In today’s society, there is a need for many kinds of jobs. From retail store workers, doctors, police officers to bankers, everyone plays a certain role to help their communities and earn their wages. And most jobs that you come across each day are the common ones. Some of them are pretty dull even. But today, we are focusing on the exact opposite of those.
We’re taking a look at some of the most unusual, bizarre and weird jobs that people actually do in order to make a living. If you are getting bored from the regular stuff, this just may be for you. Let’s check out the top 10 absurd jobs in the world.
A railway station attendant is a less cool sounding name compared to train passenger pusher, so we’re sticking with that. A pusher is a basically someone who pushes (duh) people onto a train during rush hours. In Japan, where they were first introduced, they are known as oshiya. Since then, pushers can be found in various railway stations that are crowded during the rush hours. Pushers are there to make sure that people get onto the correct trains and make sure that everyone fits on the train. They are also known as “sardine packers”, and are not very liked by the commuters.
9) Professional Ear Cleaner
In several countries, including China and India, there are people who will happily remove people’s earwax on the street for a living. These people are real professionals when it comes to their jobs, having an array of tools and techniques they use to make sure that your ear canals are perfectly clean after the treatment. It may sound scary, but the ear cleaning is one of the tourist attractions that are actually quite popular. A 30-minute session will cost you a couple of dollars at most, so if you’re intrigued, you know where to go.
8) Bicycle Fisher
Amsterdam is a city known for its bicycling activities. It’s actually the most bicycle-friendly city in the entire world, and is considered to be the world center of cycling activities. And with hundreds of thousands of bikes, some end up in Amsterdam’s canals. Well, apparently it’s more than just some, because there are people who specialize in using mechanical cranes to take out all the bicycles from the canals. You wouldn’t believe it, but these people are actually quite busy fishing bikes. It’s estimated that around 15,000 bikes are taken out of the canals during an average year.
7) Iceberg Mover
This position was established after the famous Titanic tragedy in 1911. Specialist contractors are hired to move icebergs from the boat travelling paths and oil rigs. It’s a really complex jobs position, as you can imagine, but wouldn’t it be cool to move icebergs for a living?
6) Line Waiter
If you’re a busy fellow or just someone who doesn’t like waiting, you can rent yourself a person who will hold your place in a line. For a couple of dollars per hour, someone will stand in the line to your bank, store or any other destination. It’s actually pretty smart for people to have come up with such an idea for a job. On one side, you have busy people who can’t be bothered to waste hours waiting, so they will happily pay someone to do it. And on the other, people whose schedule isn’t as busy can do a simple job and get paid. Smart, and surely a bit unusual.
5) Pet Food Taster
If you’ve ever wondered why your Fido never complains about its food, here’s your reason. There is a person whose only job is to test out cat and dog food. A pet food taster must smell and taste the food in order to make sure that the quality is up to company’s standards. An interesting fact about this position is that it’s pretty easy to get promoted. Once promoted, the taster is also responsible for coming up with new recipes and deal with the regulatory matters. Most pet food tasters have a Master’s degree, so you should start working towards that if you’re interested in becoming a taster one day.
4) Gumologist
Simply put, a gumologist is a person who gets paid to chew gum. Sounds pretty good? Well, it’s not that simple. The gumologist must have a great understanding of flavors and all the terminology and measurement scales. To provide that, a six month training is put in place. After the gumologist has proven that they are able to do what it takes, then they start chewing and tasting gum. Similar to pet food tasters, they must judge if the flavor works and will be liked by the customers.
3) Snake Milker
Some snakes are poisonous, everyone knows that. In order to counter that, the snake milker position was created. Snake milker’s job is to extract venom from snakes, which is done by one of two methods. The first one is simply holding the snake and having it bite a latex membrane. Once the snake bites it, the venom comes out and is collected for future use. The other method is similar, but instead of having the snake bite something, its muscles are stimulated by electrodes, causing the snake to spew venom. The venom is used for several purposes, the most common one being making an anti-venom for all victims to use.
2) Panda Handler
There are actually people paid to dress up as pandas and play with (real) pandas. This adorable job will require you to know a thing or two about pandas, and also dedicate a large part of your time to them. Panda handlers must make sure that panda cubs are healthy, fed and safe, in order to preserve their species. Along with the job, panda handlers also get accommodation, free meals, a car and make a bit over $30,000, a year. Dream job?
1) Chicken Sexer
This unfortunately-named job deals with determining the sex (as in gender) of a chicken. A chicken sexer does their job at commercial hatcheries, where different ‘types’ of chickens are separated from one another. There are several methods that sexers use to do their jobs. Tragically, in some types of hatcheries (such as egg farms), unwanted sexes of chickens are killed upon determining that they are not needed at that hatchery.
Are you doing something bizarre for living? Know anyone who does? Let us know in the comment section below!
