For me, it was being a professional driver years ago. Driving long hours through rain, shine or wicked Lake Erie snowstorms can truly make you question the purpose of your own existence, lol.
I have been a VP of Sales & Marketing for decades. About seven years ago, I decided to accept such a position with a company that was a 1.5 hour - 2 hour commute each way to work. That should have been the tip-off that things were not going to go well. I soon discovered that the product was old and almost obsolete and the CEO was a clueless tyrant who ruled by fear and intimidation. He also knew nothing about sales and marketing though he thought that he did. I was stuck in that situation for about four months (until I could get an offer for something better) and it nearly sucked the life out of me. I cannot tell you how much of a relief it was when I got a new offer (that turned into one of the best jobs I have ever had). I got the offer one afternoon and that evening I left my laptop and any materials I had in the office and never returned to that horrible company. That is the only time I left a company without giving them two-week's notice and I enjoyed every minute of it.
Funny you should ask. After I posted above, I checked them out and they seem to have stuck around and morphed from a silicon chip company to an AI software developer. It seems to be comprised of the same cast of management characters and is still very small. I cannot tell you how happy I am that I am not at all involved with them.
They called it a market researcher. My job was to update the records on the database of a company who put on exhibitions and events in the shipping industry. This involved phoning them to make sure we still had the correct details. You had a target of a certain amount of updates an hour (8) and every other phone call you would get sworn at and abused. Because they never actually asked to be put into the database in the first place. Another section would trawl the internet and expired magazines looking for details of people to add to the database. It effected me so bad that I used to stand on the edge of the train platform every morning hoping to be bumped onto the tracks in front of a train just so I didn't have to go into work. I finally got out after 6 months.
That's scary. It's one thing to get physically exhausted (as I was at the job I mentioned), but it's a totally different story to be mentally wiped out. Mental health still isn't taken seriously by most employers today. It's something they chuckle at behind a person's back and dismiss as stupid. I'm glad no one accidentally bumped into you. P.S. At that job I mentioned, I wanted to park my vehicle at an airport somewhere, fly back home, and call my boss to tell him he could go get it (from something like 800 miles away). But I didn't. I should've.
For me, working in a call center is when stupid people crush you with their demands, and you can’t even respond properly—you just have to stick to the script.
I totally get that! For me, it was managing the SEO department at a local company for a year and a half. I had great perks, but watching a tyrannical boss mistreat the junior employees was soul-crushing. After every attempt to fix the situation and protect the new hires failed, I was completely drained. No benefits were worth that toxic environment, so I eventually walked away.
Marine engineering since I got depression from it. Marine engineering is working on board ships and even though I love the sea and sailing I disliked the "manual" work part of it.