Craziest or weirdest job you've had?

[renard_ruse]

For me the weirdest job I had was working at the sewage treatment plant. It wasn't weird in terms of actually coming in contact with the sewage (I didn't) but because they paid such a good wage at the time. I worked the entry gate and had to ok trucks coming into the plant. Occasionally I would get a whiff of the sewage but mostly I just sat there in the entry booth reading books.

 

[renard_ruse]

Probably the second craziest job I had was doing market research for Jack in the Box. They assigned me to the Jack in the Box in North Park San Diego in the mid 1990's. I had to wear a dress shirt and tie in July, which is the most humid time of the year in San Diego (August and September are technically hotter but less humid). I would give out two dollar bills to anyone who would fill out the market reaseach questionnaire.

Skipping through the details but let's put it this way that area was San Diego "gay neighborhood" in the 90's. There I was an arguably cute college age young man in dress clothes and a tie sweating my ass off. I got several propositions and one guy even came back after he got his order and brought me a free soft drink. I turned him down but that was indeed an experience.

 

[dolf]

My current job. I'm making ears.
Hearing protection is just a sideline, not the unusual, niche reason why the company really has an ear lab. I only applied out of "wtf?" Curiosity. Turns out it's the perfect gig for me.

 

[Champakian]

For crazy, pick any sports officiating job.

I umpired baseball from thirteen into my 20s.
I've even been assaulted by drunken adults because little Timmy struck out.

 

[jaF0]

Occasionally I would get a whiff of the sewage ...

Aha! So that's what happened to your brain and what led you to the AmericanTurd.

 

[ishtat]

When I was at University I had a job working for a Funeral Homes Co-operative. My job was to take a van and go to various hospitals and homes in the city to pick up bodies of the recently deceased. Sometimes we had to tidy them up a bit, mostly not.

Then we would either hold them in a cool room waiting for them to be picked up or deliver them ourselves to the appropriate destination. I by choice worked the night shift which usually gave me heaps of time to do studying and set work. There were very few interruptions.

 

[oggbashan]

Not a job, but a task.

In the 1960s I was an Admiralty Civil Servant, working in a Royal Dockyard. As an 'officer', if the most junior in my department, every six weeks I had to cover the office at a weekend from 6 pm Friday to 8 am Monday.

One Saturday an RFA stores ship arrived at the dockyard. While they had been at sea, one of the crewmen, from Hong Kong, had died and they had kept his body in a large freezer.

Although he had joined the ship about a decade earlier in Hong Kong, he was actually Japanese. His family wanted him back in Japan. As the duty officer, it was my problem.

No airline would ferry a three-month-old corpse even if he had been deep-frozen.

I had to get a death certificate, fortunately already signed by a doctor on a Royal Navy ship who had attended him before he died, and then arrange cremation to Shinto rites. It took me three hours to find a Shinto Priest and another hour to find a crematorium that could conduct a Shinto cremation.


The next of kin had to sign the cremation certificate. I signed as my department's representative, acting on behalf of the Crown. That was technically illegal but no one, not the priest nor the crematorium objected.


I attended as the department's representative and arranged for flowers and for his fellow crew members to attend. One of them made a video of the service. The ashes were placed in an antique Japanese urn (donated by one of the ship's officers), and sent airmail, with the Shinto Priest's certificate (in Japanese), the cremation report (in English) with a Japanese translation, and the video on VHS.


Three months later I received a letter from Japan, in Japanese with an English translation, thanking me for arranging for his cremation under Shinto rites. The family hadn't realised it could be possible in England (nor had I until I tried).

 

[Champakian]

Nice story...

 

[mayfly13]

As a student I worked on a farm in Canterbury, England picking apples.
The job wasn't weird, as the fact that the apples were so huge and yummy, that I was spending half of my time eating or between trips to the toilet. Yet despite not filling many bins, I made enough money to travel across England, after that.

I brought it up because the potential to make money out of seasonal jobs then in England, was HUGE.
But that was over 2 decades ago.

How are things now in the seasonal farming industry now, ogg?
To what degree have they declined?

 

[oggbashan]

As a student I worked on a farm in Canterbury, England picking apples.
The job wasn't weird, as the fact that the apples were so huge and yummy, that I was spending half of my time eating or between trips to the toilet. Yet despite not filling many bins, I made enough money to travel across England, after that.

I brought it up because the potential to make money out of seasonal jobs then in England, was HUGE.
But that was over 2 decades ago.

