Weird jobs!

People usually live simple lives that don’t consist of making a living in a hazardous way – robbing a bank or blackmailing someone isn’t a socially approved method of making money. Instead, after graduation they go and find some decent job and enjoy it (or not) till their late sixties. There is a plenty of nice jobs that anyone will be satisfied with – surgeon, lawyer, teacher, manager, secretary, banker, hairdreser, handyman, go-go dancer... Acctually, that last one was rather “specific”, but that’s the point – what to do with your career if you are a rebel, free spirit that wouldn’t agree with yourself if you do something that obvious and boring. If everyday routine that starts at 9 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m. is not for you, maybe you should give a thought or two to these few ideas for a successful future job:

Otter trainer

In Bangladesh this job wouldn’t surprise anyone, but for a folk from Europe it may be a refreshing change. It may sound simple – otter tainer trains otters and takes care of them, while they are doing their job. Well trained otter is supposed to swim along river bank and direct anything edible – fish or shrimps – to fishing nets held by fishermen that are on a boat. That job is quite importand – evening meals depend on it, so otter must be obedient and properly trained. Here is a link to a video of a one day of otter trainer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha6dYkJFVZg

Fortune teller

If you enjoy irregular working hours, talking to strangers, making up stories and mystical aura surrounding you maybe fortune teller is a job from your dreams? Of course first you should apply for some training and pick up arcane and magical knowledge and techniques to become trustworthy and reliable fortune-teller (or just to appear as one). There are also other arrangements that must be adequatly organised: your meeting room must, as well as your apperance (having a Gypsy ancestor may be somehow useful) , seem quite odd – lots of candles (some of them could be tucked in fake skull chandeliers), stuffed alligator, crystal balls and dim light could do the trick. Some other accesories might come in handy – tarot cards set, pendulums, runestones – such things are your tools in this job. This stuff costs some money, but by way of consolation I’ll tell you that – in our country fortune tellers don’t pay taxes, because their work isn’t considered as a proper job.

Chicken sexer

Ever wanted to work with animals, but only with those that are cute, small, don’t bite and are fluffy? If so, chicken sexer is a job for you. The main goal of this occupation is to separate chickens (yes, those little yellow feather balls with beaks) – males away from females. This job even don’t require good eyesight – every chicken sexer has it’s own magnifying glass. Oh, don’t tell me that you have no idea haw to do it. Let me say that careful observation is the key. Maybe this commercial show will explain you everything:

(okay, this was quite scary, but that was only commercial spot – I think it doesn’t look so harsh for real; anyway creating commercials must be another whacky job for other sort of very interesting people – not that I’m judging by effects...)

Tester

Okay, nearly ANYTHING can be put to the test, but think about some unusual stuff, that you never thought would need testing. How about... pet food? The thing is simple –you eat the stuff provided by a pet food manufacturer and describe it’s taste, decide wheter you’d eat that or not if you were a cat or dog. Some people say that animals could do the job, but they wouldn’t tell anyone “It’s way too salty, dude.”, would they? Right. The key ability is to have tastebuds that could find out wheter cat or dog would like that kind of seasoning or not.

After eating anything it’s nice to lay down for a while or even take a nap. So maybe next step is a furniture tester? Someone must assure giant corporations like IKEA or something that their sofas/beds/armchairs are accurately comfy and worth the money. If you are a couch potato – dig in, but be aware that not anybody could do this sort of job. You need to have some... personal qualities that to me remain still covered (guess it will be something more scientific - look at the picture!).

Weed farmer

So, you’ve eaten some Whiskas, sat for hours in Tullsta armchair, checked sex of nearly 10,000 chickens, trained a dozen of otters, told several people that they will meet love of their lives this afternoon and she will be blonde called Brenda and still want more? Maybe something peaceful and quite useful this time? How about planting some weeds and then make a good use of them? Weed farmers do that for higher purpose – they give freshly rised weeds to scientists, so the guys in white laboratory overalls could research for new medicines, herbicides, pesticides or other chemical stuff that will in future improve the living of all mankind. From all of the whacky jobs served today this one seems to be most reasonable and is making sense in a way – and is not that risky like, for instance, fire-eater. Still, income might be quite questionable, but why, wouldn’t you do it for science?

These presented jobs are unusual and it is nice to think that you have an alternative when feeling fed up with conventional job, although they could be quite hard to make a living in a country like Poland – here we just don’t have a huge need for such occupations (well, maybe except fortune teller’s, but it’s just a one fat exception). Also, because of their weirdness and lack of promotion structure there is a low risk of becoming a workaholic. They are still marginal cases therefore they won’t be profitable. Still, it’s importand to remember that income is not the only thing that matters – SATISFACTION is the one that does.

Pics copyright:

http://www.weedscrc.org.au/publications/images/sorghum%20crop_photo%20weeds%20crc.jpg

http://furnituretest.org/images/43-0.jpg

http://www.seaworld.com/assetrepo/media/images/sanantonio/media/2009%20Press%20Images/OtterKit.jpg

http://thelittlechimpsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/cover-artc.jpg