Shortly after I turned sixteen I got a job as a utility at a K-mart Supercenter. I got it the week before Thanksgiving with the idea that I would work there for some time. Wrong. I made it through New Year's and quit. It was absolutely the most miserable job experience of my life with the most miserable people I have ever worked with. No wonder the company failed. You might say that I didn't have perspective at that age, but I have had employment of some sort since I was 12 years old without interruption, often multiple part/time jobs at once while maintaining 4.0 grades in school. So work, and hard work was not something that scared me. I left Kmart literally to dig ditches for my best friend's brother's cable company, and was much happier. To be fair, digging ditches and trenches to bury cable taught me I wanted to do something different long-term, but it was a far cry better than being a utility at a Kmart during the holidays. Mind you, it wasn't the customers who were intolerable, it was the apathetic and horrible attitudes of the management and fellow employees that made the lasting negative impression on me. Never have I dreaded going to work like I did there - before or since.