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There are so many possibilities and opportunities for our careers that it’s really hard to just decide in one day what we want to do for the rest of our lives. Thus most of us have to go through many or a couple small jobs or internships to find out what we like to do, what we don’t like, to get some experience or just to earn our own money.
You know the saying that every job is a good job, because no matter how ridiculous it may sound, each of them teaches you something. However, sometimes these jobs may surprise you with their… weirdness. About that, one Reddit user recently posed a question online asking folks to share their weirdest job that they have ever had. So scroll through and enjoy, as they vary from stand-in boyfriend at festivals to professional shoplifter.
More info: Reddit
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#1
I used to live down the road from a cabaret club in Japan - like a place where you paid to drink with girls and talk to them, basically. Not overtly sexual but if the cabaret girl was willing it could be. I used to stay up late back then so often bumped into them coming back from work around 2-3am. Some of them were basically my neighbors and I offered some supper once. They rarely ate properly if at all and drank too much at work so they took to the supper with the type of gusto you only get when you're drunk-peckish.
I guess they liked my cooking. And I was a decent listener I suppose, so they hung around more and more and got guilty about eating too much of my food.
That turned into me getting this weird gig where I got paid to essentially make food for 5-6 cabaret girls per night and let them drink bottled tea and b***h about their clients till they sobered up. Sometimes they puked or had to crash at mine because they were too wasted; if that happened they often paid me a bit more out of embarassment despite me insisting they didn't have to. Some of them made BANK. 10k to 15k USD per month on average. I was paid like 40 per head so could make 200 per night in cash usually. Did that 2-3 days a week while I was living in Japan. Weird but really not all that bad and supplemented my living costs nicely.
At the end of the day, they just wanted someone to talk to after a long day and homemade food to come back to.
liam newton-harding 1 year ago
“The Great Happiness Space”. A very interesting documentary about Host Clubs. The hosts have a very short working life, because the amount they have to drink f***s up their bodies. The successful ones do not sleep with the guests, because the guests then stop coming back, because they got what they want, and the Host Clubs feed the female sex industry because women spend so much in these clubs they have to get into sex work themselves to pay for their…addiction. Fascinating, and sad.
rullyman 1 year ago
Yeah it's an odd choice. There are plenty of Japanese cabaret posters a signs up that they could have gotten a stock photo of
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liam newton-harding 1 year ago
Watch, “Million Yen Women”. Five women move into Shin’s house, each paying him 1,000,000 Yen per month. He doesn’t know them, and for the deal to continue he is forbidden from asking about their pasts.
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RELATED:
#2
One of my friend's aunt works as a professional shoplifter 😀
Her work is to go into shops and try to shoplift. Later they analyize the act and discuss it with management how to avoid it, what training could the employees go through or what security systems could help them prevent.
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
Hopefully never crash tackled by genuine customers when caught in the act
Historyharlot93 1 year ago
In a lot of American cities, you can steal anything you can get your hands on and staff is told to do nothing. The police do nothing either. Unless you steal more than $950, shoplifting is considered a misdemeanor and a slap on the wrist.
Alie de Hek 1 year ago
I could be a perfect shoplifter! Never done that but I leave books to find without noticing. Never got caught.
Lara Verne 1 year ago
Sounds like interesting job. I'm not saying that anyone should shoplift - i am retail worker and my job include preventing shoplifting.
#3
I was a stand-in boyfriend for girls to take home during festival periods. Just so the girl don’t have to deal with the parents / grandparents grilling them for being single / leftover woman.
Was a fun gig, I got free food, meet some nice and interesting people. Stopped now that I’m married but my wife still wants to [sell] me out for that extra $ LOL
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
It's guess the BP euphemism time. My guess is that "[sell]" is the replacement for "pimp"
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
My circle of friends/acquaintances included a lot of gay men, and I was their beard for certain events back when it wasn't safe in many areas to be overt. Didn't get paid, but did have access to great food and entertainment venues.
A B C the Third 1 year ago
Oh wow. The original post said "my wife still wants to PIMP me out". BP, why don't you just censor EVERYTHING?
#4
Making glockenspiels. I still have that amazing and weird job
Karl der Große 1 year ago
I always wondered if they file these down to tune them, or if they cut the pieces so precisely that they are essentially automatically tuned.
3 Trash Pandas (She/They) 1 year ago
I remember always choosing the glockenspiel when we used percussion instruments in my elementary school music class because it was to small to share with another kid and I was very antisocial
#5
Took a job mowing grass at the town graveyard. I was 20 at the time. Oddly enough certain parts of the graveyard had a….weight or feeling - some parts felt light, welcoming and peaceful; other areas felt dark, depressing and heavy. I remember not liking to mow certain areas or tombstones. It was definitely an interesting job and one I’m glad I experienced.
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
At least the occupants wouldn't complain about the noise if it was being done early in the morning
Basko 1 year ago
This lawnmower can wake the dead. No, it cannot, I've tested it.
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The Darkest Timeline 1 year ago
I imagine it happens elsewhere but near where my in-laws live (in a very rural area), there is a small graveyard that dates back to the mid 1800s. At some point, someone was mowing the grass and decided to move the headstones to make it easier. They, of course, forgot where each headstone went.
