. Like I wish I could quit.
Nick Loudon (08:53)
yes he was on the route for a minute yeah i would have lasted a second i'm glad i didn't sign up okay ⁓
Corey Haines (08:55)
Yeah, yeah, he had it rough. He never dug trenches like that, though. Let me tell you.
He was out there blowing
leaves and running the lawnmower.
Zach Stevens (09:06)
That's so interesting because I did I construction with my grandfather all throughout high school until like especially over summers and I was doing that stuff like every day the trenches hang drywall framing up on roofs like there was no manner of Physical labor that I didn't do but contrary to you guys I didn't quit or And I guess it
Corey Haines (09:28)
Hahaha
Zach Stevens (09:33)
I'm bringing it up because it's strange because I think it's an insight into how stubborn I am. Like, I don't care how much pain this causes me, I can handle it. And the one thing I'm not gonna do is stop.
Corey Haines (09:41)
Hmm.
Yeah, I already felt like this was only going to be like a summer gig for like weekends. And was like, this is not how I'm going to spend my summer on the weekends. This is crazy.
Nick Loudon (09:59)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Zach Stevens (10:01)
See,
I had weekends off, thankfully, which was nice. Or I had Sundays off because my grandfather worked freaking every day, but I managed to pull Sundays. Yeah, it's nice. I ended up buying a, I bought a car. Yeah, I'm in 19th. No, actually, I think my worst jobs were all office jobs. the, think by far the worst one.
Nick Loudon (10:11)
Nice. Okay, do you want to go next, Zach? ⁓ because of that? Nice.
Corey Haines (10:17)
So that wasn't
one of your worst jobs then.
Zach Stevens (10:30)
was the first job that I had out of college, which was for this company. It was a marketing company that, ⁓ specialized in Costco food items, like getting you into Costco and your marketing efforts around there. It was just like this.
It wasn't even like they were a marketing agency. They were, they just had connections with the people that were in like the distributors and the people who made the buying decisions for Costco. And they happened to also do packaging design, but they're to have me do stuff like, just pull it off Shutterstock. Like, but we don't have the actual, the, the, license for this, like just use Photoshop to get rid of all the watermarks. And I was like, seriously? That's what we're going to do. Um.
Corey Haines (11:14)
jeez.
Zach Stevens (11:20)
Stuff like, I remember they were interested in doing a rebrand. And so I put together these, I put together like six really killer logo options for them. And I can still remember what they look like. And the lady who ran the business denied all of mine and then hired some other lady who is their creative director. And she did a logo design. There was essentially a concept that I created, but she did it worse. And then they picked that one.
Corey Haines (11:49)
Hmm.
Zach Stevens (11:50)
so I got fired after three months from them, which was nice because then I got to go do other stuff. And the other, I didn't quit. I, I was getting ready to, to once I had another job lined up, but they beat me to the punch. ⁓ yeah, they sucked. That's where I realized it's like, yeah, you know what?
Corey Haines (11:58)
but he didn't quit.
Zach Stevens (12:12)
There's a lot of designers out here in creative agencies that have no idea what they're doing and I could do this better myself. So the impetus for my entrepreneurial journey started there as far as recognizing a problem. Second worst job was also one that I got fired from, which was ⁓ this t-shirt company. was kind of like t-shirt mart.
where you know, you could go put your own custom graphics on it. It's called big frog t-shirts and it was in the Claremont square in Claremont. Yeah. Yeah. They're a franchise. And so their business owners had again, no clue what they're doing and would say things like, shouldn't see a lack of, we see a lack of urgency with your work. Like you have to wait 10 minutes.
Corey Haines (12:46)
I remember Big Frog.
Nick Loudon (12:47)
Yeah, they're a franchise. They have a bunch of locations. Yeah.
Zach Stevens (13:04)
for these things to print. There's nothing I can, I physically cannot make the machine go faster.
Corey Haines (13:12)
You're like
cursing at the machine. Go faster.
Zach Stevens (13:16)
Yeah, no, they just, no, they didn't, they didn't like me because they, they were a very liberal, ⁓ like shop owners and I'm very not liberal. And, you know, I think they caught on when, ⁓ I would say some things that I was going to go do over the weekend or, when they had, I forget what they had. was like,
Nick Loudon (13:16)
That's the urgency I like to see.
Zach Stevens (13:46)
It was like some pro, pro-choice organization that wanted to come in or like, forget what it was, but, ⁓ we, we clearly differed politically and I didn't care. Cause it was like, whatever I'm freaking like 20 years old. I've got, I just got to get this stuff done and go home. ⁓ and then I got fired for lack of urgency, me getting fired for lack of urgency, which is quite funny.
Nick Loudon (14:12)
Hmm.
Corey Haines (14:15)
funny.
Zach Stevens (14:16)
Mm.
