The Awesomest Compilation of Weird & Crazy Jobs E-V-E-R!
And you thought today was gonna be boring ;) This all started the other day when my girl Money Mate Kate posted up some crazy-a$$ jobs she's taken in the past (Italian Icee Truck Driver, Bone Counter, Substitute mommy?) - I was dying!And once I began to compose myself, it got me thinking...I've done some pretty whacked out stuff too! But as I started writing out this post, another thing occurred to me: If shes' a frugal person with a frugal blog, and I'M a frugal person w/ a frugal blog, wouldn't it make sense that OTHER personal finance bloggers would have similar experiences too?
So I reached out to my PF friends & readers on email, twitter, & the Money Blog Network Forum (a *great* resource btw) and hit 'em up for their weirdest jobs they've ever done - and HOLY did i get some whammys! I'm not gonna lie - I KNEW some of us frugal ba$tards will get down and dirty to make a few pennies, but what I didn't know was how far they'd go :) We're talking Pea Inspecting, Tick Removing, Chuck E. Cheeze Dressing up'ing - jobs you couldn't make up if you tried.
So grab a coffee, close your office door, and get ready to enjoy some crazy awesomeness:
I'll start:
:: Campground Timeshare Tour Guide | $700-$1400/per sale | You know those tours you "have to take" in order to claim your *free* prizes or weekend getaways? Whelp, I was one of those people who gave them and then tried convincing you to buy one at the end ;) And in this particular case, you'd get your very own campground lot forever and ever! (oooohhhh ahhhh)
:: Wrecked Car washer | $10.00/hr (plus anything you'd find!) | Two of us guys with a van full of water and a generator, listening to headphones and washing the crap out of these things in the hot sun. Apparently smashed cars that are washed bring in $500 more at auction than do dirty/bloody ones (don't ask). And since it only cost about $5 per car to hook it up, the company raked in the money!
:: Stamp Maker/Package'r | $12.00/hr | Packaging and making stamps (those 42ยข ones) on an assembly line. 12 hour shifts, 4 days a week, one 15 mins break every 2 hours. The craziest part was that we couldn't wear any clothes w/ pockets, nor bring any bags that weren't see-through! You know, so we wouldn't be tempted to steal and sell them on the black market ;) haha...it felt like prison.
And now, jobs from around the blogosphere!
:: Bone Counter | $5.00/hr (age 20) | Temp job in the shipping/receiving department of a company that took cadaver bones (which arrived semi-butchered and frozen) and chopped them up into usable bits for transplant purposes. I was the only temp they didn't gross the hell out of. - Money Mate Kate
:: Tongue Boy | $0.05 per tongue | Cut the tongues out of codfish. - Money Grubbing Lawyer
:: Meat Packer (I think?) | minimum wage | For 8 hours, I manually flipped one half of figure-8 hamburger patties so they landed on top of the other half, concealing a slice of cheese in the middle to make a "pizza" hamburger. - Financial Reflections
:: Utility Study Researcher (nicknames: Space Cadet, Space Police) | minimum wage | Walking around my college campus, poking my head into classrooms, and counting the number of students in the room - much to the confusion of students and professors. - Stephanie @ Poorer Than You
:: Stock Boy @ Victoria's Secret | $10.00/hr | See title, lol! - My Journey To Millions
:: Bug Book Stippler | $2.00/hr (in 1967!) | "Stippled" (added dots) to illustrations of bugs in a book being written by a college entomology professor. - Mr. ToughMoneyLove
:: Dirt Sifter | $0.50 more than minimum wage | I would scoop dirt onto a screen, then shake the screen so fine dirt would come out of the bottom - Trent @ The Simple Dollar
:: Promotional Rep for Altoids Mints | $12.00/hr | I had to hand out free samples of mints to people in movie theatres, and before each movie, had to use a microphone to interact and play trivia games with the audience. I had no boss. The company just shipped me out 14 MASSIVE BOXES of Altoid mints and promotional material and told me to work until I had no more inventory. I made my own hours, got to watch all the free movies I wanted with my friends, and got a free megaphone out of the deal. Score! :) - Krystal @ Give Me Back My Five Bucks
:: Class Note-Taker in College | $5.00/week | I did it for 1 semester thinking I'd be a better student. nope! - mauliesmalls
:: Timeshare Telemarketer | $10.00/hr | Selling timeshares in Williamsburg, VA....to people living in Williamsburg Virginia! The call list we had from another account and 1/3-1/2 of the numbers were locals. It had easy 4 hour shifts. I hated the work and left shortly afterwards. - Green Panda Treehouse
