Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US black) a job, usu. tedious or unpleasant; as v. to work on a prison farm (see cite 1934).

1934		Lightnin’ Washington and group in Lomax & Lomax Big Brazos ‘Great God A’mighty (Long Hot Summer Days)’ 🎵 Just a keep on hamin’ / In them long hot summer days.
c.1953		Babs Gonzales ‘Manhattan Fable’ 🎵 He copped him a hame as a delivery cat on Lenox Avenue.
1955		Encyc. of Jazz (in Gold 1964) 346: Hame: job outside the music business.
1960		C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 61: A haim is a job, but junkies don’t bother with ’em.
1966		recorded by B. Jackson Wake Up Dead Man ‘Early in the Morning’ 🎵 Well the captain and the sergeant, come a riding along, / Say, You get go to haming, if you want to go home.
1977		N.C. Heard When Shadows Fall 11: Wise-ass college chicks who disdained makeup, wore sloppy, thrift-shop nineteen-forties dresses, and called men ‘cats,’ ‘dudes,’ ‘studs’ and ‘suckers.’ A job was a ‘gig,’ ‘hame,’ or a shuck’ .
1994		G. Smitherman Black Talk 130: Haim A Job.