Before I went to vet school, I spent some time working as a groom for an upper level jumper rider. It was an inordinately stressful experience, but I learned a few weird/valuable lessons AND (most importantly) I had a lot of fun.
I worked for two women, who we'll call Susan (rider) and Jennifer (her romantic/business partner) We were a staff of 6-10 people, depending on the season and how successful Jennifer was at hiring replacements for the constant staff turnover. We also all lived in an apartment above the barn. This was mostly cool with me, except for when:
1) one of my co-workers was a drug dealer and stole money from me/other co-workers/the farm.
2) Jennifer unknowingly hired a person who smuggled saddles out of her last place of work shortly before being fired. Her last boss contacted Jennifer, who then sent me to "supervise" this poor woman as she packed her things and left. Wow, that was terribly awkward.
I worked very, very hard. It was my first experience working regular twelve hour days, with the occasional memorable stretch of several eighteen hour days in a row. It was good, honest work. Cleaning stalls, scrubbing buckets, grooming/tacking up/caring for horses, tidying up the barn, and wrapping horses' legs are all tasks I love to do, and the horses were absolutely magnificent.
Plus, I learned some highly fancy medicine. Nothing like working for an Olympic rider to see the best equine sports medicine in existence! Fun times.