:: Pea Inspector | ??? | I've never done any crazy jobs but... I knew one guy who was a pea inspector. lol. He inspected peas in a pea factory! haha - Ashley @ Wide Open Wallet
:: Engineering Intern for Metro | $12.50/hr (summer job) | Performed QA/QC on the construction of a Metro Line by visiting different construction sites and verifying that the work was being correctly executed. I had absolutely zero qualifications for this job and I have no idea why Metro hired engineering students for these positions - Budget Save Buy
:: Donation Soliciter | NOTHING! | (Salary was based on donations solicited, and I'm not a very good sales person) I had to go door to door to solicit donations for CALPIRG. (I didn't even know what CALPIRG was!) - Lynnae @ Being Frugal
:: Direct Marketing Rep | $200/week | Convince people in malls and train stations to sign up for a credit card (for real). Worst. Job. Ever. - Mr. Stokes @ Brizzle Bound
:: Cutco Knife Salesman | NADA. (Never made it out of training, couldn't bring myself to sell to friends and family.) | Selling cutco knives to friends and family. It was a MLM scheme. - Living Almost Large
:: Dog's Tick Remover | 1 penny per tick | Remove Ticks from dogs with tweezers. We can almost hear you saying "Ugh!..." but as kids we loved the job since it relieved the dogs from the pests :) - FIRE Finance
:: Dishroom Girl In a Dorm Cafeteria | $6.00/hr | Hairnet, long plastic apron, gigantic sprayer and garbage disposal, washing ridiculous quantities of wasted food down the drain, filthy sopping mess by the end of my shift. - Frugal Babe
:: Electrical-Environmental Systems Specialist, USAF | Enlisted pay grade E-2 through E-5 | Aircraft mechanic - worked in 30+ countries in temperatures ranging from -20F to 135F (not including windchill or heat index). - Patrick @ Cash Money Life
:: Cubicle Farmer | Too good to quit. | Ever seen Office Space? - Patrick @ Cash Money Life
:: Chinese Drive-Thru Window Fast Food Worker | $6.00/hr | Took orders for chinese food in an old Burger King, packed up food, and re-boiled dumplings in the same water for a week. Only lasted a month ;) - Jonathan @ My Money Blog
:: Library Organizer | $10.00/hr (with a max of 20 hours a week) | The mission: Working with a local organization, I was to start a local French lending library in one year with no budget (and by no budget, I mean no money available to me besides my salary, not no budget spend whatever you want). Some asides: Believe it or not, I lived on that salary for a whole year. It involved having a roommate and never going anywhere but I did it. And knowing I could live way below the federal poverty line gives me the confidence to stay on my relatively generous budget now. Oh and in the end I had over 10,000 books all on their shelves in Dewey Decimal categories, and 100 multimedia resources (movies and music mostly) that a purchased from a grant I got. I even opened a month early. And the old people said I couldn't do it! ;^) - Nicole @ Breaking Even
:: Model For Drug Treatment Center Brochure | $150.00 (1 time fee) | A friend from our church was doing some literature for Hazelden, drug treatment center to the stars. He needed someone to do a before and after picture for the brochure. On the before picture I was a sad, drug-addled youth, and in the after I was a happy, well adjusted young man. It was pretty funny sitting there making sad faces pretending to be on drugs :) - Pete @ Bible Money Matters
:: Farm Hand on a Blueberry Farm | minimum wage (at 14 y/o) | While this job sounds fun, it actually entails riding on a massive blueberry harvester, at wide open speed, through fields infested with wasps, bees, and fire ants, in the 100 degree heat of July. - No Credit Needed
:: Chuck E. Cheese Dresser-Upper | minimum wage | Entertain customers, kids, and mainly myself in the sweltering heat of Hot-lanta dressed as Chuck E. Cheese. - Alan Corey, Author of "A Million Bucks by 30"
:: Watermelon Thrower | $10.00/hr | I worked in a watermelon patch the summer after my senior year of high school. As a thrower, we would pick up watermelons from the field and thrown them into a trailer with a 6' wall, where a "catcher" was waiting with open arms. It was the hardest work I've ever done. I only lasted a week. The money I earned that week helped me with a down payment on my car for college. - Prime Time Money
:: Calf Catcher | Nothing | Wrangle a calf with bare hands and try to gently push it through a cattle squeeze. Try not to get kicked. (I'm a city girl, so moving to a ranch was a rude awakening on how weird jobs can be.) - Squawk Fox
Whew! So did i tell ya, or did i tell ya? We frugal ones sure know how to party :) haha...For all who participated - THANK YOU (esp you Kate)! And for all who still wants to, go ahead and re-live your job all over again by dropping a comment...we'd all love ya for it!