Nick Loudon (14:17)
Those are fantastic examples.
Corey Haines (14:17)
The irony.
Nick Loudon (14:19)
I love that. Awesome. I have two, I know, yeah. I have two that I was gonna mention. The first one is a quote unquote real job. When I was, I must've been 23. So this is 24 maybe. I think it was 24. So this is not that long ago. This is like six years ago.
Corey Haines (14:21)
I love how different we all are already.
Nick Loudon (14:47)
I left a great job that I was pissy at that they didn't appreciate me. I left that job and I found another job which I thought was a company that like did like small business like lending, like normal financing for small businesses. like, you know, like a bank essentially, ⁓ only to later find out it was essentially the business version of a payday loan.
⁓ So, you you could take your check to a fast cash, whatever place and they'll give you your check amount right up front, you know, for the next one then you pay it back at like a bazillion percent interest. So they do that for businesses and it's like hidden by this word called funding. Like all these companies are like so and so funding this funding and on the phone you're not allowed to say it's a loan or it's a whatever because it's not legally. So they call it funding.
Corey Haines (15:33)
Hmm.
Nick Loudon (15:45)
But these are like we would collect all these bank statements from companies that were like, you they said, you make, know, your bank brings in, let's say $20,000 a month is your bank, bank account receipts will give you $20,000 right now. And then in the next 12 months, you will pay us back $45,000. And the business owners would be like, okay, sure. And it was just like, dude, I had so many, there were so many people on the phone just like.
Corey Haines (16:09)
Okay.
Nick Loudon (16:15)
desperate for money and it was really, really... While I was working there, I felt like just the worst. I felt so bad, especially once I really realized how bad it was compared to like normal financing for things. I was like, this is... I'm a loan shark. This is what I am.
Corey Haines (16:29)
Mm.
Yeah,
it's pretty predatory.
Zach Stevens (16:34)
Yeah.
Ouch.
Nick Loudon (16:37)
Yeah, so I felt really bad the whole time doing that. I was only there for like a couple of months, but it was, it was awful.
Zach Stevens (16:42)
Well, Nick,
it's probably a good thing you did feel bad doing that because you should.
Corey Haines (16:48)
Yeah.
Nick Loudon (16:48)
Dude,
to the people, the people that work there would just be like, F this F-ing idiot. He sucks anyway. I hope he like his business goes. I'm just like, why? Also you can collect like a couple hundred bucks when this guy signs up. It's crazy. Anyway, so that was the first worst one.
Zach Stevens (16:59)
Sheesh man.
Corey Haines (17:03)
Were those businesses
struggling financially or have bad credit or was there some reason why they were so desperate?
Nick Loudon (17:16)
Yes.
Yeah, most of them were like not in the black enough each month to keep going or they a lot of them were like, I'm ⁓ a tow truck driver and my truck is broken down and I can't afford to fix it. And I have bad credit. And so I need like
Corey Haines (17:35)
Hmm.
Nick Loudon (17:37)
a bunch of money right now so I can fix my truck so that I can even pay my bills. It's like, okay, or honestly, there were a couple use cases that made sense and that was only like super high profit margin people. Like you have a fleet of trucks and if you got 20 grand right now, you could just buy another one and it's gonna make you way more than what you're gonna pay back. So they're just like, I don't care how much it costs because in the long run, I'm gonna make way more. Those were like basically the only op time.
It made sense. But almost always I was like, you you could just like go to the dealership and just like finance this and figure it out. You should just do that. But yeah, it was pretty, pretty terrible. My other worst job and I'll put quotes around worse because it actually wasn't that bad, but it was delivering pizza, which ⁓ I did too late in life. I wish I had done it when I was younger because I think I actually would have really liked it. But it was just me working with people who are like.
five years younger than me, and they're just like the worst people that you could possibly imagine. Just like they're talking about how they're gonna go get a bunch of cocaine after this, and then they're gonna come back to work, and just like, just the worst group that you could think of. Yeah, but honestly, the money's pretty good for being a pizza delivery driver, for like how much...
Zach Stevens (18:50)
cocaine and pizza right on.
Nick Loudon (18:59)
how flexible it is. So I highly recommend it for anyone who's just jumping out and starting school or whatever and they need a job. So that's everything. Those are my options.
Corey Haines (19:08)
That is
a sweet gig. I have a theory there. think there's a phenomenon out there that some of like on average people who are
objectively like bad people with bad work ethics and bad experience somehow end up with kind of like the sweetest cushiest jobs, especially at a low level, like entry level jobs and the best hardest working, you know, most, ⁓ people with most integrity end up with like the hardest jobs because again, pizza delivery, I would have, I would have done that for
Nick Loudon (19:34)
Hey.
