What's the weirdest paying job you've ever had? \ stacker news ~culture

What's the weirdest paying job you've ever had?

1855 sats \ 70 comments \ @k00b 29 Aug culture

I'm always impressed when I learn that someone earns a living doing a job I didn't know existed. I suspect we all over-select the most visible jobs (e.g. doctor, lawyer, construction worker, retail this or that, etc.) when there's an infinity of problems and pain we can get paid to solve. I also think it causes a certain kind of hopelessness in people poorly suited to the most visible jobs.

Watching Oppenheim's Ren Faire¹, it reminded me of the summer I spent working a Ren Faire in California putting cheese and sausage in hand-sliced bread barking "huzzah to the tipper" and "lords and ladies, art thou parched?" among other things. It was effectively retail, but it was bizarre and enjoyable for that reason.

What's the weirdest paying job you've ever had?

The multimillion dollar fair is located somewhere north of Houston. We might go this fall. It's also funny because a year or two ago, before ever seeing the limited series, we bought a quirky gift shirt from TRF in a thrift store. ↩

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1355 sats \ 4 replies \ @jasonb 29 Aug

I spent about five years running an event band company, about five years as a professor (these mostly overlapped), and two years as an iron worker. The bulk of the last 20 years though, I've worked full time as a trombone player, which most folks might think is weird by itself. But...oh the places you go doing that!

There are plenty others, but here is one stand-out week from the fall of 2007. Off and on, from 2006-2008, I would tour as part of the backing band for Elvis impersonator contents. We would go around the country for regional and national finals in the warm months and then do lesser paid 'rehearsals' with the local guys at animal lodges (Eagles, Elks, FOA type places) during the cold ones. These shots are from a regional final in Oklahoma City.

https://m.stacker.news/48859

https://m.stacker.news/48860

The week in question, we had one of these in Lubbock, Tx. Here's the Elvii all lined up again waiting to hear who won. Oddly enough, this is the only time I've been to Texas outside of an airport, including with other bands.

https://m.stacker.news/48862

As one might imagine, backing Elvii was not my life aspiration as a trombone player. The next day, I had a gig in Brooklyn for Atlantic Antic with an original project that did house, dnb, and other experimental electronic music with live musicians. I told the guy that ran the Elvis thing that he had to fly me to New York instead of back to Ohio. He was cool with that, so I took the gig thinking that I'd be able to do this more artistic project no problem. What he didn't say, was that we didn't have a hotel that night and had to stay in the event space...which was where the county fair would have livestock awards.

I awoke, in the middle of the night, to the rest of the band drinking and partying. Nobody else had a gig the next night, OR an early flight. Worst of all, they found the venue's smoke machine and had filled the space in this picture ENTIRELY!

https://m.stacker.news/48861

The next morning, I made it to NY with little sleep, but still had a fun show.

https://m.stacker.news/48864

We sat in with some old friends afterwards. Then, the keyboard player, who had never been, asked me to show him the city. We didn't get any sleep again, which was fine because I could ride back with everybody else.

https://m.stacker.news/48863

EXCEPT, they didn't take me or the bass player's brother (who was going to come back from NY to visit in Ohio) into account for space for the return journey. We were a really lean unit, so they had crammed in unsafely on the way there already. One band member was too young to rent a car, one had just got a DUI, one had bad credit, and one didn't have a license. So, not only did I have to drive back home, I had to rent a car too! The guys helped out with the cash, but it certainly wasn't an ideal situation with the liability.

The next day, I played a birthday party in a big tent on the front lawn of a conservatory.

https://m.stacker.news/48865

At the time, this seemed as weird to me as all the other stuff. Look at the bathroom. Yes, that's a port-o-potty in a tent. Honestly, after this era, I spend decades off and on doing high-end weddings and corporate parties and have since seen more how the other half lives. I know that's probably passe to many, but I didn't grow up rich and thought this was just wild at the time.

https://m.stacker.news/48866

Anyway, the next day was back to business as usual at a music festival. But you definitely see a lot doing music.

https://m.stacker.news/48867

My goal right now is to pivot into something bitcoin oriented (and therefor not music). The kids are in school and I think this is a more important revolution than anything going on in the arts right now.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 29 Aug

professor, iron worker, trombone player

eclectic resume/linkedin profile

52 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 29 Aug

You do realize you will now have to practically dox yourself as we ask you a million questions.

74 sats \ 0 replies \ @jasonb 29 Aug

I feel like I've already done a pretty poor job of concealing my identity on here.

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @2d 29 Aug

til the plural for Elvis 😂

383 sats \ 0 replies \ @jimmysong 29 Aug

Splitting hard fork coins in 2018 for people that didn't know how to do it.

