Weirdest Job You’ve Ever Had





Below are Water Cooler submissions from the Weirdest Job You’ve Ever Had survey.

  • Fortune Cookie writer

  • The conveyor belt ran in front of me so that I could pick off the potato chips that were too burnt to be put in the bag for sale.

  • Kitchen maid for the Vanderbilt’s. newport, Rhode island many years ago. Hitched into town with a friend, figured I’d stay the summer and get some kind of job. Ended up in this mansion with a slew of servants, all waiting on one irritable, eccentric but very rich old lady. Nearly everyone drank to excess, that is when they weren’t chowing down on fine food. Worked my butt off for room, board and a monthly stipend. Also got five dollars a month to go to the movies. Seriously!

  • During a summer job at a styrofoam cup factory, I was ‘promoted’ to being in charge of the straw machine!! They even asked me if I would forgo going back to college to stay on the job!…

  • Handing out Alieve coupons in front of the frozen meat section of the local grocery store!

  • While in college at UCLA, I took a seasonal job as a Christmas card writer. A famous Los Angeles attorney hired several females with outstanding penmanship to write cards for his many clients, friends, acquaintances, and family.

  • I was a pansy-seed picker. I strolled about rows and acres of pansies with a tisket-a-tasket basket and picked seed heads off of pansies. A bucolic, lovely job.

  • Delivering Yellow Pages in My Hometown

  • Beanie Baby Seller- selling Beanie Babies at a mall cart during the “Princess Bear” rage (commemorating Princess Diana.)

  • Chicago Cows on parade gallery sitter (Gallery Docent)

  • Walked the streets of center city Philadelphia, wearing a colonial costume and a sandwich board, to promote a local restaurant during the Bicentennial summer of 1976.

  • Cleaning out rat and mice cages at the Stanford Medical Center research lab.

  • Traveling Circus Roustabout—pitched circus tent, carried props during the show & after, assisted magician, taped posters in store fronts

  • Painting the faces of porcelain dolls made to resemble deceased loved ones.

  • Packaging plastic mice, dice and cage for mousetrap board game.. on an assembly line.

  • Body painter/Makeup artist for the show, Caesar & Cleopatra on Broadway. I painted the arms, chests and backs of numerous Roman soldiers and Egyptian slaves, walking through backstage hallways with a bucket of Texas Clay makeup and a big sponge.

  • I played a long bell fanfare trumpet on Cinderellas castle at Walt Disney World right underneath the clock

  • Toy tester for a strict Orthodox Jewish toy/electronics company.

  • A ten dollar an hour temp job shredding confidential French documents, while people had secret closed door meetings discussing impending doom – I left at lunch and did not return.

  • Dressing up as a blood drop to get people to donate blood.

  • Orange and lemon picker in Israel. Note: tarantulas love to hunt from the Orange groves, so several times, I almost got more of a handful than I bargained for.

  • Production Assistant on a KISS rated-X music video that had adult models posing as “trophies” with their heads coming out of the wall from plaques like a big game hunter would display them…

  • I wore a skunk costume for the grand opening of a Meijer store. Donning my costume, I would walk through the store, waving and taking pictures with children.

  • Root picker: had to follow behind bulldozers that were demolishing orange groves to remove tree roots.

  • I cooked the Passover dinner for my Jewish boss’ family since his wife was ill. I was 15 at the time and his wife directed my activities step by step. I was paid $50 and a new coat, which I cherished.

  • Fire Extinguisher Kiosk Scammer. I must have been desperate!!! Approach mall customers with paperwork offering a free fire extinguisher if they fill out a form. Catch: Extinguisher comes later (after sprinkler system salesman comes to your home to sell a system) Terrible job. Have pity on all those people you see working the kiosks in the mall!

  • “Lollipop girl” at Linuxworld. I walked around with the guy in the Linux Penguin costume, waving a large wooden lollipop that said on it “Ask me about tonight’s RealNetworks-sponsored party!”