Broadback wrote:
I had to cut through a cast iron pipe recently, masked everything, made
a polythene tent, wore a mask, cut it with a cutting disk. Ugh, the
fine black dust got everywhere, including up my nose and in my mouth,
the taste was awful, as it was a toilet pipe I'm sure I could taste the
sh1t, not that I had ever tasted it before. Worse of all the iron in my
mouth reacted with my filling, it was like chewing silver paper.
By far my most unpleasant job what's yours?

IMO, nothing beats spending hours on something, getting a lovely result, and
then completely wrecking it just as you finish.

Recent example for me would be after my monitor failed, I took it apart,
spent a while finding the fault, fixed it, and went on to add a small
low-speed fan to keep it cooler, and then replacing some caps on the board,
as they were a bit old, and high ESR.

Turned it on to check it. Result!, slightly brighter, with no shadowing like
it was doing, and better EHT regulation.
Left it going for 12 hours, still fine.
Slid case back on, and was met with a whooshing noise.
A wire that needed to be in one position when out of the case, has to be
taken off and put back on before you put the case back on.

It had caught on the board at the back of the CRT, and ripped the neck off
the tube, making it utterly unrepariable.

For "nasty, smelly" jobs, I tend to skip the whole mask thing, and
go for a full facemask with air supplied from a fresh source.