I work in the international liason office in a university here in Northern Ireland.
Not unusual per se, its just that while I’m busy welcoming foreigners to Northern Ireland, most of the rest of the population wants them to leave 
I’m starting a new job as an associate with a computer forensics and investigation outfit. Well, I’m contract-to-hire at the moment, but I’m pretty confident I’ll go full-time.
Basically what me and my coworkers do is figure out how to retrieve specific data from various databases, mail systems, hard drives and other sources of data, and to then present them in as unaltered of a format as we can, so it will be good evidence in court cases. We also do systems investigations for companies- for example, they might hire us to determine if a certain worker is using company computing resources inappropriately or running a business using company computers.
It’s really cool. Based on what I’ve seen so far, and what my coworkers say, it’s a non-stop learning process, because we rarely get the same systems or problems to solve, so it’s always something new.
Job #1: I work developing and implementing the education programs for the non-profit associated with a marine sanctuary.
Job #2: Whale watch naturalist.
I’d guess these are fairly unusual, but not as highly sought-after as some of the jobs other folks have listed. You wouldn’t want to do it in your off-hours, for example.
I manage the construction and installation of telecommunications services. Fiber optic cable installation, digital microwave radios, what have you. I think I have a pretty cool job; a little construction management, a little high tech with the installation and provisioning of switches and such.
You know, I opened this thread thinking “I have a cool unusual job!” Now that I have read what some of you all do my job feels kinda boring. Well that might be because it is, but it sounds cool. I am a gallery assistant at an Animation Art Gallery. The gallery is cool and I get to see lots of great art all day, meet interesting people, and watch lots of cartoons. My job is rather mundane though, I file paperwork, do archiving, hang art, dust display cases, all the nuts and bolts stuff that a gallery needs to do in order to function, but that the sales people and the owners are too busy to take care of themselves. But it’s more fun than not, and it’s a better gig than most of my other college friends have. 
(My ex girlfriend however just got a job working for Mattel as a stylist. She has fulfilled her livelong dream of playing with Barbies and getting paid for it.)
I’m guessing that they are asking how accurate can property lines be layed over the photos.
Depend$.
Our Counties GIS system overlays of photos are good to about a 2 meters. Sub meter starts getting very expensive. Those big white X’s you see on the ground sometimes? They are used to tie the photos and ground features together. Look to Digital Orthophotography for more info.
I’m in the Colorado mountains. All pine trees. Not really sure how they handle that to pick up contour lines (elevations). I do know that the shadows of the trees can be a problem, and we have a very short window for flight. Snow is a problem too.
I spent several years working at a fertiltiy clinic. Because I did the inseminations, I like to think that, technically, I’m a mother and a father. (Don’t tell 'em I said that- they sometimes don’t have a sense of humor about stuff like that.) I did blood draws, injections, serial ultrasounds to measure and count follicles, and washed sperm, too.
Now I work in a labor and delivery specialty hospital, but my job is to keep the babies in. Some of my patients will spend 4 months hospitalized!
My present job is not that unusual…many Dopers have contact with me or someone like me every day (I’m an airline pilot).
Since my entire career after college has been flying, I have to go back a ways to find something unusual…
I was a lifeguard, but I’m sure plenty of Dopers did that at one time or another.
My most unusual job was one summer during college. It also involves aviation, though. You know those emergency slides that get deployed on airliners when they need to evacuate? The big yellow ones that come out of the doors? I spent an entire summer getting paid to slide down those slides. “Testing” they called it…I called it the easiest $8/hour a college student could ever hope to make!
I must ask how?
Depending on the circumstances, I can see how this would be incredibly easy or extremely difficult…
I blow stuff up for a living.
Cool, except that I either 1) simulate the explosion on a computer or 2) analyze the real data to see what actually happened.
My co-workers are the ones who do it for real. I almost never leave the office and get to see the tests on video if I’m lucky.
On a side note, by a odd coincidence, one of my old cars was blown up as part of an explosive demonstration last week. I didn’t find out until Friday but I’m hoping to get the video.
I can answer some of these questions regarding trees and clouds in imagery as my entire professional career has been in the GIS field and I’ve dealt with digital satellite imagery extensively. With aircraft you have the luxury of waiting for ideal conditions before sending them up but satellites fly 24/7 and are over the area of interest when they are over the area of interest, sometimes you got to deal with what you have.
An operator pushing posts with stereo imagery can compensate for the tree canopy and produce a bare-earth terrain elevation model. Also, some products don’t need bare-earth terrain (or so I’ve heard, in my experience I’ve found reflective-surface terrain to be of very limited utility but there are a lot of vendors producing it so somebody must use it). As far as cloud coverage, the vendors supply imagery with as few clouds as possible (Quickbird is guaranteed to be 20% or less, for example) and we can mosaic images together to reduce clouds but sometimes they can’t be avoided. Where there’s a cloud, there’s a hole in the data (buildings underneath don’t get collected, for example). “Perfect” is also a relative term. You have some amount of allowable cartographic license, depending on the needs of the particular product.
Anyway, I wouldn’t consider my job to be that unusual. My degree is in aerospace engineering so you could say I’m a rocket scientist; and my current job can best be described as laying the groundwork for our future robot masters. Maybe interesting and cool, but not unusual.
With the Power of my Mind…
Among other things, I design pressure vessels and relief systems. Don’t pay attention to all the code cases, misunderstand the contained material, specify the wrong alloy or weld type, etc., and <i>kaboooom</i>. In some ways, the most dangerous thing in your house is the hot water heater.
I skin animals for a taxidermist.
It’s a messy job but I can pick my own hours (as long as beastie isn’t thawed too long) and I get a lot of bonus stuff like meat, hides, skulls, teeth, claws, baculums etc.