30 Strange Jobs That Most People Don’t Know Exist

‘I program simple video games for monkeys’
30 Strange Jobs That Most People Don’t Know Exist

An expert is involved in every aspect of modern life — often in ways you’ve never considered. For example, even elevator interiors aren’t an afterthought. As one Redditor explained, there’s an entire industry of people who meticulously design them, from choosing the best mirror to selecting the right buttons and deciding on the wallpaper

The next time you step inside of an elevator, look around and consider that someone spent hours designing that little box you’ll be in for a handful of seconds.      

Other Redditors have discussed the strange, sometimes exciting jobs they’ve held, including those as trash detectives, mosquito breeders and designers of maps you’ll never look at.

averagemaleuser86 1y ago | have a buddy who gets to remove or kill things on a runway... alligators, bees, deer, birds. If it's on the active runway no matter what it is, it gets shot and removed. Very rarely do they have to do this. I think my buddies been doing it 5 years now and hasn't had to shoot anything. But he has had to remove alligators from nearby ponds and spray for hornets and such. Around $30/hour - 713 ...
dirtdoctor90 10y ago Soil and Concrete tester. Compaction testing, quarry QA, that sort of stuff. 40 ...
IworkAtTheAirport 10y ago On a nightly basis I tow airplanes around and put them in hangars in the proper order for departures the next day. It's like a big game of Tetris. 145 ...
xTuna74x 1y ago My friend is working with a guy who does the flooring/felt for minigolf courses. Apparently there are only a few people in the U.S. who do it, and they make a killing. Including expenses paid to fly out etc. 209 ...
Schwarzes_Loch 0 1y ago An old neighbor of mine was a picture hanging specialist contracted by many museums. Не made 75K a year at the time (about 150K adjusted for inflation). 3.3K ...
ChronicZombie86 1y ago | was once a pinecone harvester, a helicopter would cut off the tops of trees and bring them to us to pick off the pinecones, which would then go to treeplanters to germinate and plant. $35 to fill a 5 gallon bucket, experienced pickers would fill 2½ an hour, but the sap getting all over your clothes, skin, and hair is very annoying and a big deterrent for most. 1.7K ...
 . 1y ago | know a guy that makes mocked-up photos of what women will look like after they have a plastic surgery procedure 481 ...
londonbridgefalling 1y ago | once had a gig trying to sneak weapons past airport security. It wasn't a long term thing but student me thought the pay was pretty good 1.1K ...
Graflex01867 . 1y ago | drive around and look at parking lot lights at night making sure there are no outages. (I don't fix it, I report it in an app, and the guys with the bucket truck show up later.)
Granny_knows_best 1y ago Edited 1y ago | had a boyfriend in Oklahoma who got state wages for going into back woods, and down dirt roads to find trash people dumped. His job was to report the trash for others to clean up, but most importantly, he had to sift through the trash to find anything that would identify who dumped the trash. | went with him a few times and I felt like a detective, it was quite fun.
randomasfuuck27 10y ago . Edited 10y ago | configure smart device cameras that count you in retail environments.
manifoldmandala 10y ago Im an IT guy at a buddhist retreat center. 3.3K ...
PabstBlue_Gibbon 10y ago | program simple video games for monkeys, complete with a joystick and pellet dispenser. 3.7K ...
bjs525 10y ago My job title is a Tissue Recovery Specialist. | cut bones, tendons, organs, and brains out of dead bodies on a daily basis. 2.7K
badbadtimestimes 10y ago I'm a penetration tester (white hat hacker), which is a job gaining some awareness with shows like Mr. Robot. I basically hack corporations/government applications and networks, then tell them how to fix it. I was a software engineer for fifteen years before this, but really enjoying it. It's been an eye opening experience. Unfortunately I'm bound by NDAs and other legalities to go into too much more detail. 343 ...
 10y ago | am a standardized patient! I get to act as a patient in various scenarios for nursing students as part of their exams ! 2.4K ...
fifthawk 10y ago . Edited 10y ago I used to have a job that I got paid $10.00/hr to watch college football and basketball games and use software to tag every play, and put comments on what happened. | even got to rate the plays based on 1-4 on how cool it was. Pretty sure it was for some company that made highlight reels or something. I donno. Shit was crazy, still can't believe that was a real job.
