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The Weirdest/Craziest Job You Have Ever Done

Posted by khalling 9 years, 11 months ago to Business
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I hope there are a few spies who come forward. Anyway, Aj's post on robots is the muse for this post. This is going to be a wild ride. ok I'll start with a sad job-but I will save my most controversial job for later-I want to see what you all can bring to the table.
to pay for college tuition, I sat in a back room at the bookstore and tore off book covers. Yes-from most beloved novels to Aristotle. We sent the covers back to the publisher's and we torched the books. Yes! Torched them! If you were caught "stealing" the body of a book to be torched (!) you were fired.


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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I have never been so scared. But amazingly, I faced my fate stoically. Hell, what did I know at 18? Luckily I had read the Fountainhead, but Roark was not on my mind just then.
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  • Posted by Non_mooching_artist 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    What a great job! I know you worked your tail off, but what an experience! Those were some amazing bands you got to see.
    I often wonder what my kids will do, and if they will have experiences as unique or memorable. And what they would think of some of the things I've done. They know some, not all. ;-)
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  • Posted by Non_mooching_artist 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Well, a good sling of some horseshoes could do a bit of damage, if necessary. And a good solid kick. Wow. I'm stil stunned by that...
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  • Posted by EdNowak 9 years, 11 months ago
    I grew up on a family dairy farm in Wisconsin. There were probably several jobs I did on the farm that might be classified as weird or crazy but I'll pick one. In addition to the dairy, we also raised hogs for butcher. The male hogs had to be castrated while they were young so that they would fatten properly and produce good tasting meat. So every spring, Dad turned one of the hog pens into a temporary operating room, with an overturned 55-gallon barrel the operating table and a couple of buckets of disinfectant solution. My brother and I would hold down the impending victim and Dad did his thing with a straight edge razor blade. If everything went well, the squealing quickly died down after we released the castratee and he went on about his business. We saved the testicles and sold them to a local restaurant. They have various names, but we called them "rocky mountain oysters". Why, I haven't a clue. Every once in a while, especially when the subject was larger or stronger than usual, he might jump during the procedure and the blade in Dad's hand went where it wasn't supposed to. But he was prepared for that with some large needles and strong thread that we used to stitch up the damage. We never lost a hog. And I've never eaten hog testicles in a restaurant.
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  • Posted by johnpe1 9 years, 11 months ago
    in high school, I graded papers for the spanish teacher.
    got so good that she did not check me. . and today,
    dammit, I get lost after lunes, martes, miercoles..... -- j
    .
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  • Posted by johnpe1 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    they say that subs are pretty good at controlling
    pitch and yaw, but not at controlling roll. . bet that
    was fun, getting your sea legs!!! -- j
    .
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  • Posted by johnpe1 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I drove a bobcat to remove about 3 feet of manure
    from a barn, once. . had to bend over to walk in there,
    at first -- and I couldn't touch the hayloft, after. . that
    stuff is S L I C K. . really. -- j
    .
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  • Posted by johnpe1 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    reminds me of a friend who was a successful Navy
    nuclear powerplant engineer. . and his interview
    with Hyman Rickover.

    Rickover welcomed him into the office and, without
    letting him sit down, challenged him:::

    "Do something to irritate me." . my friend stood
    there and thought, "What could I do?"

    he reached out and swiped a bunch of stuff off of
    the right front corner of Rickover's desk, like his
    walnut nameplate, a cup of pencils and some
    memorabilia, straight off into the floor.

    Rickover hired him. -- j
    .
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  • Posted by Flootus5 9 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    As I mentioned in the earlier post, I could write a book full of memoirs with this stuff. And I think I'll seriously consider it. Of course, many names would have to be changed to protect myself from the guilty.

    Because even after working for the "legitimate" majors in the mining industry the bizarre tales don't stop. It is a wild, full of intrigue, and small world of players in the gold mining business. And I am still in it as we speak with more "interesting" developments unfolding.

    I never regret any of it.
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  • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 11 months ago
    Yeah, I worked as a janitor for a swim club I'd been a member of so that I could have some spending money, back around high school before my senior year, I think it was... Early 1960s. $200 for the summer. Hourly wage? Better to calculate the Weekly Pay...

    One day I was a member, swimming and laughing with the other members. The next day I started work as their janitor and discovered how invisible you can become simply by appearing to belong to a 'lower caste.'

    I actually did a good job, thanks to being OCD and a bit of a perfectionist, but after a while, I discovered that the Z-fold toilet paper dispensers actually depended on interlocking the refill stack with the remaining stack.

    So if you 'accidentally forgot to interleave those two key sheets,' the next 'customer' would see what looked like a full dispenser, but might just get The Last One if their lucky number came up.

    Taught me a lot about respecting people As People and not because of their jobs, wealth or title. From the President of the Country on down to the guys that haul my garbage away.

    All humans deserve respect until or unless their actions make it clear they don't.
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