Not the Same Old Rut

Tired of the same old grind?  Feel like a widget?  Here are some rare occupations you should consider if you want to change to a career that is likely to spark conversation at a cocktail party.  They are from Odd Jobs, Portraits of Unusual Occupations by Nancy Rica Schiff.

Condom tester:  Pretty self explanatory.  Or maybe not.  They are tested on steel shafts that are dunked in water.

Page turner:  Stand in the shadows at the concert hall and turn the music pages for the virtuoso pianist or violinist.

Doll doctor:  Repairs all kinds of dolls at the hundred-year-old New York Doll Hospital.

Knife thrower's assistant:  You might worry about job turnover.

Potato chip inspector:  Looks for over-cooked chips, or chips that are clumped together.

Wax figure maker:  Creates figures for historical displays and museums.

Artificial inseminator:  Or theriogenologist.  Artificially inseminates hundreds of heifers a day from late April through late June.

Dinosaur duster: Dusts the skeletons in museums.

Golf ball diver:  Can retrieve up to 25,000 balls a week, making 5 to 10 cents each.

Horse anesthetist:  Veterinary sub-sub specialty.

Barbie dress designer:  There are forty of them designing clothes for Barbie, her eight relatives and thirty-two friends.

LEGO model maker:  Works for LEGO making huge displays from the blocks.

Earthworm farmer:  Raises and ships earthworms to farmers for garden compost helpers.

Ocularist:  Paints artificial eyes.

Crack filler:  Repairs the wear and tear on Mount Rushmore.

Riddler:  Rotates up to 40,000 champagne bottles a day.  The bottles must be rotated back and forth at least thirty times over four weeks to facilitate removal of remaining sediment.

Colonic therapist:  Administers enemas and colonic irrigation.

So here are some alternative careers.  Unfortunately, the book doesn't list salaries.  Some of these sound dead boring, others totally disgusting.  But they'd be a great conversation starter.  Or stopper.

[Doll doctor from the Norman Rockwell Museum. LEGO model maker from Rangefinder Magazine. Horse anesthetist from thehorse.com.]

Comments

[LC]

My favorite from the "Dictionary of Occupational Titles," back when I used to regularly peruse such tomes, was "offal roller." Talk about yuck! But I'd test potato chips any day of the week...

[keewee]

I think I'll stick to what I do now.

[Stryder]

My hair stylist just left to pursue a career in facial prosthetic sculpting, aka anaplastology. Pretty cool.

[fragileindustries]

I guess I had an "odd job" on one occasion, one you listed, page turner.

I had another odd job in my spare time as a non-singing opera extra, technically called "supernumerary," or "super," more commonly known as "spear carrier." Great fun, great music. Anyway, at one rehearsal, the rehearsal pianist's page turner didn't show up, and the assistant conductor, who would usually fill in, was also absent. I volunteered, vastly exaggerating my sight-reading abilities, and there was much hubbub about my non-union status and other organizational issues, but someone had to do it and I promised I wouldn't squeal to the authorities. The pianist would mutter, "now," and I tried to turn pages smoothly. It's not as mindless as you'd think, though I can't say it's an art form. I was judged to be a mediocre page turner, so I'm not likely to find myself in their Hall of Fame.