Stebraul 10y ago You know those fire evacuation maps that are entirely useless because no one's gonna stop and look at a map on their way out of a burning building? Yeah, I design those 4K ...
tigger880 10y ago 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. 236 ...
dkaarvand 10y ago I check the old main telephone line in Norway. I basically go around whacking wooden telephone poles checking for rot with a hammer. Then I proceed to check the exterior - is something missing, is the line broken, does it still have the metal hat on top of the pole that prevents water going down the pole and causing it to rot quicker, and much more. I bet there's around 500,000 poles in Norway, and I can do around 10,000 each year. Thankfully we're not required to check the same pole for another 10 years. What I hate is
 10y ago People are usually pretty surprised to learn that elevator interiors are a full blown industry. That's what I do. All the fancy interiors and finishes in high-end buildings. We've even built interiors for a very famous mouse's castle, among others, including a current very outspoken US primary candidate;) - 771 ...
loki8481 10y ago storage engineer. most people don't even think about the massive storage requirements that go into making digital content across the world easily accessible... those 5000 photos you uploaded to Facebook yesterday need to be stored somewhere and it needs to be something secure, so you don't lose your data if a shelf of disks explodes, and fast so that you don't even notice latency beyond your local internet connection. I work for a hospital, so our storage handles everything from Nurse Nancy's cat pictures on her shared drive on the computer to patient charts, MRI scans, and
searaver1 10y ago . Edited 10y ago | am an agronomist. I consult with farmers to grow the best crops with them that we can. I specialize in barley, alfalfa, and potatoes. If you drink Coors, drink milk, or eat potatoes... You're welcome.
 10y ago I'm an NDT Tech. I basically go onto oil rigs and ultrasonic scan the shit out of pipes and welds to make sure they don't blow up. It's a hard job to explain to people. - 1.2K ...
PM_ME_UR_BOOTY_GRIL e 10y ago | used to be an E-911 call tester for a large service provider in the US. Literally drive cell tower to cell tower calling 911 making sure it all routes to the correct emergency services. You'd be surprised at how many times it would fail... - 3.4K ...
Corgon 10y ago e Edited 10y ago Minecraft Consultant. Minecraft has become so popular, that after school programs are using it in their curriculum. I basically have to stay up to date on what's new in minecraft and help 2 ladies come up with ideas on how to implement minecraft type activities into our after school program/summer-spring camps. I get paid 15 bucks an hour. It's just a side job while I'm in college.
Cunchy 10y ago Mosquito control field inspector. I look for and deal with mosquito breeding as a full time job. - 1.4K ...
UhhJackieChan 10y ago Many people are surprised to hear that a transportation department needs a chemist. | test traffic line paint, glass beads, cement, deicer, fence, etc. 2K ...
 10y ago I make virtual equipment for virtual buildings. Essentially, these days Architects design an entire building in 3D BIM (building information modeling). To do so, they need virtual walls, virtual windows, virtual lights, virtual furniture, etc. And the Engineers need virtual pipes, virtual HVAC, virtual ducts, virtual sinks and toilets, etc. All that virtual equipment doesn't just look pretty but also holds the manufacturing information, fluid flows, electrical specs, insulation values, etc. And someone has to design that. When they are all done they can simulate building conditions under any given conditions and tell you how much energy
duthight 10y ago I work at a large tech company with about 150 buildings in my county. They have one person whose full time job is to check all of the fire extinguishers in every building to make sure they haven't expired. Не literally spends 8 hours a day walking through buildings listening to music and signing fire extinguisher tags. Once all the buildings have been checked, he just starts all over again. He's been doing it for years. Everyone literally knows him as Steve, the fire extinguisher guy. 10 ...

Tags:

Scroll down for the next article
Forgot Password?