There are so many possibilities and opportunities for our careers that it’s really hard to just decide in one day what we want to do for the rest of our lives. Thus most of us have to go through many or a couple small jobs or internships to find out what we like to do, what we don’t like, to get some experience or just to earn our own money.You know the saying that every job is a good job, because no matter how ridiculous it may sound, each of them teaches you something. However, sometimes these jobs may surprise you with their… weirdness. About that, one Reddit user recently posed a question online asking folks to share their weirdest job that they have ever had. So scroll through and enjoy, as they vary from stand-in boyfriend at festivals to professional shoplifter.More info:RedditThis post may includeaffiliate links.
There are so many possibilities and opportunities for our careers that it’s really hard to just decide in one day what we want to do for the rest of our lives. Thus most of us have to go through many or a couple small jobs or internships to find out what we like to do, what we don’t like, to get some experience or just to earn our own money.
You know the saying that every job is a good job, because no matter how ridiculous it may sound, each of them teaches you something. However, sometimes these jobs may surprise you with their… weirdness. About that, one Reddit user recently posed a question online asking folks to share their weirdest job that they have ever had. So scroll through and enjoy, as they vary from stand-in boyfriend at festivals to professional shoplifter.
More info:Reddit
This post may includeaffiliate links.
I used to live down the road from a cabaret club in Japan - like a place where you paid to drink with girls and talk to them, basically. Not overtly sexual but if the cabaret girl was willing it could be. I used to stay up late back then so often bumped into them coming back from work around 2-3am. Some of them were basically my neighbors and I offered some supper once. They rarely ate properly if at all and drank too much at work so they took to the supper with the type of gusto you only get when you’re drunk-peckish.I guess they liked my cooking. And I was a decent listener I suppose, so they hung around more and more and got guilty about eating too much of my food.That turned into me getting this weird gig where I got paid to essentially make food for 5-6 cabaret girls per night and let them drink bottled tea and b***h about their clients till they sobered up. Sometimes they puked or had to crash at mine because they were too wasted; if that happened they often paid me a bit more out of embarassment despite me insisting they didn’t have to. Some of them made BANK. 10k to 15k USD per month on average. I was paid like 40 per head so could make 200 per night in cash usually. Did that 2-3 days a week while I was living in Japan. Weird but really not all that bad and supplemented my living costs nicely.At the end of the day, they just wanted someone to talk to after a long day and homemade food to come back to.
One of my friend’s aunt works as a professional shoplifter 😀Her work is to go into shops and try to shoplift. Later they analyize the act and discuss it with management how to avoid it, what training could the employees go through or what security systems could help them prevent.
I was a stand-in boyfriend for girls to take home during festival periods. Just so the girl don’t have to deal with the parents / grandparents grilling them for being single / leftover woman.Was a fun gig, I got free food, meet some nice and interesting people. Stopped now that I’m married but my wife still wants to [sell] me out for that extra $ LOL
Making glockenspiels. I still have that amazing and weird job
Took a job mowing grass at the town graveyard.I was 20 at the time.Oddly enough certain parts of the graveyard had a….weight or feeling - some parts felt light, welcoming and peaceful; other areas felt dark, depressing and heavy. I remember not liking to mow certain areas or tombstones.It was definitely an interesting job and one I’m glad I experienced.
When studying a year abroad in China, I was paid to attend a conference on petrol/chemical developments to make it look more international. Basically listened two days to stuff I did not understand in a cheap suit in a random Chinese industrial city.
I was a Fortune Cookie Writer.I had a Chinese translator who used to write my quotes in Chinese on the other side.
Delivering beverage ice to a nudists retreat. People are not attractive…
I once asked a guy what he did for work and he told me he ‘drove a granny stripper’. I assumed this was slang for some road building or agricultural machinery, but nope… He was the driver for a 70 year old stripper.
I worked as Night Auditor in a hotel. Was getting ready to put out breakfast around 4am one morning and had a windex spray bottle in one hand and a small towel in the other, for cleaning the sneeze guards. Someone came down the stairs behind me and said “Excuse me?” When I turned around there was a large man a few steps away moving toward me without a stitch of clothes on. I instinctively raised the windex bottle and towel like a gun and shield. As if that was going to do anything. He put his hand up as if to signal “don’t shoot”. I laughed and he laughed. He said he was locked out of his room because he forgot his key. I asked him if he had a piece of ID on him. Of course, I could see he didn’t… Somehow we managed to wake someone up in his room who could vouch for him. Surprisingly enough, it turned out rather innocent. Of course intoxicants were involved. Best part is my manager gave me security video from that night so I have a VHS of the whole thing.
I used to work for the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, Weights and Measures Division— I was in charge of making sure all rulers were exactly 12 inches long.