Till next time...God bless ya and keep "the sexy" alive,
Labels: awesomely awesome, career
posted by J. Money at
7:02 AM
40 Comments:
These are good. I went to the CUTCO knives training thing in college but was freaked out by the end of it and never went back. I guess I could have put that up there.
These are great. Worst job I ever had was just working behand a bar. I hated it and couldn't believe how dirty you got serving drinks all night. The leery comments from drunk guys was the worst part. I only last three shifts!
Excellent! It's amazing some of the jobs that are out there. :)
Thanks for putting mine up there.
Man, I totally forgot that I did some contract work for the EPA back in college. I removed sticks and logs from a field all day. They were reclaiming the land from an old strip mine. At another site, I just followed my friend around with one of those surveyor contraptions and we wrote down numbers.
Speaking of Victoria Secret, in my last year of college, I worked at a fancy women's clothing store as the office manager; basically Accounts Rec/Payable, Shipping/Receiving and IT Support. The salesgirls were hot and I had the run of the place. Best year ever :)
I delivered pizza for Papa Johns for 4 years in college. I met some of the most insane people ever...including the people I worked with.
I also worked as a book keeper for my exboyfriend's dad's stone mason company in high school. AWKWARD since the company office was at their house and all my shifts were when said exboyfriend was home. BUT he paid 12/hr....
I worked in a melon patch every summer from age 10 to 15 driving the truck or catching them in the back of the moving truck and trying not to fall...
I have worked as a line judge for high school vball games
I currently officiate little kids bball on weekends for 10/hr.
I did groundskeeping at a very very rich apartment complex for 2 summers. I walked around picking up cigarrette butts and cleaning up 'daddy's girls' messes after their weekend parties at the pool (beer and puke have been and always will be the worst combination every imaginable)
And I now work as a part time fitness instructor and get paid to workout. That's not really weird really. But its different considering I'm a full time engineer. 2 very different sides of the brain :)
My husband had a friend who "sexed chickens" lmao. It's not what it sounds like. They would sort baby chicks by male or female.
One summer job in high school I stood inside a curtained booth testing the light bulbs used in those street lights that turn on automaticall at dusk and turn off at dawn. I stood on an assmebly line and had to plug a bunch of bulbs into a circuit board and time them. I got my share of shocks, too.
LMAO - Great start to a Monday morning. Thanks
my brother-in-law did the CUTCO training...but never made a sale outside of a few family members. his dad ended up buying all his "display utensils" for fairly cheap and i ordered a 2 knife paring set and an ice cream scooper. those knives ARE amazing though...the only 2 knives i'll use in my entire kitchen.
I wish I'd checked my email this weekend. :) I was once an interpreter at a living history museum. Basically, I dressed up as a pioneer and interacted with visitors. When there was no one there, we did farm work. Best job I've ever had, bar none.
I've also helped "sex" chickens before (the sorting out by sex) but I didn't get paid.
i was a hand model. :)
OMG you guys are freakin' crazy! haha...i love it. keep them coming in baby, we're on a roll!!!
You ever see those people sitting in a lawn chair at a stop light with a little electronic notebook...well that would be me, counting how many drivers are wearing their seatbelts! Nice summer job, throw on headphones and get a tan while sitting there.
I also worked in a call center, which in itself is not weird, but what my actual job entailed was returning phone calls advising customers if an odd medical expense is considered eligible or not per the IRS. (FYI, the number one expense I was ALWAYS calling people on, is to inform them that their mary jane is NOT considered an eligible medical expense per the IRS...) ...douching was another common call topic. Again, its a no go!
