+
Pop Culture

Jimmy Fallon asked people to share funny, weird or embarrassing stories from their bad summer jobs

The things we do for a summer paycheck.

jimmy fallon worst summer job hashtag twitter

His face is all of us after that first summer job paycheck.

Call it a rite of passage, a baptism by fire, or simply a necessary evil, but a terrible summer job is pretty much a staple of young adulthood. Those concert tickets aren’t gonna pay for themselves, after all.

worst jobs jimmy fallonResponsibility. Yay. Giphy

Some summer jobs are heinous by the sheer amount of manual labor involved. Others are just plain weird. I remember one year working as a “live strolling table.” Yep, just walking around attached to an elaborately dressed table offering hors d'oeuvres and champagne. A human-furniture hybrid. How do you put that on a resume?

No matter the role, there is one thing all summer jobs have in common: They teach us humility in one way or another … especially once we see that first paycheck. There’s simply no way to prepare for seeing two weeks worth of hard work equate to a (usually) paltry sum. Hopefully that experience alone makes generous tippers of us all.

Jimmy Fallon recently asked people to share their own “funny, weird, or embarrassing story about a bad summer job” as part of his iconic #hashtags challenge.

Here are 15 that might make your own summer job memory feel a little less dreadful:


1.

“I planted trees for the US Forest Service one summer in HS. Our foreman would go through our lunches, eat our cookies and chips, and take bites out of our sandwiches. We were all about 15 so too afraid to tell.” – @dumpster_diva

2.

3.

“One summer I worked at Taco Bell during lunch and Furr’s cafeteria during dinner. People would see me at both and ask if I was twins.”– @kerrikgray

4.

“As a young comedian I was hired to MC an event for a furniture store. The owner paid me 5 bucks for every time I would fake trip and fall on my way to the mic. He said he was a 3 stooges fan.” – @Brentfo4242

5.

“I applied for a job while in high school at a toy store. I called back days after the interview asking if they had any news for me. They told me I got the job, and they forgot to tell me. They had me scheduled for that day and was told ‘you’re late.’”– @RockerSam91

6.

“In high school, I worked at an insurance agency...let’s just say the bus ride to and from work was the best part of the job.”– @SharonZurcher

7.

“In high school I worked at a bounce house company. My first day working was an elementary school field day and the huge inflatable slide starting deflating and collapsing with kids at the top…angry parents staring at me like I had an answer for this at 16 years old.” – @calamari_carly

8.

“In middle school my friend and I got paid to fill, lick and seal about 500 envelopes with documents for a lawyer - a penny per envelope. 3 hours later, we asked for 2 cans of soda from his cooler. He said sure, and took $2 each from our pay. We made a dollar.”– @CameronFontana

9.

“I worked at a dog kennel. A guy brought in 2 dogs to stay a month. He told me to give a pill every morning to dog #1. So, I did for the month. When he returned, I brought out dog #1 and he said, ‘Hi, dog #2!’ My face turned so red. Oh, well. The dog survived.”– @TheTomeWebster

10.

“I babysat identical twin boys where one constantly screamed and got into mischief but potty trained early while the other was quiet, well behaved but always blowing out diapers. They never did anything ‘identical’. I'm shocked that I still wanted kids after that!” @overbaughs

11.

“Worked at Crumbl in high school. One coworker had the exact same shifts as me, and she was a theater kid. Like MAJOR theater kid, was cracked out 24/7, randomly performing theater at work. I am not proud to say I memorized 10 Shakespeare monologues because of her.”– @itstherealmeboo

12.

“I held human hearts with a white cotton glove during open heart surgeries, so they didn’t ‘slip’.…No pressure! That’s why l am now a planetary medium and asteroid deflector. Much less stress.”– @rosamalvaceae

13.

“I worked for a local sweet corn farm. I had to sort the corn into boxes for their stands around the state or local grocery stores. It came off the truck onto a conveyor belt by the 1000s. I literally saw thousands of corn cobs in my dreams at night.”– @jdianemiller

14.