Worked on a public health research project going out to bars and clubs at 1am, chatting to the patrons and asking to do saliva [substance] tests and breath tests. When people realised I wasn’t a cop they’d get all their friends to join in and see who could get the “highest score” on the breathalyser. Had a lot of people swear at me, and quite a few hit on me. Was super weird, but heaps of fun.
I was the guy who scraped ice smooth on a bobsled track. Weirdly fun job actually
I worked in a place that made prescription orthopedic insoles.You would get plaster molds of feet from the doctor, clean them up, and then mold an insole for the patient.I mostly did finishing stuff and cleanup. Entry level stuff.The craziest part was that the molds were considered medical records, so you had to keep them on hand for six months. So we just had shelves and shelves of plaster feet molds, and every day you would go to the shelf from six months and a day old and throw away a bunch of feet.
I was the shop hand at a smalltime auto body shop for the better part of last year. The boss just had me do his errands when there was nothing for me to do around the shop.I’d drive into the city and pick up his prescriptions. Pick up his booze, misc groceries, water softener, stuff like that. He got me to clean his BBQ once. Pull weeds from his man made beach which surrounded a pond he had that he had on his property. Cut his grass. The guy was loaded and he paid me well for what he had me doing. But it was just such a funny job, my boss was quite the character too. Just an old drunk, but a sweetheart.Edit: also I think the reason he got me to do all this running around for him was because he would drink all day in the office. He would try to hide it but we all knew.
I worked for a very wealthy guy for several months in my 20s. Five times a week I showed up at the office that was set up just for me to use, sometimes went out with him to try new restaurants, worked on his new ventures, went to auctions, amusement parks, did random things he had in his mind that day. He usually carried stases of cash, probably at least 30-50k worth, for him to spend on that evening for entertainment, like hanging out with beautiful women.I think he kept me around to kill his boredom and loneliness but mainly because I never cared for his money and was able to hold intelligent conversations. He was a classy guy in his 60s and treated me with respect. I left because I decided to go back to school but my mom who introduced me to this guy kept in touch for a while.
Worked as a private engineer to a rich family in Portugal. I maintained they’re mansion and two super yachts. They paid me good money but after years of being woken up in the night to change their bedroom AC up or down one degree I felt like more of a slave than a highly trained engineer so I quit and now work as a Hydraulic engineer in the super yacht industry.
I used to work on a bar strip in a popular city. I would dress up as a pizza slice, sing songs, beatbox, dance, take pictures, and sell pizza to drunk people. It was awesome.
I spent the summer of 2005 working a night shift as a writer/editor on the tv series Big Brother.Very strange. I felt like Ed Harris in the Truman Show. But the best thing was, we were all at desks on the big sound stage at Elstree Studios, where films like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark were made.Under my desk in yellow chalk, it said GOTHAM CITY WEST as they’d just finished filming a Batman film there.
I once got paid to give out free samples of coffee at a gas station. I got there at 5am to be given this huge backpack with a giant container of coffee in it, and it had an air compressed nozzle that I would use to spray coffee into sample size cups.I was told to approach anyone pumping gas and give them one and it was a disaster. The air pressure was too much so the coffee would blast out every time and get all over my clothes. I kept burning myself as a result. It was a heatwave so no one really wanted them anyways and people laughed in my face. Multiple people also told me I should have gone to college, which I was. This was just part of a summer job before my senior year.It was humiliating and I never went back.
See Also on Bored Panda
I posed nude for a photographer lady a few times. I felt pretty awkward, but hey, 100 euros is 100 euros. I needed the money, badly
I’m going to spin ‘weird’ here a bit.The summer before my last year of college I worked at a moving company in a southern city where my two crew members were Julio and Sanchez. They always spoke Spanish to each other but once they saw I could pull my weight they would start including me in their conversations.Man! Those summers got up to the high 90s and we were moving some heavy s**t, I mean like grand pianos up two stories. Julio and Sanchez were my guardians that summer and they were making $7.25 an hour…Before that summer I was stressed about finishing my degree and getting a job - I felt like I had a new lease on life after that experience. I finished my degree and found a job after going through that.I’m not saying everyone needs that kick in the butt, but it worked for me.
I was once a mall Santa. The problem is I am 5’4 and at the time weighed around 135 lbs so they had to stack a bunch of extra pillows. Someone I work with took a picture and I brought it home for my mom who puts it up on the fridge every year for Christmas…she says I look like Santa with advanced stage colon cancer.
