You Don't Have it That Bad...Really

So, there's this new show on the History Channel called The Worst Jobs In History (Blogger isn't letting me italicize that so....deal with it.). I try to stay away from the History Channel mostly because there is very little actual history discussed on said channel - I mean, the guy from Doube Dare hosts a show about snack foods -, but also because the actual history that is discussed seems geared exclusively toward people who masturbate to big guns and believe the first moon landing was filmed in a Hollywood studio.

Not really my type.

But this new show caught my attention with an episode on the Industrial Revolution that highlighted the important and indispensable position of "Child Hurrier". Seriously. This person's job was to continually harass and harangue the over-worked and otherwise abused child factory workers under his supervision lest they take a moment to, you know, be kids. At this point, I feel I must profess two things:

1. I laughed at the job title "Child Hurrier".

2. I am a terrible person.

It was of this show that I was reminded while eating lunch today with a group of friends and their spouses/significant others. The discussion - and I'm not sure why - turned to pigs and pig farming. The conversation flowed down numerous rabbit holes, including why never to trust a man with a pig farm, until the wife of a friend of mine piped up and announced that during college she had worked on a pig farm as part of workers' program subsidized by the Canadian government (They're Canucks...eh.). The mission of this program was to provide work for mentally disabled adults. Her job was to look after the workers while they were on the job and give them guidance/instruction.

As it turns out, pig farming was not a big draw for program workers so she was really only responsible for one worker. Sounds pretty easy, no? Well, that one worker, bless his heart, was tasked with hosing all of the pig shit through slats in the floor of the pig barn beneath which it was collected in a massive tank of unholiness that was continuously agitated in order to avoid sludge build-up and also to prevent flies from finding purchase for the maggots they wished to lay upon the accumulated crust of filth. The stench from the pig shit on the floor must have been near unbearable, but the added aroma of the constantly bubbling lagoon of filth beneath the floor would have been positively demonic. Added to this comedy of misfortunes is the fact that the mentally challenged are so named for a good reason. Our noble hoseman was apparently lacking in the department of motor skills and would sometimes unpredictably fling the hose toward my friend's wife covering her in a good deal of the deflected filth from the floor. During lunch breaks, as this was an all day task, the other workers on the pig farm would say to her, "Looks like you picked up some more freckles, eh." This is a job for the Seventh Circle of Hell. Given the choice between the two - Child Hurrier and Pig Shit Hosing Retard Wrangler - I choose Child Hurrier every time and so did my friend's wife, she's now a middle school teacher.

And if her job was worthy of the Seventh Circle of Hell, then the hoseman - had Dante thought of it - would be plying his trade well within the Eighth Circle. At least she had all of her mental faculties. I can only pray the hoseman comes back in another life as a brilliant millionaire playboy heavily invested in the perfume industry.

You don't have it that bad.