the devil's own job

the devil's own job

A difficult or frustrating time. I'm having the devil's own job getting this window open—I think it's been painted shut. We had the devil's own job convincing Grandpa to go to the doctor for that bad cough.
See also: job, own
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • have the devil's own job
  • the devil’s own time
  • the devil's own time
  • the devil's own
  • the devil's own (something)
  • have a job
  • have a job doing/to do something
  • on the job
  • set (one) up with (someone or something)
  • set up
References in classic literature
But when he had drawn and engaged his youthful antagonist he discovered that, far from disarming him, he would have the devil's own job of it to keep from being killed.
Without it, they will have the devil's own job to trouble an Ireland side which has won 18 of its last 19.
Nevertheless, having painted themselves into a corner over Ireland, the EU are finding it the devil's own job to get out of it.
the devil's own job stoking coal "It ain't easy being Satan." (Not cool, either!)
Unfortunately, the referee has got the devil's own job trying to work out what's real and what's fake.
Where it was once the devil's own job to find salt cod in Yorkshire, it's now readily available thanks to the shops catering for our vibrant West Indian community.
It's the devil's own job keeping your mind on driving - it's easy to be distracted by sights.
If the Grand National is suddenly seen as tainted goods in commercial terms it is a hugely potent threat to the race and I fear Aintree may face the devil's own job finding a replacement sponsor from outside the betting industry.
"It's the devil's own job to balance the pieces up.
It's the devil's own job trying to persuade them that years of selective breeding have now placed the entrance to the milk bar a lot nearer the ground.
Sir - Apropos of all this brouhaha over the Penderyn vodka ad, I had no idea what existentialism meant - it is a word not bandied about down at the Crazy Horsepower Saloon - and I had the devil's own job finding it in the dictionary: "a modern philosophical movement stressing personal experience and responsibility and their demands on the individual, who is seen as a free agent in a deterministic and seemingly meaningless universe".
We had the devil's own job getting ENGLAND past the censors, lest it be considered racist."
It's just that once she sets foot on a red carpet, it's the devil's own job to shift her.
Their evergreen Golf may be the finest for 30 years but it's having the Devil's own job to find buyers.
He said: ``Our national government has opened a Pandora's box of racism, which we in South Wales will have the Devil's own job to control at a local level.