230 sats \ 7 replies \ @ek 29 Aug

I could have gotten paid for counting people crossing an imaginary line

164 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b OP 29 Aug

Toll booth?

https://m.stacker.news/48828

64 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fabs 29 Aug

🤭🤣🤣🔥

43 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 29 Aug

No, pedestrian zone for statistics

33 sats \ 3 replies \ @anon 4 Sep

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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 4 Sep

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11 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 4 Sep

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 4 Sep

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442 sats \ 5 replies \ @Golu 30 Aug

Thankfully, I never had a job for more than a day. After my graduation, I got a job with a financial attorney and he sent me on day 1 to a very far place to get and verify some papers. When I returned, he asked me what was your experience, i said I'm not going to come tomorrow. That's all what I had as weird experience. Weird because, I couldn't understand the motive of sending a newbie without training wasn't acceptable to me.

43 sats \ 4 replies \ @k00b OP 30 Aug

I respect not wanting a job. How do you make a living?

356 sats \ 3 replies \ @Coinsreporter 30 Aug

He's managing our logistics business. He's doing it pretty well! From starting he never wanted to do a job. It was I who sent him to that lawyer, as to find if he really doesn't want to do a job.

Logistics is our family business and @Golu is my brother

43 sats \ 0 replies \ @Athena 30 Aug

I didn't know. He is your brother. Both are doing well

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 30 Aug

Oh amazing!

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE 30 Aug

Amazing! We got a brother combo!!

254 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinAbhi 30 Aug

20 years ago I had to work on a shop for less than one dollar per day

187 sats \ 9 replies \ @grayruby 29 Aug

Wasn't really a job but our company had a contract to clean out and dispose all the junk and organize the recoverable stuff (not much) from a couple hoarder houses with the city of Toronto. It seems they were having a hard time finding a contractor willing to do the work, and after completing it I could see why. We made fairly good money but really only took on that project because it was a carrot they dangled in front of us in the form of a promise of more future work that never came to fruition.

It was an awful few days but a great story now, so worth it.

114 sats \ 8 replies \ @k00b OP 29 Aug

There are a lot of free disposal/junk haul services in Austin. I suspect they make money selling the recoverable stuff, as you say, but it's always surprising to see their ads.

177 sats \ 5 replies \ @grayruby 29 Aug

On a side note. It's odd that we are talking about junk removal today because a former colleague of mine is a VP with company that franchises home services brands. They have junk removal, one day painting and house cleaning. I am trying to convince him to let me have the license for all three brands for my region but they don't seem to want to go that route. They want to sell them individually and "prove it" with one before getting the next one and the next one. But that doesn't really interest me. If I am only going to have the one I might as well not pay the franchise fee and commissions and just go do it myself as grayruby's junk removal or whatever.

71 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b OP 29 Aug

I love those kind of businesses. My uncle-in-law bought a similar maintenance business in California targeting other businesses.

166 sats \ 2 replies \ @grayruby 29 Aug

They are amazing businesses. Really hard to scale but have nice profit margins and generally fairly low overhead (you don't need to hire 10 engineers and give them a fancy office to work in). If you are willing to learn the business and work hard you can make a very nice living.

71 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 29 Aug

Yep, most of his employees are born again convicts.

121 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 29 Aug

You still need to find the right people. There are a lot of good, honest, hard working people on the lower income, lower skill scale but there are also a lot of people who are in the position they are in because they continuously make poor decisions (in life and work).

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 29 Aug

Prove it with one... so annoying

166 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 29 Aug

They definitely sell all the scrap metal etc. In this instance everything that was recoverable was to be set aside for the city to sell/auction (however it worked) but mostly everything was a disaster. It was supposed to be furniture, appliances, stuff like that. We weren't tearing out copper wiring and pipes etc. The plan was to get all the shit out, keep what is good, bring in whatever team they had that would fumigate, remediate, and whatever other ate they needed to do to not make the place a death trap and they sell the houses at auction. Then someone buys it and tears it down. Haha.

71 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 29 Aug

I like that occasionally there's enough treasure in trash that this kind of recycling happens even if it hardly puts a dent on all the waste.

155 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE 30 Aug

I've not had weirdest but worked as a roadside guava seller for fruits from my own garden just to make some pocket money.

Also I remember, how we all children used to collect left over after the harvest from our fields!

177 sats \ 0 replies \ @sangekrypto 30 Aug

It's really sad now if I work with someone who is not mine, I used to work in a shop owned by someone else, every day there was always something wrong in the eyes of the owner of the shop where I worked, I worked from morning to evening, even though I had done what the owner ordered, it was still wrong.

finally I decided to quit working at that shop, and I collected money from working at that shop, then I bought a piece of land with an area of 1 hectare, and I decided to farm and grow vegetables and could be sold. now I'm just a farmer who has my own income, no one tells me anymore, and now I enjoy it from selling my own harvest, maybe this is a bitter experience that I felt for 3 years at that shop. hopefully no one will have the same fate as me.

177 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 30 Aug

Weirdest job - working with a botanist to identify and map rain forest trees in Puerto Rico, in El Yunque.

I got really good at identifying a lot of different tropical trees very quickly, by looking at leaves, bark, or doing a small cut and checking the sap, etc. I was working outdoors all day, which was also fun (for a while).

