# Unusual Jobs **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 8, 2004, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159 "2004-07-08T19:31:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/21 "2004-07-09T12:38:37Z")
> [@Rue DeDay](#): > > They don’t just send it through to baggage claim? Down the slide then around the luggage carousel? “Man! I wish they’d tie a flag onto these things so I’d know which on was mine.” That’s not how it works, huh? 😃 But think of what would happen if no one was there to pick it up… the big rectangular aluminum box, just circling around and around, over and over … for all eternity. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/22 "2004-07-09T13:20:09Z")
> [@brachyrhynchos](#): > > I catch birds and let them go. \*\*Colibri \*\* does that too, so there’s at least two us. Maybe it’s not so unusual. > > I used to catch crows, put little radios on them and follow them around. Now I just take a wee bit of blood from anything I can get my hands on. > > On occasion I catch mosquitoes. That’s not quite so fun. My sister spent a period of time where she counted snails. That was after she spent two summers fighting forest fires - which is actually a pretty common job. My stepfather in law is a Computational Neuroscientist. He models brain activity on computers. I think that’s a really cool title. But its realitively uncommon. ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/23 "2004-07-09T13:59:55Z")
My unusual job wasn’t _that_ unusual, but what the hell. I used to paint up little porcelain wishing wells. It was for a company that sold “collectors” figurines and stuff. The ones that I decorated most frequently were these little porcelain wishing wells, with a goldfish in the water of the well. The porcelain is pure white and glazed with a clear glaze, and I was trained to use China paint (which is tricky to learn, because you really can’t _touch_ the surface that you paint, because your fingerprints will show). I colored everything in with a paintbrush—the stones of the well were brown, as was the roof of the well. The goldfish was gold, obviously. And so on. I’d paint these little wishing wells at home and then deliver them to the factory, where they would be fired in the kiln and then shipped out to stores or wherever. And then I’d pick up more blank wishing wells and paint them up. Exciting. ---
**Author:** ![Batsinma\_Belfry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@Batsinma\_Belfry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batsinma_Belfry)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/24 "2004-07-09T16:01:36Z")
> [@jaydubyasee](#): > > I can’t help thinking about that “loss of body parts” bit. Do gangs now force new members to lose body parts in order to join ? Just imagine it - instead of the Jets and the Sharks it will be the **No-noses** and the **Only one big toe** gangs !! Actually, that’s what the old gangs did. Instead of killing someone else to get into a gang, you were required to mutilate yourself. Like one guy had a missing finger from joining a gang 40 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/25 "2004-07-09T16:58:27Z")
I spent a summer as a coiler in a plastic-pipe factory. It was a small plant, and long enough ago that the only automation they had was the thermostat on the extruder. My job was to wrap the pipe neatly onto the big reels, cut it off, and tie it up. The most excitement we ever had was when there was a power failure that lasted long enough for the plastic to set inside the extruder. The boss had to drive out the screw (polished steel, about four inches across and eight feet long) with a sledgehammer while the rest of us made sure the sawhorses were still lined up to catch it. Then we spent half a day very carefully scraping off the hardened plastic without scratching the screw, and then putting it all back together. My sister had a job for a while sorting fossils. She’d sit at her microscope all day picking out little petrified critters from the sand they were mixed with. “Sand grain, sand, sand, fossil, sand, fossil, …” Somebody else did the actual counts. ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/26 "2004-07-09T17:39:10Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > \ > [mildly interesting sidenote] > A weird benefit from that job: Here in Texas, pulling 2 RVs is common. We pull a fair-sized camper trailer and a skiboat behind our truck when we head out for the weekend. I’m sure there are others, but so far I’m the only person I’ve encountered who can back BOTH trailers simultaneously into my parking spot. > [/mildly interesting sidenote] That, my friend, is a **skill**. ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/27 "2004-07-09T17:49:41Z")
I have a a number of co-worker colleagues who are paid to fly R/C airplanes professionally. I’m designing a computer system to fly the same R/C airplanes from a flight simulator console… ---
**Author:** ![TroubleAgain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/28 "2004-07-09T17:52:19Z")
> [@Ol'Gaffer](#): > > That, my friend, is a **skill**. 'Specially since a lot of people (me) have a hard time backing up one boat or trailer! ---
**Author:** ![Tikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@Tikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tikki)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/29 "2004-07-09T20:53:21Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > Hey, it’s all good. Pasteurized. well, past his eyes anyway. I once had a job where I sat at a drill press all night reducing pine boards into wood shavings for those bags of potpourri that you see in stores. What a cheeseball company that was! Author Spider Robinson once had a job guarding a sewer opening. He never knew if he was guarding it from something going in or coming out or what. Now that’s got to be the wierdest job ever but easy money, what? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/30 "2004-07-09T21:29:38Z")
So _that’s_ what a hostler does. And I thought it was someone who took care of the horses, or possibly the luggage, at the inn. Although it also sounds like one of those medieval Tolkienish jobs, like sword-cleaner or Orc… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/31 "2004-07-09T21:37:42Z")