Corey Haines (19:50)
six years, you know, I would have done in high school all the way up through college.
but I ended up making sandwiches for Subway, doing construction, doing landscaping, doing Funflix. Funflix was like the least bad one, that one was pretty good. Setting up movie screens and backyards for people who don't know what Funflix is. But like somehow it's always like the good jobs that have like the worst people. Am I the only one that feels that way?
Zach Stevens (20:24)
I guess I never gave any thought to it because the only jobs that I've had that would kind of fall under that criteria were I was an ice cream scooper at Coldstone, but I wouldn't consider that a cushy job. it... Yeah. It was bad.
Nick Loudon (20:38)
Did you have to sing?
Corey Haines (20:41)
Hahaha
That's funny.
Zach Stevens (20:47)
that and then I was like, I was a cadet at the police department. And then from then on, was graphic design stuff at SDSU, which was great. You know, those were, those were easy.
Nick Loudon (20:56)
Yeah, I don't know when I was at when I was delivering pizza it was like, you know, like say there's 20 people that work there like the there the fifth there was a group of 15 that were like awful the worst like the like just bad people to work with and then like the other five were like it's like we skipped like five steps and they were really good and I was like, dude, why are you even working here? Like you could have a real real awesome
Corey Haines (21:13)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Nick Loudon (21:25)
I think you can make way more money. You have skills. You should not be working here." And they're like, I know I'm just, I am just here. I'm like, fricking what the heck? And that's how I felt. I was like, us group over here, we're fine. These people are duped, but we are fine. Why are we here?
Corey Haines (21:38)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I guess I always felt like I had a hard time getting like a decent job, like an entry level job, you when I was in high school and college, like I applied to so many jobs in high school and the only job that I ever got was that landscaping gig that I did for the weekend. I almost never even got an interview. I felt like, you know, I did my research on my resume. I interviewed well. I would, I would always follow up. I would call and say, thanks. I would show up early. I was very pleasant, very cordial.
And it was like, I could never get anything. And so that's why like, I see people with like the pizza, you know, delivery gigs. And I'm like, how did you even get this? Because there was kids like me that could not land something like this for some reason.
Nick Loudon (22:25)
Yeah.
Zach Stevens (22:26)
I got,
I got rejected from the movie theater and yeah, which would have been another sweet cake. And I was like, why, why did I get rejected from that? And I think maybe here's, maybe here's what it is. They can tell based on how much effort you're putting in. They're like, I don't want to work with that guy. He's going to outdo me in, you know, in two weeks. It's entirely possible. Cause I, I would, I would wager that
Corey Haines (22:30)
Another sweet gig.
Yeah.
Yeah
Nick Loudon (22:48)
That could be it.
Corey Haines (22:52)
That's true.
Zach Stevens (22:54)
A 17 year old Zach had enough competence to manage a movie theater and usurp it and turn it into a functioning well-oiled machine. ⁓ so maybe that's it.
Corey Haines (23:07)
Yeah. Yeah.
There's, something to it. Even at Subway, my thing was like, I was never the fastest, but I would always like take my time to make sure that their sandwich actually presented well. And I was always super, super nice to the customers. And I was very on top of like stocking and restocking and cleaning everyone else. I felt like was really fast in making sandwiches, but they were super mean, very irresponsible.
Nick Loudon (23:10)
Hmm.
Corey Haines (23:37)
never stocked or restocked, never cleaned. And yet I felt like I was always on like the bottom of the totem pole. And yeah, maybe there's something too. There's like a, there's like a.
Nick Loudon (23:47)
I don't know, as.
Zach Stevens (23:48)
There's
a Cain and Abel element to it of jealousy.
Corey Haines (23:51)
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah.
Nick Loudon (23:54)
Fast food dude, if you're slow, everyone hates you. It just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how good you are. If you're like slow, even if it's on purpose, everyone hates you. Like I totally experienced that. Cause I was like, just to be real, I was fast and I was good with the customers. Okay. But the people who sucked who were also slow just drove me crazy. Cause it's just like, how could you be like, this is the simplest, like you're doomed.
Corey Haines (24:10)
Wow total package
Nick Loudon (24:21)
every scenario of life because this is the simplest job. maybe that was it. But I don't know. I don't think I think that doing it on purpose is different than people who actually couldn't do make pizza fast enough.
Corey Haines (24:34)
Right,
not like I wasn't like, couldn't process like, wait lettuce, tomato and what else? It was just like, no, I'm gonna like, I'm just gonna like chuck it in here and then like close it up and yeah, I'm gonna make it like something edible.
Nick Loudon (24:43)
Yeah, it to look good. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, we could talk about fast food restaurants for hours probably. Okay, well, thanks for listening in. This has been The Break Room. See you next week where Zach will tell us his darkest secret. Bye everybody.
Zach Stevens (24:51)
Good stuff.
Corey Haines (24:51)
Anywho.