“In high school my mom got me a job working with the city to clean an island in the local lake that ducks lived on. Everyday I had to fight a duck, and everyday I needed a bandaid after getting bit by a duck. It was a nightmare and I still hate ducks 30 years later.” – @KingSergioS

15

“Hired at an amusement park for the summer, taking summer college classes at the same time…Show up for my 1st day to a supervisor who says ‘Oh, the girl who didn’t show up!’ Proceeds to show me the previous week’s schedule where I had 40 hours during my class time. He rolls his eyes when I explain and gives me every crappy task he can find....

jimmy fallon hashtagsGiphy

...I left after the 2nd day, never picked up my check, but kept my employee ID & got in for free all summer!”– @trixiebelle47

Our home, from space.

Sixty-one years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to make it into space and probably the first to experience what scientists now call the "overview effect." This change occurs when people see the world from far above and notice that it’s a place where “borders are invisible, where racial, religious and economic strife are nowhere to be seen.”

The overview effect makes man’s squabbles with one another seem incredibly petty and presents the planet as it truly is, one interconnected organism.

Keep ReadingShow less
@katherout/TikTok

Just another unsolved mystery

Who doesn’t like a good mystery?

A video creator known as @katherout certainly does. At the gym Kath frequents, there’s a whiteboard with a revolving prompt with simple questions like “What are you listening to?” or “What city were you born in?” Gym goers then write their responses anonymously on the board.

Kath recently became enthralled—and tickled—by a person who somehow manage to write the word “monke” (as in the word describing a group of monkeys, apparently) on every single one of their answers.

Keep ReadingShow less
@allbelongco/TikTok

How bizarre, how bizarre.

It should go without saying that it’s not cool to steal from your Airbnb. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still happen.

However, when one Airbnb host recently discovered a guest had—for some strange reason—stolen one of her paintings, then replaced it with a completely different painting, she decided to make the best out of a very uncool situation by sharing the story on TikTok.

As a result, viewers got to witness an continuously unraveling, truly bizarre modern-day art heist.

Okay, let’s get into it.

Keep ReadingShow less

11-year-old girl is the youngest opera singer in the world.

The majority of 11-year-olds are perfectly content balancing the pre-teen life with Barbie dolls and tinted lipgloss. But one pre-teen is busy breaking records. Victory Brinker is an 11-year-old opera prodigy who was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's youngest opera singer in 2019 when she was almost 8 years old.

If you like opera—or even if you don't—hearing her vocal range of three octaves and voice control is impressive. When it comes to singing, control of your breath, pitch and tone can be difficult, especially when you're without years of classical training. Victory's skill is so impressive that when she appeared on America's Got Talent last year, she was given the "golden buzzer," which sends you straight to the finalist round in Hollywood.

Keep ReadingShow less

Brianna Greenfield makes nachos for her husband.

A viral video showing a woman preparing nachos for her "picky" spouse after he refused to eat the salmon dinner she cooked has sparked a contentious debate on TikTok. The video was shared on April 26 by Brianna Greenfield (@themamabrianna on TikTok) and has since earned over 2.5 million views.

Brianna is a mother of two who lives in Iowa.

The video starts with Brianna grating a massive hunk of cheese with a caption that reads: “My husband didn’t eat the dinner that I made…So let’s make him some nachos.”

“If I don’t feed him, he literally won’t eat,” she wrote. “This used to irritate me. Now I just blame his mother for never making him try salmon,” Greenfield wrote. The video features Meghan Trainor’s single “Mother” playing in the background.

Keep ReadingShow less
@miztermiller/TikTok

Now THAT'S a deal.

Let's be real—buying secondhand allows us to save a few bucks, which is great. But the real thrill is the possibility of snagging that ultra-rare, one-of-a-kind item that’s worth a bajillion times more than we originally paid for it. Yes, that kind of shopping is a lottery unto itself. But man, what a jackpot, should you win.

And of course, it’s not a totally far-fetched fantasy. Costly things get thrown out or donated all the time, ready to be procured at the nearby thrift store, garage sale…

…or, in this case, Facebook Marketplace.

Keep ReadingShow less