‘The worst job I ever had’

The worst job Robert Meggy ever had, bar none, was working as a “pea-viner” in B.C.’s Fraser Valley. A pea-viner, for the uninitiated, takes the unholy tangle of harvested pea vines and pods, and shovels them onto a conveyor belt where the peas are mechanically separated. It was the summer of 1962. Meggy was 15 and the pay was $1.05 an hour for a 16-hour day. He still remembers the stink of rotting peas and mud. “It was just a terrible job, the most boring thing I’ve ever done,” he says. If nothing else, it cured Meggy — now the president, CEO and owner of the Great Little Box Co. of Vancouver — of any desire to pursue agriculture as a career.

That’s the thing about awful jobs, there’s always a lesson in there somewhere, though usually it’s a lesson in what not to do. Everyone has a story about the worst place they’ve ever worked. For some, it was their very first job, be it down on the farm, or slinging fries over a greasy, hot stove. Others spent years building up their careers before stumbling into that perilous mix of a dunderhead boss and a poisonous work environment that marks so many terrible-job stories. Either way, when you find yourself working in an organization where exhibiting creativity and demonstrating independent thinking are akin to contracting bubonic plague, it can be a downright soul-destroying experience.

Also online:

• The top 100

• Evil at work: Bad bosses

• Diversity or death: Some firms are slowly realizing they’ll need minorities to survive

Just ask the people who were fortunate enough to escape bad jobs for the infinitely brighter prospects of working for one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers. Actually, that’s exactly what Maclean’s did this year: we quizzed Top 100 executives, managers and employees about the worst jobs they ever had, and the lessons they learned along the way. Perhaps it’s relief at leaving their crummy jobs behind, or the experience of knowing what a rich and rewarding work environment can really be like, but the people who work at Top 100 organizations seem to have keen insights into the bad habits, lousy management styles and employment pitfalls so many other companies seem to fall into. Sometimes the problems are caused by a few individuals. Other times they’re systemic and infect every part of an organization. And almost always, there are no easy fixes. As those working at the Top 100 employers might say: happy work environments are often alike — miserable jobs are each terrible in their own way.

YOUR BOSS IS AN IDIOT… AND THE OWNER

Few things are as bad as having a boss you know is completely incompetent at his job. But when that boss also happens to own the company, after inheriting it from dear old dad, the experience is much worse. That’s what Meggy discovered after leaving the pea vines behind to become an accountant. In the early 1980s he landed a job as controller of the B.C. arm of a failing American forest products company. It was a family-owned business run by the third generation, a notoriously dangerous phase. The company made things — like cedar shingles and telephone poles — though not terribly efficiently. They lost things — like money — with much greater success. Meggy worked for the grandson of the founder. “He actually had a degree, which blew me away, but he had no concept of anything,” says Meggy. “We were going broke and he was looking at trying to buy a company plane.” Meggy buckled up as management flew the company into receivership, and eventually bankruptcy, thinking all the while: “I could do better myself.”

In fact, he has. He walked away from the wreckage with many lessons learned. The result is the Great Little Box Co., which, with 170 employees and a sprawling new 250,000-sq.-foot facility on the Fraser River, isn’t that little anymore. Meggy typifies the innovative thinking that characterizes so many Top 100 employers and sets them apart from the rest. For instance, when building his new plant, he changed the architect’s plans so that employees could gaze out over the scenic Fraser, where he built a park-like river frontage, with a volleyball court, basketball hoops, a gazebo and a dock for kayaks. He instituted a profit-sharing plan some 15 years ago, and regularly opens the books to employees. Above all, in fostering the Great Little Box Co.’s corporate culture, Meggy drew on the lessons he learned at his former employer, which was beset by arrogant leadership and a volatile environment. “One moody or negative person can just destroy a whole department,” he says. “I’ve seen that, and I always swore I would never have people like that here.”