It was interesting, but I wouldn't want to work a job like that for more than I did, which was about 3 months. Just too much of the same work, not building anything lasting.

It was fun when we occasionally hit a different tree that we hadn't seen yet. I also tasted a rose apple tree - which is exactly what it sounds like, the fruit tastes exactly how roses smell.

Also, I had the best nap ever while doing this job. After lunch, sprawled on the trunk of a huge tree that had fallen down, face down on the sweet smelling bark, ah...

Okay, one more weird job. My first attempt at being an entrepreneur. I had read about a business idea, which was to get a set of number stencils, and then offer to paint people's house numbers on the curb. So, I bought the number stencils, and started knocking on doors.

I got discouraged (I was in my early teens), but thinking back, it was a decent idea - I knocked on doors for maybe 2 hours, and got one person to pay for the service, which paid me back for the stencils and the paint, AND paid me at least minimum wage for the time I spent. Then everything else would have been profit....

196 sats \ 4 replies \ @siggy47 29 Aug

Selling subscriptions over the phone to "Arizona Highways" magazine. I didn't last long.

64 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b OP 29 Aug

Arizona Highways looks like a great coffee table magazine.

31 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 29 Aug

The photography was incredible.

43 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 29 Aug

https://www.arizonahighways.com/subscribe

Subscribe now!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 29 Aug

Arizona Dept of Transportation affiliation?

So this is a state magazine like Pravda lol

186 sats \ 1 reply \ @ken 29 Aug

stacker.news poet

31 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 29 Aug

ken was @plebpoet before @plebpoet

166 sats \ 3 replies \ @OT 29 Aug

I had a go at selling glue at various markets around Sydney. Turns out I'm not a good salesman.

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b OP 29 Aug

Selling is probably the hardest, most valuable job that everyone under appreciates.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @OT 29 Aug

The guy that "sold" me on the job made it appear that the glue was amazing. It sticks everything and it never comes off. I just didn't believe it

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 29 Aug

glue is a hard sell, some products don't sell themselves

166 sats \ 2 replies \ @hasherstacker 29 Aug

I once worked for a family company whose management wasn't consistent with the conditions. There was no specific schedule for tasks. I just worked for a month. It was really boring, and I couldn't help it.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 29 Aug

What kind of work though? It sounds like the conditions were weird too.

121 sats \ 0 replies \ @hasherstacker 29 Aug

Packaging at a vegetable oil manufacturing company

153 sats \ 2 replies \ @OneOneSeven 29 Aug

Rodeo photography and videography. Not super weird but definitely my weirdest.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 29 Aug

That sounds like a lot of fun!

121 sats \ 0 replies \ @OneOneSeven 30 Aug

For sure. I got to travel from the southwest, all the way up to Wyoming. Spent a lot of time in Texas obviously, even have some photos of me, cowboy hat and all.

They won't let you in the arena without proper attire!

442 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 29 Aug

The first job I had was selling the newspapers at the age of 11 or 12.
The second one was selling ink bottles to shopkeepers and people on the streets. In this whole job, I used to be the manufacturer and the seller that too alone. For the process, first I need to buy chemical, then create a solution by mixing it into water in a big tub, then pour them into bottles, then pack them, then put two dozens of bottles on a bicycle, run from shop to shop to sell. In those times it was used to shine white clothes in India.

131 sats \ 0 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 29 Aug

Contributing to SN 😜

Edit: though I wouldn’t consider it a job. Just fun

141 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei 30 Aug

Not sure about weirdness but I had the most fun being a translator for a Japanese sake appreciation event where I translated info from Japanese to English to potential buyers. Needless to say, I drank a lot of sake that day!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 30 Aug

that's a fun job

121 sats \ 2 replies \ @TheWildHustle 30 Aug

Telephone interviewer for political surveys.

The people are retarded.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 30 Aug

How many people did you interview? 1000?

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheWildHustle 30 Aug

Maybe 500 conversations

Most people don't pickup, and for good reason.

121 sats \ 0 replies \ @voxmagdalenea 29 Aug

As a person that house cleaned spirits out of houses, I actually also cleaned houses years ago, but this was interesting. Most of the time I did it for free but many times people insisted on giving me money, I didn't refuse because well it was honestly exhausting, but very gratifying.

121 sats \ 0 replies \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 29 Aug

Man, I love a good Ren Faire.

I don't think I've had any really weird paying jobs. Plenty that sucked my soul dry, but nothing that would make people say, "that's a job?"

121 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 29 Aug

My middle school class got paid to clear out a bunch of hippie encampments on a local business owner's property. At least he claimed it was his property.

121 sats \ 0 replies \ @jasonb 29 Aug

At our Ren Fest, two years ago, I was standing in the beer line with my son on my back. The wife had taken the older kids to get food and I was on drink duty. A woman dressed up as a mushroom behind me in line tapped me on the shoulder. The conversation went as follows:

Mush: Excuse me. Your baby is so... Me: Than... Mush: judgmental looking. Me: ... ... Duly noted.

I gotta admit, truth be told, he does look pretty judgy.