Worst jobs you can have during uni

Having a job during uni can be a godsend. Everyone likes to have a little bit of dolla to line the pockets of their £90 Barbour Jacket but life is filled to the brim with overdrafts, £10 night out challenges and rent, which apparently we have to pay.

If you’re sick of taking advantage of the bank of mum and dad and want to show just how independent you really are, you should probably get a part-time job. Despite this urge, avoid these jobs at all costs.

Call centre

Phones are for Whatsapp, not for phoning people

As far as jobs go, this is bleak. For starters, who even likes talking on the phone? No one.

Peter, a fourth year Medic, worked in a call centre and told us the people there hated it. He said: “They had to convince customers to stay by offering them better deals, but the deals were so awful they felt like they were cheating people out of money.”

We all know the horrible feeling you get when your phone rings and you have to make a snap decision over whether to wait and hope the ringing stops, or bite the bullet and press that stupid little green button.

What if you answer and your voice cracks, or you have to clear your throat?! You’d sound like such a fool. Most of us would rather send word by carrier pigeon than actually call someone.

On top of this, everyone hates call centre workers. Basically, do yourself and everyone else a favour and boycott the call centre industry.

Any bar/cafe

Who would want to miss out on all the fun?!

Don’t kid yourself that this is effectively the same as being on the board of management or events or games committees at the union. It’s not. You’d quite literally be the lowest of the low.

All the stinking second years would look down on you, despite them all being 5’1″, and refer to you as “that blonde guy who works in the bar”.

Plus there’s this: your job will basically involve getting paid £5.17 an hour to sit and watch your pals having a blast on the other side of the bar. “Oh my god, Flora just chundered on the table,” becomes a lot less funny when you’re the mug responsible for cleaning it up.

Promoter

Smiling through the pain

Almost every student has done some form of PR in the past, and if they’ve got any brains at all they’ll never do it again. People loathe PRs. Brits might have a reputation for being polite and friendly, but this doesn’t extend to taking pieces of paper from the stranger on the corner who’s desperate for a chat.

On top of this, you need to stand/pace aimlessly for six hours straight, and you need to do it with a smile. Grumpy PRs are even less appealing to passers-by.

Also, PRs work outside. In Britain, where it’s cold and rainy all the damn time. That in itself should be enough to turn you away from the PR life. If not, maybe Fiona, a second year Chemist, can dissuade you: “People are just so rude. When I was trying to give people a flyer, they would completely ignore me like I wasn’t even there, or dodge around me without looking at me. I hated that.”

Nightclub staff

Screw everyone

This is very similar to working in the union, except at least in the union the hours are reasonable. As a nightclub bartender you’re looking at a 5am finish on a busy night, because even after the drunk as hell punters leave, you still need to wait behind to clean up the broken chairs/glasses/dreams they’ll leave in their wake.

Your shift is literally a night shift and who wants a night shift job when they have a 9am every Thursday morning? No one.

Gabriella, a fourth year studying Italian, said the hours and the people make this job hellish. “People just don’t take no for an answer, for example when you’re working the cloakroom and they’ve lost their ticket. I used to work eight hour shifts with no break.”

On top of this, nightclub jobs fuck up your eating schedule/diet, as when you eventually get your break at 2am, the only place you can go to eat is Bistro. Chips and cheese are fab, but not as your dinner and breakfast three times a week.

Student resident (halls)

If the idea of shitting on everyone else’s fun just so you can get cheaper accommodation sounds appealing to you, what is your problem?

No one cares if you’re getting halls for half price, because it doesn’t count if you sold your soul in the process. Student residents can’t even get completely smashed because they’re actually employees. If someone has a sick as hell birthday bash in Murano and 127 people inexplicably show up, you want to be one of those party animals, and not the stinking party pooper who shuts it down.

Also, why would you want to live, eat and shit where you work?

Medical experiments volunteer

This is not what dreams are made of

If you’re an animal lover, you might sometimes think to yourself: “it’s such a shame all those poor bunnies are being experimented on.”

Maybe you’ve considered volunteering to take their place. As much as this is sweet, it’s also kind of absolutely mental. Needles hurt.

Yeah, you get a lot of money for it, but that’s only because it’s painful and pretty dangerous. It’s easy enough to get a job in a cafe: don’t be weird and become a lab rat.

Drug dealer

Choose life

See to be honest, why would anyone ever think this was a good idea?

If you live in Bristol or Glasgow then yes, there’s probably a huge client base for you to dip your toes into (bad luck if you’re from Manchester though, that’s a competitive market).

There’s definitely money here. But there’s also jail time. I realise the British incarceration system is a little bit of a joke, and that as a student you would probably live a more luxurious life behind bars than you ever could in your scummy five-bed flat, but think about it, a criminal record looks shit on your CV and besides, now the Arches has closed down, the potential client base has suddenly gotten a whole lot smaller.