How are things now in the seasonal farming industry now, ogg?
To what degree have they declined?

Some areas have declined with automated picking machinery. Hop-picking, a staple income for London's Eastenders through the 50s and 60s, is now fully automated.

But fruit farms are desperate since Brexit stopped seasonal workers from Europe. Any student in their summer vacation has a choice of jobs picking fruit.

My nephews and nieces in Suffolk used to work in a Turkey processing factory. They were paid piecework - so much per plucked bird, and became skilled. One of my nephews, a university reader, made more money in two weeks plucking turkeys than he was paid per month by the University.

He used to reckon that two weeks plucking turkeys would pay for a month touring Europe.

PS. When we were first married, nearly 50 years ago, we lived in a block of modern terraced houses in a village. There were 24 houses in four rows. In the summer months my wife, then pregnant, was the only person in those 24 houses during the day. The postman delivered everything that wouldn't go through a letterbox to her. Why?

The women from all the other 23 houses were strawberry picking followed by apples and pears. They all earned more in about four months than their husbands earned in a year.

Edited for PPS: We used to get many EU young people from the PIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) because all those countries had high rates of young people's unemployment. Those countries still have unemployment but because of Brexit and Covid, they can't get temporary visas to work in the UK. PIGS was originally PPIGS including Poland, but Poland's economy has recovered and it is now easier for young people to get jobs there so even before Brexit the number of Poles was decreasing.

 

[mayfly13]

Some areas have declined with automated picking machinery. Hop-picking, a staple income for London's Eastenders through the 50s and 60s, is now fully automated.

But fruit farms are desperate since Brexit stopped seasonal workers from Europe. Any student in their summer vacation has a choice of jobs picking fruit.

My nephews and nieces in Suffolk used to work in a Turkey processing factory. They were paid piecework - so much per plucked bird, and became skilled. One of my nephews, a university reader, made more money in two weeks plucking turkeys than he was paid per month by the University.

He used to reckon that two weeks plucking turkeys would pay for a month touring Europe.

PS. When we were first married, nearly 50 years ago, we lived in a block of modern terraced houses in a village. There were 24 houses in four rows. In the summer months my wife, then pregnant, was the only person in those 24 houses during the day. The postman delivered everything that wouldn't go through a letterbox to her. Why?

The women from all the other 23 houses were strawberry picking followed by apples and pears. They all earned more in about four months than their husbands earned in a year.

oh, nice picture.
I was surprised, because I expected the same decline in wages that corporate greed has infused most sectors with, worldwide over the last 10 years. (purposefully being kept understaffed/overworked, stagnant wages despite inflation)

But it's a different model than 9-5 jobs.
And are orchards and farms still privately owned by small-scale farmers? Or by bigger businesses?

 

[oggbashan]

oh, nice picture.
I was surprised, because I expected the same decline in wages that corporate greed has infused most sectors with, worldwide over the last 10 years. (purposefully being kept understaffed/overworked, stagnant wages despite inflation)

But it's a different model than 9-5 jobs.
And are orchards and farms still privately owned by small-scale farmers? Or by bigger businesses?

Last question. Both. Many small scale farmers now have 'Pick Your own' arrangements. You pick the fruit you want, have them weighed and pay for them. That avoids labour costs and although most may be slightly more expensive than the supermarket, you know the fruit is fresh and you only picked the fruit you fancied.

The smaller farms tend to rely on family, friends and neighbours. The larger farms, unless they can automate some of the picking, are struggling for lack of labour. The rates, either piecework or per hour, are much higher than they used to be, even including inflation, because the competition for fruit pickers is fierce. A skilled picker can earn more than twice as much as a burger flipper or checkout person, but the work is seasonal.

 

[ishtat]

Not a job, but a task.

In the 1960s I was an Admiralty Civil Servant, working in a Royal Dockyard. As an 'officer', if the most junior in my department, every six weeks I had to cover the office at a weekend from 6 pm Friday to 8 am Monday.

One Saturday an RFA stores ship arrived at the dockyard. While they had been at sea, one of the crewmen, from Hong Kong, had died and they had kept his body in a large freezer.

Although he had joined the ship about a decade earlier in Hong Kong, he was actually Japanese. His family wanted him back in Japan. As the duty officer, it was my problem.

No airline would ferry a three-month-old corpse even if he had been deep-frozen.

I had to get a death certificate, fortunately already signed by a doctor on a Royal Navy ship who had attended him before he died, and then arrange cremation to Shinto rites. It took me three hours to find a Shinto Priest and another hour to find a crematorium that could conduct a Shinto cremation.