#6
When studying a year abroad in China, I was paid to attend a conference on petrol/chemical developments to make it look more international. Basically listened two days to stuff I did not understand in a cheap suit in a random Chinese industrial city.
Zaphod 1 year ago
When I was in Singapore and they had a white guy dressed up like a Ken doll from Barbie. He was being used as a prop. He was standing in front of a department store in the mall by the "super trees" garden. He looked really bummed out when I laughed at him. That was d*ckish of me, but I was still drinking back then.
#7
Underwater videographer for a National Geographic documentary shoot on Tiger Sharks.
There were always two of us underwater for the filming. One with the camera and the other one just behind and above with a long aluminium pole with a crossbar on the end. We called it 'the Defender Pole'.
If any shark came too close (these were some very large sharks) to the cameraman, you'd give it a gentle boop on the snoot with 'The Defender Pole'.
Fun times
EDIT: Thanks for all the updoots, comments and interest.
Some further background on the Tiger Shark doco - it was headed by a guy named Greg Marshall, who invented a device called "Crittercam" to attach to wildlife such as sharks, turtles, lions and stuff. He was the Nat Geo producer, and along with the amazing Birgit Buhleier, headed the documentary project.
Monkey Mia in Shark Bay, Western Australia is a very remote beach resort famous for the wild dolphin population which comes in close to the beach most days. The greater Shark Bay area is home to a huge & diverse range of marine life - including a s**tload of sharks of course.
There is a resident group of international scientists who come from all over the world to study there (dolphins, sharks, turtles). One of the PhD candidates was studying Tiger Sharks (Mike Heithaus) and Nat Geo teamed up with him to film his research as part of the documentary storyline - including putting Crittercams on the dorsal fins of the sharks to see what they did in their natural habitat. The sharks would be temporarily caught on static lines, then measured, blood samples taken etc - and then the Cam would be temporarily attached to the fin.
A lot of our filming work was to be underwater during the catch and release stage - Ian Kellett (the Head Cinematographer and great friend from then on) & myself, one of us filming, the other on Boop Snoot duties with The Defender Pole as the shark swam away. The Crittercam would automatically release after some hours, we would retrieve the device and they would study the footage. It was fascinating af
Natalie Kelsey 1 year ago
I want to boop snoots! I love marine life. My literal middle name is Marine. This sounds like the best job in the world
Five Years 1 year ago
About National Geographic Videographer. I was tending a water drop tank on the King Fire in Northern California when a van pulled up at the station. Some guys got out with cameras and tripods and whatnot, said they were National Geographic here to film the fire and started heading up the trail. Hey, you can't go up there without nomex clothes I said. They left.
#8
I was a Fortune Cookie Writer.
I had a Chinese translator who used to write my quotes in Chinese on the other side.
LizzieBoredom 1 year ago
Your Side: You will have good luck today. Chinese Translator Side: Please dear God just shoot me now.
WindySwede 1 year ago
Copied your last sentence, and put it into "lost in translator" 50 times. got this in return: 'Lord, sing for me now!' 😅
Load More Replies... Karl der Große 1 year ago
When I was about 10 or 11, I got a fortune cookie that said, "Something scary will happen to you." I was freaking out for a while, but nothing scary happened. Finally my brother pointed out that reading that fortune was probably the scary thing. A self-fulfilling prophecy.
Amanda Hunter 1 year ago
My teenage son's friend once had one that said "you will one day be miss America"
#9
Delivering beverage ice to a nudists retreat. People are not attractive...
Alecto76 1 year ago
That is likely because the only nudes we see regularly are the ones someone has deemed perfect. If we were to see all different kinds of people of all ages, etc...the standard of "attractiveness" would likely be much more realistic. So let's all get naked - for the greater good!
LH25 1 year ago
I read once that the people you see naked aren't usually those you might want to.
Awesome At Being Autistic 1 year ago
Yep, you never get to see naked who you want to see naked.
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#10
I once asked a guy what he did for work and he told me he 'drove a granny stripper'. I assumed this was slang for some road building or agricultural machinery, but nope... He was the driver for a 70 year old stripper.
Natalie Kelsey 1 year ago
My sister's mother-in-law is a stripper in her 50s. She constantly gets presents and food and jewelry and money from random men and her regulars as well. She must be really, really good at dancing because she is not pretty or nice
Donna Peluda 1 year ago
I did that, not for a granny, younger girls. I'd drive them to local discos where they did their shows. Normally two songs, 8~10 min. As she undressed she would try to this throw her clothes in my direction . When she finished, as she left the dance floor I would step forward with a robe an escort her back to the changing room.
#11
I was 14-15 and a the mom of a friend was a cook in a diplomatic residence. She told me that they were looking for a responsible guy to be a valet. Since it was about to be new year's eve I assumed it was just for the party and showed up. Hired on the spot and went to work. All went well and in the morning the head of the staff told me that I had January 1st free, but I was expected the next day at 6AM and that they would have a new uniform for me. I realized then it was not a one time gig, and kept my mouth shut because the money was good.
I did wonder how many cars would enter everyday to a residence that they needed a fulltime valet. The answer was two. At most. It was the most boring job ever. I even offered to help around the house or the garden and I was immediately and drastically reprimanded by the head of staff, which left me confused at the moment. I later realized it was because all the staff had just the one job with one task and they were also making bank, so they wanted to preserve the status quo.
