What interesting, weird, boring, jobs have you had?

[TickleHere]

Ok, so there's currently a "What is your profession?" thread going asking what your current job is. I'm running with the assumption that a lot of us have had more than one job during our lifetimes. What interesting, weird, boring, (or all three) kinds of jobs have people here done? For a little over a year I worked for a company that built and serviced Pipe Organs -- it was a great job! Once time the guys and I were inside a pipe organ as it was being played and it was amazing.

 

[milagros317]

The most boring job that I ever had was working as a clerk in a US Post Office in a small town in New Jersey during the summer of 1969. Most boring of all was the task of running mail through the canceling machine and then sorting it into pigeonholes.

 

[Mitchell]

I'm an insurance agent.

I've worked at Aflac, and another small insurance company.

I've also been a marketing rep, and have worked for several companies involved in Marketing, Internet Sales, and a jewelry and antiques sales person.

Of the positions I've worked at, my favorite was working at Aflac. It was a wonderful experience.

 

[Bugman]

I did some factory work right out of high school. Mind numbing, tedious work. Hated it. Had several jobs I enjoyed. One was in Houston, as a field service tech for a commercial coffee company. Another was a route driver for a commercial linen service. You couldn't ask for nicer people to work for. The same family had owned the company for over 100 years at that time, a rare thing in todays world. Have to say though, what I enjoyed most was working in pest control. I found it interesting, and 99% of my customers were nice.

 

[Strider]

When I was an undergrad I worked at Blockbuster Video (not to date myself) for a couple years as a customer service rep and then a shift lead. I actually made significantly more friends via working there than I did from college; one of them ended up being Best Man at my wedding.

It was a wonderful job for someone in their early 20s who wanted to pick up a little extra money and have minimal responsibilities. You could get away with basically anything as long as you weren't rude to customers; whenever I worked the closing shift, I'd show up stoned and my boss never cared.

 

[BlasterMaster]

Thirty hours a week at radiology of my local Lourdes hospital plus another thirty hours a week at my local Walmart.

 

[Rickytickly]

The most interesting was when I worked at my friend's store called Aziz, which I noticed is also the name of a TMF member here coincidentally enough. I loved it because it wasn't even like a job because it was so much fun to work there. The first thing we did when we opened up in the morning was select a good combo of incense to burn, which we sold...we burned that because we were constantly smoking weed in the store and we were always high. We'd have like three sticks burning at the same time. We sold all kinds of cool stuff, spiritual things...jewelry, statues, records and CD's, books, oils, so many things, and we had the place decorated real nice, it was all dark and gloomy but in a very relaxed comfortable kind of way...music was always playing, that or cool videos...and friends were always coming and going, as well as students as the university was close by...and it wasn't like you had to buy something and leave, everyone was made to feel comfortable and you could hang out there as long as you wanted.

It was actually the first store like that of its kind in this area, then a few others started copying the idea, but yeah, my friend Bob, he was the first, and he was a great guy, my best friend at the time. He's since passed on...bless him. 🙂

 

[chicago]

The most fun job I've had was a temporary gig I got through a friend of my dad's. She owned a few spots in this giant parking garage and random people kept parking there and it was pissing her off. So she paid me $100 / day to stake out the area and put a giant, really-hard-to-peel-off, neon orange sticker like this one:

on the window and record the time and license place and whatnot.

It was mostly boring, but kinda fun.

 

[Wolf]

Most fun/kinda weird sometimes job: Massage Therapist/Bodyworker at a high-end spa. Spent the bulk of my time with naked people.
Gave them spray tans, covered them with all kinds of mixtures (honey, salt, coffee, chocolate, seaweed) and got to use this machine a lot:

It was basically a giant vibrator, and a running gag among the rest of the staff.

 

[Rickytickly]

Most fun/kinda weird sometimes job: Massage Therapist/Bodyworker at a high-end spa. Spent the bulk of my time with naked people.
Gave them spray tans, covered them with all kinds of mixtures (honey, salt, coffee, chocolate, seaweed) and got to use this machine a lot:
View attachment 524677
It was basically a giant vibrator, and a running gag among the rest of the staff.

I always wondered what goes on in those places and why they're so incredibly popular. There's one where I live, and even the name, "Massage Envy", seems...well they seem to do great business, so now I can understand why, lol

 

[Wolf]

I always wondered what goes on in those places and why they're so incredibly popular. There's one where I live, and even the name, "Massage Envy", seems...well they seem to do great business, so now I can understand why, lol

Massage Envy is a franchise; they're like the Chili's of spa work. Everything's prepackaged and standardized. It's a starting point for a lot of Massage Therapists and Aestheticians. You get steady work, but it pays less.

 

[Rickytickly]

Massage Envy is a franchise; they're like the Chili's of spa work. Everything's prepackaged and standardized. It's a starting point for a lot of Massage Therapists and Aestheticians. You get steady work, but it pays less.

Oh I see, yeah I wouldn't have known, because it seems to be the only one they have here that I'm aware of. But they seem to do a lot of business, that's for sure!

 

[duderino84]

let's see. I've done chemical order picking at a plant, car insurance claims handler, pharmaceutical marketing picking, car auctioneer driver (the days other than show day professional parking), ticket selling over the phone for concerts etc....a bunch. all odd.

