I felt like the ... ugly duckling or something (never read animal farm), but just that animal that didn't belong where it was. I wasn't qualified for what they were asking me to do, but they wouldn't see it, or fire me, they just let me stay and kept paying me for the handful of things I did around there, (mostly run errands and deliver furniture).

They had hired me to be a metal worker, able to run lathes, mills, and weld with a variety of machines, my entering experience was MIG welding with a tiny bit of other background in metal work, but nothing near the level they needed. They just didn't realize it at all, and were completely unwilling to train me.

I decided if I stayed there I was going to get myself/someone else hurt and that it wasn't worth the stress or the under-the-table paycheck, so I quit and went unemployed for a few months.

I mean they wanted me to DC weld structural steel for an item that was going to hold a few tons of wooden planks. If I screw up that welding, the structure falls and someone dies, I couldn't take on that responsibility. I had never welded anything thicker than an eight inch steel, and I had never welded with anything but a MIG welder, I simply wasn't qualified for that level of work.