I have also dressed up as Cindy Bear at a Yogi Bear themed park!
My brother currently works as a pizza slice at his job. haha, only on a rare occasion does he have to be the one to wear the constume, but it is funny when it happens.
my sister once had a job of preparing books in printing. she would walk in a giant circle placing one page on each pile - then go back with the next page and do the same thing. Just keep walking....round and round...until the book is complete!
Wow, great post, i laughed out loud at a couple of these. Mine (drug treatment model) paled in comparison to some of these!
These were great! And some were quite funny for a Monday morning. Thanks for compiling this.
OMG, people call the IRS to see if reefer and douche are deductible expenses? lmao.
Thanks for including my dishroom job on your list, J. My other not-so-great job was working as a bagger in a grocery store. The bagging part was fine, but it was also my responsibility to clean the bathrooms at night, and clean the meat department at the end of the day. The store was in a part of town frequented by very intoxicated people who would inexplicably rub feces on the bathroom walls and pee on the floors. And the meat department was also lovely. I had to put on big rubber boots and a rubber coat, and hose all of the blood and meat chunks into huge drains in the floors. I became a vegetarian shortly after that job.
LOL this reminded me that I once worked in a Cutco office! My job was to take phone calls from people lured in by the "Make $18/hr" signs and convince them to come interview...without ever saying that it was a Cutco office ;)
This is hilarious! J. you certainly did your homework here, and I have to give you credit, this is a GREAT list. Tongue boy? OMG.
Lynnae - if you didn't know what the organization was to begin with, no wonder you couldn't get people to give donations, HAHA. (I work in the NP sector and soliciting donations from people is hard enough when you know what you're doing!)
I think my weirdest job was Raspberry Caning - taking a long pair of pliers and sniping the dead canes out of the ground. Then again, maybe my most recent job was stranger - talking to old people about leaving gifts in their wills to charity...
cow hoof trimmers make a lot of money...except its disgusting.
Excellent list. I once had a job in a parasite lab... keeping mosquitoes alive. Try sticking your arm into a cage of those buggers!
Sounds awful but was way cool.
Oh wow, these are some interesting jobs you guys have had! LOL. For the most part I've had fairly normal jobs. The only one I'd say was pretty crappy, bar none, was when I worked for a call center and spent 8 hours a day calling consumer's to try and convince them to take a 45 minute survey on cigarettes.
"On a scale of poor, fair, good, very good, or excellent would you rate your experience with Marlboro as:
poor
fair
good
very good
or excellent?"
There were tons of stupid questions like that and if they interrupted you, you had to start all over. I think I got maybe 5 people to finish the entire survey and then I quit that job!
Wow- there are a lot of crazy jobs out there! I've had my fair share all through High school and college...
Just a few: Grocery Bagger (& I had to clean the bathrooms like Frugal Babe- Men's Rooms are disgusting!)
Call center answering calls from people who have had a check denied at a retail store. I got to tell them why their checks were no good! And talk about having access to A LOT of sensitive personal info!
Petting Farm entrance gate/snack shop operator
Mobile Pet Groomer, I basically drove around with a small horse trailer that had been converted to a grooming "spa", loaded up the pet and bathed away. This was HOT, DIRTY, HAIRY and I don't think I did it more than 2 months or so.
Research Sheep Caretaker: I fed and hosed out the cages of the Stanford Research sheep that were used for open-heart valve research, etc. Another dirty, non-fun job
And then the various jobs I have had cleaning horse stalls. Ever cleaned a horse stall that was 2 feet deep in urine soaked pine shavings? Try a whole barn full- and that was unpaid! :)
Lastly... Nursing. Yeah, I get paid very well for it. But the things I have had to do..... Ever helped a grown man urinate in a bottle? Cleaned another adult's poo? How about trying to get a tube down someone's throat while they are puking on you?! Not to mention some of the unmentionables I have had the pleasure of dealing with. A-hem. But, alas I still love my job. Wouldn't trade this one for very many things.
Thanks for the list J- this was great!
@NorCalRN I would say the same thing about women's bathrooms. I worked at Kmart and the sheer amounts of toilet paper everywhere! And of course the feminine hygiene products that never made it into the trash receptacle. Not a comfortable thing to do for a 16 year old kid.