SM 1 year ago
Not me, the worst jobs I have ever had were the ones that I did pretty much nothing. One alternate definition of hell for me is living forever with nothing to do.
Load More Replies... Natalie Kelsey 1 year ago
Maybe was also a safety thing? If you are off doing something else you can't accept or reject a person driving up to the residence unexpectedly
Anh Aline Vuo 1 year ago
14-15... and didn't have to go to school anymore? Were you even allowed to work full-time? Cuz it sounds like it was a full-time job.
Paul Scheermeijer 1 year ago
Valet at 14 / 15 .. cars.. ? You would drive /park those I assume. Without license I guess
Papa 1 year ago
As long as you don't go on public roads you don't need a license.
Load More Replies... #12
I worked as Night Auditor in a hotel. Was getting ready to put out breakfast around 4am one morning and had a windex spray bottle in one hand and a small towel in the other, for cleaning the sneeze guards. Someone came down the stairs behind me and said "Excuse me?" When I turned around there was a large man a few steps away moving toward me without a stitch of clothes on. I instinctively raised the windex bottle and towel like a gun and shield. As if that was going to do anything. He put his hand up as if to signal "don't shoot". I laughed and he laughed. He said he was locked out of his room because he forgot his key. I asked him if he had a piece of ID on him. Of course, I could see he didn't... Somehow we managed to wake someone up in his room who could vouch for him. Surprisingly enough, it turned out rather innocent. Of course intoxicants were involved. Best part is my manager gave me security video from that night so I have a VHS of the whole thing.
#13
I used to work for the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, Weights and Measures Division— I was in charge of making sure all rulers were exactly 12 inches long.
Charlie the Cat 1 year ago
Serious question. Did you use bananas as a measuring device to check this? 🍌
Hugh Cookson 1 year ago
A long time ago, a friend of mine who was a very good carpenter, told me about a young lad that his company had employed who consistently got his measurements wrong and wondered why despite being closely monitored ..... Turned out, he'd somehow managed to cut into the first 1 or 2 cms (ish) of his tape measure so had cut it off completely the re attached the 'tongue' end somehow. It never occurred to him that this might affect any sort of measurement ....... It took 6 months for someone to discover this. Thankfully the boy left and joined the Army, hopefully he had nothing mathematical to do ....
liam newton-harding 1 year ago
I bought 60 wooden rulers from China (ridiculously low price, and use them for displaying books, they give good support, and stop the books deforming when rested on the rulers). I was curious about the accuracy. 3/4 of an inch, across all 60. The physical rulers were all the same length…the marked “measurements”…not so much.
SM 1 year ago
Wow, I have always wondered about the accuracy of some of these, but to be off by 1/4 of an inch (.635 centimeters for the metrics folks) is quite a lot.
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Jeff White 1 year ago
I have a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry. This was pretty much my dream job.
SM 1 year ago (edited)
It is interesting to note that of the three rulers above shown, only one has inches on it, and it also has centimeters (which BTW is a pretty standard practice, because in fact the US uses both). It seems to me that Americans are much more flexible than other countries. We have no problem with using Imperial, metric, bananas, washing machines, beer cans, you name it, but other countries only seem to be able to use metric (and sometimes bananas). I guess they only learned how to divide by ten. 🤣
David Paterson 1 year ago (edited)
At NIST (in all countries) they take accuracy very seriously. Adding the weight of a fingerprint to a standard kilogram weight would be a disaster; has to be kept under an inert atmosphere at low temperature to avoid corrosion. A second has to be measured using the hyperfine transition frequency of Caesium. Can you imagine counting exactly 9192631770 cycles of vibration of a laser to get the length of a second.
Forrest Hobbs 1 year ago
The standard kilograms (1889-2019) were made of a hard, chemically inert alloy of platinum and iridium so they could be stored in air at atmospheric pressure, under nested bell jars to keep contaminants away. In 2018, the kilogram was redefined in terms of fundamental physical constants (effective 2019). The old standard kilogram masses were retired and national standards agencies now use an electrical method to provide a definitive kilogram reference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram#Redefinition_based_on_fundamental_constants
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Peter Trudell Jr 1 year ago
Sorry folks, a rogue Metrician infiltrated us. The latest shipments have all been 13.12 inches long!
SM 1 year ago
The whole Subway not 12 inches bit, is a farce. A guy that worked there explained that they get a standardized lump of dough which they then stretch and bake. Depending on how "careful" they are that might be 12 inches, or it might be some other amount, but it is always the same amount of dough.
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Robert Millar 1 year ago
Well the one on the right has a small defect at the start that will make every measurement wrong. (Measured from the start, that is.)
Forrest Hobbs 1 year ago
Which is why I was always taught never to trust the zero point on any ruler - if you want accurate, you line up your start point on 1cm (or whatever) and take it from there.
Load More Replies... #14
Worked on a public health research project going out to bars and clubs at 1am, chatting to the patrons and asking to do saliva [substance] tests and breath tests. When people realised I wasn’t a cop they’d get all their friends to join in and see who could get the “highest score” on the breathalyser. Had a lot of people swear at me, and quite a few hit on me. Was super weird, but heaps of fun.
Gregg Bender 1 year ago
Depending on how inebriated they were, that also might have been accomplished.