When I was a teenager, I got a summer job working at a local “root and herb” production facility. My job was literally just dumping giant sacks of medicinal leaves, usually sassafras, into a giant industrial grinders, then shoveling the powder into a different sack to be sold to overseas markets. The thing was, we’d often have to mix in like anywhere from 20% to 40% filler material, usually some useless plant material, to make more profit because “the Chinese buyers will be none the wiser.” The kicker is, the person that owned the business that did blatantly shady practices was also the mayor of the small town. Go figure.
My uncle owns a business and hired me to put stamps on over 10,000 letters. That was tedious and weird. But hey I made $100.
Taking paper bags full of cash to people no questions asked.
I once worked for a Seattle cellular startup that installed cell phones in the seat backs of American Airlines planes (this was back when they would not let you use your own). My job was to follow with a plane testing the phones, logging issues, educate flight crew on how they worked and giving free calls to passengers to promote the phones. I would fly all around the world in first class 3-4 days a week.
As a student I worked as an personal assistant for a guy in a wheelchair. He grew his own [substances], so part of my job was watering his plants and sometimes I helped harvesting and bag them…
Internship at a sex shop….Don’t ask me how but my school managed to find a spot in the financial sector at a sex shop.I kid you not, the lady was the only person working there and she had 4 interns managing the whole business whilst she was maybe a few hours each week at the shop.At one point she even said fk it, you guys are managing the shop as well.We had no idea wtf we were supposed to do.One time a customer came in and asked us if we could sell some [substances].We said we don’t sell that here, he went away and we called our boss explaining what happened.She yelled at us through the phone for not selling him [substances] because apparently she sold [substances].Note that [substances] are allowed in our country but only to be sold at verified stores.After that (this was like 1.5/2months into the intern ship and we were supposed to be there for 9 months) we were all like hell no, we ain’t getting paid so we won’t deal with this st.She was unstable as fk shouting at us if we did something wrong if she was at the office/shop so we left a note on the door that is was closed, locked the door, inform our school and left the fk out of there.
Continue reading with Bored Panda PremiumUnlimited contentAd-free browsingDark modeSubscribe nowAlready a subscriber?Sign In
Continue reading with Bored Panda Premium
Unlimited contentAd-free browsingDark mode
Unlimited content
Ad-free browsing
Dark mode
Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber?Sign In
may not be weird from most views, but i worked an inventory job for a while where we’d go into businesses and physically count EVERYTHING on hand. we would handle everything for gas stations, to the Department of National Defence. absolutely wacky the kinds of stuff they’d want counted. at one point mid-covid they drove our team 6+ hours away overnight to count a burned down dollar store… needless to say, not much to count…
When I was 14-15 I was one of the lead operators of the worlds largest indoor triple loop Rollercoaster… it doesn’t sound like much but the pressure was there
Years ago I had a one-off job setting up for a bicycle marathon in the Pacific Northwest. Our job was to ride with a promoter to each race checkpoint ahead of the cyclists and help distribute snacks and beverages, as well as dress in silly costumes and encourage the racers. At one point, I dressed up as a sasquatch and ran through a trailer park before falling on my face. Our driver was ferrying us around in a Prius, and had several beers while doing so, which made me decidedly uncomfortable. Overall, it was actually pretty fun for a paid gig.
I once worked for “MS Cleo. California best known tarot card, fortune teller.Found an add on yahoo jobs, applied and I started taking calls
Worked security at CES/AEE one year. $20/h to sit on a stool, wander hallways, check out new gadgets, and look at [adult movie] stars.
Modal closeAdd Your Answer!Not your original work?Add sourcePublish
Modal close
Add Your Answer!Not your original work?Add sourcePublish
Not your original work?Add sourcePublish
Not your original work?Add source
Modal closeModal closeOoops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.UploadUploadError occurred when generating embed. Please check link and try again.TwitterRender conversationUse html versionGenerate not embedded versionAdd watermarkInstagramShow Image OnlyHide CaptionCropAdd watermarkFacebookShow Image OnlyAdd watermarkChangeSourceTitleUpdateAdd Image
Modal closeOoops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.UploadUploadError occurred when generating embed. Please check link and try again.TwitterRender conversationUse html versionGenerate not embedded versionAdd watermarkInstagramShow Image OnlyHide CaptionCropAdd watermarkFacebookShow Image OnlyAdd watermarkChangeSourceTitleUpdateAdd Image
Ooops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.
Upload
UploadError occurred when generating embed. Please check link and try again.TwitterRender conversationUse html versionGenerate not embedded versionAdd watermarkInstagramShow Image OnlyHide CaptionCropAdd watermarkFacebookShow Image OnlyAdd watermark
Error occurred when generating embed. Please check link and try again.
TwitterRender conversationUse html versionGenerate not embedded versionAdd watermark
InstagramShow Image OnlyHide CaptionCropAdd watermark
FacebookShow Image OnlyAdd watermark
ChangeSourceTitle
Work & Money
