Jobs, can't live with them, can't be employed with out them. Maybe that's the reason that at some point or other people tend to have strange jobs, so that they can make money. Personally I've been things like the guy who re-shelves Library books, and the guy who carries peoples' grocery bags to their cars. I even spent two months working on the packaging floor of an Israeli meat factory (and a major one, at that.)

What I'm getting at is that I think it would be amusing to hear what kind of strange jobs people have had, and then we can all have a good laugh and feel better about ourselves and all that crap.

Hey, I'm currently the chick who re-shelves library books at my local library. I also do a multitude of other book-elf tasks. Have you seen this site? The Snarky Librarian... [sarcastra.net] I'm also a nanny for my little sister and brother, and during the year I'm a full-time student. So I haven't had any very "interesting" jobs so far, although I know the Dewey decimal system practically by heart. ;)

In Response to kumquat (#962):

Hey, so do they impose that rule on you that if any customer asks you a question, even something as simple as where the bathroom is, you MUST direct them to a librarian, or risk losing your job? When I was a library page we had this rule, put in place solely because the librarians were all old women who had no lives (presumably their children never contacted them) and wanted to feel needed.

In Response to Evander (#964):

Nope. We help them if we can, and if we have any doubts, we direct them to the reference librarian. This rule goes for clerks as well as shelvers. The way they did it at your library sucks, man... That's too bad.

I can answer almost any question that is brought to me, which never ceases to amaze me. I need to stop working and get out more, I think...

In Response to kumquat (#967):

It's been three years since I quit, and I still catagorize books between ones I've read, ones I've never heard of, and ones I've shelved. On the plus side, If there was a highly in demand book, I could always take it off the cart and check it out before any one else got the chance.

In Response to Evander (#968):

That's one of my favourite things about the job. The other two are that I don't have to pay overdue fines, and I can basically come in and work whenever I feel like it.

In Response to kumquat (#969):

I also used to have to go through the paper backs, to find the ones in bad condition and throw them out. Well, bad condition doesn't exactly mean unreadable, it just means likely to fall apart, and I didn't necessarily have to throw them out. All I had to do was rip off the back cover, which had the bar code, and put it in a box. Then they just kind of presumed the book disposed of, but i would take them home. It was fun.

In Response to Evander (#976):

This is wild. It's always so cool to meet others in the library profession.

Should I post my weirdest job or my worst?

In Response to snookles (#1124):

Yes.

I worked at Pizza Hut. I was the "customer service representative". HA! I answered phones. "Thanks for calling Pizza Hut! Is this for delivery or carry-out? What, you DON'T speak English? Dammit."

In Response to snookles (#1124):

Post both... we're interested. ;)

I worked for a summer as a telemarketer for Newsday [newsday.com], primarily trying to convince very angry ex-subscribers to resubscribe to a paper that they really didn't like all that much.

Being commissions-based, it was in my best interests to say anything to get someone to resubscribe, including promising them things that I could in no way deliver one. Double coupons, free mailboxes, nudie pics, whatever it took. Once they signed on, it was no longer my problem.

The job of a telemarketer is depressing and boring. I used to adopt different personas and see which ones worked best in an attempt to amuse myself.

Ross Perot is excellent at selling newspapers.

In Response to jon (#1125):

Perhaps. Now, where's the peanut butter?

In Response to kumquat (#1206):

My worst job was when I was working temp one summer during college. There is a Goodyear tire plant in Topeka, and once every two years they shut down the press buildings for a week each on a rotating schedule for cleaning. Naturally, unionized Goodyear workers are not going to clean the place, so they bring in temps.

Tire presses are placed in recesses in the concrete floor to make them easier to operate. The center of this recess is a long trough that runs the length of the building. In the bottom of that trough was two years of accumulated dreck, mostly consisting of rubber runoff mixed with machine oil and grease, but also including trash, partially mummified vermin, and possibly other substances less appealing.

In order to clean these out, we were issued Tyvek (tm) bodysuits, gloves, hand shovels, and buckets. Only after the sludge was gotten up did the cleaning crews follow after with pressure washers and chemicals. I developed raspy breathing and a cough after the morning shift. I left at lunch.

Weirdest job in a separate post to follow.

In Response to kumquat (#1206):

It's harder to pin this one down. I did a lot of odd things as a temp in high school and college.

I'll have to say that my weirdest, coolest, and one of my best job experiences was at Barebones [barebonesstore.com] at the Mall of America [mallofamerica.com].

Many of you have probably worked retail. You know about the alternation between frantic rushes and mind-numbing boredom. You are familiar with sidewalk sales, mall employee discounts, tyrannical managers, and the curious community-building that occurs.

The Mall of America takes all of those things to a level unimaginable until you've been there. There's an amusement park in the center of the mall. There's an aquarium in the basement. There are four (FOUR!!!) Victoria's Secret stores. The place is a small city.

Add to that the oddity of the store I was in. Barebones began its life as a storefront for the Anatomical Chart Company, selling plastic skeletons and other anatomical models, charts, and bric-a-brac. By the time I was there, it had its current scizophrenic existence, with the bones one one side and educational toys and games on the other.

I was hired at the peak of a Twin Cities yo-yo boom to demonstrate yo-yo tricks and sell yo-yos at the store. Essentially, I was paid to practice yoing 40 hours a week. I got good enough that I didn't feel like a fool entering the Midwest Regional Yo-yo Championships (held right there at the Mall!) but not good enough to get past the first round.

Highlights:
1) We had a lot of international tourists at MOA. One day I saw a woman walking through the mall. She was pushing twins in a stroller and had two other kids trailing behind. Not too odd, except that she was in a full chador. All I could see was her eyes, and lined up across the top bar of the stroller were six full Victoria's Secret bags. Food for thought!

2) Halloween. I would conservatively estimate that 1/4 of the children in the southern suburbs trick or treat at the Mall of America. A steady stream of little tykes hopped up on sugar and dressed as everything you could possibly imagine trails through the Mall for two hours. Unbelievable.

3) The catacombs. Another secret that any retail worker knows is the back corridors of the mall where deliveries are made. Often, they are the quickest way to get from one place to another. At MOA, they are vast, extensive, and fascinating. There is a sociology masters thesis in the grafitti alone. Below the mall is another whole world of access tunnels, storage lockers, trash-handling facilities, and the truck dock.

[concluded in the next post...]

In Response to snookles (#1388):

[...continued from 1388]

4) Celebs. I met John Schneider (Bo Duke from the Dukes of Hazzard) and a number of famous yoyologists including Arne Dixon, Steve Brown, Benny McPhee and The Everluminescent Doctor Popular [msn.com]. I know. Nobody cares.

It was a hell of a year!

In Response to jon (#1210):

I shipped aborted fetal organs to researchers around the US for two years.

My crowning achievement at that job: I identified, procured, and FedExed a 12 week-old uterus with ovaries.