The Weirdest/Craziest Job You Have Ever Done
I hope there are a few spies who come forward. Anyway, Aj's post on robots is the muse for this post. This is going to be a wild ride. ok I'll start with a sad job-but I will save my most controversial job for later-I want to see what you all can bring to the table.
to pay for college tuition, I sat in a back room at the bookstore and tore off book covers. Yes-from most beloved novels to Aristotle. We sent the covers back to the publisher's and we torched the books. Yes! Torched them! If you were caught "stealing" the body of a book to be torched (!) you were fired.
to pay for college tuition, I sat in a back room at the bookstore and tore off book covers. Yes-from most beloved novels to Aristotle. We sent the covers back to the publisher's and we torched the books. Yes! Torched them! If you were caught "stealing" the body of a book to be torched (!) you were fired.
My weirdest/craziest job was working at Pure Romance. They're like Avon or Mary Kay but they sell "relationship aids".
I started in customer service. People would call up and ask how to put the batteries in or they thought we were an escort service. I'm not joking about either of those scenarios... both happened more than once.
I was so good at customer service that I got "promoted" to complaints. Yep, people screamed at me all day and threatened to sue me over "relationship aids".
I have a lot of stories about that place.
Hahaha!
Paul had never imagined himself learning what he did that afternoon. I wonder what you had to learn, Alex? Well, maybe not. LOL
Jan
Had a friend in Portland preparing to make a life of sailing. Just before the going away party, he lost the partner that was going on the first sail to Hawaii with him. When we found out , we ran down and bought him an inflatable girlfriend. Everyone at the party signed it and we took the stage and mike for a few minutes to introduce him to the new sailing partner and life preserver we'd found for him.
When I saw the inflatable sheep in the shop, I almost dropped my jaw. I just couldn't imagine.
The inflatable sheep, just a wee bit scary..... 👀🚫
Jan, feared the answer
Wait. Ya'know: I really would like to meet you. Maybe I can shift my vacation to leave a day later - very late on the 18th. Then, I could invite you to come by Schuyler House on the 18th (and I could leave at about midnight, so I would arrive at dawn and be able to set up camp).
How does that clever plan sound?
Jan
Jan
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=00zuDUNTeX...
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The woman that started the company was a struggling working mom and she started the business out of her basement. When I was working there (3+ years ago) they had 100+ employees and offices in 4 countries.
However, every day brought some wildly inappropriate, sexual-harassment-suit-waiting-to-happen incident. If we ever find ourselves in Vegas together again and I'm not on the clock I'd be happy to provide a few interesting stories. ; )
Good for her though. Pleasure sells.
However, this was not the only hazards of the job, there were needles in the trash and that is why you had to be up to date on your TB shots. So lifting the trash bags could result in punctures from needles of diseased people.
But wait, that’s not all. Once every six months or so I was required to go to a store room in the basement of this six-story building, load up a cart of brains that were store in jars of formaldehyde (I think). Take the cart to the incinerator and toss them in. The law required that the brains be stored for two years or something.
Who helped get me this wonderful job – my DAD, who was a pathologist.
Best damn job I ever had. It got me out of the house, I could do it any time after about 6 pm and I was able to spend as much of my pay check as a wanted on girls and beer and still save about ½ of my paycheck.
Lol
Seinfeld - Elaine
The job consisted of riding around in a cart in the "impact area" and poke a hollow tube with spring clips on the end over the balls as you drove past. You then dumped them out the other end into a basket on the floor beside you.
What made the job interesting was the fact that since it was a standard golf cart, no protective gear of any kind. You were automatically the target of everyone on the line.
You quickly learn the skill set of driving erratically while picking up golf balls with an aluminum tube at full speed. It was both fun and a bit of an adrenaline rush when someone got close. You wind up dodging without even seeing what is coming.
The only carry over I ever found from that was dodging suicide squirrels that change their mind part way across the road.
Nowadays they pull a pickup machine behind the cart, and the cart is enclosed in plexiglass like the popemobile to protect you.
I have to think it is not anywhere near the fun it was when I used to do it.
The other job that fits this description was writing inspirational speeches for executives in major corporations ($billions). Back then, I was a 16-year-old intern originally hired to make copies, get coffee, and take staples out of stuff.
we knew this woman who was a speech writer for Reagan! unfortunately, I could not stand her. for one, she hit on Db all the time. she's a real estate salesperson in Colorado.
I'd sit in prison cell in a yet to be completed cell block staring at populated dorms.
The idea was that should any inmate escape the dorms, I would blast any climbing a fence with a shotgun aimed through a cell window.
There were two such posts--one for the east side and the west side cell blocks.
