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".

I just remembered that my dad sometimes gets called in to defuse unexploded WW2 bombs.

Professional tea taster
Military uniform tailor
Death doula
Hedge and tree inspector: checks on protected hedges and trees, reports on condition
Chandelier installer (modern art chandeliers, works in museums and posh hotels)
Question compiler (TV and radio quizzes)

There's some truly fantastic jobs out there, how come mine is so boring?

The best I can come up with among my friends is one who propagates heritage fruit trees.

@TickTickTock

My dad worked for customs and had to cover once for one of their trainers.... He had to role play a suspect for strip search training! Had never considered before that they use simulation/role play to train customs officers. What goes on behind closed office doors, eh? 🤪

I knew someone who was asked to role play a drunk difficult cruise ship passenger who was refusing to evacuate in an emergency. The trainee cruise ship staff had to demonstrate how they would efficiently and tactfully persuade him to leave the ship! He enjoyed it immensely.

A friend was doing a post doc which involved feeding volunteers various meals and then collecting their shit and analysing it.

@Snowisfalling33

A friend of a friend smells people's hair for a shampoo company. He travels all over the world sniffing people's heads.

But whyyyyy?

I know chicken sexer isn’t actually a funny job, but every time I see it written down I laugh. Is that bad?

Magicians assistant - gets to travel the world.

One of my friends was a grave digger for a while.

@comfortablyfrumpy I'm not surprised

@Pat123dev

I knew a glass eye maker- she had spares in her bag once....wtf.

I know someone who does the coloured bits of glass eyes. She has to make them match the remaining healthy eye.

Does crew and photographer for real life wizard school count?! That's another one of mine :)

He’s not now he is married with young children, but one of DP’s best friends was a spy. When I first met him and asked what he did he said he “worked for the government”. It sounded so funny I joked “are you a spy?”. Cue awkward pause. He now runs a fancy cyber security consultancy.

Makeup artist working for funeral directors. Makeovers for the dead, esp open casket ceremonies.

Someone who makes clothes for TV puppets

I know chicken sexer isn’t actually a funny job, but every time I see it written down I laugh. Is that bad?

It does indeed sound very comical - but the reality of what usually happens to the male chicks is horrible. The whole reason for the job is to avoid wasting money in feeding or accommodating the 'worthless' males.

@ColdTattyWaitingForSummer

I know someone with a dc who plans to be a tree surgeon.

My DSS is a tree surgeon. It's never struck me as a weird job, tbh.

They earn damn good money, too. If it's a tricky job, he might charge £500 a day. He only works 3 days a week, and looks after his daughter on the other two.

I know someone whose previous job involved lying in wait in a ditch in the middle of the night to try and catch poachers.

@buddhasbelly. I think the job is literally called being a 'stand in', they're probably getting paid the same amount as an extra would on a tv/film set e.g. £80-£100 a day-although maybe if it's the same guy every day long term he might have a decent contract!

I once met someone who was one of the Spitting Image puppeteers.

I knew someone pretty senior in Human Rights Watch... he'd been shot at a few times

I know Australia's first practising trans woman priest

A relative is a shrimp buyer for a big frozen food company

I was a freelance production editor and the weirdest publication I worked on was Plastics and Rubber Weekly. Not as kinky as you think, sadly, just about the use of the materials in industry!

Someone in our village counts pheasants.
(He's even duller and camper than you're imagining. Binoculars permanently round neck just in case one flaps into view.)

Special effects make-up artist
Archaeological artist
Board game inventor
Cartoonist
Stained glass restorer
Luthier
Erotic novelist (and more mainstream writers)
Cathedral verger
Poet
Pagan wedding/funeral celebrant
Subtitle writer

Growing snails in the snail farm and making skincare products.

@Fishingforhappiness

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

What an amazing job.

My son had a corneal graft years ago and it has made an enormous difference to him. The single cornea was shared between him and another recipient. We are very grateful to the donor, what an amazing gift.

From the moor fields website
One pair of donated eyes can provide treatment for up to 10 different people; each cornea can be transplanted, while each sclera (the white tissue around the eye) can be divided in four and used as a patch graft for some glaucoma surgery patients

An amazing gift to give and a great job to have.

I know someone who is a professional wind up merchant, does that count

I swear one of my friends works for MI5. He says he works for the civil service, but firmly shuts down all discussion after that and is very tight lipped about any details. I guess it is also possible that he isn’t a spy and just has a dull job in the civil service that he just doesn’t want to talk about.