 

[kevin_kidnapped]

I used to caddy at a golf course when I was a kid. It was at a private club, and yeah....a lot of that stuff in caddy shack wasn't far off the mark. I think we had a match for almost every character in that movie. We got tipped well if our golfer was burning up the course. If they were chasing the ball all day long, then you just knew the tip was gonna suck. Of course there were always the well known tippers no matter what that we all fought to caddy for. All in all it was a great job as a kid...

 

[Bator]

I worked on a ward for the criminally insane at a huge institution one summer. Patients violently attacking each other and staff members, no place for the weak of heart lol It was in the northern part of the province and really the first time I had ever been away from home for so long and felt that independent, it came at the perfect time and it was a rewarding experience. I needed that, it made me feel like I was finally giving something back. A ton of gorgeous French girls. All in all, one of the best summers of my life, I must say. A very fond memory indeed 🙂

 

[luvgirlsfeet]

The best job I had was working for the airlines AirTran Airways ( Now SouthWest ) in Boston @ Logan International Airport I worked there from 2007 to 2013
I was cross trained to work both the ticket counter/ the gate area as well as outside with the planes. Guiding the planes into ( Marshaling )and away ( Wingwalk ) from the jetbridge off loading and loading the new luggage and occasionally I would drive the pushback tractor that moves the plane

My wife and I including immediate family could fly for free but it was always standby. My wife and I had flown many times on vacations, a wedding and for a two day trip to Disneyland in Anaheim California and Universal Studios in Orlando. Sadly I had to leave because working for so many years in brutal weather conditions and crawling around the very tight cargo bins on a 717 and 737 boeing aircraft didn't help matters and did a number on my knees that led to 7 surgeries on the same knee. In March of 2013 I gave my notice and the next month my wife and I bought a house here in Peoria, AZ and haven't looked back

Currently I work for Enterprise Rent A Car detailing the cars inside and out as they return to my branch, The most expensive car to date that I have driven is a Mercedes.

The most boring was Stardust Cleaners in Braintree, Mass Let's just leave it as the management SUCKED

 

[kurchatovium]

For a short while I helped my Father fix pinball machines. Was fun cause you got to play them all the time to check them out. LOL

 

[TickleHere]

These are all really fascinating -- Thanks for sharing and keep 'em coming!

 

[teamtickleguy]

Some highlights from my working life:

- While studying I did some agency work, mostly working in a hotel, but on one occasion I reluctantly agreed to go to work in a flour factory as a packer of flour onto pallets. I made the mistake of wearing all black, so of course came out obviously covered in flour. Apart from that, my slight frame made it hard for me to physically keep up with the packing. Terrible experience.

- I did a stint as a Events coordinator in a theatre, where interesting events included managing a show featuring Leslie Grantham (not long after he got into trouble elsewhere for doing naughty things on cam from within his dressing room) and trying to negotiate with a traffic warden to get Richard Gibson (Herr Flick in the classic sitcom Allo Allo) out of a parking fine.

While working as a Duty Manager in a multi-purpose Arts venue, myself and two colleagues were expected to bear the brunt of all sorts of weird and wonderful jobs, sometimes good and other times unacceptable...:
- Driving a Routemaster double-decker London bus (mobile art workshop) - this was my favourite thing ever, even when the brakes failed on me.
- Manually spinning a turntable for a charity auction of hand-painted 7ft high giraffes, in time with the music, without letting the damn thing topple over!
- Ignoring all health & safety guidelines and climbing up onto the roof of the venue (designed by Rafael Vinoly) to removed debris that had blown up there during a storm.
- taking on a last minute wedding for a couple who had been let down by their booked venue and literally combing the surrounding landscape for Ivy and other foliage to use to cover the makeshift arch we'd created for them to stand under!
- driving the works van - which was part Renault, part Vauxhall and the cab filled with steam whenever it went over 30mph.
- dealing with youths who used to congregate outside the venue - including calling an ambulance after one had an adverse reaction to an legal high.
- trying to remove pine needles and water from the top of an ancient Roman mosaic after the Christmas tree fell over onto the glass screen that covered it.

I could go on for hours - the photo library I have of various bizarre incidents is endless.....

Sadly the venue was controversial and failing, so I jumped ship when redundancies were announced.
My current job (managing a business centre) is much more secure, better paid, more sociable hours, good pension etc but you know what? I'd do almost anything to have my old job back again 🙂

 

[Bugman]

For a couple of years I worked for the county parks and rec district where I grew up. One thing that had to be done every day (except if it snowed) was roadside trash pickup, anything within 10 feet of the road. We used golf carts with 55 gallon barrels strapped where the clubs would have been. The shop was maybe a quarter mile from the main road so we staged races on the way out and back when we were done. Loser had to buy a round of sodas from the vending machine.

It was a huge park, with a 1,250 lake more or less in the middle with a road looping around it. On the south side was a spur off the main road, maybe a quarter mile long ending in a cul de sac. It was nicknamed "cocaine lane" and was insane on the weekends. Whoever was working weekends had to drive through there two or three times a day. People would throw beer bottles, rocks and whatever they could find while cursing us out and flipping us off. Got so bad we closed the road, tore up the pavement and planted grass.

Winter was the most boring time. The marina rented paddleboats and when they closed for winter we had to haul them to the shop, to be patched and painted. We also had to pick up any picnic tables that needed work. The aluminum framed tables with wood top and seats were ok but some of them were all wood, made with 2x8s and those weighed a ton. By the time Spring rolled around we were all pretty sick of each other, being stuck in the shop for months.