No one tried to escape and those posts disappeared when construction was complete and inmates lived in the cell blocks.
Back in College I was a variety of things ( as long as they paid money ) so I ended up being a janitor for a while... That taught me an interesting and useful lesson on how to interact with facility staff. I treat them well and like they are there. As it turns out most folks treat them like furniture. So, they are full of amazingly useful information.
After that I was a late shift data tape librarian at Ameritech. Most of the folks I worked with were ex-MaBell employees and it was interesting to hear about how things used to be run well..
Eventually I applied to Midway Games ( they made MortalKombat ) . I was pretty sure that there was no way in hell they would be interested in talking to me so I wrote the cover letter like it didn't matter. I wrote a paragraph going over the job requirements and how I already have done that. Then ended by essentially double dog daring them to call me. ( I actually used those words. ) A week later, I got home from a very good day where I set up the initial phone scree with a job that would have required me to move to Luxembourg. I was pretty excited, I knew what to expect from Luxembourg and I was fine with it. But, I got home and there was a message on the Machine from HR at Midway. They liked my cover letter and wanted to talk. Two weeks later I was driving to my first day there.
nuclear powerplant engineer. . and his interview
with Hyman Rickover.
Rickover welcomed him into the office and, without
letting him sit down, challenged him:::
"Do something to irritate me." . my friend stood
there and thought, "What could I do?"
he reached out and swiped a bunch of stuff off of
the right front corner of Rickover's desk, like his
walnut nameplate, a cup of pencils and some
memorabilia, straight off into the floor.
Rickover hired him. -- j
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from a barn, once. . had to bend over to walk in there,
at first -- and I couldn't touch the hayloft, after. . that
stuff is S L I C K. . really. -- j
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Remember Mark Twain's definition of a gold miner: "A liar standing next to a hole in the ground".
I would meet the scamster, go to his property in the field, take my own samples, get them fire assayed at a reputable lab, and report to the rich doctor/lawyer that you will not get rich on this promoted mining property. They were always wide eyed grateful and then would refer me to yet another doctor/lawyer falling for yet another scam. In the course of all this I met some really wacked out crazies out there in the deserts. I am probably lucky I was not thrown down an old shaft followed by bags of lime. Some of these characters were dangerous, one shot a guy sitting in his car ahead of him in the drive thru banking lane, another openly threatened the life of the Arizona Governor back then. The only one that had it worse was the State Mine Inspectors that had to go out and inspect these "operations".
I could write a book on these stories. Hmmmm.
Because even after working for the "legitimate" majors in the mining industry the bizarre tales don't stop. It is a wild, full of intrigue, and small world of players in the gold mining business. And I am still in it as we speak with more "interesting" developments unfolding.
I never regret any of it.
of the gold, yourself!!! -- j
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So now, I no longer work for the majors and get paid in kind these days.
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The interesting part with this one was when I went back to the "lab" these two guys had in their garage in Prescott, Az. They had a small kiln with the elements burnt out in it, a microscope with coke bottle lenses, and lived in an adjacent old "Mother in Law" type house next to an alley. While I was there their "partner", this seedy pencil thin mustache character arrived shortly followed by an extremely expensive Cadillac down the alley. Into the garage came this immaculately dressed distinguished elderly gentleman. There was no time for introductions and the seedy partner and Cadillac guy had no idea I was a geologist, just a scruffy bearded mountain man in flannel. So, I got to listen to the entire sales pitch they made to this obviously affluent fellow. And I kept my mouth shut.
The affluent guy left and seedy mustache guy jumped around rubbing his hands in glee and said "I think we have our White Rabbit this time". The two guys that I had visited the property with were mortified at this display. I never knew who the affluent guy was and I went back to my chiro with an eye popping tale to tell him. Interesting, that evening the two guys called me up and apologized for even being involved in the scam. They actually came from a respectable mining background history and had gotten suckered in to this by seedy mustache guy. I actually later hired the younger son to help me map thousands of feet of old underground workings high in the Bradshaw Mts. in central Arizona. I at least had an influence keeping him on the straight and narrow.
I put an end to this phase of my "career" by returning to Nevada and getting a real job with real gold mining companies.
Why don't you write a novel? The main character is 'you' (cleverly disguised under a different name), and does just about what you actually did. This gives you a venue to relate the tales, under different names, but dodge any unpleasant repercussions because it is 'fiction. You would need to add a main plot arc to tie it all together...
Jan
And then there was the guy down on the Colorado River that was employing the wisdom of King Solomon to treat and recover gold from ores. Used the special power of women in the process. Whoop, getting too salacious for this venue. I'll just leave it where the unpaid women chased the guy down in the desert to get what they were due!