I still cannot get over some of this stuff --- the things we DO for money! I wonder if anyone thought these jobs were crazy at the time of doing it? like if we were used to that environment growing up, perhaps we didnt' know the difference anyways.
Either way, I'm glad you all shared 'em - It def. makes you unique ;)
Wow, I have actually interviewed for two or three of those positions.
1) Cutco Knives 2) Direct Promotions Rep
I have to say . . . I love my job . . . even more than I did before I read this post!
Wow man what an unbelievable post! Money will definitely make people do some crazy things. The Chuck E Cheese dresser upper is prolly my favorite b/c I hated that mouse as a little kid! One weird job I see here at work is we have a third party company come in an water our plants!!! Bahahaha. As always, you kept it quite sexy with those one J.
I wish I had a crazy job so I could have sent you something, but I've had very straightforward jobs where CRAZY STUFF has happened to me. (Like the transvestite at the store 3 blocks from the White House. That was certainly very weird.)
My weird jobs include:
* Scouting cotton and tobacco - (about $8/hour) that means I spent 10 hours a day walking through cotton and tobacco fields looking for weeds, bugs, and moth eggs and marking down on a map of the field where I found them. I lasted the whole summer, but didn't go back the next year.
* Egg-crate mattress factory - (about $9/hour) Cutting, folding, packaging and boxing those egg-crate mattresses you can buy to go on top of your regular mattress. It was deadly boring but would have been okay if it weren't for the nasty static electricity shocks so strong they left my skin red and raw over half of my body. Plus, it was 12 hour days Monday-Saturday and 8 hours on Sunday since it was just before Christmas and they were behind on their holiday hours. I didn't see the sun the whole time I worked there. I lasted about a month.
I once worked as a decoy for a private investigator. The PI was hired by a wife who suspected her husband was cheating on her, so I was sent in to talk to the guy and see if he would proposition me. Crazy, fun, but also a little nerve wrecking.
One summer I worked for a catering company and spent the majority of days twirling cotton candy for spoiled kids on a private beach in San Diego. These kids were so rowdy, I felt bad for their nannies, especially since I had been giving them sugar. At least I got to work outside?
You were a DECOY?!! That is the funniest thing i've heard all night!! hahaha....oh man, you're seriously my new favorite person ;) These jobs just keep getting better and better.
My daughter was a baby and I needed something I could do at home....I found a job ($10.00 per thousand pieces) putting advertisements in college stores' plastic bags (like for mastercard, magazines etc). I had to drive to the place one town over, they loaded up my car with cartons and cartons of "literature" and plastic bags, drive back home to get my husband to bring everything into my dining room where I had my assembly line set up. Had to put together fresh cartons for completed bags, have my car relaoded and drive back to deliver everything. It was a pain, but gave me some mad money!
I had a job sewing numbers onto the backs of sports jerseys (official title was: Crester). I worked insane hours to meet deadlines and my boss was an a$$! After threatening to quit multiply times I was making $16/hr, but in the end money is never enough to put up with some crap.
Actually, there were some really cool parts: I got to make the WHL championship banners one year (the big ones they hang from the rafters at the arena), including the logo which was super fun to make. It was done with layers of adhesive fabric and sewn together. Very slick! And I also made a Calgary Flames logo for their mascots shirt!
I then went on to spend the next 4 years working at a small business that sold gym strip clothing to schools and football equipment. I still don't know anything about the game, but I can outfit you for the correct shoulder pads no problem!
Now I'm a Document Controls Coordinator. I create and enforce filing systems at an Energy Company.
We're on the homepage of MSN.com (under the "Money" section on the right)!!!! Check out the comments in my guest post over there too - people are leaving all SORTS of crazy and awesome jobs :)
All this stuff is great. It's funny to see where we all end up too - like if the jobs ever match each other or if they're strictly random and for the love of money. But who know all these even existed???
@Sweetpeamommie - I would have totally taken that job too. Throwing on some jams pretty loud would make it much easier ;)
@PirateKitty - if i ever make BudgetsAreSexy shirt and logos, you better make them for me ;)
I build F/A-18's! Pretty awesome if you ask me ;)
I never really had a weird job per se, but I had a couple of interesting ones!
During school I worked as a receptionist at a dental office. I got to help clean all the tools, occasionally assist (shhh!) and develop the x-rays among other things.