Load More Replies... #15
As a teen I counted the coins in kiddy rides and public phones. No machine to help me, just a 15 year old lugging around sacks of coins and then counting them by hand in a spare office.
I was also a mascot in various animal costumes at shopping centres and sporting events.
And I would sometimes work as the mascot minder - your job is to stop kids from kicking the mascot in the groin or ripping off the costume head. You learn to spot the evil kids and cut them off at the pass, intercept the blow and apply a painful (but non obvious) grip to convince them to bugger off.
Dorothy Kernaghan-Baez 1 year ago
My son had a job as a teenager with a local home improvement company where he dressed ùp as a cartoon window at local events. I was shocked and amazed at how often kids would randomly come up and kick him.
David Paterson 1 year ago
A friend was a mascot at a major amusement park. Thankfully he was well padded. His partner Wile E Coyote had to wear a skintight suit and was covered in new bruises at the end of each day from being punched and kicked by the kids. This was many years ago. A mascot minder would have been great.
MacintoshID 1 year ago
Would love to hear stories about the worst of the worst in evil kids and then an eval of the parents. Bet ever single one of the evil kids has a parent who claims they are just the nicest and kindest kid to everyone, or they have a phobia about large stuffed animals that come to life.
#16
I was the guy who scraped ice smooth on a bobsled track. Weirdly fun job actually
Sian Edwards 1 year ago
The Cool Runnings sequel we didn't know we needed!
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#17
I worked in a place that made prescription orthopedic insoles. You would get plaster molds of feet from the doctor, clean them up, and then mold an insole for the patient. I mostly did finishing stuff and cleanup. Entry level stuff. The craziest part was that the molds were considered medical records, so you had to keep them on hand for six months. So we just had shelves and shelves of plaster feet molds, and every day you would go to the shelf from six months and a day old and throw away a bunch of feet.
JB 1 year ago
Not sure why it’s considered “crazy” to retain personalized molds of feet for people who have identifiable issues as medical records. Dentists retain casts of your teeth before and after orthodontist work. Doctors/hospitals retain X-rays. If whatever it is identifies you as an individual and shows medical information, by definition, it’s a medical record.
Jane Doe 1 year ago
especially when the insoles cost $300-400 dollars and you have to have them made at the podiatrist’s office. If there were any problems with them, it was a big deal.
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liam newton-harding 1 year ago
There was a great Anthony Bourdain episode, when he was in London, and getting fitted for a suit, and a pair of hand made shoes. The gentleman at the shoe store was showing him the wooden forms they carve from measurements from you feet…a wall of wooden feet they keep, for the next time you want a pair of shoes…the gentleman reaches up, takes down a random pair of forms, a slip of paper attached to them, “Oh, this gentleman never paid his bill!…That’s okay, it’s from the 1800’s”.
MacintoshID 1 year ago
I had orthopedic insoles made for me and thought they were a waste of money since they did not help in any way. Went to see the son of the first older doctor and told him this, not fully knowing that it was his father. When he told me that he would have a word with this first doctor, I must have had a very odd look on my face because he than told me that they were related. It wasn't more than 3-4 weeks and the older doctor retired. When I had my follow-up appt with doctor 2, he apologized for his father's poor work since I did not need insoles that cost me hundreds of dollars, but surgery to fix two bone spurs when I was ready to have it done.
#18
I was the shop hand at a smalltime auto body shop for the better part of last year. The boss just had me do his errands when there was nothing for me to do around the shop.
I’d drive into the city and pick up his prescriptions. Pick up his booze, misc groceries, water softener, stuff like that. He got me to clean his BBQ once. Pull weeds from his man made beach which surrounded a pond he had that he had on his property. Cut his grass. The guy was loaded and he paid me well for what he had me doing. But it was just such a funny job, my boss was quite the character too. Just an old drunk, but a sweetheart.
Edit: also I think the reason he got me to do all this running around for him was because he would drink all day in the office. He would try to hide it but we all knew.
Hugh Cookson 1 year ago
Fair enough. If life gives you lemons, put them into Gin and Tonic and numb the boredom away. He might have had unrequited dreams but was forced by necessity to do manual stuff ... good for him, and you for being good people.
Minimal Effort 1 year ago
The majority of the world is 18 to buy alcohol.
Load More Replies... #19
I worked for a very wealthy guy for several months in my 20s. Five times a week I showed up at the office that was set up just for me to use, sometimes went out with him to try new restaurants, worked on his new ventures, went to auctions, amusement parks, did random things he had in his mind that day. He usually carried stases of cash, probably at least 30-50k worth, for him to spend on that evening for entertainment, like hanging out with beautiful women.
I think he kept me around to kill his boredom and loneliness but mainly because I never cared for his money and was able to hold intelligent conversations. He was a classy guy in his 60s and treated me with respect. I left because I decided to go back to school but my mom who introduced me to this guy kept in touch for a while.
Gregg Bender 1 year ago
That was my thought. And OP did a good job at it.
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Max Fox 1 year ago (edited)
That was actually Darwin's job on the Beagle. They had an official Naturalist - Darwin was hired to be the Captain's (Fitzroy) friend, since the trip would take years, and the captain cannot fraternize with the crew or the other officers. The Captain was worried that being alone for that long would result in him going insane, because he had a family history of mental illness
David Paterson 1 year ago (edited)
OMG yes. That makes perfect sense, and Darwin had his own servant on the voyage, too. At that age, Darwin was just a failed doctor, failed parson, and former assistant in the cataloguing of marine invertebrates.
