I was a robot for two  months.

When I worked in factories, a mechanized packing line of household commodities consisted of a crazy, spider-like machine which built an open carton. The carton moved along a conveyor where it intersected with another conveyor bearing the product. The product was grouped in sixes or twelves and dropped into the carton, which continued along its conveyor until another machine glued its top closed. The cartons were then stacked on pallets and taken away by forklift.

One summer, the Ivory Liquid packing line had a problem. Between the time 12 bottles of Ivory Liquid dropped into the carton and the time the carton’s flaps were glued and sealed, a nozzle was supposed to deliver a tiny puff of air toward the back flap of the moving carton. Without this air puff, the flap remained at a 30º angle, when it needed to be at a 120º angle to be properly glued shut. The air nozzle was broken, resulting in unglued cartons, log jams and crushed bottles of Ivory Liquid squirting their contents on the factory floor.
They brought in the expert, me, to solve this crisis. I sat in a chair beside the broken air nozzle for two months. Each time a box rolled by on the conveyor, I gently eased the offending flap into the correct pre-gluing position with one finger. My pinkie. Taxing. I could have mimicked the faulty nozzle and blown on the flaps instead, but I thought my factory buddies would make fun of me.

What stupid job have you had?