The perks? Free gum, toothbrushes and toothpaste, and some free dental exams, too!
The pay was great for a student, too! One of the sweetest jobs I ever had! :)
Now I work in advertising in a fancy schmancy office with a fully stocked bar in the kitchen area and get lots of free gifts and lunches!! It's like Mad Men but better! And I get to see my campaigns on TV, the radio, magazines and online everyday!
One summer I agreed to clean some dirt and rocks that had washed up against a building that was owned by a friend of the family. The guy was rich and I figured I would make some pretty good money. After a couple of weeks of moving rocks by the wheelbarrow I was done. I went in to settle with the guy that 'writes the checks'. Minimum wage!?! Now I now why the property owner was rich.
I learned two lessons that summer; first, always agree on the finances up front; second, rich guys are rich for a reason, so if you are going to work for them, find out why they are rich.
LOL, these are great! They've really made my day! :)
Area 54 worker
Oh yeah. I survive here in this little shack now but I worked there. Let me tell you.....
The day started at 6 am. There were so many people on the road after 8 looking for a story so we were told to be ready for pick up early. There were about six people in my bus everyday. I remember one girl always looking away when anyone glanced her way. She bit her nails a lot too. Long stringy blonde I labeled her. I guess in a way one had to be nervous. I mean Area 54 gets a lot more publicity than you can imagine. Add to this it's in a location that is accessible to trains, buses, cars and planes. There is also a water way, but I'll leave that for later. Where was I? Oh yeah the morning commute. There was another guy who gave me the creeps too. He always wore a dark shirt. His torso reminded me of Herman the Monster. Wasn't bad looking though. Nice dark haired 30 something dude with a easy way about himself. Otherwise non-descript... There also was a guard on the bus with us. He had to be the weirdest person you could meet. Always neat and wide awake. I mean who is always THAT wide awake at 5:30 in the morning? You get me. He was short, bald, wore beige khaki pants, a hat and he had a gun. He never looked any different. Almost like the twilight zone. In fact, the guard looked like that little guy who played on an episode of the Star Trek. I believe he played a devil. Somebody will know whom I'm referring to. Creepy, now that I think back on it. At the time though nothing really phased me. I was invincible. I was 26 years old. A college drop out. I lived at home. I had no money. I lived easy. When I started that is. How did I get the job? A friend of my fathers told a friend of my brother that I would be ideal for the job. Guess I was. That job will make a soldier out of anyone.
Another piece of work was my first interview. It was held at the site. But everything was on a smaller scale then it is today. The guy who interviewed me, his office was the blandest place I can ever recall being in. Everything was off white. The walls, the desk... Everything. That's the only way to describe it. The pencil holder had a black capped pen in it and it was so dang unusual that I couldn't stop staring at it. If not for that pen I don't believe I would have remembered that office. Even the interviewer's teeth were off white. So was his shirt, tie, shoes, socks, (I remember the socks because when I stood to leave he didn't. He had his leg crossed of the other. I also glanced at the paper he held. He had been taking notes as I spoke. The fact that not a word was on the paper didn't strike me as odd at all. Not a word on it.
I went home and felt really bad for my family. I was off to a great adventure and they were staying in their mundane lives. I wanted so badly to hug my mom really tight and tell her I'd bring her back some long lost memory or something. Maybe even a dinosaur bone. I remember thinking that because the interviewer had asked me how I'd feel being around them. Strange huh? Wasn't then though. Anyway, I had to pack and I thought a long time about what sort of clothes I wanted to have with me. I thought about it so hard I got a headache. I then decided to nap on it. When I awoke my bed didn't fit me anymore. I swear. My feet were hanging over the edge.
I lot of things happened to me in the two years I worked there. Odd things, interesting things. I didn't see any space ships but I do believe I saw aliens. I saw them mostly when I didn't want to. Late at night just before the alarm went off and I started my day. I saw them at the windows, in the shower, in my cereal. Not once did I think that we could be friends; and, not once did I want to see them.
haha...omg, either you're the best story teller ever, or you've lived a very fulfilling life my good friend. and either way, I enjoyed reading every second of that :) in fact, it may be worthy of its own post here? that white-on-white-on-white portion was genius.
thx for sharing!
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Back to Budgetsaresexy.com