What's the most unique job you've ever had?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Now that must have taken finesse.

Each frame of 35mm film has four sprocket holes in it, so if you randomly feed film into the projector you will have a 1 in 4 chance of the picture being framed correctly. I suppose he would probably have put framed leader on both ends of each reel to make sure he could nail it.

One of the challenges when a film breaks is that you need to make the splice on a frame line, and you must take out whole frames, or you will end up with a film that starts out in frame and then jumps off by one sprocket somewhere in the middle.
With traditional non-Cinemascope films there were big black bars between the frames, making it easy to find where to cut. With Cinemascope, they filled the entire frame with an anamorphic image, often times without even a hint of a frame line. So, if the film broke during a night scene, you might have to unreel twenty or thirty feet of film before you found a scene that showed the line well enough to frame correctly. Fortunately, once found, we had a little gadget that worked kind of like a surveyor’s measuring wheel that would roll along the film allowing us to find the correct spot closer to where the film broke.

42

There’s a dirty joke in here somewhere, but I just can’t find it…

43

My first one as a child ventriloquist.

Things have not gotten much less weird.

Currently, I do a one-man 9 camera concert video shoot. I also webcast funerals.

44

Webcast funerals? Is there a big market for that? It makes sense, but I’ve never thought about it.

45

Most unique job?

That would have to be my job as ring announcer for a pro wrestling promotion. It’s not my main source of income, but I still do it to this day.

46

I started doing it when I brother-in-law died of ALS. He was very close to one of his nieces. She was in the Army in Germany, but they didn’t consider an uncle close enough to get leave to attend his funeral. So I webcast the whole memorial service. I archived it, and it’s been watched more than 120 times. I suspect most of those were by my sister. It’s understandable - here’s all her family and friends talking about what a wonderful guy her beloved husband had been.

I did it again when a friend’s husband died of a stroke at 55. His mass was in Kansas City, and his mother in Boston was too frail to travel and she watched the web stream.

47

In one job I had to measure the surface area of businesses. I would print off a map that contained the borders of plots of land, then drive out to see which company owned that plot of land. Then I’d measure it - on a computer back at the office - to find the surface area, so the water company could charge the business for rainwater collection and water supply separately. Not really that odd, although driving around all day and noting down company names on a map was not as boring as it sounds, as I could take breaks whenever and wherever I liked.

48

(A little of-topic, but: )
This sounds bizarre. Driving around to read the sign on the building was the only way to know?
Doesn’t the local government have tax records or land deeds showing property ownership? Even in the days before computers, there had to be some kind of legal documentation on file in one central office.

49

This is pretty tame compared to some of these, but I spent 4 months flying Taiwanese & occasionally Hong Kong-based tourists around inside the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

I’ve written about some of the downsides before. Like here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13558183&postcount=2, here http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14539729&postcount=24, and especially herehttp://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18502223&postcount=104.

Other than that, and excluding the military, I’ve had a pretty tame occupational life.

50

I worked one summer at a methadone clinic. One of my duties was to watch heroin addicts (male and female) pee into a cup through a 2-way mirror.

I know what you’re thinking, but, no, it wasn’t as sexy as it sounds.

51

I did some small contracts to build websites for extra money back in the late 90’s, when people started to need them. Making one for a Pimp and his girls was the most interesting.

I also had one “job” where I made 1200 bucks in five minutes. One of my friends was working for a company that thinking of a new system and had a couple options. He asked me my opinion on a oracle solution and I told him is wasn’t feasible. the next Day I went into his office as an Oracle Consultant. The big boss asked me the same thing, and I said the same thing. I was expecting them to grill me with questions, or request a detailed writeup, but nope. They just said, okay, we’ll go to plan B, thanks for your time.

52

**What’s the most unique job you’ve ever had?

**This would be unlikely to happen today: When I was wrapping up junior high, without consulting my parents, I took a job with a man who would come to my house and pick me up in his white box truck. We would drive to a warehouse on the west side of Chicago, where a couple of fellas would fill the truck with packages. We would spend the day driving to banks in the suburbs where the packages were unloaded. When we were done, he would pay me cash, and drop me off in my driveway.
Contained in the packages were:

Toasters and crap like that. Prizes that the banks would give away for things like opening a checking account or what have you.

