What is the toughest minimum wage job you have had?

[Zorra]

100. Sorting tomatoes on a moving line down in Naples, Florida.

They would not let us sit down, and the monotony was maddening. Did that for most of a winter, so we could hang in the warm Florida weather until it got warm enough in the rest of the country for us to move on.

Also, picking strawberries and getting paid by the flat, (I think it was in or near Roseburg, Oregon), for less than minimum wage because I was not a good enough picker to even make minimum wage at it. Brutal on the knees and back. This was back in the late 70's, and my partner and I only did it for a week, just so we could get gas money to move us somewhere down the road. We actually found that we could make more money picking up bottles and cans by the side of the road (Oregon had what we called a "bottle law" in those daze, they probably still do), or at campgrounds on weekends ~ one day we found a $20 bill, a quarter oz of weed, a half case of Oly, a good axe, and a fishing pole, plus a good haul of bottles and cans.

Naturally, we used that extra money to buy tickets to go see the Dead at Autzen Stadium in Eugene.

Those were very different times; work was plentiful everywhere, and we could travel around, roll into a town, find a squat by a river or lake for free, get some quick work, and then head on down the highway when we had enough money together, or had enough of some mean petty tyrant boss.