What's the weirdest job someone you know does?

[BowerOfBramble]

I mean the ones that you'd never heard of until someone you met/a friend of a friend said "oh yes I run a bat sanctuary/teach maths to prisoners/paint portraits of dead hamsters".

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll no, they remove the hard build up of smega from inside the sheath

@sweetbellyhigh

My sister is a professional whistle blower. She gets contracted by organisations that are in a mess to drill down and weed out the poison. She has kickstarted two royal commissions of inquiry. She is very unpopular in her workplaces!!

Never knew that was a job. Though I can see how it is.

@GraceJonesBiggestFan

Prosthetics maker, arms dealer.

Is that the same person??

@RagzRebooted

Bats, actually. Tracks them, monitors them, counts them, catches them... I dunno, bat stuff!

Is it a man….?

@Fishingforhappiness

My friend harvests the eyes of the dead for eye transplants, making sure they are suitable etc... creepiest job ever.

Corneas? I don't think you can transplant actual eyes...or can you??

@DrMaryMalone

Not someone I know personally but I have come across them doing the job for other people - horse "bean" remover.

Sometimes you just wish you didn't google something!

no, they remove the hard build up of smega from inside the sheath

Aaah, sounds.... interesting. I was kind of in the right area, though!

I’ve just Googled “horse bean” and really wish I hadn’t…

Oh cross post @Hairyfriend!

I've never met him personally (oddly enough), but when it comes to the weirdest job ever, this bloke has to have come pretty close:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_the_Farter

My ex husband used to go and check places exist. He worked for an investment company that had been stung a few times by people taking out huge loans on enormous warehouses in places like Bulgaria and Hungary and claiming they were productive factories that needed investment when they were just shells. Ex h used to fly out, walk around a factory in rural Ukraine or somewhere and take photos. He used to try and maintain an air of mystery by saying he worked in intelligence for an investment bank when he was just a bloke with a camera phone who got Ryan Air flights to weird places.

I love this thread! I used to be a careers adviser, so this is the stuff of my dreams. I don't know many interesting job people - palaeontologist, paper conservator.

Reading with intrigue

My ex husband used to go and check places exist.

Why didn't they send him to Finland - to determine once and for all whether the popular theory is true or not?! Then again, maybe he was in on it all along, so you couldn't believe a word he said

I know someone who used to manage a factory that makes the curly wire forvcalendars. There are two main manufacturers of curly calendar wire in the uk apparently, and they are in the same town.

I used to test soil samples for various physical and chemical properties, to inform foundation designs, Earth structure designs etc.

I know quite a few Vikings and a professional cavewoman.

A sleeper - not as in a spy, but someone who gets to sleep a lot (he does it for research, where they apparently monitor what goes on in the body /brain while zonked)

Now there's a job I wish I'd seen first

My dad used to do the insurance for ITV before he retired. He’d get random phonecalls like ‘Sharon Osborne has turned up to tv chat show with her dog, how much to insure us in case the dog bites someone / damages stuff…’

Stained glass artist and restoration. Constantly fascinated by her work and would love to have a go

Tv location researcher- fascinating!

My husband when I met him worked for Playboy TV scheduling porn films. A dream job for a 20-something, not long out of uni.

I remember going to a waxworks chamber of horrors once and this bloke in costume demanded to know where we were from. His response (presumably regardless of wherever the visitor said) was a very pointed, threatening "You are going to DIE!!!" I'd love to know how he described his career on forms - 'professional doomsayer'?!

My hometown also has one full time and a few part time professional pirates. They stay in character all the time and sit outside various cafes who pay them in cake and/ or drinks. This guy is regularly sat outside a cafe on the main road from about 10am in all weathers. I have never once seen him or heard him out of character in the decade or so he’s been knocking about town. I’m not sure if that’s a job or just a mad person though.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

I know quite a few Vikings and a professional cavewoman.

My sister is a Viking.

Toilet engineer testing how well toilet designs flush. Shitting for a living