What is the weirdest job you ever had?

[kmla]

Me? Not extremely weird on a 1 to 10 scale, but I would have to say it was on a corn de-rouging crew. We would go through fields of corn (lived in an agricultural area) and chop out/remove any corn that didn't resemble the other corn so that the wrong species of corn would not pollinate the seed corn in the field. Long, hot days. But I had a hell of a tan by the end of the summer.

How about you? What's your oddest job on your resume?

[underpants]

1. I once made phone calls to get feedback on an OJ TV pilot

I think it was called "Seals" OJ Simpson was supposed to be a Navy Seal.

People could tune into a channel that wasn't normally on and then we would call them back. Most of the people I talked to were the kind that laid around all day... ;-)

I wonder how many other people flipping through channels watched it and never saw it or anything on that channel again.

I quit that job the next day. That was the year I had 9 W-2's

[NNadir]

2. I had a job wiping grease off of newly manufactured chain saws.

[malta blue]

3. Putting the farm stamp on the butt of a melon. eom

[MorningGlow]

4. Nothing exceedingly odd

But I did do a lot of temp work and work-study in my college years so I did witness a lot of weird businesses and even weirder people.

My favorites, in no particular order...

* Doing general office work for some oddball offshoot of a big corporation. The guy training me thought he had to show me how to use the basic copier. SLOWLY. "NOW...when you have a big sheet of paper like THIS..." "You want me to reduce it to fit 8 1/2 x 11?" "JUST hold ON, there. You put it on the...GLASS...close the...COVER...and hit this button HERE: it says REDUCE SIZE." Zzzzzzzzzzzz...

* "Coding" for a law book publisher, second shift--a bunch of us sat in rows of desks and were handed the old huge striped pin-fed computer paper and we had to look at the open and close tags of the coding for the manuscripts to see if anything was off/missing. Nobody trained us, so we never knew what we were looking for. The supervisor sat in an office behind a big glass window and watched us work all night. (We weren't allowed to get up from our desks except to request another printout.) Creepy. I don't think I made it two weeks there.

* Transcribing videotapes of a professor doing research by teaching a high school class. Fun trying to figure out who was speaking and what they were saying with the muffled sound (not). I actually kind of enjoyed that, and I got to teach the PROFESSOR some things about the subject she was teaching. She was very gracious and accepted the extra info without acting like I had just slugged her ego.

[Jimbo S]

5. Something similar: de-tasseling corn

I was 15, my first job.

My dad wanted me to learn where a buck comes from. I learned why unions are around.

[bleedingheart]

6. I have worked for the IRS

it was a temp job and I processed tax returns of some very famous people.

It also gave me an immense perspective on income levels. There were folks whose quarterly payments were $300,000...hard to even imagine that kind of money.

I saw a woman get arrested at that job too...she erased the Treasury Dept name off the check and replaced it with her own...great big DUH! moment...and the feds came in and arrested her.

I also worked on the Love Canal legal project...

[WhollyHeretic]

7. I once got offered a job by a temp agency of smashing old toilets with a sledge hammer

As tempting as it was I didn't take the job.

[Orrex]

Why the heck not? You could have pounded the shit out of them!

[Orrex]

30. Oops! Self-delete. So nice, I had to post it twice...

[dropkickpa]

8. Donut finisher/counter person graveyard shift

I was 16, worked 11pm-7am (illegal of course) for a Mister Donut franchise. The owner was an orthodontist with halitosis who was convinced we were all stealing the little coffee stirrers so hed lock them up. Oh yeah, this was in summer and the AC was broken, so it would regularly get to about 120-130 degrees inside the store (the dnut fryer, my best friend, worked 9pm-5am). We played dough baseball, who can get higher, and name that cop. There was a group of old peole who would pull up at about midnight, unload lawn chairs fromtheir trunks, and sit outside shooting the shit til about 3am every night.

Tattoo shop lackey (basically a go-fer/receptionist/janitor)

Colonial festival parking attendnt (in full colonial costume). It was our job to jump in front of cars and force them to follow our direction to park in an orderly manner. Woohoo!!

[rug]

9. Not mine but a friend had a job squeezing the forming eggs out of dead chickens.

[Heidi]

10. Member of the mainstream media. (nt)

[Z_I_Peevey]

31. Oh you poor thing. nt

[Oeditpus Rex]

36. Seemed perfectly normal to me

Just weird to other people. :eyes:

[ronnykmarshall]

11. Stripper

[Lautremont]

12. Me too!

Furniture stripper. I lasted one day - the chemicals were toxic beyond belief and the drooling, by-all-evidence-brain-damaged guys who worked there told me the owners didn't ever replace the filters in the Darth Vader masks that were supposed to protect you from the fumes.

[SacredCow]

13. Mudcutter.

Although it's called "Core Processing Technician" on my resume.

We sectioned, photographed, x-rayed, and archived geological core samples from the Gulf of Mexico and other places. It was a student job, so we also goofed off. A LOT!!!!

