Unusual Jobs...
 

What are some of the most unusual jobs you've ever had?

Mine has to be the tour guide at Natural Bridge Caverns. I can still remember the spiel, "I'll be your guide for the next hour to an hour and fifteen minutes." What we'll do for the dollars in college. I also did pharmaceutical research. Only did it once, but got paid 500 smacks to let them pump me full of a narcotic pain killer for two days. I kind of enjoied it. Had the munchies something terreble after, and it was like being in rehab (all sealed up, not a thing to do but play pool and read, and you coulkdn't leave and had to let someone watch you pee) Oh and I Lost my sense of smell for a few days, but hey, it came back. I never did it again, it was way too Steven King's "Firestarter" for me.

I was once a mascot for "giant tiger" at an exhibition. I was in this big inflatable tiger suit for two weeks in the summer...it was so hot in there, but a great way to pick up chicks.
Alright, back to the essay.

Through my work-study job, i ended up working the scoreboard and doing announcing for the women's hockey team out here - which is a club team. not only was the hockey not necessarily top-tier on either side, it was almost impossible to keep up w/ announcing and working the board - so basically i was making $17 an hour to get bitched out for not being able to keep up. only took about 4 games before i couldn't take it any more!

Not sure if this unusual or not but one time I was given this receptionist job at a temp agency in the D.C. Metro Area. Well, it was at a high level property management firm if I remember correctly. Anyways they had me man this phone that had 16 different lines plus doing all this "multi-tasking" stuff. I was new to temping and they just threw me into the fire. They gave me a book basically to show me the ropes and they said there was no lunch break. That lasted 4 hours after I was blue in the face.

I'm probably the king of unusual jobs but I cant top that tiger mascot though *LOL*. I worked at a maximum security juvenile prison in Virginia. Definitely saw a different side to Virginia that I had never seen before. Plus I worked at a group home for a long time in California with troubled kids with all kinds of mental disorders.

Kevin.

Lets see -

I washed out semi trucks for about 3 weeks for extra cash for spring break (it was gross). I got fired for driving the back wheel of one of the semi's over my bosses little pickup truck CRUNCH! I guess I should've told him that I didn't know how to 1. drive a manual
2. drive anything larger than a nissan


I used to work for a prescription company... they had me chasing down these colored bins (blue, red, yellow, black) with numbers... they were people'e missing narcotics! I hated that job... spending 8 hours working on a list walking through this huge warehouse.. http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/frown.gif

Interesting thread. I guess my most unusual jobs are a tossup between being a Santa's Elf at a department store and being a Hootergirl. For sure, both involved wearing an odd uniform and being nice to demanding "kids"!


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~@~Tracy~@~
Proud to be a Delta-Z :)

I never had this job, but I interviewed for a warehouse/marketing job. Turns out, it was a job where you went from buisiness to buisiness, store to store soliciting goods. Needless to say I did not go back for a second interview. The wierdest job I have had is working in the camus mailroom. It is easy work and the people are nice, but it is a very unusual job.

It's not unusual, but it suck - I was the fries and burger guy in McDonald.

Good topic so I thought that I would bump it up to get some other peoples answers.

Hmm. I worked for a toy store that specialized in high-end and educational type toys. We had a big anniversary sale/party and I had to trot outside to the parking lot in the middle of July wearing a full Madeleine costume. That sh*t was unbearably hot. When I wasn't Madeleine I was on top of the giant inflatable slide making sure no one broke his neck. Every half hour I'd have to pause the slide traffic to hop down the slide w/ baby powder to keep things moving. I came home hot, sweaty, sunburned and covered in baby powder.

Haha wow you guys have had some crazy jobs, lol. I guess the wierdest thing I ever did was get paid to sit and smoke for like some many hours a day for a couple of weeks. It was some study on smokers habits, and it was pretty pointless. However I did get paid and I got free packs of any kind of cigarettes that I wanted....sooo, when I was a freshman and I smoked, this was a good deal. I don't smoke anymore and I'm not that desperate for money anymore so that'd probably never happen anymore. :)

One thing that it seems like all the guys around here do is join these weird experiments where they get paid a couple hundred bucks to have drugs tested out on them or something. I know a bunch of LXA's who did it this summer and they were cool with the money but pissed b/c they couldn't drink any alcohol. Hah. :)

Disc Jockey at the college town's only commercial radio station. 1967 "Summer of Love" rock and roll.

this isn't me but
 

i knew a guy who was paid to dress up as a vulcan (of start trek spock fame) at Paramounts Kings Island...he got beat up a couple times while working that summer

Day-camp counselor for a Southern Baptist Church. Yes, I--the race-mixing, fornicating heathen--was an employee of my city's largest Baptist church. After summers and holidays working retail, it was a nice break. I had to lead prayers, direct arts and crafts activities, and deal with overly prepubescent Christian girls.

I did phone surveys. I called people in Louisiana about consumer confidence. I called people in Arkansas about how they felt about increasing water flows over a certain dam.

Most people didn't give a damn.

Sorry for the pun.

It wasn't fun but it was $7/hr for sitting around. :D

I guess as in unusual for a girl, I worked at the school's machine shop. But I got fed up pretty quickly when the guy wouldn't teach me a damn thing and all I did was sweep up and lube the stupid machines. I really wanted it to work out, but it didn't.

I also worked at Natural Wonders before they all went out of business, which I guess isn't so much unusual as it was fun. I learned how to use those devil sticks and all sorts of crazy stuff.

I guess my most unusual job was working for a guy who was running for County Executive. I think it was the summer before my freshman year in high school, and all I remember is going door to door handing out fliers to people all over our town and telling them to vote for him. I did it with some of my friends for some extra cash because one of my friends' dad knew the guy. It was kind of random and some people didn't really care about what we had to say.

Then the next summer when I needed a job, I saw an ad in the paper for a sales position. Without knowing the exact description of the company, I went in for an interview. I got the job, but after finding out that I would be going door to door selling kitchen appliances, I turned them down right away.

I once got interviewed and hired for a company that wanted me to go door to door selling kitchen knives.. Anyone else heard of Cut-Co? Yep, and a bunch of people I know in town had all done it and made no money. They even roped my brother in eventually, but he realized who they were and didn't do it.

Re: this isn't me but
 

Hahahahaha! :D That sounds like my uncle, who was the "Q-Bird" for a local radio station for a while...he had to dress up in this big yellow bird costume and prance around at ball games. I can't believe I actually admitted that on a public message board... :o

I've had some of the same jobs as y'all (tour guide, Santa's Elf), but I also was on the Presidential Advance Team. We went into cities prior to a Presidential visit & got everything ready for that big hour or two visit!

I worked at a fireworks store for the month of June and first few days of July the summer after my freshman year. I had gone home for the summer and I was looking for anything to make some extra money on top of my part time job at Chilis. The wharehouse was jam packed all day on the 4th. It was definitely an experience...the best part was as soon as it started to get dark out, we had our own little display in the parking lot. We got to use the really big expensive ones because our boss was so cool. Even though I worked all day long, I think it was the best 4th of July I ever had.