> [@TroubleAgain](#): > > 'Specially since a lot of people (me) have a hard time backing up one boat or trailer! ::scuffs toe in the dirt:: Aww, shucks ya’ll. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Stilettos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/fbc32d/32.png) [@Red\_Stilettos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Stilettos)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/32 "2004-07-09T21:41:27Z")
> [@Bill H](#): > > This one guy had the job where every morning, he’d walk through isle after isle of chicken coups with a shopping cart, picking up the dead chickens. This reminds me of the egg sniffers. Eggs that aren’t sold as table eggs get sent off to the broken egg lines. Restaurants, etc. can buy huge bags of broken eggs instead of shelled eggs. Anyway, there are giant room-size machines that carefully break each egg, removing the top part of the shell. Further down the line, a jet of air is blown across the broken egg and into the face of the egg sniffer. It’s her job to detect the rotten ones and eject them from the line. It’s almost always a woman (better sense of smell). The eggs go by at some insanely high rate like 50-100 per _second_ and the machines have to be calibrated to each woman’s response time. FTR, I never had this job (thank Og), but I was studing a way to mechanize the process. Also, I had a friend who worked for a pest control company. It was his job to sit in a room with thousands of roaches, ants, insect-of-the-day and count how many went to each type of bait. And he liked it! :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/33 "2004-07-09T22:01:27Z")
I am an Aerial Photographic Laboratory Technician. Aerial Photography is used for surveying & map making, & it’s easier than doing it from the ground. I develop the photos, from 8"x8" negatives. Also, we have an entire room that is a camera. ---
**Author:** ![Cerowyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/34 "2004-07-09T22:19:37Z")
> [@ccwaterback](#): > > - Install and maintain buoys in Florida. His job was basically to dive and weld, not too things that go together well. 😕 A not-uncommon trade in the Navy, at the very least. And every shipyard in the world has several underwater welders. My cousin was one!! ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/35 "2004-07-09T22:25:04Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > Also, we have an entire room that is a camera. But _all_ rooms are cameras. [/word nerd] ---
**Author:** ![Cerowyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/36 "2004-07-09T22:29:58Z")
I have a friend who identifies individual salamanders for a city in Texas. These are critters removed from water systems, and released elsewhere. They suspect that the beasties are somehow gettin’ back into the system, so they want to find out if they’re removing the same individuals multiple times. ---
**Author:** ![Emilio\_Lizardo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Emilio\_Lizardo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emilio_Lizardo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/37 "2004-07-09T23:53:46Z")
I worked for a few years as a market reporter for a commodities exchange. I stood in the “pit” listening to the traders. When the trading price changed I would report it via walkie-talkie to my counterpart stationed at a computer terminal. Now I design and build physics demonstrations for a large university. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/38 "2004-07-10T02:25:50Z")
> [@brachyrhynchos](#): > > I catch birds and let them go. \*\*Colibri \*\* does that too, so there’s at least two us. Maybe it’s not so unusual. That isn’t the oddest job in biology I’ve had. I spent one summer working for an environmental consulting firm in Colorado, doing impact assessments for oil-shale projects and evaluating the productivity of the grasslands they were going to destroy. At the beginning of the summer we set out meter-square wire-mesh cages to prevent cattle from grazing plots. Later that summer we would come back and clip all the vegetation, sort it by species, and weigh it. I got good at sorting out a dozen species of grass by the stems alone. I spent another couple summers as a field assistant measuring flower nectar production in studies on hummingbird ecology in Trinidad and California. I’ve also worked as a botanical artist in Madagascar for a couple of months. But the job I really enjoy mentioning to people about is the two years I spent as an exhibitionist\* on the National Mall in Washington D.C. \*I worked on various exhibitions for the Smithsonian and other organizations. ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/39 "2004-07-10T02:45:40Z")
A friend of mine worked rehabbing apartments in the housing projects of Chicago. Before he went into work he had to tape the bottom of his pants around his boots to keep the roaches and mice from running up his legs. He also carried a loaded pistol in his work belt to protect himself from the homeboys. ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159/40 "2004-07-10T11:03:58Z")
> [@Tikki](#): > > Author Spider Robinson once had a job guarding a sewer opening. He never knew if he was guarding it from something going in or coming out or what. Maybe he was guarding it to keep clowns from coming out of it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-jobs/254159.md?page=3)