People are impossible to deal with: this is something that anyone that has ever, worked, lived, or breathed around another human being will understand. But there’s something different about working with people in food service, something worse. I’ve bussed tables at restaurants and worked in kitchens, and while co-workers tend to get on each other’s nerves regardless of the context, there’s a special piece of hell that is instilled into the hearts of people that work with each other in restaurant/food service settings.

I’ve found this to be especially true in a field that I happen to specialize in: ice cream scooping. Yes, half of the jobs I’ve ever had (a whopping four in total) have been in ice cream parlours, and by comparison the amount of hate and disdain that travels through the air in these locations is so, so much worse. I can say that, without a doubt, a busy ice cream shop is more stressful than any restaurant, any tie-breaking play in a sports game, and any college-qualifying entry exam. Ice cream is hell’s coldest form.

“This must be, like, the best job!”

“You must love your job!”

“Ice cream is like, the happiest thing, I would just love to work there!”

I’ve been asked this question, hundreds, perhaps thousands of times between my jobs at Rich’s Ice Cream II and Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream. And the answer is, with a smile, “Of course it is!” or perhaps sometimes, “What can I say, I just love this job!” The truth, however, is that the task of scooping ice cream is simultaneously difficult and easy, and leaves your psyche patronizing ITSELF. While on one hand there are over one hundred people waiting in line, waiting for their chance to inundate me with requests for samples and flavors and show off their indecisiveness, on the other hand all you really have to do is scoop ice cream and make the occasional milkshake or sundae.

Your job isn’t hard, but it’s hard to do efficiently, and I’ve always found myself battling with the feelings of simultaneous over-qualification for scooping ice cream but under-qualification for a big people job. Ice cream scooping is tedious and the clientele are oftentimes just flat-out annoying. The pay is also generally unrewarding and co-workers are whiny (which then leads to a desire to also be whiny, and generally dampens any positive mood flowing through your establishment). Despite all of this, I’m sure that ice cream scooping doesn’t sound that bad and I probably sound like a whiner. While I may be a whiner, there are many, more specific reasons, that ice cream scooping may be the worst job on earth.

It all starts at the top, with authority. Your higher-ups will most definitely either care too much or too little. At my first job, my boss was super OCD to the point where the place had to be without crumbs or smudges, or you were oftentimes bombarded with personal attacks at your own work ethic and intelligence. That was overkill, and the number of times she actually made me cry in front of a customer was almost funny, but then mostly sad. In contrast, my job now consists of relatively-insane, but mostly nice owners, who leave the responsibility of maintaining the shop in the hands of a manager who literally couldn’t care less. So naturally, you’re left feeling wildly unequipped for maintaining the cleanliness of the place, and then the owners get mad and you become the middle of a care-too-much-care-too-little sandwich. This isn’t nearly as bad as crying in front of customers over the messiness of a pumpkin cheesecake flurry, but still sucks nonetheless.

Move past the degrees of authority and you’ll find yourself with the physical attributes of working an ice cream job: the near herniated discs in your back, the constant desire to clean your forearms that are often coated in sticky chocolate, the early-onset rheumatoid arthritis, etc. It might look simple, but scooping ice cream is beyond exhausting and it’s dangerous. I have nearly died making a milkshake at least three times, and if another slippery tile floor causes my “slip-proof shoes” to send me flying one more time, I am hoping I get a concussion solely for the lawsuit money.

The third piece of this triad of horrors — and perhaps the most unfortunate — is the clientele. Small, impolite children and their equally as impolite though more aware parents, alongside the (and this is only at my most recent job) mobs of young vegans looking to get their no-dairy ice cream fix, all coming towards you at warp speed and demanding patience. Trying flavors, wondering why the line is so long, trying more flavors, and then requesting the softest flavor on hand in the tiniest cone you have. “Does it contain gluten?” This is what the people of ice cream shops request of you, one by one, lined up to ruin your day. There’s one thing I’ve come to appreciate over the course of the past three years, and that is decisiveness. The job would be one-thousand times easier if the customers always knew what they wanted, always said “please and thank you,” and always left a tip on a $60 order. But such is not the case and so day by day it passes, and the art of scooping ice cream becomes one that I struggle for.

It’s not the worst job, it’s not the hardest job, and it’s certainly not the dirtiest job. But I stand by the belief that scooping ice cream is, single-handedly, the most Pain-in-the-Ass job around, regardless of if it’s in a cup or a cone.