The next of kin had to sign the cremation certificate. I signed as my department's representative, acting on behalf of the Crown. That was technically illegal but no one, not the priest nor the crematorium objected.


I attended as the department's representative and arranged for flowers and for his fellow crew members to attend. One of them made a video of the service. The ashes were placed in an antique Japanese urn (donated by one of the ship's officers), and sent airmail, with the Shinto Priest's certificate (in Japanese), the cremation report (in English) with a Japanese translation, and the video on VHS.


Three months later I received a letter from Japan, in Japanese with an English translation, thanking me for arranging for his cremation under Shinto rites. The family hadn't realised it could be possible in England (nor had I until I tried).

This is interesting because in over 90% of cases Japanese people mark death with a Buddhist ceremony. However, regular life events, birth coming of age, marriage etc are usually observed by Shinto rituals. Until 1868(Meiji) Shinto was not recognized as a separate religion but as a very influential culture of ritual and practice unique to Japan. During Meiji (1868-1945) Shinto was officially raised to the level of a State religion and Buddhism downgraded as of lesser importance.

The balance has been restored since 1945 with most Japanese adhering in parts to both traditions. From your time frame it appears that your man was very much a product of the Meiji era when Shinto took precedence.

 

[Fermina_Daza]

“Adult phone actress”

 

[KeithD]

1. Translating British English into American English.

2. Transporting smuggled letters from imprisoned Chinese leaders during the Cultural Revolution from the recipients to CIA headquarters.

 

[girlsmiley]

Bit weird for me at the time. More scientific than weird I suppose.

Tracking ducks. Gumboots, an antenna thing, and a 6 wheeler.

 

[Lazaran]

.
Working frontline in a facility where homicidal maniacs and the like who were judged NGRI were incarcerated.

I quickly learned to spot psychopaths and sociopaths in free society and on social media.

And I see you "Renard Ruse".

 

[Celand]

Just out of high school selling Cromwell Collier McMillan encyclopedia door to door to lonely housewives. Did not sell a single one, but sure got laid a lot

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Hmm... I guess it would have to be, being a cop when I was in the service. Completely different than being a cop in real life. I got to tell colonels and generals what to do when I pulled them over for weaving on the road. It was fun but crazy at times.

The most fun was those officers who refused to follow my orders. Would have to pull them out of the car through the window they so kindly had rolled down. Cuffed the. transported them to headquarters, then put them in a cell to be picked up by their commander or the base commander.

 

[jaF0]

^^^ Sooo, abusive asshole, eh? Explains a lot of your other posts.

 

[oggbashan]

I think one of my nephews has an odd job.

He was a University Reader but became a Church of England Priest. He married and had two children but he was unhappy with the C of E's attitudes on women priests so he joined that Roman Catholic church (as a married priest with two kids!).

He was appointed as the Chaplain to a small university. They could only afford one chaplain so he has to cover Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Hindus etc...

 

[46n2]

Currently I have no job. Nor any discernable purpose, for that matter.

And that's weird.

 

[renard_ruse]

Just out of high school selling Cromwell Collier McMillan encyclopedia door to door to lonely housewives. Did not sell a single one, but sure got laid a lot

Ok. You win the thread. That is funny.

 

[renard_ruse]

When I was at University I had a job working for a Funeral Homes Co-operative. My job was to take a van and go to various hospitals and homes in the city to pick up bodies of the recently deceased. Sometimes we had to tidy them up a bit, mostly not.

Then we would either hold them in a cool room waiting for them to be picked up or deliver them ourselves to the appropriate destination. I by choice worked the night shift which usually gave me heaps of time to do studying and set work. There were very few interruptions.

My best buddy back in the day had a gig picking up "stiffs " He was on call 24/7. He thought it was funny when he'd pick up a body and then stop at his favorite bar and have a drink or two with the body in the back. I always thought it was totally disrespectful to the family but the deceased probably didn't care.

Of course he was an asshole who literally went around shooting out car windows with a BB gun on Christmas eve when we were teens.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

^^^ Sooo, abusive asshole, eh? Explains a lot of your other posts.

No, just doing my job. I never abused anyone. Yes, I pulled some of the assholes out of their cars through the window as they wouldn't get out when ordered to and the door was locked. But once their were out and in cuffs, they were treated the same as anyone else... respectfully.

And when they went up before the base commander for discipline, they did apologize to me for not following my requests and none ever filed a complaint.

And you should talk about others posts.