31 Weird Jobs Someone Has To Do
They actually get paid for this.
Published 3 years ago in Funny
There's a lot of weird jobs out there you'd be surprised to learn actually exist. Moderator at eBaums World, for example. You can't imagine the things we've seen. But that's not even close to the weirdest, most WTF jobs some people actually work and make careers out of.
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In Japan my wife got a job as "Designated Foreigner at Weddings". Apparently they like the idea of foreigners at their weddings as it makes the photos more interesting. She used to earn up to 20,000 yen a day. Also met a Canadian guy there who had a job as "Designated Foreigner at Bar". He used to get pissed and make conversation with salary-men.13
I work as a stand-in bridesmaid. Basically: If a bridesmaid decides not to arrive at a wedding you can hire a stand-in bridesmaid. Stand-in bridesmaids do everything a normal bridesmaid does except you pay them and they usually do it better since it’s their job. It’s a lot of fun going to a wedding as a stand-in bridesmaid, even if I don’t know anyone there. A wedding I attended had an open bar and the real bridesmaid bailed LAST SECOND because she apparently just realized she was worried things would get too crazy with the open bar. Her loss. The people there were really great, and the bride just told everyone that I was the one who encouraged her to start dating her (now) husband. Me and the bride ended up actually becoming great friends and we are still in contact to this day. They (the bride and groom from the wedding) are now happily married and have a beautiful daughter.18
I get paid to be a living mannequin. No, not a model that poses in pictures, gets her make up done, and gets put in magazines. I'm a completely different type of model. I work behind the scenes, in the warehouse- designers for huge chain stores will use my frame to show of their looks to the CEO of the company who approves or rejects the looks. Clothing on a mannequin looks totally different on a real person.20
Trucking companies employ people whose job it is to recover abandoned trucks and cargo. Apparently truckers will just be like "f@#k it" and leave their trucks and trailers on the side of a road. These companies pay pretty well and you are on call 24/7. But they fly you all over the country to retrieve their stuff and pay well. Sounds kinda neat really.22
Not any more, but when I was a kid, I had a job where I'd wander around llama pastures and scatter their s@#t out. They have a habit of pooping in communal piles, which, if you don't scatter them, get quite large and end up nitrogen burning the grass. Then the grass around them grows really well, but they won't eat it, because it smells strongly of their poop. So, instead, you go out with a snow shovel and scatter the poop and all the grass in the pasture grows really well and none of it smells too much like poop for the llamas to eat it. TL;DR: I'm not too fond of llamas.23
I caption telephone calls In real time for the deaf and hard of hearing as my part time job. To those who are worried my job is in jeopardy because of automation etc. this is my part time job not my career. I do this because as I learned more about the deaf community, I wanted to do everything I could to help them. They are a truly amazing community who do not get enough support from the government or the hearing community. I want you all to think of the last phone call you made. Now imagine you can’t hear the other person. How much more difficult would your life be? Thanks for all the comments!24
Essentially I watch TV all day. It's actually digital archiving of old video tape, but it's for major networks who have massive tape libraries of stuff like BETA, VHS, umatic, 1" and 2" tape and anything else in between. All the old magnetic tape is starting to expire so they ship pallets of tapes to the company I work for and we record them in real time then send back the files. It takes years to completely digitize a tape library. Some of our older big clients have been sending us pallets every month consistently for the past 5 years, and there's still roughly another 5 years left. Its pretty interesting, and I never knew about it before getting into the field, so if anyone has any questions I'll be happy to answer.25
I seriously have the job of trying to contact people who place orders on a very, VERY popular website and then try to cancel their card before it actually gets charged. See we don't charge until right before the item ships which is sometimes a day or two. Some people have figured out that occasionally... not even close to every time... but OCCASIONALLY one will slip out and ship before we've actually charged the card. There are literally thousands of people out there who go on our site, make a purchase, and then try to cancel or somehow block the charge going through and hope that the product will ship out. I call 25-40 people per day trying to get them to update their payment method. Sometimes it's honestly innocent and you can always tell. Like their card expired or got lost during the interim. But most of them play stupid and hang up on you.26
I work at a company which will remain nameless that gets rid of commercials in sports bars and now in the home, replacing it with endless amounts of media customizable by the consumer. My job as quality control is to push a button on an iPad when espn for example switches to commercial from the program. which triggers the change in all restaurants/bars using the service. (btw every Dave and Busters in the nation uses our program).28
I'm a sound effects librarian for films, TV, commercials, and games. Basically, I maintain a high quality searchable database of every sound you could possibly imagine so that they can be used in whatever entertainment medium we're working on. We've got everything from military aircraft to superhero fight sounds, footsteps on almost any surface in almost any type of shoe, nearly every type of gun out there...whatever is needed for the work we do. The fun part is that I get to run around recording custom stuff for many of the shows. Most recently were some really high end cars and a few surround sound ambiences from various places around the state that I live in. It's almost like taking a vacation for work every few weeks!29
Funeral homes need to run 24/7, 365, except that's unrealistic in today's society. Funeral directors and embalmers already suffer from massive burn out and piling weekends, night calls, and mandatory working on holidays just makes it more miserable. So you basically open Uber for the dead. They are called "pickup companies" or "commercial embalming facilities" depending if they only do pickups and deliveries or also embalming. I worked at one while I was in school for embalming and it is brutal work. Funeral homes fax over the call sheet and you take the call instead of the funeral home staff. It's 100% legal and incredibly common. You drive around in a van all day or all night depending on your shift with 2 cots and just pick up and drop off bodies. Sometimes you get to embalm if the embalmers are nice, and it's slow, otherwise it's mostly driving as a student, until you get your embalmers license.30
I'm a demand planner. My job is to make sure when you walk into a store or order online we have that specific thing you want in stock. Most jobs I've worked required us to have 95%+ product in stock at all times. Usually when we have a stock out it's because some genius decided he needed 64 hammers or 500 gallons of milk at once screwing up the demand model.31
I had a job where I fed folded up and wrinkled dollar bills into test machines. I was surround by thousands of dollar bills and was constantly watched by a guard in a locked room. It was boring and weird, the guard didn't ever talk to me except when it was time to leave the vault for break or lunch.