[Crabby Appleton]

14. Colt 45 beer can QA inspector

[SPKrazy]

15. Not Really Weird, But It Felt It!

delivered stuff for a printing agency, drove the company station wagon with my bong at my side and would get high as I delivered stuff.

I was pretty "weird" by the time I was done usually!

:rofl:

[China_cat]

16. Standing for a knife thrower.

[Ediacara]

17. I cut open wheat stems looking for sawfly larvae

Sawflies will lay their eggs inside the stems of wheat and will eventually eat their way out, killing the plant. I ended up cutting open many thousands of wheat stems with an exacto knife looking for larvae, cocoons, dead bugs, and their parasites. It was unfulfilling.

[devilgrrl]

18. The one I have now.

eom

[Deja Q]

19. Well, my ex wanted to use a banana peel in a very weird way...

Oh, you mean career-wise... :blush:

The data entry job 10 years ago. There was a weird feeling a coworker and I had when we looked at each other (eventually it dawned on me that it's that horny thang) and the boss man treated me as if I was his loyal pet.

The immediate supervisor (a real mean lady) also works where I do now. In the department I would have guessed to. And she's still single. (Take no notice, she ain't my type...)

[graywarrior]

20. Testing lawn mowers by mowing orange groves.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

21. The fish out of water job I have now

Working as a paralegal when I'm now a licensed attorney. (I don't mean to "pull rank" or act snobbish, but I worked hard for this!) I'm hoping I can find an attorney job soon. I know this isn't the right time of year to find a job. I can't think of any other weird jobs I've had - they've all been pretty routine.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

29. this sounds typical

I looked for a legal assistant/paralegal job for over a year. I have three degrees including a Juris Doctor, but no license to practice. And 20 years experience as a court reporter, having seen a zillion trials. And a lot of other relevant stuff. Had ONE interview with a plaintiff's firm. And no feedback, of course.

I think my sin in the job market is turning fifty.

Sorry you can't get a real lawyer job, since you're a real lawyer. I feel for ya.

[Nikia]

22. Testing a fake biological fluid

The fake biological fluid was to be patented and used to test consumer products that were designed to absorb the real biological fluid. It amazed me the things that they did in a large research and development department. This was not the weirdest project there either.
This was just a temp assignment. The research and development that I do now is much different.

[jarab]

23. Hospital circumcision department ...

Forty skins a week and a real chance to get ahead.
(Not really! Irresistible urge to post that.)
...O...

[Lautremont]

27. You forgot to mention that, while the salary wasn't too hot,

the tips were great.

[EnviroBat]

24. I chopped up scrap steel at a junk yard one time...

The guy I replaced got blowed up. When I walked in to apply for a job they were taking him out on a gurney. I got hired on the spot.

[kwassa]

25. Inspecting bikinis on beautiful models

One day, but .... had to check the quality of the stitching.

[Rhythm]

26. sorting glass in a recycling center...

It was a "temp" job, it was hot, and smelly, and nasty things just kept coming down the conveyor.

But what other job could you have that allowed you to break stuff all day?!

[Broken_Hero]

28. hmmm

I would say...Jewelry Salesrep...I never thought I would get that job, and I never counted on learning anything from that job, but I learned quite a bit about the different stones, cuts, and how they are made...and how to grade different stones.

As for weird jobs...that would be weird to most folks...I worked on the slime line, for a fish processing plant...it was my job to cut, and scrap out 90% of the fish guts...I did that for two weeks, before they moved me to the freezer...because of my size/power, I stayed with the freezer crew, until I applied for their cozy convience store job...which I got, thank heavens for brain smarts...:)

[Orrex]

32. Graveyard shift at the then-worst 7-11 in Austin TX

The job itself wasn't weird per se, but the clientele was pretty far out.

[dropkickpa]

38. Oh yeah, that shift is always the strangest n/t

[Left_Winger]

33. Shaking rocks and sand

Actually it was part of quality control for concrete manufacture. I had to determine the percentage of various sizes of aggregate within the samples. The fun part was crushing the finished concrete samples to determine the ultimate compression strength.

[derby378]

34. Here's a weird job within a job

I work at a medical center, and one day we had to empty out a cabinet full of medical museum-style pieces so they could move the cabinets to a new location.

Guess who got to carry a pair of human lungs - with his bare hands?

What amazed me is that they are so light and delicate. Reason enough for me to take great care with mine.

[Dukkha]

35. porn web designer

the best job ever too. not becuase of the content but because i got to work at home and was paid under the table. total indepenence it was so nice!

[Oeditpus Rex]

37. Not one I had, but

one I seriously considered: writing one-paragraph reviews for porn videos.

I decided I didn't want to get paid for watching porn. Besides, it would've looked weird on a resume.

[Love Bug]

39. Sorting money for the Federal Reserve

Thirty-some years ago. Thankless, boring job sorting the worn out paper money from the ok-to-circulate money. The worn out money would then be chopped up and burned. I have a great security clearance and do know what millions of dollars look like, but jeebus, that was a mind-numbing job. I'm sure it's automated by now.