Load More Replies... #20
Worked as a private engineer to a rich family in Portugal. I maintained they're mansion and two super yachts. They paid me good money but after years of being woken up in the night to change their bedroom AC up or down one degree I felt like more of a slave than a highly trained engineer so I quit and now work as a Hydraulic engineer in the super yacht industry.
Chewie Baron 1 year ago
He’s probably Portuguese, not a native English speaker. So calm down maybe?
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#21
I used to work on a bar strip in a popular city. I would dress up as a pizza slice, sing songs, beatbox, dance, take pictures, and sell pizza to drunk people. It was awesome.
Dragon mama 1 year ago
Sounds like torture to me, but I'm glad you enjoyed it. Sounds like you helped a lot of people have fun and that's awesome.
#22
I spent the summer of 2005 working a night shift as a writer/editor on the tv series Big Brother.
Very strange. I felt like Ed Harris in the Truman Show. But the best thing was, we were all at desks on the big sound stage at Elstree Studios, where films like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark were made.
Under my desk in yellow chalk, it said GOTHAM CITY WEST as they’d just finished filming a Batman film there.
Papa 1 year ago
What??!!! Do you mean to tell me that reality shows need writers? I'm shocked.
Andrew Bridge 1 year ago
Worse than that, I've seen some of the people on there and it's more amazing that they can learn lines
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#23
I once got paid to give out free samples of coffee at a gas station. I got there at 5am to be given this huge backpack with a giant container of coffee in it, and it had an air compressed nozzle that I would use to spray coffee into sample size cups.
I was told to approach anyone pumping gas and give them one and it was a disaster. The air pressure was too much so the coffee would blast out every time and get all over my clothes. I kept burning myself as a result. It was a heatwave so no one really wanted them anyways and people laughed in my face. Multiple people also told me I should have gone to college, which I was. This was just part of a summer job before my senior year.
It was humiliating and I never went back.
#24
I posed nude for a photographer lady a few times. I felt pretty awkward, but hey, 100 euros is 100 euros. I needed the money, badly
detective miller's hat 1 year ago
When I was in art school, a lot of us poor art students posed nude for drawing and painting classes for extra $$. It was definitely weird at first, but after the first time, it was just a normal part of art school and you stopped caring about the fact that all your classmates have seen you naked.
Lee Banks 1 year ago
I spent a summer doing nude modeling. Got the job because of a random conversation about having done ballet. Every Wednesday I'd get up at six am, and ride my bike to the teacher's house. From there, I'd strip down, put on my pointe shoes, and six to seven elderly women would paint my portrait. Not one of them ever included my tattoos. Lost the job after the day they let me pick the music. Didn't expect Billie Holiday to go down so hard.
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
When I was in college, I made a butt-load of money as a nude model for a few aspiring photographers. Many were displayed in local art galleries, but where others ended up is unknown. A couple photographers made extra copies for me to keep.
martin734 1 year ago
I did this at university. I was 19 and posed nude for a friend who was doing a photography degree. I didn't get paid for that shoot but I really enjoyed it and ended up working as a nude model for various photographers, photography clubs and art clubs. I got paid very well for doing it.
Marjorie Macrae 1 year ago
As an art student we would have life drawing once a week, we never really seen the person posing just separate parts and shapes.
Michael Largey 1 year ago
Face it. There are some guys would have paid the hundred euros to pose nude in front of her.
#25
I'm going to spin 'weird' here a bit.
The summer before my last year of college I worked at a moving company in a southern city where my two crew members were Julio and Sanchez. They always spoke Spanish to each other but once they saw I could pull my weight they would start including me in their conversations.
Man! Those summers got up to the high 90s and we were moving some heavy s**t, I mean like grand pianos up two stories. Julio and Sanchez were my guardians that summer and they were making $7.25 an hour...
Before that summer I was stressed about finishing my degree and getting a job - I felt like I had a new lease on life after that experience. I finished my degree and found a job after going through that.
I'm not saying everyone needs that kick in the butt, but it worked for me.
#26
I was once a mall Santa. The problem is I am 5’4 and at the time weighed around 135 lbs so they had to stack a bunch of extra pillows. Someone I work with took a picture and I brought it home for my mom who puts it up on the fridge every year for Christmas…she says I look like Santa with advanced stage colon cancer.
HolyDiver 1 year ago
As a stage 3 colon cancer survivor, I find this post offensive!... Not really, because I'm an adult with a sense of humor. Still cancer free after 4 years though so yay!
Papa 1 year ago
Congratulations on beating cancer, and having a sense of humor.
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Jennifer Johnson 1 year ago
I was 1 of the elves for a mall Santa. If people wanted an elf in their photos, I was the one volunteered. 1 year Santa posed on motorcycles and snowmobiles. Those were fun photos to be in
#27
When I was a teenager, I got a summer job working at a local "root and herb" production facility. My job was literally just dumping giant sacks of medicinal leaves, usually sassafras, into a giant industrial grinders, then shoveling the powder into a different sack to be sold to overseas markets. The thing was, we'd often have to mix in like anywhere from 20% to 40% filler material, usually some useless plant material, to make more profit because "the Chinese buyers will be none the wiser." The kicker is, the person that owned the business that did blatantly shady practices was also the mayor of the small town. Go figure.