Jan
(Inclined to think of the rich Cadillac guy as being an element in the uber arc - maybe he was not as dumb as he seemed...)
We performed completely 'in period', which means that if someone commented on the machine stitching of a hem, the reply was, "Yes, my lady's tirewoman has marvelous even stitches, does she not?" (Sometimes it became quite a game to try to stay in period when one of the tourists asked questions.) My part was that of "Jennifer Oakes", a young scallywag who had been found aboard a ship (yes, documentable) and who was trying to be reclaimed as a proper servant.
When we were not 'on stage', I was the fight choreographer, driver of one of the vans, and armorer (needed to be repaired occasionally). I was also part of the 'keep her sane' staff of the director, which in one case involved me holding up a shield and having her hit it with a sword until she was exhausted.
FYI. American tourists are every bit as bad as we are writ up to be. We learned to cringe when a bus full of our countrymen pulled up. (We were all speaking with British accents, so the tourists did not realize that we were not American.)
Jan, has a lot of fun stories
I was shouting words of encouragement, such as "Smack that bastard!" and "Hit him again." (We were having trouble with the manager of one of our venues changing 'our deal' as soon as we actually got there - an being very unpleasant about it as well. Most people treated us well, but to a few folks, we were just 'scummy hirling entertainers' and they expected to treat us like dirt. Since we were all capable people (a lot of professionals - psychologist, lawyer, upper management, etc) we did not react well to this.) The manager of the troop was/is a very high-caliber person and quite organized (and a Randist); changing our deal in a high-handed (rude) fashion was something that she did not take lightly. I have rarely seen her so angry, but it was quite justified.
I was glad to help.
Jan
(Ed to add more text.)
fascinating today!!! -- j
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(This is from one of our British tours. (I am sitting down; I wear a red doublet.)
Jan
We gave some seminars and workshops whilst we were over there (1990 and later). The end result is that now Britain has a fine re-enactment community and does not need to import Americans to show them how to present their own history.
Thanks for looking at the photo. (Some of the women's costumes weighted more than my suite of armor did.) It was fun, but hell.
Jan
They eventually moved to a larger location and the three 4-deck presses had to be dismantled. Before they could be taken apart, years of accumulated ink had to be scraped and kerosened from them. Another kid and I crawled into these things, lay on our backs and scraped and cleaned. At the end of the day, I would take a bucket of kerosene into the shower and use it to first clean the ink out of my hair and off myself before showering with soap and water.
Horrible job! In two weeks I ruined half my clothes and could barely use my thumbs or grasp anything. I quit to go to a concert.
Reading db's comment reminded me of my Grandmother having a leg, up to mid-thigh, amputated. My Uncle decided that the leg needed to be buried in Grandma's grave plot so that when she passed, it would be there waiting for her. He assigned the job to his oldest son and me. After 2 pints of whiskey, around midnight, in a small, old, country cemetery way out in the middle of some Arkansas fields, there we were, drunker than hell, two shovels getting down to six feet, burying the leg. We didn't even try to get home after, just slept in the car till morning. A really awful hangover to wake up to, covered in dirt and mud, we made it back to my cousin's house. Neither of us would talk to my Uncle for the next six months.
Grandma passed not quite a year later. Now we had to worry about the grave digger.
LOL omg, we all could do a joss whedon series. and we'd jettison him if he could not work with us. :)))))))
Ok, I worked as a limousine driver in Richmond, VA to pay college tuition. Because I was extremely familiar with the Washington, D.C. Metro area, including BWI airport, I got some pretty good runs. The most.... energetic.... client, was a woman I picked up in Richmond, drove up to BWI to collect her boyfriend, and drive them back to her house in Richmond. Sitting at red lights was providing the surrounding commuters with some entertainment, and the limo was bouncing and jerking, all while sitting at a light.... She gave me a HUGE tip, which included a bottle of Crystal Champagne and a bag of weed with two rolled joints in it...
Then there was apprenticing on a 100' schooner, the Mystic Clipper. That's where I developed my enduring love for not only the open water, but coffee.
We had a band once and they were really great. Fun group. :-)
There has to be some interesting stories in all of that. How long does the secrecy last?
Well, NRC was also a "client", so indefinitely for them. I really don't know, as I haven't thought about that job for years... huh..
Craziest job... I couldn't have been more than 17, and it didn't last more then a week, but I cold-called selling pencils in the name of veterans. It was a small dark hole-in-the-wall. We literally had a wall of phone books from around the country that we would go and grab from, and just start randomly calling people. The pitch was that the money would go to help vets in distress. It didn't. I left.
