For Third Year in a Row, Minnesota Twins Season Ticket Rep Named World’s Toughest Job

Katie McKinney has had better days.

“When the Pohlads put out the statement that they weren’t selling the team on Wednesday, I was about to start my 8-hour shift of calling and e-mailing lapsed season ticket holders,” said McKinney, 24, of Eden Prairie. “I didn’t know people had that many different ways of saying [REDACTED] you, [REDACTED].”

McKinney’s experience is just one of the reasons Minnesota Twins Season Ticket Representative was named World’s Toughest Job by Nevada University’s Carson Institute.

“The physical demands of jobs in commercial fishing boats or coal mines are undeniable,” said Garth Mannion, an Institute spokesperson. “I’d like to see them last one shift where you have to sell 4- and 5-figure ticket packages to a team that just traded Carlos Correa for a box of used gum.”

“I thought trade deadline day was going to be the worst day of my career,” said McKinney. “I went home, cried for six hours, went to bed, woke up crying, came back to the office, and got called a [REDACTED] by a kindly Willmar grandmother at 9:01 am.

“Yesterday was much, much worse.”

Mannion said he’d never seen a job where the mental health aspects were so much more daunting than careers traditionally considered more hazardous.

“You talk to people who rescue tourists from underwater caves, technicians who defuse explosive devices, the folks who clean up gruesome crime scenes, and they all talk about how they compartmentalize the work or embrace their part in making bad days a little better,” said Mannion. “The bleak, Stygian horror of persuading someone to give money to the Pohlad family offers no such solace—only the promise of another day exactly like this one. It’s not hell, but it’s not not hell.”

McKinney said that, despite the awful reaction to the Pohlads announcing they were no longer selling the club, she did make one sale on Wednesday.

“He was clearly a senior citizen, and I’m pretty sure he thought I was Judy Garland,” said the rep. “This likely elder fraud is the only good thing that has happened to me since I started.”

McKinney stared into the middle distance, sighed, and reconsidered.

“OK, two good things. Archie, who has been here since 2024 and is the old hand in our department, taught me this breathing trick so I can smoke and cry at the same time.”

Image license here.