ChickyChicky 1 year ago
This is why when people complain about "Big Pharma" and push herbal remedies, you should be very suspicious. Sure, herbs can work, but the industry is not regulated and you don't know what you're actually getting.
Russ Kincade 1 year ago
Unless you are buying your "herb" from a legal cannabis dispensery. Then you know what you are getting. In California they have to track it from seed to sale.
Load More Replies... FaceTime Audio 1 year ago
You in Utah? Big "alternative medicine" industry there (read: multivitamin health scamming industry).
Riley Quinn 1 year ago
I've never met an honest drug dealer. They all use filler or take a pinch.
#28
Got called in to do repair work occasionally on a fish farm, dived down to the nets (18m deep about 10m diameter) and came up in a circle fixing holes in the net, the holes were caused by sharks trying to get in. The nets were full of metre long fish (barramundi) which constantly bumped into me. Then all the fish got some sort of disease and their scales started rotting so basically the entire stock died. They called myself and afew colleagues in to come and remove all the dead fish. The nets with all the dead fish were too heavy to be pulled up so we had to go down and scoop dead fish into nets which were then raised by a crane and dumped on a barge. The fish bones went through the wetsuit like hypodermic needles and I stunk like all hell for a fortnight. We scooped like half the fish into smaller nets reducing the weight until they could lift the whole big net out the water. Took us two weeks and I think it was something ridiculous like 20 tonnes or more of fish. But for 200 dollars a day for a fortnight, worth it.
#29
My uncle owns a business and hired me to put stamps on over 10,000 letters. That was tedious and weird. But hey I made $100.
Pa Pa Panda 1 year ago
He never heard of a postage meter? And also did you have a licker license?
Upstaged75 1 year ago
As a teenager I once spent the summer in the file room of my dad's law firm putting color-coded stickers on thousands and thousands of of file folders. It was a never ending task and the most mind-numbingly boring thing I've ever done. I didn't even want to be there. I wanted to be working outside.
Brian Droste 1 year ago
That is not a lot of money. If I figured if out right that is only 1 cent per envelope.
Michael Largey 1 year ago
Assuming you could do one every six seconds, that's $6 an hour. Not a lot.
Load More Replies... Riley Quinn 1 year ago
This brings back memories of volunteer interns sitting around a table with reams of labels they had to put on the stacks of envelopes. One of us would have to keep reminding them to put them on straight because as the chatter grew, so did the haphazard applications.
Celtic Pirate Queen 1 year ago
I worked for a mailing presort house in Seattle. We had several postage meters, but the occasional customer would want the envelopes stamped instead (usually they had printed the addresses in a "friendly" font, meaning it looked like someone's handwriting). It's all done just to make the recipient believe someone PERSONALLY sent them this mail piece.
#30
Taking paper bags full of cash to people no questions asked.
Upstaged75 1 year ago
I suppose jobs that are illegal are still jobs? Someone's gotta do them. ;)
Some guy 1 year ago
Exactly! Just think if illegal things didn't get done!
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Brie Sansotta 1 year ago
But if you got pickpocketed, I bet you had to answer some serious questions!
#31
I once worked for a Seattle cellular startup that installed cell phones in the seat backs of American Airlines planes (this was back when they would not let you use your own). My job was to follow with a plane testing the phones, logging issues, educate flight crew on how they worked and giving free calls to passengers to promote the phones. I would fly all around the world in first class 3-4 days a week.
David Paterson 1 year ago
On one flight I was on, the flight crew didn't know how they worked. So good on you!
#32
In Canada when I was a teenager in the 90's I worked for TransCanada Pipelines for a summer job. It was mostly cleaning stuff and shadowing permanent workers with any help they needed, but for a month during the summer 10 of us student and a permanent employee went out to walk the lines in eastern Ontario. We split in 3 teams of three and we were basically walking over the pipelines with a sniffer to detect leaks. In a team we had one of us in front receiving a magnetic field from the pipelines, followed by another operating the sniffer and lastly someone sending the magnetic pulse so the first one could know where to walk. Pipelines run 3 wide in this area hence why we had such a big team. We were very well payed and our work was totally useless as any leaks would be detected by the helicopter that runs the length of the pipelines every week. Vegetation would quickly die around a leak and it would be obvious, but because the company's insurance got a huge rebate if we walked the lines every summer, it was better for the company to pay us than to have an increase in the insurance policies. I worked there 2 summers, best tan I ever had. TL,DR: I worked as a line walker for a pipeline company. Totally useless aside from lowering insurance policies.
Realistic Optimist 1 year ago (edited)
It's not useless. I would rather they overcheck than under. And, who knows? Maybe the line walks do find something from time to time, but you hear nothing because they found it early.
Max Robitzsch 1 year ago
Sounds like the line walking was done ONCE A YEAR, and the helicopter check once a WEEK. Statistics will tell you what is likely to find more leaks, assuming the poster's comment about leaks being obvious is true, of course.
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#33
As a student I worked as an personal assistant for a guy in a wheelchair. He grew his own [substances], so part of my job was watering his plants and sometimes I helped harvesting and bag them...
Rostit. . 1 year ago
we can but if bored panda doenst want to be blocked in south east asia or parts of europe they cant
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#34
Internship at a sex shop….