53

I have been an office assistant at a criminal law office. That lasted about 6 months. I was a farmer for 3 days. I was a bodyguard for about 2 weeks. I worked for delivery service 1 day. I worked at a model agency for 2 days. I basically tried this & that, anything I could get my hands on. The thing is that, if you can get a job easily, you tend to not like that job. Not the job itself but the employer.

54

Would that be Ala Wai Harbor (which incidentally was where Gilligan and crew set sail from on that three-hour tour)?

And did we see you often in Aaxtion? :smiley:

55

Armadillo wrangler in a leprosy research lab.

56

Well, in the mid 1980s, I was a Technical Manager for a major television network, and I got to supervise the main power re-wiring of their NYC Broadcast Center (from which most the network shows, but especially the nightly news) emanated. Including the satellite up-links that feed the mountain and western zones.

So, with an incredibly detailed plan including an incredibly detailed back-up and rescue plan, at 11:30 on Friday night ET, we’d turn off the main Con Ed power. Very, very big switches. Then Con Ed guys, working on insulated ladders standing in a bit of old rainwater in the “power vault” just outside the front wall, would disconnect the bus bars that supplied 3-phase 1500 amps power to the building. They used insulated wrenches and insulated tongs.

Overnight, inside, we’d hook up newly installed wiring and transformers ( BIIIIG transformers) and reconnect stuff, and about 6 am, the Con Ed guys would re-connect the bus bars. And we’d throw the big master disconnect/connect switch inside. BZZZZAPPPP! (There’s an arc. Switch has springs that assist the throw-over so it takes as short a time as possible, but you appreciate that large current requires large contacts.) And if everything worked okay, the kiddies would get to see the Saturday morning cartoons. We never missed.

Also got to install two new 750 KW generators to replace the old 250 KW single generator.

When there was a power outage in NYC in, let’s see, 2003?–“my” network center was off the air for all of about ten minutes. The time it took to bring the generators up to speed, and throw the transfer switches in the order specified by me on a really clear set of placards. ( “First, disconnect A. Verify that the A switch is in the off position. Take your hand off the A switch. Then, close the B switch.”).

As you can likely tell by my user name, I’m female. I was the only female in the planning and coordination meetings. One of my maternal great-uncles, who designed the turbines in the Tennessee Valley Authority, later went on to accomplish the rural electrification of Korea. I used to carry his mini slide rule with me when I had to do meetings with 14 initially skeptical men. It gave me enough confidence to speak.

I haven’t done this kind of stuff since 1989. Just a little electronics stuff here at the house these days. I kind of miss it.

57

When I first joined this board, I was a professional stand-up comedian.

58

My SIL has done that off and on for a number of years. Her job is contracted, and she’s paid by the hour while she’s signed onto the website, for the duration of the contract.

Otherwise, I really don’t have much to contribute to this thread.

59

I was a computer programmer for the US Air Force. I wrote software in COBOL and FORTRAN to count Air Force vehicles and keep track of their maintenance. They also wanted me to write code to keep track of nuclear weapons, but I had a decent supervisor who took my reluctance in stride and didn’t force me to do that.

I was also a short-term employee of the Census department. I didn’t count people, my job was to make sure that all of the homes in the census district really had people in them, so other people could go and count who lived there.

60

Other direction – Kewalo Basin, at the other end of Ala Moana Park. The dolphin lab is in a newer and bigger facility now, but that’s where it used to be. You will see the place mentioned in this article. (Although I don’t recognize any of the peoples’ names mentioned there.)

One evening, just for grins, one of the trainers taught one of the dolphins to twirl a frisbee on the end of its snout. Apparently, the dolphin thought that was a gas, and spent most of the night twirling a frisbee. By the next day, the other dolphin had picked up on it too. For the next week, they both spent all their free time twirling frisbees. The frisbees weren’t all the same size. After a while, they figured out to put the smaller frisbee inside the larger frisbee and twirl both of them at once.

The tank has a constant flow of filtered sea water coming in, and the drain at the bottom of the tank was constantly open. We had to keep the pump adjusted to pump water into the tank at the same rate that it was draining out. One of the dolphins games was to put a frisbee over the drain, so the tank would fill up to brim full and overflow onto the deck. Then they would swim around the perimeter of the tank at full speed, creating huge waves that sloshed out over the top. We had to cut holes in the frisbees to stop that.