THe theory from the publishers was that it was less expensive to send back covers (proof of the books in inventory) than the entire book-as the racket goes in college book sales-a new edition every year costs more than the previous edition. This was a very difficult job to have, luckily I had a great co-worker who made me laugh and was an Objectivist. He quizzed me on my reading lists and we secretly put back into stock any Rand books that were slated to be destroyed. and Aristotle. and Locke. and a few others. we were evil like that :)
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I worked as a roadie for a rock band back in 1979-1981. Some of the things I saw people do... I didn't fall off of a turnip truck, but I was still surprised at what some girls would do to get introduced to members of the band. Oh the mammaries... er, um memories... Sorry. Did I write that out loud? :) I wouldn't say it was weird, but some of those groupies sure were crazy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92sEgZSm...
O.A.
That's why I like you. You're a REAL gentleman. Mwah!
All loaded and off we went. We cruise south into the Gulf of Mexico when I hear a gurgling sound. I look into the cabin where the crates are and we're taking on water. I tell the guy to call the Coast Guard because in about 10 minutes we will be under water. He refuses. I push him aside and go to the radio. I don't have a clue as to how to work it. Doesn't matter because by that time the water shorts out the wires. The water is now at deck level and we're barely afloat. Luckily, a Mexican fishing boat comes by and picks us up just as we see the last of the boat go down in a stream of bubbles. The only sailor who could speak English said they were heading for Apalachacola, Fl. and we'd be OK there. I wasn't familiar with that town but later I realized it was as far away from Miami as you could get and still be in Florida. I questioned the guy about what kind of cargo was lost. At first he refused to tell me, but finally, I guess since they were at the bottom of the Gulf it didn't matter, it was rifles. I'm thinking, was he a gun runner and for who, and it is got to be illegal. When we docked, he disappeared. As I tried to figure out what to do, he zoomed by me in what I suppose was a rental car. I had enough money for a Greyhound ticket to Miami. I got to my hotel late that night, hungry, and no $100.
Too bad the businessman was so ignorant about watercraft. Did he ever say what the destination was? That might give some clue about the cargo. Two hours one way travel would limit the destinations, but might also include a rendevous at sea.
Any thoughts about the weight to size of the boxes and what was in demand in 1952?
I am glad the boat came along to pick you up and you are here to tell the tale.
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Me too!
Son to mother: Mama, when I grow up I wanna be a submarine sailor!
Mother to son: You're going to have to choose one dear. You can't do both.
pitch and yaw, but not at controlling roll. . bet that
was fun, getting your sea legs!!! -- j
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the summer of 77 I was a counselor in training at a girl scout camp in iowa. I was 15. All girl scout camps within a certain geographic location were informed that a horrible multiple rape/murder of young scouts happened in OK. at the time, they sought a recent prison escapee for the crime. They set all the counselors up to do all night watch and patrol. They gave me a flashlight and two way radio. I sat in the dark and then patrolled my camp unit, checking on each tent of girls for weeks. 15, middle of the night, alone. scariest thing I have EVER done. but not as scary as what you faced. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_gi...
Why do you think we are now rife with NGOs? Dems don 't want to pay their workers min wage, they just want you to pay yours. I 'm actually in a forum right now where the argument is -if you can 't afford to pay your worker a living wage then you shouldn't start a business.
I often wonder what my kids will do, and if they will have experiences as unique or memorable. And what they would think of some of the things I've done. They know some, not all. ;-)
in the front few rows with the press. . I Am Envious!!! -- j
p.s. I did get to shake Sneaky Pete Kleinow's hand,
though. . my favorite steel player of all time. . snif.
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I grew up on a farm so I did many jobs but they did not seem weird or crazy to me. They were just part of living. From shoveling chicken coops to calf pens, stacking hay and milking cows there was never a dull moment.
Then I worked for a feed company. The craziest thing I ever did for them was hang on the roof of a grain bin by a rope that was tied around my stomach, while running a hand held power saw cutting holes in the steel roof to install ventilation covers. No it was not really dangerous. [sarcasm] That was in 1980 at minimum wage and I had no complaints. I had a job which were hard to come by at the time.
Also crazy, selling accident insurance door to door. A job I hated but it the taught me the most about life and people.
Oh and starting my own business so I could become one of those people that "did not build that". It was no work at all. I never worked a single 40 hour week...since most were 80. :) But when the government finally help me built it to somewhat of a success, they decided that I was not giving them enough so they took more. That may be the craziest job I ever did. lol Oh... that is not really funny.
If you hate those postcards saying "This house just listed or sold in your neighborhood.", one of my former bosses had the idea and hired me to implement it back before computers were personal. We turned his Century 21 office into the highest selling office in the US. It was an honor to work for a producer of the highest order.
Somebody has to clean up the poop. It paid rather handsomely ;)
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