Don’t ask me how but my school managed to find a spot in the financial sector at a sex shop.
I kid you not, the lady was the only person working there and she had 4 interns managing the whole business whilst she was maybe a few hours each week at the shop.
At one point she even said f**k it, you guys are managing the shop as well.
We had no idea wtf we were supposed to do.
One time a customer came in and asked us if we could sell some [substances].
We said we don’t sell that here, he went away and we called our boss explaining what happened.
She yelled at us through the phone for not selling him [substances] because apparently she sold [substances].
Note that [substances] are allowed in our country but only to be sold at verified stores.
After that (this was like 1.5/2months into the intern ship and we were supposed to be there for 9 months) we were all like hell no, we ain’t getting paid so we won’t deal with this s**t.
She was unstable as f**k shouting at us if we did something wrong if she was at the office/shop so we left a note on the door that is was closed, locked the door, inform our school and left the f**k out of there.
Lee Banks 1 year ago
Fun thing I learned managing a sex toy/head shop: You aren't allowed to sell paraphernalia to anyone who mentions drugs. Also, if the toy in question requires batteries, you have to test it. (No returns.) Once had a young, very religious couple that had just gotten married, and were super inexperienced. When I told them they could test it out, they were horrified. It took me a moment to realize they thought I meant intimately. I have never been more proud of not laughing.
#35
I used to work for a humane society like organization...but only for cats...and they would raise most of their money by putting on plays...I would drive around and pickup the money for said plays. It was called "Cats Second Chance" Oddly enough I also worked at a youth detention center as..idk a Narc? Lol I sat in my car with a walkie talkie and was to alert security if there was an escapee...however could do nothing to stop said escapee bc we were sub contracted lol...So I'd be like "Ya Tony we got a runner in sector 3...Good luck." The kids used to pretend to shoot me with fake guns and throw fake grenades at my car.
#36
may not be weird from most views, but i worked an inventory job for a while where we’d go into businesses and physically count EVERYTHING on hand. we would handle everything for gas stations, to the Department of National Defence. absolutely wacky the kinds of stuff they’d want counted. at one point mid-covid they drove our team 6+ hours away overnight to count a burned down dollar store... needless to say, not much to count...
M O'Connell 1 year ago
Having exact inventory counts is important. The dollar store gig was probably insurance related, the insurer needed a count of what merchandise was damaged and what wasn't. Even if it was a 100% loss, they needed a contractor to tell them that rather than taking the word of the store owner.
Zaphod 1 year ago
I was happy when they outsourced the inventory in the pharmacy. Counting every pill was tedious. (We still had to count all the drugs in the safe, but we always had to keep a running count on those.)
David Paterson 1 year ago (edited)
You have to count every pill in a pharmacy? No way! At one time I donated several kg of unused drugs to a pharmacy, it never occurred to me that that would muck up the inventory. In another pharmacy they still had drugs out back left over from a time before it became illegal to sell them.
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Laura Mortensen 1 year ago
I worked a few seasons during the holidays at the nearest Macys and one year they had me help with invenory in January. I found an item that looked like it had been on the storage shelf since the 80s when the place was still the Bon Marche.(This was in Seattle) I don't know what they did with it. I don't remember exactally what it was, but I think it was made of glass and might have been a candle holder.
#37
When I was 14-15 I was one of the lead operators of the worlds largest indoor triple loop Rollercoaster… it doesn’t sound like much but the pressure was there
MrsFettesVette 1 year ago
I wonder if this person was working at Mindbender during "the incident".
#38
Years ago I had a one-off job setting up for a bicycle marathon in the Pacific Northwest. Our job was to ride with a promoter to each race checkpoint ahead of the cyclists and help distribute snacks and beverages, as well as dress in silly costumes and encourage the racers. At one point, I dressed up as a sasquatch and ran through a trailer park before falling on my face. Our driver was ferrying us around in a Prius, and had several beers while doing so, which made me decidedly uncomfortable. Overall, it was actually pretty fun for a paid gig.
#39
Used to catch chickens for local farmers. A bunch of high school aged guys and a few older ones would meet by the farmers house at around dark and catch chickens. 3 birds in one hand and 4 in the other. They would get loaded onto a semi truck headed for their last destination. We would move 10,000 birds a night. Afterwards we would go to Dennys for breakfast smelling like s**t. Get out of Dennys, go home and shower then head to school. Did that several times a year for many years. It paid really good back in the day
#40
I once worked for “MS Cleo. California best known tarot card, fortune teller. Found an add on yahoo jobs, applied and I started taking calls
Kate 1 year ago
I did that for a minute. Sucked. I've got an honesty problem that made me a poor fit for the job.
BoredPossum 1 year ago
Same thing here but I worked as a salesman pushing c**p over the phone. I lasted a week.
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 1 year ago
When Ms. Cleo was busted by the state of California, the state attorney general famously said "Ms. Cleo should have seen it coming."
#41
I got paid by my high school to cut up Rocky Mountain Oysters and fry them up with a group of other students for a school fundraiser. I mean it was rad that I made 50 bucks, but then they sold their students, including myself at auction to local businesses. Pretty weird evening.
