Had you ever held a weird job?

[Dancing Fire]

I did this for 6 months in 1979. The fun part was helping customers with long distance phone calls from a pay phone. I would listen for how many (ding tones) as the customer was inserting the coins into the pay phone, 3 dings = a quarter, 2 dings = a dime and 1 ding = a nickel...

 

[Bron357]

I worked in Finance, Investment Planning and at one stage I became a Complaints Resolution Manager. It was my favourite job and I was very very good at it. I cost the Company I was employed by hundreds of thousands of dollars as I investigated and laid bare any and all of the Company’s shortcomings and return precious investment dollars BACK to clients ie ordinary mums and dads.
After 12 months they “promoted me out” of that role and into Compliance and Training where I was then responsible for stopping Advisers giving incorrect advice from the outset.
Wasn’t much fun, those guys (99% men) were extremely arrogant and paid by commission. One particular one told me he earnt more in a month than I earnt in a year. When I busted him forging clients signatures (him being too lazy to send the paperwork out for client signature so he figured he could just sign for them) I told him I was better at my job than him and btw I still have mine.
Yep, he was sacked.

 

[Missy]

When I was in graduate school I was one of two TAs for Histology Lab. It was a great job and everyone wanted it but the professor chose me and my best friend to be his assistant. The pay was great (for being a student in 1985!) and it was a blast. Not weird per se but it was a coveted position that I didn't even apply for so in that way it was weird. And serendipitous too because it cemented my friendship with my closest friend Tom.

 

[VRBeauty]

I did this for 6 months in 1979. The fun part was helping customers with long distance phone calls from a pay phone. I would listen for how many (ding tones) as the customer was inserting the coins into the pay phone, 3 dings = a quarter, 2 dings = a dime and 1 ding = a nickel...

My first “work assignment” in the first co-op I lived in when I started college was working the switchboard. 300 residents; about 100 phone lines. I was terrible at it - can we say ADHD? - and was quickly re-assigned.

Cutting cots (apricots) for drying in the Santa Clara Valley. Unusual mainly because both summers when I did that, I was the only non-Hispanic person working in the cutting shed.

Feeding pears into the pear peeling/cutting machine at the cannery. That ancient machine was incredible to watch - I couldn't possibly describe it accurately. Most of the girls (what we were called no matter what our age) tried to get it out of pear machine work because it was loud and monotonous, but I liked it because it was monotonous enough that my mind could go elsewhere, and the supervisors pretty much ignored us.

Walking on top of old, leaking, virtually crumbling, but operating brick coke ovens in a “heritage” steel mill to inspect them. How I wish I had a photo of that!

 

[susiegrneyes]

I was a fit model in high school and college, which paid between $25 and $100 an hour. Best job ever, but the catch is you have to maintain all your measurements within .25 inches. I was a Size 6 fit model: 5'6"-5'8" 36" 28" 38"
They are always looking for people:

Part-Time Fit Consultant - Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister

jobs.smartrecruiters.com

 

[Dancing Fire]

I was a fit model in high school and college, which paid between $25 and $100 an hour. Best job ever, but the catch is you have to maintain all your measurements within .25 inches. I was a Size 6 fit model: 5'6"-5'8" 36" 28" 38"
They are always looking for people:

please! ...

 

[Karl_K]

guarding a small hole in the ground for 19 hours strait.

 

[Asscherhalo_lover]

Not really a "job" but when I was a kid my parents owned a used car dealership. It was my job to peel the pinstripes off of cars that came in. It put my penchant for peeling at good use!

 

[Ibrakeforpossums]

guarding a small hole in the ground for 19 hours strait.

Karl, please. Elaborate.

 

[Sprinkles&Stones]

My first job was at a gas station on the outskirts of a small Midwestern town. This included sorting leeches into small cups for fishing bait. And filling propane tanks hahaha! I would have to sort BY HAND 10 live leeches into each cup. I also had to fish out all the dead floating minnows on top of the minnow tank each day. At closing time each night I would have to shove a 20ft measuring stick into the gas tanks under ground to measure how much gas was left. What a wild ride!!

 

[Ibrakeforpossums]

Took me a while to decide which one: Picking watermelons at Flynn Gardens outside Eau Claire, WI. Labor pool. Mrs. Flynn explained that her toddlers were much better suited to this job because they were so close to the ground, but they hired me and my lanky girlfriend anyway. It did give me a great rural quote:
Mr. Flynn to Mrs. Flynn - My dear, pass me that watermelon.
Mrs. Flynn - Honey, I don't know if I can even swallow it.

 

[Karl_K]

Karl, please. Elaborate.

To help pay for my college bills I worked security part time. During one of the school breaks I told them I was available for more hours.
They called me and sent me out beside a field to meet a guy at 5pm and they would be back at 5amish.
They didn't get back until noon.
It was just a small manhole that was open to the side of some railroad tracks.
It was the entrance to a junction point for communication lines out of Chicago. There is a building there now where the hole was.
Anytime it was not welded shut there had to be someone there.
Every few hours a cop came by and did his paperwork sitting there so I could drive to a gas station.

 

[Ibrakeforpossums]

Good gravy, Karl!

 

[jordyonbass]

Apparently people find it weird that I cut Opals, the most common question that follows after finding out about it is 'how on earth did you get into that??'

I don't know if they think the job is weird, or if it's weird for a bloke like me to be doing that.

 

[jaysonsmom]

I polished and packed gemstone and CZ rings sold to TV shopping networks like QVC and HSN.

My college boyfriend’s parents were my employers. They sourced their rings and ring boxes from South East Asia, and the rings were shipped in cheapy ziplock plastic bags, but I would take them out, polish the rings, and put them in beautiful jewelry boxes. I also got a hefty $10/hour in the early 90s, PLUS I got to try on some beautiful bling!

 

[lilmosun]

My first college internship at an automobile assembly plant. They had me follow around the paint inspector. Literally just follow him around and observe what he was doing. The guys on the final inspection line, old enough to be my dad, were super nice and tried to keep me entertained. Some tried to fix me up with their sons

(A few weeks in, to give me something to do, the paint inspector gave me his hole punch. He would walk around and inspect the car (with me following). Once done, he would hold out the ticket and let me punch his "paint inspection" hole. That ended when the union filed a grievance and I got hauled into the Labor Relations office for doing a union job. )

 

[Arcadian]

In college I worked 2 days as a phone sex operator.