MrsFettesVette 1 year ago
....except this photo doesn't have anything to do with Rocky Mountain Oysters at all. They have nothing to do with the ocean or shellfish
Jesha 1 year ago
You want a close up of balls you gotta check another site.
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#42
Worked security at CES/AEE one year. $20/h to sit on a stool, wander hallways, check out new gadgets, and look at [adult movie] stars.
What do you think ?
Maryland 1 year ago
Repo girl. I would legally steal vehicles back in a variety of clandestine scenarios.
dayngerkat 1 year ago
A long time ago I was a bouncer/door guy/maintenance guy at a local bar. Every wednesday night, we had to setup an oil wrestling pit. Put out some cushions, a tarp and oil it down. Then some girls would come out in bikinis and wrestle. Watching that was the best part of the job. We also had to put the hotdogs on the that rolling warmer machine. If it didn't sell by the end of the night, we would put it back in the fridge. If my friends ever came to visit me at work, I'd tell them not to get the hotdogs lol
Diolla 1 year ago
I worked as a traffic counter a few times. Just sit next to a road and count the vehicles passing you. Then write down the numbers. Great job. It was easy and we had 1hour on, 2 hours off rotation because you had to focus so much LOL. On a typical day we would work 4 hours and get paid for 12, including overtime.
Octavia Hansen 1 year ago
As a professional studio vocalist, my producer asked if I would do a voice over for a movie. It was a porn film, shot in a hotel room, but the sound was no good. My producer refered to it as “moan overs” instead of “voice overs”. A man stood with me at the microphone, the film played on a screen, and we had to make moaning and sexy noises to match the action. We could not do it without laughing -- had to stand back to back with a shoulder touching so we would know when the other took a breath about to make a noise. My only demands were that my name would NOT appear anywhere on the film and to be paid in cash so a check would not reveal who I was. Loved the experience. (No, I did NOT keep a copy of the film or soundtrack.)
Gavin Johnson 1 year ago
I’ve racked up a few. Professional Santa in a grotto. Wore a bear suit to be my football team’s mascot, Vernon Bear. Ran a sewage sampling project. Delivered Ferraris and Aston Martins. Looked after helicopter bookings to/from our helipad at a hotel. Looked after VIPs at the hotel, Take Thst, Ozzy, Anastasia, Michael Bolton, Pavarotti, and host of others. Ran a training ground for a professional football team. And those are just scratching the surface. I get easily bored by jobs once I’ve got a grip of them, time to move on and discover a new horizon! Who wants a stable career anyway? 😂
David Paterson 1 year ago
I am so jealous over the sewage sampling project. My dream job.
Load More Replies... FlamingoPanda 1 year ago
So many different ways to earn money. I have had a few interesting ones from cleaning glass moulds for a local glass crafter to been a walking billboard (walk around a mall for several hours a day wearing a t-shirt advertising a store and telling people about the store). Now I am just a boring database admin.
Maryland 1 year ago
Repo girl. I would legally steal vehicles back in a variety of clandestine scenarios.
dayngerkat 1 year ago
A long time ago I was a bouncer/door guy/maintenance guy at a local bar. Every wednesday night, we had to setup an oil wrestling pit. Put out some cushions, a tarp and oil it down. Then some girls would come out in bikinis and wrestle. Watching that was the best part of the job. We also had to put the hotdogs on the that rolling warmer machine. If it didn't sell by the end of the night, we would put it back in the fridge. If my friends ever came to visit me at work, I'd tell them not to get the hotdogs lol
Diolla 1 year ago
I worked as a traffic counter a few times. Just sit next to a road and count the vehicles passing you. Then write down the numbers. Great job. It was easy and we had 1hour on, 2 hours off rotation because you had to focus so much LOL. On a typical day we would work 4 hours and get paid for 12, including overtime.
Octavia Hansen 1 year ago
As a professional studio vocalist, my producer asked if I would do a voice over for a movie. It was a porn film, shot in a hotel room, but the sound was no good. My producer refered to it as “moan overs” instead of “voice overs”. A man stood with me at the microphone, the film played on a screen, and we had to make moaning and sexy noises to match the action. We could not do it without laughing -- had to stand back to back with a shoulder touching so we would know when the other took a breath about to make a noise. My only demands were that my name would NOT appear anywhere on the film and to be paid in cash so a check would not reveal who I was. Loved the experience. (No, I did NOT keep a copy of the film or soundtrack.)
Gavin Johnson 1 year ago
I’ve racked up a few. Professional Santa in a grotto. Wore a bear suit to be my football team’s mascot, Vernon Bear. Ran a sewage sampling project. Delivered Ferraris and Aston Martins. Looked after helicopter bookings to/from our helipad at a hotel. Looked after VIPs at the hotel, Take Thst, Ozzy, Anastasia, Michael Bolton, Pavarotti, and host of others. Ran a training ground for a professional football team. And those are just scratching the surface. I get easily bored by jobs once I’ve got a grip of them, time to move on and discover a new horizon! Who wants a stable career anyway? 😂
David Paterson 1 year ago
I am so jealous over the sewage sampling project. My dream job.
Load More Replies... FlamingoPanda 1 year ago
So many different ways to earn money. I have had a few interesting ones from cleaning glass moulds for a local glass crafter to been a walking billboard (walk around a mall for several hours a day wearing a t-shirt advertising a store and telling people about the store). Now I am just a boring database admin.
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